Early German settlers of Hardin County chronicled
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[For most of his adult life, Jeff Humm of Hardin County has been researching his family history and histories of other families that built the towns in Hardin County.
Humm wrote "The Humm Family Vol. I" in 1982 and realized he had only scratched the surface. At some point next spring, he expects to release "The Humm Family Vol. II."
"Basically, (Vol. I) was a family tree of geneology. This particular volume, I call it advanced. It portrays a biological history of all the old families up to the 20th century. The book started getting so large I had to cut it off in the 20th century," Humm said.
The book is nearly 1,000 pages, so large Humm said the printer will take months to prepare the book. He is taking preorders now at a reduced price.
The book tells the stories of the families of Volkert, Herrmann, Reif, Shetler, Siener, Rotes, Eichorn, Zimmer, Humm and Hamp families, which were old German families that settled in Hardin County during the mid-19th century.
Humm said of particular interest to those in Gallatin will be the stories of the descendants of the Georg Reif family of Equality, the Theodore Scherrer family of Shawneetown, the John Sebastian Siener family of Junction, the Mathias Drone family of Ridgway, the John Francis Coleman family of Shawneetown, Herrmann Chevrolet dealer Leo Herrmann of Ridgway and Larentine Febuary, 101, of Ridgway, the old living family member in Humm's book. Other Gallatin families in the book are those of Doerr, Doherty, Duffy, Suttner, Drone and McGuire.
Many of those families branched into Saline County, such as those of Siedler, Koch, Williams, Doty, Wentzel, Ragan, George, Lievers, Scherrer, Cuttrell, Taylor and McCabe.
The families did not first immigrate to Hardin County. Their first destination was St. Louis, Mo.
"There were a lot of jobs. It was booming, the bread basket of the Midwest. But an epidemic of cholera broke out," Humm said.
Families spread out into Illinois from Missouri along what is now Interstate 64. But for Humm's ancestors, even that was too close to the cholera-plagued city.
"The Volkert family was the first to Hardin. They went as far away in Southern Illinois as they could get without going into Kentucky," Humm said.
In Hardin County the river provided the transportation they needed to operate their stores as there were no roads.
The countryside also made the early families feel at home as it was similar to the homeland in Germany with hills and virgin timber.
"There was industry in buying land and selling the timber for profit," Humm said.
Humm credits Mary Humm of Harrisburg as planting the seed to research history in 1972 when he was 18 years old.
Humm's book is to be on its way to the publisher in the next couple of weeks and he expects the publisher will have it until May 1, 2011.
Those wanting to preorder the book may contact Humm at (618) 285-6674 or by e-mail at mailto:jeffhummstjoseph@yahoo.com.
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DeNeal receives e-mail at mailto:bdeneal@yourclearwave.com.</li>
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