Joseph Damascus Neihouse

Buried: Holy Redeemer Cemetery, Clarksville, Arkansas Birth 11 Dec 1855 Covington, Kenton County, Kentucky, USA Death 19 Apr 1907 (aged 51) Clarksville, Johnson County, Arkansas, USA Burial Holy Redeemer Cemetery Clarksville, Johnson County, Arkansas, USA Memorial ID 140080305 · View Source

Following information provided by FAG contributor Ed Maloney #47446988.

Here is a short biographical sketch on Joseph Damascus Neihouse. He is my Great Grand Uncle. His family (Neuhaus) immigrated from Stöckum, Balve, Westphalen, Prüße (later Germany) and settled in Covington, Kentucky. The family prospered building flatboats in Covington, lading cargo at Cincinnati, transporting it down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans, then selling the boats, and walking back to Covington.

At the outbreak of the US Civil War, Kentucky, a slave-holding state, declared its neutrality. Ohio was aligned with the Union states. His family moved from Covington into the Butternut Region of Indiana. They settled near St Anthony, Dubois County. Joseph Damascus was a carpenter as well as a farmer. He worked for the Swiss Benedictine Monks at Saint Meinrad Abbey in nearby Spencer County.

In 1877, the Abbot of Saint Meinrad Abbey negotiated with an agent of the Little Rock & Fort Smith Railroad Company, for land to establish a Benedictine monastery in northern Arkansas. The Subiaco Abbey and Academy was founded on March 15, 1878, upon the arrival of three monk-missionaries from Saint Meinrad Abbey.

The school came into existence as a result of the German migration to the Arkansas River Valley in the 1870s and especially in the 1880s and 1890s. The Little Rock-Fort Smith Railroad Company had thousands of acres of free land in the area. They had resolved to sell this land only to German Catholic settlers if possible.

Joseph Damascus Neihouse moved to Arkansas and assisted in the construction of the Abbey and the Academy. He met and married Helena Koch. They had 13 children. In 1907, he stepped on a nail, developed tetanus, and died.