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Johann Heinrich Lienhard (January 19, 1822, Bilten, Canton Glarus – December 19, 1903, Nauvoo, Illinois) was a Swiss immigrant to the United States. He left Switzerland at the age of 21. His reminiscences〔Lienhard, Heinrich, 1822-1903. ''Memoirs of trip to California, life at Sutter's Fort and return to Switzerland: ms., 1846–1850.'' BANC MSS C-D 5024. Bancroft Library, Berkeley.〕 for the years 1822 to 1850 are an important historical source re California Trail and Sutter's Fort in California from 1846 to 1850. == Biography == Johann Heinrich Lienhard was born on 19 January 1822 in Switzerland at the hamlet Ussbühl near Bilten, Canton Glarus. He spent his childhood and youth together with his three siblings on the farm of his parents. Knowing that several of his cousins had emigrated to America, his childhood dream of following their example came true when he left Switzerland in 1843 and traveled to New Switzerland, later Highland, in Illinois. He spent the next two and a half years mainly at that place, it being a time of adjusting to new conditions. At first Lienhard worked as a farm hand and later left the Swiss settlement on occasion to travel up the Mississippi, taking on several jobs along the way in the hope of finding better-paid work. In the spring of 1846, while working in a shop in St. Louis, he met some old friends from Galena〔For a short time Lienhard had worked in the lead mines of Galena, Illinois.〕 with whom only a year before he had talked about emigrating to California. They were just then preparing for that venture, and little effort was needed on their part to persuade him to join them in their undertaking. The journey of the “Five German Boys,” as Heinrich Lienhard and his four companions were called by the other emigrants,〔Lienhard’s companions were Heinrich Thomann and Jakob Rippstein from Switzerland, and the Germans Georg Zins and Valentin Diel.〕 lasted six months and led them from Independence, Missouri, to New Helvetia, also called Sutter's Fort, in California. In 1846, there was no fully established trail yet to that Mexican domain for emigrants, let alone for their oxen-drawn wagons, so that especially the second half of the way required the utmost effort and skill of humans and animals alike. In his reminiscences〔 Lienhard describes the exact route and various aspects of daily life on the trail such as the shifting relationships among the emigrants, the encounters with the Indians, the changing landscapes as well as the trials and dangers travelers faced on difficult passages such as the Great Salt Lake Desert and the Sierra Nevada. Even before arriving at Sutter's Fort, the emigrants were met by a recruiting agent of the United States Army. Urged on by a companion to whom he owed money, Lienhard too signed up for a three months’ service in the American military then engaged in war against Mexico in order to annex all its claimed possessions north of the Rio Grande, a goal the United States had been pursuing already for decades.〔The war against Mexico by the United States began in 1846 and ended in 1848 with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo; by its stipulations Mexico was forced to cede California and the southwestern portion of the present United States.〕 On the trek to Monterey, however, Lienhard became severely ill and barely survived the ordeal. On his return from Monterey in February 1847, he entered the service of the Swiss John Augustus Sutter (1803–1880). For the next six months he tended Sutter’s fruit and vegetable garden on the Yuba River, then served several months as his mayor-domo at the Fort, and briefly also as a supercargo on Sutter’s wheat laden schooner traveling to San Francisco. In January 1848 gold was discovered at Coloma where Sutter’s sawmill was being built. At that time Lienhard was planting and tending a new garden of fruit trees, vines, vegetables, and flowers near the Fort. He was to join the miners only in August and, like others, in partnership with Sutter. When Sutter’s oldest son John Augustus Sutter, Jr. arrived from Switzerland in September, Sutter, Sr. asked Lienhard to lend him his half of the gold he had mined, so that Sutter could impress his son with a large amount of the precious metal. However, when Lienhard later went to the Fort, Sutter, Jr., having taken charge of his father’s debt-ridden business, was unable to return his share of the gold to him. Lienhard finally accepted Sutter’s flock of sheep instead and spent the following winter with Jacob Dürr, also a Swiss,〔He came from Pratteln, Canton Basel.〕 at the sheep farm not far from the Fort. In April 1849 Lienhard and Dürr went as partners to the mines to trade the sheep. Several weeks later Lienhard sold out to Dürr and, back at the Fort, acquiesced in Sutter, Jr.’s request of going to Europe in order to bring the rest of his family〔Anna Sutter-Dübeld and the children Anna Elise, Emil and Alphons.〕 to California. Heinrich Lienhard left San Francisco in June 1849, traveling via the Isthmus of Panama to New York and from there via England and Germany to Switzerland. Taking the same route, he returned to San Francisco in January 1850. Only half a year later he decided to leave violence-ridden California for good. Although he loved its climate, prairies, valleys, and mountains, he could not tolerate the lawlessness as well as the exploitation and destruction of the indigenous peoples. On the last day of 1850 and after a journey of six months he was back at his parental home in Switzerland. In summer 1851 Heinrich Lienhard married Elsbeth Blumer of Bilten. They purchased a homestead in Kilchberg near Zurich, where in 1852 their first son Caspar Arnold and the following year John Henry were born. In September 1853, however, the Lienhards sold their farm and in April 1854 left Zurich, first settling for two years in Madison, Wisconsin, where in 1855 they had their third son, John Jacob. In 1856 they moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, on the Mississippi, where Heinrich Lienhard was to live for 47 years as a well-to-do farmer and respected citizen. In Nauvoo he and Elsbeth Lienhard had six more children, but they lost their oldest son in 1878 and their daughter Dora in 1884. In the same year Lienhard’s wife died and in 1892 the youngest daughter Barbara Adela. Heinrich Lienhard died on 19 December 1903 after a brief illness and, like his wife and seven of their children, was buried in Nauvoo’s Presbyterian cemetery. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Heinrich Lienhard」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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