Back row: Edward Andrew Busch, Michael Augustine Busch, John Stephen Busch. Seated: Michael Andrew Busch, Anna Maria Walck Busch, Susannah Catherine Busch. Not shown: Mary Malissa Busch (Photo courtesy of Wayne Macklin)

Michael Andrew Busch (1819-1905) was the son of Josef Busch (1787-1843) and Elizabeth Stegle Busch (1786-1868), who came from Wyhl, Baden, in what is now Germany. They were among tens of thousands of immigrants who left Baden and Würrtemberg in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars. In March* of 1817, with their young son (F.X. Busch) and an infant daughter (Rosa Busch), Michael’s parents made their way up the Rhine River to Amsterdam, where they boarded the Xenophon. The ship had a troubled voyage and did not make it Philadelphia until August, 1817. Another son, Joseph, was born at sea during the voyage.

The “redemptioner” passenger trade of the time was abusive, and placed immigrants on crowded, under-provisioned ships. The Xenophon was one named in an article about the abuses endured on such ships, leading to the German Society making efforts to ask legislators to reform such practices on both sides of the Atlantic.  You can read more about these ships here.

Sometime not long after the Busch family’s arrival, Rosa died.

The Busches moved to Allegheny County in western Pennsylvania, and settled in Ross, where Michael Andrew Busch was born on October 3, 1819. He was their first child born in the U.S.. His brother William Busch was also born there, in 1822.

In 1824, the family made their way down the Ohio River on a raft made of logs and arrived in Ohio, where  Susannah Busch and Peter Busch were born.  In 1834 the Busches settled in Allen County, in an area that would later become Auglaize County. This is where they became connected to the Craft family through Susannah’s marriage to Edward Craft.

On his 22nd birthday, October 3, 1841, Michael married Anna Maria Walck (1825-1890), the daughter of John Andrew Walck (1790-1839) and Maria Catherine Kopf (1790-1864), immigrants from Ottersheim in the Kingdom of Bavaria, which later became part of Germany. Anna Maria was also born in Ottersheim, on January 14, 1825. The Walck family arrived in the United States in 1831 with Anna Maria and her brothers John, Anthony, and Adam. They settled first in Stark County, Ohio and then in Auglaize County. Anna Maria’s father died in an explosion there in 1839. Her mother soon remarried, to Andrew Werst. Anna Maria’s half-brother, John Werst, was born in 1840. Anna Maria and Michael were married the following year. They moved to Dayton, Ohio, where he worked as a carpenter. All of their children were born there.

Michael Andrew and Anna Maria Busch had five children:

1) Mary Malissa Busch 
1842–1940

2) Susannah Catherine Busch
 1851–1936

3) Edward Andrew Busch
 1855–1941

4) Michael Augustine Busch
 1857–1953

5) John Stephen Busch
 1859–1916

In June of 1846, Michael Busch enlisted as a private in Company C of the 1st Ohio Infantry in the Mexican-American War. This company went with others to Mexico and fought in the brutal Battle of Monterrey. They returned victorious and were mustered out in 1847.

After the war, he went to Dent, Missouri, as did his brothers-in-law, Anthony Walck and Adam Walck.

Soon the family relocated to Red Bud, then a small town in Cowley County’s Maple Township. Several other German Catholic families from Auglaize County, Ohio settled there.  Michael obtained his 170 acre land patent on January 5, 1874.

Detail from 1882 Atlas of Cowley County, Township 30 South Range East

By 1880, Michael and Anna Maria and all of her brothers were landowners in Maple Township. His sister Susannah Busch Craft and her husband Edward Craft had also owned land there (including the acres they donated to create the cemetery), as did several of their children, and children of the Walcks.

On August 26, 1890, Anna Maria Walck Busch died. She was buried in Red Bud Catholic Cemetery.

Photograph © 2011 by Jan Burke

Photograph © 2011 by Jan Burke

Photograph © 2011 by Jan Burke

Michael Andrew Busch continued to live on his own land at least until 1900, but the 1905 census shows him living with his youngest daughter, Susannah, and her husband, F.X. Wegerer, who had by then moved to Marion, Kansas. Michael died on May 25, 1905**, at the age of 85. He is buried next to his wife in the Red Bud Catholic Cemetery.

Josef Busch + Elizabeth Stegle***
|
Michael Andrew Busch

John Walch + Maria Catherine Kopf
|
Anna Maria Walck

*An account given by one of their sons said that the voyage lasted 66 days, still much longer than usual, although the Xenophon’s Philadelphia Passenger List names the month as March. I once wondered if the German word Mai (May) had been mistaken for March, but the Xenophon was an American ship.

**His obituary in the Auglaize Republican newspaper gives his date of death as May 18, 1905. There are a few inaccuracies in the obituary. The May 25, 1905 date is on his gravestone, although gravestones, too, are sometimes are inaccurate.

***Those interested in the ancestors of Josef Busch and Elizabeth Stegle, who can be traced back into the early 17th century, should visit the amazing Perry County Ohio Families Database website of Tim Fisher, who has painstakingly entered information from Wyhl’s Ortssippenbuch and other documents into an easy to use and well-sourced database.

You can see more of John P Edwards’ 1882 Historical atlas of Cowley County, Kansas on the Library of Congress Website: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g4203cm.gla00063