So your great-grandfather, Matthew Hybarger, was an economic refugee at that time.
Like hundred of thousands Germans who emigrated to America. He might have been a governing mayor or deputy burgomaster somewhere in Germany, what we dont know for certain, but he told that he was or perhaps he joked. Because of the economic crises, poverty "pauperism" (transition from feudal system to early industrialisation) in Germany and of strict guild laws that existed he perhaps decided to leave the country and begin a new life in his best age. His parents bid farwell. He accepted a dangerous passage and happily arrived in New York, perhaps. He as talented man like many other germans helped to build up the new world. At least built a house for Groogie and planted many trees, yes, because in America he met this wonderful woman and he even remembered Avery.
Maybe he was that M. Heuberger whom I found in the passengers list of 1860 who went on board as 28 year old and left Hamburg way New York, maybe he was a man who hung the moon too.
