News : German professor to honor Vinton resident who tried to help hometown in 1892

Former Vinton resident was born in this home in Prussia in 1824.

The Hensing family plot at Evergreen does not include a tombstone for Joseph.

Joseph Hensing of Vinton gave $2000 to his Prussian hometown in 1892, and will be honored Tuesday.

A remarkable and virtually unknown story from the history of Vinton will be revisited on Tuesday, when a German professor visits the grave of a virtually unknown Vinton area farmer who in the 1800s donated $2,000 to his former Prussian home town.

Joseph Hensing farmed in Taylor Township in the late 1800s. His name does not appear in any of the Benton County history books; his grave is not recorded at Evergreen Cemetery, although his wife and some of his children are buried there. Property records do however, list Hensing as the former owner of farm land in Taylor Township.

Retired education professor Wilhelm Hagemann wrote about the history of his hometown, a village named Voerden, Germany, in 2008.

During the research, the professor found a letter from an emigrant named Joseph Hensing in the parish archive there.

“Joseph Hensing was born in Voerden in 1824 and he wrote the letter in 1892 in Vinton where he lived as a farmer,” says Hagemann. “He must have been in a good financial condition at that time because he offered to give most of the money for building or buying a house for poor people in Voerden. I would like to put this letter on the grave of Joseph Hensing together with some flowers.”

Hagemann and his cousin, Jim Marks, who lives in Washington State, will be visiting the Hensing family plot at Evergreen Cemetery on Tuesday.