The Lange Family
Pioneers Of the Downriver Area
by Frank Rathbun, December 11, 1952
Courtesy of The News Herald (originally published in The Mellus Newspapers)
The thousands of German immigrants who came to this country in the middle of the last century to escape depression and near-famine in their homeland, naturally gravitated to the frontier region of the Great Lakes, where rich farmland was available for $1.20 per acre. Investing all their meager savings in 40- or 80-acres tracts of land, these industrious refugees from the Old World, armed only with courage, ambition and perseverance, set about carving a future for their children and their children's children.
Sometime about the time of the Civil War, one Godfried (Godfery) Lange brought his wife, Caroline, and children from Germany to the United States, made his way to Detroit and eventually purchased a farm in Taylor Township.
THE FIRST log-cabin home of the Lange settlers was located on North Line road at the corner of the road which today bears the family name.
Working from dawn to dusk, six days a week, Lange, with the aid of five stalwart sons, cleared his land and brought the fertile acres under cultivation.
On Sundays, with the many other families of German descent in Taylor Township, the Langes gathered at a rude church where they offered their thanks to God for the new life they were leading.
AS SEASON after season passed, the family sowed and reaped their crops, taking a portion of their produce to market in Detroit--a day--long trip by horse-drawn wagons--and storing the rest for winter consumption, the only form of social security they knew.
By the time the elder Lange died in 1898, at the age of 79, the family owned a large section of land in the southwest corner of the township.
Godfrey Lange's children included Godfrey, junior, Gustave, Carl, Ferdinand, William, Minnie, who married a Gall, and Mary, who married a Janoski.
GODFREY LANGE, junior, was born about 1850 in Germany and came to America with his parents as a boy. He was reared in the log-cabin home and received his education at a small one-room schoolhouse whose location is now forgotten.
A farmer like his father, Lange married Caroline Schroeder and died about 1911, leaving eight children, five daughters and three sons.
The daughters included Emma Hill, Bertha Wischneski, Louise Schoen, Hattie Herzfeld and Minnie Herzfeld, the latter three deceased.
THE SONS were Herman, now deceased, who operated a sawmill in the township for many years; Emil, also dead; and William (1884-1950), who married Emma Brosch.
The eldest son of William and Emma Lange is Walter, former township treasurer, who operates a filling station at 12811 Telegraph, in Taylor Township.
The other children of William and Emma include Harold, Esther Krause, Florence Behling, Elmer Norman, who owns a feed store at 25926 Eureka, and Irvin and Irma Clark, twins.
GUSTAVE LANGE, second son of the pioneer Godfrey, had a number of children, including Christopher, Louis, George, Frederick, Ernest, Ida Reidle and Otto, whose son, Carl, is a member of Taylor Township police department.
The third son of the first Lange was Carl, whose children included Henry, Gustave and Cornelia Kurtzel.
Another early member of the family in Taylor Township was J. C. Lange, born in Germany in 1828, who was probably a brother of Godfrey Lange, senior.
J. C. LANGE and his wife, Elizabeth Mathune, had eight children, named Mary, John, Henry, Charles, Louise, Emma, Minnie and Ida.Descendants of these and other early Lange pioneers have spread throughout the Downriver and Detroit area and have seen it change from quiet farmland to the bustling, crowded industrial section it is today.
