Dorothea Linhardt Meÿer Greb, 1804–1879; Georg Meÿer, 1805–1837; Peter Greb, 1811–1896

Dorothea Linhardt, daughter of J. Peter Lienhardt and Barbe Schaller, was born on 22 March 1804 in Fröschweiler, Elsaß, [Froeschwiller, Alsace] and baptized at the Evangelical Church. She was confirmed in 1818.

Johann Georg Meÿer, son of Georg Meÿer and Catherine Salome Weimer, was born on 10 May 1805 in Nehweiler bei Wörth, Elsaß, [Nehwiller-près-Woerth, Alsace] and baptized there. He was confirmed in 1819.

On 30 May 1826 in Nehweiler bei Wörth, Dorothea Linhardt married Georg Meÿer. This couple had six children: Georg 1, 1827–1827; Georg 2, 1828; Dorothea, 1830; Catharina, 1832; Margaretha, 1835; and Madeleine, 1837.

Georg and Dorothea Meÿer and their five surviving children emigrated from Le Havre on the ship Mozart, arriving in New Orleans on 23 June 1837. The family traveled up the Mississippi River to St. Louis.

In St. Louis, on 13 August 1837, Georg Meÿer used a mortgage to buy forty acres in Central Township near what is now Spoede and Clayton Roads. But Georg Meÿer did not live to enjoy his property. Sometime during the last four months of 1837, Georg Meÿer died at only age thirty-two. His burial place is unknown.

Left with a piece of land and five children under ten, Dorothea Linhardt Meÿer quickly remarried on 9 January 1838 at Holy Ghost Evangelical Church to Peter Greb. Peter had been born on 11 June 1811 in Schlechtenwegen, Hessen-Darmstadt. He arrived in the U.S. in July 1837 at Baltimore and then traveled to St. Louis. Dorothea and Peter had four additional children: Maria, 1838; Catharine, 1840; Elisabeth, 1843; and Peter Jr., 1845.

Peter farmed and Dorothea kept house. First, they farmed Georg Meÿer’s land in Central Township. In 1841, they mortgaged a one-third share consisting of thirteen acres. During this year, Madeleine Meÿer died. Then on 25 March 1854, Peter Greb bought another family farm consisting of eighty acres further west in Meramec Township on Eatherton Road, which is now Missouri Highway 109, south of Wild Horse Creek Road. In 1855, the extended family sold Georg Meÿer’s forty acres in Central Township to Christoph Straub.

Both Dorothea and Peter Greb participated in their church. Peter Greb witnessed two early marriages: Andreas Luft to Anna Margaretha Straub in March 1840 and Johann Greb to Catharine Straub in October 1840, both at Zion Evangelical Church, Des Peres, which is now Parkway UCC. Dorothea sponsored the baptism of granddaughter Dorothea Straub in November 1855 at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Des Peres. Peter naturalized at the Criminal Court in St. Louis in August 1850.

On 12 September 1878, Peter retired from active farming, and, with Dorothea, sold half his land in Meramec Township to son Peter Greb Jr. Shortly after that, on 5 June 1879 Dorothea Lindhart Meyer Greb died at age seventy-five, with burial in the Greb Farm Cemetery.

By 1880, Peter was a widower living with daughter Elisabeth and son-in-law Fred Mueller in Meramec Township. Peter Greb died on 15 August 1896 at age eighty-five and was buried with his wife in the Greb Farm Cemetery.

Written by Carol Whitton
April 2017

© 2017, St. Louis Genealogical Society