Henry L. Ruegge, born November 9, 1838, in Hanover, Germany, was a pioneer farmer in Richardson County, Nebraska. He emigrated to the United States with his parents, Hans Henry and Wilhelmina (Starke) Ruegge, in 1863. Settling in Arago precinct, Henry transformed their land into a productive farm. He married Sophia Hoose on February 4, 1869, and they had nine children. The Ruegges were active in the Lutheran church and local community. Henry witnessed and contributed to the development of Richardson County from its early days as a territory.
Henry L. Ruegge, one of Richardson county’s best-known old settlers and pioneer farmers and the proprietor of a fine farm of one hundred and sixty acres in the precinct of Arago, where he and his wife are living in quiet comfort in the pleasant “evening time” of their lives, is of European birth, but has been a resident of this country and of Richardson county since he was twenty-five years of age, having come here with his parents back in territorial days, and has thus been a witness to and a participant in the development of this section of Nebraska since the days of the pioneers. He was born in what is now the Prussian province of Hanover, Germany. November 9, 1838, Hanover at that time having been an independent kingdom, and grew to manhood in his native land, learning there the trade of a wagon-maker, and was engaged there working at that trade until the summer of 1863, when he came to this country with his parents, Hans Henry and Wilhelmina (Starke) Ruegge. The Ruegges left their native land on August 31, 1863, and were seven weeks making the voyage across the water. Upon their arrival in the United States they came on out to the then Territory of Nebraska and Hans Ruegge bought the quarter section on which his son, Henry L. Ruegge, has ever since made his home, in the precinct of Arago, this county, the family settling there. Henry L. Ruegge broke the land with oxen and gradually got the place under cultivation. After his marriage in 1869 be established his home there and has ever since made that his place of residence, one of the best-known pioneer farmers of that section of the county. Hans Ruegge and wife were the parents of nine children, six of whom grew to maturity.
On February 4, 1869, Henry L. Ruegge was united in marriage to Sophia Hoose, who was born in Prussia on September 4, 1850, and who was but three years of age when her parents, George H. and Mary M. (Walden) Hoose, came to this country in 1853. Upon coming to this country George H. Hoose settled on a farm in St. Joseph county, Indiana, not far from the city of South Bend, and there remained until in August, 1864, when he came with his family to the then Territory of Nebraska and settled on a farm in the precinct of Arago, in this county, where he and his wife spent the remainder of their lives. George H. Hoose was born on May 2, 1802, and died in April, 1892, and his wife was born on March 6, 1809, and died in 1882. They were the parents of eleven children.
To Henry L. and Sophia (Hoose) Ruegge nine children have been born, namely: Theodore. deceased; August, deceased; Mary, wife of D. Ramsey, living near Nims city, this county; Henry, a farmer, of the precinct of Arago; Minnie, wife of Edward Schuler, of Ohio precinct; Dorothea, deceased; Julia, wife of J. Hartman; Augusta, who is the housekeeper at the old home place, and Sophia, also at home. The Ruegges attend the Lutheran church and have ever taken a proper part in the general good works and social activities of the community of which they have been residents since pioneer days.
Source: Edwards, Lewis C., History of Richardson County, Nebraska : Its People, Industries and Institutions, Indianapolis : B.F. Bowen, 1917.