Heinrich (Henry) Fengal 
Heinrich (Henry) was born on July 25th, 1832 in Deutenhofen, Germany. Heinrich (Henry)'s father was John Peter Fengel and his mother was Anna Margaretha Kratz. His paternal grandparents were Johann Peter Fenchel and Anna Katherina Kratz; his maternal grandparents were Peter Fenchel and Maria Magdelena Kratz. He had three brothers and six sisters, named Peter Adolph, John Peter, Peter Ernest, Maria Magdelina, Sibella Christina, Infant, Charlotte P., Katherine and Louise. He was the oldest of the ten children. He died at the age of 82 on June 28th, 1915 in Woodbine, Kansas.General Notes
: In 1850, at age 17 he accompanied his uncle Henry Fengel and two other men to California when the 1849 Gold Rush was on. They traveled the Oregon Trail across the great plains and mountains in a Prairie Schooner pulled by five yoke of oxen. They started from Burlington, Iowa, driving to St. Joseph, Missouri, where they awaited their goods, which came by boat. On May 1 they loaded their goods and were on their way. Traveling up the South Platte, they crossed over and made for a ferry on the North Platte. At the ferry they found such a crowd that they were obliged to wait a day and a half for their turn to cross. The ferry charge was $10 for each wagon, and the stock had to swim. They arrived at Hangtown, California on August 10, having made the journey in a little over three months. Hangtown is now known by the more euphonious name of Placerville. Young Henry did not stay in California very long. In the fall he left his uncle in San Francisco and returned by way of the Isthmus of Panama. He first took a ship to Acapulco, Mexico, then traveled by mail boat to Panama. There was no canal yet, at that time, so he walked across it with the other passengers, although a few rode on donkeys. It was a twelve hour trip, leaving in the evening and arriving in the morning. At the Chagres River all embarked in small boats, going down the river to the large boat waiting in deep water. There they took a steamer bound for Havana, where some of the passengers left the boat to go on up the coast to New York. Henry had gotten a job as cabin boy, and stayed on board the ship as it crossed the Gulf of Mexico to New Orleans. From there he went to Galveston, whre he spent the winter. Early in the spring he returned to New Orleans and took a boat up the Mississippi River to Burlington, Iowa, returning on the first Monday in April, 1951.
His uncle Henry started home by ship by the way of Cape Horn but the ship went down and perished, along with the gold that they had accumulated. Young Henry and family came to Kansas in a mover wagon in 1868, buying a farm one mile east of Woodbine from his brother-in-law Rev. Charles Heidel. He and his wife visited California again in 1915 for the San Francisco World Fair.
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