Martin & Dorothea Bruss

Martin was a farmer from Kammin, Pomerania, Germany. He immigrated with Dorothea and their four children in 1839. Their group of several hundred Lutherans traveled by steamboat from Hamburg to England. The Brusses crossed the ocean on board the Republic under Captain B.B. Williams, departing from Liverpool and arriving at New York on 5 September. From there they took a steamboat to Albany and a boat on the Erie Canal to Buffalo, where they stayed until they earned enough money to continue the journey. They soon traveled by boat across the Great Lakes to Milwaukee and settled in Freistadt, WI.

Martin's ship carpenter brother, Michael, also immigrated to Wisconsin. He bought forty acres of land on 5 October 1841 on Freistadt Road. He first lived in Milwaukee, then moved to his farm, and later moved back to Milwaukee.