Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2023

Mary Julia Ehman was born in Haller, Canton d’Echternach, Grevenmacher, Luxembourg on January 28, 1832.

Though there is little evidence related to her family, it is clear that at some point, Mary Julia Ehman immigrated to America, and was living in Buffalo, New York when she met Peter Lies.

Peter Lies was born on May 24,1826 in Haller, Canton d’Echternach, Grevenmacher, Luxembourg. His parents were Henry Heinrich Henry Lies (1793-1855) and Susanna Marie Tammel (1792-1875). Peter was one of sixteen children of Henry and Susanna. Fourteen of their sixteen children were born in Haller. Four died. Margaretha died at one year of age. Jean died also there at the age of thirteen. Anne Marie married Nicolas Jungels in Haller but died six months after her marriage. Margaret died at ten months of age in Haller. The remaining by name but not necessarily by birth: Nicholas, John, Peter, Claus, Marcus, Mathias, Katherine, Susanna, Elizabeth, and Maria. That leaves two unaccounted for if there were 16 children. A story has it that one of the children was lost in New York City and never found.

Peter came to the U.S. in 1847. He was the first young man to leave Haller for that “supposed wilderness of North America,” according to Joachim Spexarth, in an article published in 1988 on Ancestry.com.

After abandoning the idea of the California Gold Rush, Peter was the foreman in a sawmill near Buffalo, New York, and Canada. Around 1853, Mary Julia Ehman married Peter Lies in New York. Peter had a first wife, an Irish woman, who died in 1852. Their first two sons, John George (1854-1907) and Nicholas Michael (1856-1940) were born in New York.

Meanwhile, on April 7, 1852, the Henry Lies family, his father and mother and siblings started on the journey to America. Henry Lies, like his fathers before him, was a farmer and had a large family. With no new land available, they would have had to follow custom of dividing the farm between their children. The Henry Lies farm consisted of six acres. Therefore, on April 7, 1852, the Henry Lies family started on their journey.

They traveled from their home in Haller, arriving the first night in Hosigen. The second day they reached Pepinster, Belgium, the nearest railroad station, then went by rail to Antwerp the intended seaport. On April 11, they boarded a three mast sailing vessel along with about five hundred other passengers.

After twenty days of favorable sailing, on the morning of May 1, 1852, they sighted the American shore. On May 3, the ship anchored off Staten Island for inspection, remaining unmoved for two days.

Then the group was transported to New York by tugboat; on May 7 they proceeded by river steamer up the Hudson to Albany, and the next day by rail to Buffalo, taking quarters at Steinmetz hotel. Remaining there they met three of their sons who had come to the U.S. ahead of them: Peter who came in 1847; Claus and Markus who came in 1851. Peter was married at this time and had one child.

On May 13, the Lies family proceeded by boat to Detroit, Michigan and then by train to Chicago, and then on to Aurora, Illinois. There Henry and his eldest son Nicholas bought a farm of 208 acres ($22 per acre). They paid for it in the French gold coin they had carried in girdles about their bodies.

Henry died October 17, 1855, in Aurora. Susanna died in 1875 in Aurora. Both are buried in Calvary Cemetery in Aurora, Illinois.

Mary and Peter Lies along with their two boys settled in Stillwater, Minnesota. By 1858, the family moved to Shakopee.

Mary continued to have children: H. Frederick (1858-1863); Susanna (1861-1861); John August (1862-1906); Mathias (1867-1867); and Harriet Lies (1869-1963).

When Mary was 37 years old, and after she had seven children, she died in Shakopee on July 28, 1869. Mary Julia Ehman Lies was buried at Calvary Cemetery in Eagle Creek.

Peter also served in the Civil War. Peter joined the Ninth Minnesota Infantry Regiment Military on August 15, a Minnesota USV infantry regiment that served in the Union Army in the Western Theater of the American Civil War.

On July 15, 1875, Peter married for the third time. He married Maria Mechtildis Pass in St. Paul. Mathilda had five children with Peter: Helen Mary, Henry August, Anna Barbara, Joseph H., and Herbert Duncan Lies.

Peter Lies died on May 4, 1909, in Stillwater, Minnesota. Mathilda Pass Lies died, also in Stillwater, on December 8, 1944.

Bibliography

Spexarth, Joachim. Ancestry.com, 1988.