The Book of Kimm

This web site is dedicated to the Family of Jacob Conrad Kimm, born 18 May 1794 in Sand, Hesse Kassel, Germany.  Jacob was the only of his generation to immigrate to the United States in 1843.  The families of Jacob Conrad Kimm are listed in this web site.  Information was gathered from the Book of Kimm published in 1982 by Dotti and Jim Kimm. 

Important Note: We are making our family history available freely on the Internet.  We hope you will help us in updating this information if you or your family are related to the Jacob Conrad Kimm Family.  Please take time to email dkf3@q.com  or clown310@gmail.com  with your name, address, father's & grandfather's name, and any comments.  Thank you.

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Jacob Conrad Kimm

1. Jacob Conrad Kimm Jr.¹ b 18 May 1794 Sand, Hesse Kassel, Germany d 29 Oct 1877 bur Sicily (Sisley) Grove Cemetery Fairfax, IA son of Jacob Conrad Kimm and Catharina Elisabeth Wagner m Anna Elizabeth Welner (Elsie) b 16 Apr 1796 d 2 June 1868 bur Sicily Grove

Children Kimm b Sand Germany
1.1 Mary Kimm² b 1818
1.2 Cathrine Ann Kimm² b 1820 (not verified)
1.3 Leonhart Kimm² b 23 Sept 1822
1.4 Henry Augustus Kimm² b 19 Sept 1825
1.5 Alice Louise Kimm² b 1831 (not verified)
1.6 Silas Kimm² b 11 Nov 1836
1.7 Justus Heinrich Kimm² b 11 Sept 1839
1.8 Jacob Conrad Kimm² b 4 April 1843

Jacob Conrad Kimm Jr. is the father of the eight children whose descendants are listed in this book. For that reason, and because he was the only one of his generation to come to the United States, he is number one.

Jacob was born in Sand, Hesse Kassel, Germany, on the 18th of May, 1794. His father, Jacob Conrad Kimm, was born on the 26th of Jan 1765. He married 21 May 1790 Catharina Elisabeth Wagner. He died on 7 Jan 1798 in Sand, Germany, at the age of thirty-three. These items are proved by the following baptismal certificates. The first was received by Virgil M. Kimm; the second by Mrs. Dwaine Baccus (a neighbor of Elma Jean Edwards). Both are certified but notice the difference in the spelling of the name.

Except for the two baptismal records we have no records of the Kimms in Sand, Germany before they immigrated to the United States. The information included is taken from what third generation Kimms have written or told their descendants. There is some disagreement but the information provides a general picture of how and when the family came to the United States.

Jacob's family thinks the Kimms were farmers. Louisa Kimm Nelson thought Jacob Conrad was a game warden.

According to Louisa Kimm Nelson, Mary was the first Kimm to leave Sand and come to the United States. Henry's descendants think he came first. It may be that Henry came with Mary and her husband. Henry's descendants think he came in 1843. Some say he left Germany because he shot a deer in a duke's forest and left Germany to escape prosecution.

Jacob remembered celebrating his sixth birthday on the voyage. That must have been 1849. He came with his parents. Other sources indicated Jacob, Jacob Conrad, and Anna Elizabeth came following Silas, Justus, and Alice.

Silas, Justus and Alice came together. Silas was 17 so the date would be 1853. Frances Darling Kimm Jordan remembers hearing that the family came into the country at Hoboken but ships' passenger lists have not been checked so all of the above information is without written proof.

No one has indicated when Leonhart and Cathrine Kimm came to the United States.

The following quotation is excerpted from a letter from Louisa Kimm Nelson to Nancy Less in 1961:

"Conrad J. Kimm was the only child. His parents lived in a house that was handed down to the eldest son - the house was built in 1648. That was the date on the gable of the house - I don't know how long this house was in the Kimm family - as near as I can remember, grandfather was a game warden or an assistant game warden. They lived not far from the game reserve near Kassel, Germany. He married Anna Elisabeth Welner. They became parents of eight children, three daughters and five sons.

Mary married Henry Rich in Germany - had 1 daughter who died at age 16 years. Mary's second husband was Henry Sir (parents of 2 -- Henry and Alice). She married in Germany and she and her husband were the first of their family to come to America, and they settled near Utica, New York. Later, other members came at different times, as they were too poor to all come at once.

At age 17, Silas, his sister Alice, and brother, Justus, came to America and went to Utica, N.Y. where their sister Mary lived. It took several months to cross the Atlantic. They provided their own food. They could buy drinking water on the sailing vessel at $.05 a glass. I am thinking from stories told my parents there wasn't much water for baths. They had a barrel of dried noodles as one item of food.

Conrad was a tall man of 6 feet - also two of his sons Leonard (sic) and Jacob were tall. The other children were short like their mother. My father (Silas) was only 5 ft. 1 in. tall.

My grandfather's family was long lived. Conrad Kimm died at the age of 83. Jacob died at 77 years. My Aunt Kate Klippel was 95. Justus died on his 92nd birthday, and Silas was almost 92."

Why did the Kimm family pick New York?

Again, we don't know. Probably they knew someone who had immigrated to New
York state. The New York Area Key article about ethnic groups states that in the years 1852-54, more than 500,000 Germans landed in America.

There may be some relationship between the German settlement of True Inspirationists who left Hesse in 1842 and immigrated to Buffalo, New York, and the Kimms coming to New York. In 1855, the group formed the Amana Colonies in Iowa, about ten years before the Kimms came to Iowa. The Inspirationists were formed from the Lutheran Church and the early Kimms were believed to be Lutheran.

Frances Darling Kimm Jordan writes that many German families settled in the North Wood area where the Irish-English were well established in the lumber industry. The land was poor and the Kimms probably left to find better land. Since census records do not evidence land ownership by the Kimms in New York, they were probably looking for opportunities to advance, and so moved west.

Leonhart died 15 Oct 1857 and is buried at Meeting House Green Cemetery, Winfield, New York. He died about a month before his son, Leonard, was born. Leonard carne to Iowa as did all of the second generation beginning about 1865. Justus served in the Civil War from 1861 to 1863. Jacob served from 1862 to 1865. Jacob Conrad and Anna Elizabeth came to Iowa with their children. They lived with members of the family. In the 1870 census, Jacob Conrad Kimm Jr. was living with his son, Jacob, in Benton County, Iowa. Anna Elizabeth (Elsie) had died in 1868.
Silas Conrad, son of Jacob, stayed in Herkimer, New York.

Are all Kimms relatives?

It is occasionally stated that a KIMM is a relative though it may be difficult to prove the relationship.

Also in Benton County, somewhat later than the Jacob Conrad Kimm families were becoming established, was the family of Martin Kimm. According to the Watkins, Iowa, Centennial Book, he was a half-brother of Jacob Conrad. Marie Gerner, a descendant of Martin, thinks he was a cousin. Justus and Emma sent money to help pay the passage of this family to the United States in 1870 according to Mrs. Gerner. Proving this relationship has not been accomplished.

Through order letters for this book, a Gregory Kimm was located, who is of Chinese ancestry. The name was changed from Ng Gim to Mr. Kimm and then to Kimm. Also, a Peter Kimm from Montana said his family emigrated from Germany to the Netherlands to Montana.

Another unanswered question involves the tiny town of Kimmswick, Missouri, just south of St. Louis. It was founded by a Theodore Kimm born 28 Jan 1814 son of Carl Friedrich Kimm and Johanne Justine Julianne Schmidt in Blankenbury, Germany. He left no descendants.

About Sand

Our Kimms originated in Sand, Hesse Kassel, Germany. Virgil Miles Kimm visited Sand just following World War II and the following description of the village is excerpted from a letter he wrote to Silas Conrad Kimm:

"Returning from Kerback, which the German signposts call Corbach, I came down a fairly good road to Sachenhausen. At this point I turned thru a country road to Netze, a distance of about 5 kilometers, thence to Naumburg, 8 kilometers further on. Leaving Naumburg, I passed thru a dense forest and about a mile west of Merxhausen, emerged from the forest on a high hill overlooking a beautiful green and fertile valley tucked into a triangle formed by three forest areas. Nestling in the center of the triangle some 5 kilometers away was the village of Sand, beautiful in the afternoon light. I descended the hill into Merxhausen, turned left, went up over another small hill and descended a slight incline, crossed an old stone bridge across a babbling brook and there entered amongst the houses of Sand. The main street of the village is paved with stone paving blocks which in recent years have replaced the ancient cobblestones. The main street is almost straight but not quite. The center of the town almost has a square but not quite. It is really only a wide place in the road. The people in the town were quite industrious. The principal activity seemed to be sawing, cutting, and hauling wood. There were stacks and stacks of wood all up and down the main street. I saw only one power saw. Two wagons drawn by oxen had loads of brush or wood. I also saw one team of horses. There was a drug store in the center of the town. There was a building labeled "schule" but appeared to be rather ramshackle. In the center of town I turned left around a blind corner into a narrow street that soon widened up as the edge of the town was reached. About two city blocks along I found the ever present slave labor camp. This was a Russian camp now flying the hammer and sicle (sic) flag. Next to the labor camp was the cemetery. The cemetery was quite old, but not very well cared for. Some graves had headstones, some none. Some merely had concrete walls around the grave. Some were just unmarked mounds. I judge the wealthier, hence probably more important families had larger and better headstones. I quite easily spotted one tombstone with the name Kimm on it. On closer examination, it was the grave of Martha Kimm who died in 1911, and if I remember correctly, born in about 1868. Beyond was another family grave indicating the death of two children. Julius Herman Kimm, born 1909, died 1910, and Angelica Catherine Kimm, born 1910, died 1911. I paused only briefly. A further search may have disclosed other names of interest. noticed no other common Iowa names, not even on business houses in town. I did not stop in town to talk to anyone. I don't know German, and it is impossible to find out anything unless one does. When things get more settled, I may be able to find more things of interest. Besides, at present, we have a very hard and fast nonfraternization policy so that is also a barrier to research.

The town is apparently a whistle stop on the lines to Kassel. There is a small railroad station. There seems to be a new housing development grown up between the old town and the railroad station. The new houses are quite good-looking from the outside. However, they have no paved streets.

I saw no signs of a water system. Saw quite a few pumps. There was one combination tavern and hotel in town which they call a Gashaus. It was occupied by the security guard detachment (U.S.) I saw quite a few old men -- very old men -- much older than anyplace else in Germany. The women were all working in the fields, hoeing potatoes, etc. There were many fields of ripening grain - wheat, barley, and similar crops, but no American corn or maize. I think it is too cold for maize. There were many gardens of small vegetables. There was a fair number of children of all ages up to about ten or twelve years old. The people did not appear to be unfriendly. A few smiled and greeted me pleasantly. Most of the people looked at me in curiosity and with a resigned air as do most Germans. I still remember one old man and woman sawing away at a large log with a small ineffective hand saw. The architecture is quite remarkable and ancient. The frame of the house is built out of heavy timbers, making triangle and X members for stability, The empty space between the framing timbers is then filled with brick, stone, or a mixture of mud and straw as was done in ancient times. The idea is good, but the framing timbers are always exposed to the rain and snow, I think most houses of that type date from 1600. Modern houses built since 1923 conform more to the stucco type. Sand, for a country cow town, was quite clean. There weren't very many piles of manure in the front street which seems to be common to all farm villages in Europe. Just what the people did for a living besides farming, I don't know.

The village is very compact. I suppose it has 1,000 inhabitants."

Sand (pronounced Sahnt) was incorporated as Emstal in 1976.

The First Three Generations
#1
Jacob Conrad Kimm

The above chart includes the eight children of Jacob Conrad Kimm who came to the United States about 1849. The eight children came to the United States from about 1843 to 1853. The children of Cathrine and Alice listed above may not be in the correct order of birth since we do not have birth dates for these families at this time.

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