Johann & Aalke Stories

Johann & Aalke Wiemers Heritage Site

Johann Wiemers owned the first cane mill in the New Fountain/Quihi area. He made sorghum molasses not only for home use, but also for many of the neighbors for miles around. Johann constructed the molasses mill himself, cutting and chiseling the parts from a cypress tree that he hauled from the banks of the Medina River.

The mill was powered by by a horse going around and around the mill. The horse was tied to a beam, the beam fastened on top of the mill.

On one occasion, while feeding the mill with stripped cane, Johann got his head caught between the beam and the mill. His son Christoph saw the situation in time and stopped the horse, preventing John from getting his head crushed.

One night, Johann and Aalke Wiemers begame aware of a disturbance in the horselot by their home. Johan wanted to go and see what the trouble was, but Aalke persuaded him not to go out. The next morning, they discovered that the Indians had killed two of their horses and taken the others along. If Johann had gone out that night he would probably have been scalped, his home burned, and his family murdered.

Sometime after the Indian raid, one of the horses got away from the Indians and came back home. Great was the joy of all the family when the faithful.

In the year of 1858, Rev. J.A. Schaper started a protracted meeting near New Fountain under a live oak tree, now known as the Wiemers Oak. Because of this Methodist circuit rider who came into their community, Johann and Aalke had a vital Christian experience in their early married life. Possibly out of curiosity, Johann and a few others were drawn to the meeting. They were at first filled with prejudice and thought that they should stay away from the meeting. But on the second night, Johann pursuaded his family members to accompany him to the services. They were genuinely converted, and together they joined the Ebenezer Methodist Church, later named the New Fountain Methodist Church.

Johann and Aalke had previously been respectable members of the Lutheran Church. Being accustomed to reading their prayers, they wrote down their prayers before going to the first prayer meeting and started to read them, but soon their eyes were filled with tears so that they could not see. Then they threw away their written prayers and soon learned to pray as the Holy Spirit directed them.

Many of their Sunday services and midweek prayer meetings were held in the home of Johann and Aalke Wiemers. When weather permitted, the congregaton met to worship under the previously mentioned oak tree that stood in their yard. The beautiful tree still stands today.

When the time came to build a church, Johann Wiemers gave $100.00 for said church, which at that time was a large contribution. Johann also gave one acre of the land that the church was to be built on.