To Hicksville
Presumably, networking with other German-Americans was what led him eastward to what today is Nassau County, where he had settled by 1875. That year, he married Johanna Rosche, the daughter of a German-born farmer who lived in Hempstead. In June 1880, a Federal census recorded that he and his wife were living there with her father, on the latter's farm. Henry - like one of Johanna's brothers - was a silver beater. The silver got beaten in Hicksville.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 6, 1910
It is noteworthy that when Johanna Rosche married Henry, her older sister Frederika was already married to the Rev. Paul Matschat. The Matschats then were living in Canajoharie, New York, but they had resided in Hicksville for a year or two following the war. They would return to Hicksville a year after Johanna's marriage, at which time the good Reverend would begin his continuous tenure at Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church.
A personal observation: On the census in 1880, Paul Matschat did not identify himself as 'German' or' Prussian,' but instead as 'Silesian.' Perhaps that was because Silesia, after years of allying itself with Austria and other German states that were strongly opposed to joining a Prussian-led Germany, had recently been annexed by Prussia, and the annexation had rankled Matschat.
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