This is the start of a new series about the very first American immigrants from Burgenland we know of - or those we assume to have been the first to leave their various villages for America. Of course, over time, we often come across emigrants of an even earlier date. Should anybody - particularly among my friends in the Burgenland Bunch - have different or earlier dates, I would be most grateful if they could share such information with me.

Often, the year of emigration cannot be established with absolute certainty. Possible deviations in either direction of 1-2 years are marked with a + sign, and deviations of 2-3 years with ++.
You will find the earliest emigrants listed in a table, plus special comments on the most interesting people among them.

The table contains only those emigration villages where the research on the start of emigration is well-founded.

The first emigrants can be named for a total of 177 villages.

Year	Village	Name	(Year of birth)	Destination
1777	Neutal	Lorenz Schönbacher	(1752)	North Carolina
1845	Unterschützen	Grabenhofer
1849	Oberschützen	Josef Mücke		Tennessee
1853	Eisenstadt	Franz Walter
1854	Purbach	Kloiber, Reiner, Trummer		Texas

On current knowledge, this was Lorenz Schönbacher. He was born in Neutal, probably on July 21, 1752, which is the day he was baptized. As a soldier enlisted in a German regiment, he left Hesse on May 11, 1777, for America in order to fight the colonials on the side of the British. In America, he switched sides and joined the rebels in their fight for independence, which earned him a large plot of land in North Carolina. The credit for researching the family history of Lorenz Schönbacher goes to his American descendent, John Shinpaugh (=Schönbacher).

Until recently, the carpenter Grabenhofer from Unterschützen was assumed to have been the very first emigrant from Burgenland. He is known to have worked at the construction site of the teachers' college erected in Oberschützen in 1845. Grabenhofer believed to have done a bad job there and fled to a part of Hungary which had already been swept by the wave of emigration to America and from which he too emigrated to America. 

The Silesian-born Josef Mücke is known to have worked as a teaching assistant in Oberschützen for eight years. He got caught in the political turbulences of the revolution of 1848 and left for America in 1849.

The year 1853 saw the clockmaker Franz Walter leave Eisenstadt with his wife and child for America. He probably moved to Eisenstadt not long before that. 
Among the earliest emigrants from Purbach was Mattias Kloiber, born in Winden; he left home at the age of 62, widowed, with the family of his son (3 members) in 1854. Along with them went Josef Rainer with wife and child, and Franz Trummer, also with his wife. They applied for a visa for Texas and are assumed to have been the first Burgenländers to have settled in Texas.

To be continued.

 ( translated article!)