Peter Joseph Laux was born in Zettingen in the Cochem-Zell District of Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany, the fifth of six children of Andreas Laux and Anna Oster. Peter was baptized on 5 December 1809 at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in the nearby village of Hambuch. On 14 July 1835, he married Elizabeth Anna Marx in the village of Landkern, where they had three children: Anna Maria, John, and Nicolaus.
In 1843, Peter and his family travelled by barge along the Rhine River to Rotterdam where they boarded the brig "President" which carried a total of 105 passengers across the Atlantic Ocean. On 26 July 1843 they arrived at the port of New York. The family travelled by barge along the Erie Canal to Buffalo NY, by ship across Lake Erie to Cleveland OH, then by wagon for a few miles to Sheffield Township in Lorain County OH, on the shores of Lake Erie. They joined a community of German families who had recently settled in Lorain County.
In 1845, Peter applied for citizenship, and jointly purchased with three other men a one-and-a-half acre lot for $200 in Avon Township, in Lorain County. On 28 January 1848, Peter purchased twenty-one acres for $148 in Sheffield Township. On the tax list of 1 June 1850, the farm was worth $275, and it had a milk cow, two oxen, one other cattle, and five pigs. The stock was worth $80, and Peter paid taxes for nine bushels of wheat, 75 bushels of Indian corn, 28 bushels of potatoes, 80 pounds of butter, and two tons of hay.
In Sheffield Township, Peter and Elizabeth had eight more children: Adam, Christopher, Mary Christina, Joseph, Helena, Anna, Catherine, and Michael. Peter joined in the construction of St. Teresa's, a log cabin church that was across the road from the family home, and he was the first religion teacher at the church. Their house was a half-mile walk to Lake Erie's shore, and after working on the farm on a hot summer morning, the family could hike to Lake Erie for an afternoon swim.
In late 1859 or early 1860, the Laux family moved to a farm in Wabash Township, Jay County IN, where other German families had recently settled. Peter aided in the construction of Holy Trinity Catholic church, a log structure near the Laux farm that celebrated is first mass on Christmas, 1861. After Peter's death in 1870, his wife, Elizabeth, continued to operate the family farm where she resided with her five youngest children, ages 11 to 19. In 1884-85, the current church building was constructed, and a stained-glass window above the main entry is dedicated to Peter Laux.