• At around 1834 the price of rye fell. This probably had bad implications for Weber's rural employer and thus possibly also for his estate manager.

• The price for linen and production costs rose again slightly in the period 1831-1834. Thanks to the Napoleonic Wars the price of linen per 100 m had risen to 28 thalers in 1815. By 1829 the price had dropped to 14 thalers for 100 m of linen and by 1834 the price had again risen slightly to 17 thalers – with a tendency to rise. It can be assumed that G. Weber followed these developments with distrust just as we follow the stock exchange rates.

• Compared to the years around 1820 the 'Hollandgängerei' (work as a seasonal worker in The Netherlands on a regual basis ) earned German labourers 50% less in the late 1820. In 1833 they earned as little as 12-16 thalers. According to a report issued by the municipality of Vörden, this was 'very little, even less than in one of the past few years'. Although Weber was not affected by this, it can be assumed that tese developments did not encourage him to stay in a country which could no longer provide for an increasing number of people.

• The division of the Marches (around 1800), i.e. the distribution of community in favour of peasants, deprived many tenant farmers of the opportunity to keep some sheep or a cow. This did not affect G. Weber either, however it might have strengthened his decision to leave the country. 

• In the congregation of Bramsche, for instance, the number of births started to exceed the number of deaths since the middle of the 18th century. This trend increased by the turn of the century. Constantly rising numbers of farmhands, maidservants and tenant farmers entered the rural, still static labor market. Those who did not find an employment as a tenant farmer or who had no roof over their head, were not allowed to get married in the Region of Osnabrück (“Landdrostei Osnabrück”). In 1857 the writer Fritz Reuter (from Stavenhagen in Mecklenburg) summed up this situation in “No Home” (“Kein Hüsung”) in Low German:

Weber' report on this period can only be complemented by referring to some insufficient data that are available about this time span. The information on emigration in the year 1834 provided by the authorities of the Wittlage-Hunteburg County (“Bericht des Amtes Wittlage Hunteburg, den 15ten November 1834, betreffend die Auswanderung nach Amerika im Jahre 1834”) only includes figures, but does not give any names: in total 275 people left the area in 1834, among them 60 single men, 11 single women and 49 families with 204 members. The authorities of the Wittlage-Hunteburg County estimated that the "rough capital assets" which the emigrants took away to America amounted to 27,506 thalers. (State Archive, Osnabrück) G. Weber indicated  that he paid 45 talers for the passage to America. In an advertisement publihsed in the “Osnabrückischen Öffentlichen Anzeigen" on February 12, 1834 the "Schiffsmärkler J.D. Lüdering" stated an average price of 38 gold thalers. We don't know who else travelled to America on board the "Eleonore&Henriette" along with G. Weber (It seems that the passenger list is no longer available.) but from a report that appeared in the "Oldenburgische Blätter" on March 10, 1835 we know that 100 people were on board the brig "Eleonore&Henriette". The report states that the vessel had left Bremerhaven on April 20, 1834 and had arrived in New York on May 23rd.  40 years later G. Weber remembered that "80 people without children from Bohmte alone" had gone to America with him. They had left the place "on Easter Monday (March 31, 1834)…. accompanied by music".On the eve of April 10, 1834 G. Weber saw the "Shenandoah" which had run aground in the mouth of the Weser river. It appeared that no help was provided. He presumed that 125 passengers died in the accident but according to the “official in charge at Bremerhaven” 162 of the 192 passengers were rescued (Bremen State Archive).  In New York they boarded a ship up the Hudson river to Albany, then on the Erie-Canal (83 locks) boarding tow-boats up to Buffalo at the bank of the Lake Erie, and from there crossing the lake to Toledo and with canoes or pirogues up-stream the Maumee river to Fort Wayne. In Fort Wayne no trace has been found of G. Weber and no information can be found on his co-travellers either because the passenger list giving their names is no longer available. The first German Lutheran community was not set up until in 1837 and neither newspaper articles nor community records do provide any information on the immigrants from Bohmte.

As early as in 1873 Gottfried Weber purchased a grave for $ 470 for his entire family in Spring Grove and put an obelisk (Greek for 'small skewer’) on it which was 20 feet tall and cost $ 1,500. "After death everyone will forget and that is just as well. But I think that I have left [my family] something to remember. Therefore I bought this place and set up a nice tombstone…". In doing so G. Weber had bought himself into the upper middle-class. (www.springgrove.org/Cemeteries.shtm > locate a Loved One > Search By Name: First Name: Gottfried; Second Name: Weber > ID 49338.   -   Or to the family grave: Search By Location: Garden: Land; Section, 14; Lot: 7) G. Weber deals rather harshly with his family. He mentions a quarrel with his sons: “When the children were small it was a pleasure having them, when they were men it was a displeasure”.He also mentions a quarrel with his wife. She had never been a "support" to him. "What has been a burden, continues to be a burden".

As regards his tax payments, for example: It must be stated that no trace of them was found in Cincinnati. They may have been lost in the burning of the Hamilton County Courthouse in 1884 when a raging mob stormed the building after a supposed racist judgement in a murder trial had been rendered in favour of a German citizen.

Weber's wedding, for example: On February 27, 1835 Weber married Cathr. Elisabeth Boje who originated from “Herde (?) near Osnabrück”. It can be assumed that he already met her in Germany because he married her shortly after his arrival in Cincinnati in St. Johannes, a German Lutheran and Reformed Church. They did not 'have to marry': Their eldest son, Martin, was not born until February 15, 1836.

G. Weber chose to cover other topics in his “short description” ("Kurtze beschreibung") and emphasized other aspects than those stressed in the obituary about him which the German Pioneer Association published in 1890, at a time when “Der Deutsche Pionier” no longer appeared on a monthly basis but was issued as a yearbook (“Vorstandsbericht”). Martin Gottfried Weber 1803 - 1890 How modest the late pioneer Manfred Gottfried Weber was may be derived from the fact that only few people knew something about his life course and yet hundreds of them experienced proofs of his philantropy. Mr. Weber was charitable in the truest sense of the word. The right and gave and the left hand didn't know and he tried to keep his benevolence a secret. It sufficed him to know that he had done good and to have made others happy. Manfred Gottfried Weber was born in Hannover on 21. June 1803; later on he attended primary school (“Volksschule”) and in 1821 he went to Cincinnati. At first he worked on the Miami Canal and in Fort Wayne and for a long time he had to live on a wage of 50 cents per day. The hard work he did made him sick but eventually the patient' his strong constitution prevailed. Barely recovered he returned to Cincinnati where he found a more profitable job and in May 1835 he married Miss Elisabeth Boeser. Three sons issued from this happy marriage, one of whom preceded his father in death in 1886. At first Mr. Weber found a job at Schönberger's hardware store where he worked for 20 years. Then he moved to a farm on Baltimore Pike where he lived for five years. After this time he returned to Cincinnati where he set up his own hardware store on Main [Street] near Ninth Street, together with J.N. Newman. This occurred in the year 1862. Four years later he bought Newman's share of the company, associated with one of his sons and after another ten years he completely retired from business. The 2 sons who survived him managed the business, which was still located in the same place and they were quite successful. In 1883 Mr. Weber celebrated his Golden Wedding Anniversary which was a rare occasion at the time. After a short illness he died on 29. September 1890 and the Pioneer Association paid him their last respects. In his younger years he was an avid member of the old fire-brigade department and continued to be a member until the present department was set up. Mr. Weber ws one of its founders and he was the first long-term treasurer of the Pioneer Association. (Vorstandsbericht des Deutschen Pionier-Vereins 23 (1890/91), 16; translation) Different pictures are painted although the same data were used. It seems that in retrospect but also by lack of knowledge many things were distorted. As regards the time of Weber's emigration (1834, and not 1821!), for instance, he did not go first to Cincinnati, but to Fort Wayne. And he married in February 1835 and not in May of that year (Family register, St. Paul, 1845). The maiden name of his wife-to-be was not Boeser but Boje. And it was not a happy marriage tie. And his service of a firefighter lasted only from January 1844 to April 1846. He was “afflicted with a disease in his chest” (Cincinnati Museum Center).