Farm History
Franz Joseph Stoppel (known as Joseph) born in 1811, and his brother Gebhard George (known as George) born in 1813, immigrated from Hiltensweiller, Wurttemberg, Germany. Joseph came first in 1846 and George joined him two years later in 1848. They settled near Cincinnati, in the small town of Green. During their time in Ohio, both brothers married. Franz Joseph married Maria Eva Schwab in Cincinnati on February 6, 1846. She was born in Freiburg, Baden, part of the German Confederation. George married Anna Maria Faber, from the French province of Alsace, on Christmas Day 1849.
In 1856, during the westward expansion of the United States, the families set their sights on the Minnesota Territory. They were motivated by the promise of abundant land for farming. Before setting off for Minnesota, necessary preparations had to be made. The sold their houses, most of their belongings, gathered supplies for their journey (food, water, tools, clothing), made sure their wagon and livestock were in good shape, planned their route, and said goodbye to friends. At this time, both families were raising young families. Joseph and Eva had four children, while George and Maria had three.
After reaching Minnesota, they pre-empted adjacent 160-acre farms, paying $1.25 an acre. As winter approached, they sought shelter and decided to dig into a hillside. This provided them with a solid back wall and two sturdy side walls, offering them immediate protection. With their shelter secured, they could focus on essential survival needs, such as securing food and water. One of the downsides to the cave was it had no windows, which made it quite dark and gloomy. But on the positive side, it kept a fairly consistent temperature year round. Charlie, Joseph and Eva’s fifth child, was born in this cave. They later dug a second cave. Both still exist behind the house. Following this first Minnesota winter, they diligently worked, each brother building his own log cabin, clearing prairie land and planting subsistence gardens. As their families grew, they log cabins no longer met their needs. Within a couple of years, they started construction of the large permanent stone houses. Joseph, having received training as a stone mason in Wurttemberg, used his skills to build their houses from locally quarried stone.
Clearing land was labor-intensive, done mostly by hand or with simple hand tools. Over the course of several years, they cleared land, bit by bit. Once cleared, they tilled the land with ox-drawn plows, planting various crops. Initially, their gardens provided food for their own families and to store food for the approaching winter. Before long, they had surplus vegetables to trade or sell in town, generating income. They found success as farmers by planting large fields of wheat, when the prices were high. A large portion of their harvested wheat was shipped back east by train. When prices began to fluctuate, they quickly responded by diversifying their crops to reduce the risk of market fluctuations of a single crop. Additionally, they learned diversification helped maintain soil fertility as well as preventing the depletion of of nutrients in the soil. Before long, they had enough funds to buy additional cattle for their growing dairy farm. By the late 1800s, Minnesota became a prominent dairy-producing state in the country.
Besides the house, they had several other essential buildings to support their farm. These included a large barn that housed livestock and stored feed and equipment, a silo for storing grain, a machine shed, chicken coop, pump house and numerous sheds. They became prosperous farmers in the county, enabling them to invest in improvements, expand operations and withstand economic downturns.
