RBOH

Autumn chores: Husking

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins. / Leave a comment

I’m getting ready for my presentation to the monthly meeting of the Milwaukee County Genealogical Society, tomorrow, Saturday the 26th. The talk is called From the ‘Burg to the Battlefield…and Back: A Local German-American Family and their Civil War Experiences. We will look at some interesting and unusual aspects of the war—as experienced by some of Wisconsin’s German-American soldiers— that may have gotten lost over time. And we’ll do this by focusing on the Civil War experiences of one local family, the siblings and future in-laws of recent German immigrant Fred Beckmann.

I’ve gathered a number of rare and lesser-known photographs, drawings, paintings, maps, news clippings and other historical sources to make this illustrated presentation, and I think you will find it interesting. Come join us tomorrow, Sept. 26, in the 1st floor Rotary Club of Milwaukee community meeting room of the Milwaukee Central Public Library Downtown, 814 West Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee. The event will start with a short MCGS business meeting at 10:00 a.m. My presentation begins about 10:15 a.m. and will last about 45 minutes, followed by plenty of time for questions & answers. The meeting is free and open to the public, and I hope to see you all there. For more event details, and a handy Beckmann family family tree, click here.

And while I put the final edits on my presentation, here’s another end-of-summer post for you; it originally appeared here in November, 2023. I hope you enjoy this closer look at Eastman Johnson’s 1861 image “Husking,” focused on the hard work of husking and storing corn for the winter. Happy reading!

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I’m talking about history, again! – at the MCGS

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins. / Leave a comment

I like to give illustrated talks about history, especially the history of the Jonathan Clark House, its occupants, their neighbors, and their lives in early Wisconsin territory and state. Back on Friday, April 24, 2026, I spoke to the members of the Milwaukee County Genealogical Society about the German immigrant experience in our area circa 1845–1910, as lived by the extended family of German immigrant—and 1868-1873 Clark House occupant and farmer—Fred Beckmann. The talk went well, and I’ve been invited to speak to the MCGS again, this Saturday, September 26, at 10:00 a.m., at Milwaukee’s Central Public Library Downtown.

Scenes from my previous MCGS presentation at the Milwaukee Central Public Library Downtown, April, 2026. Photo credit: Laura Rexroth.

What’s it about?

This month’s MCGS presentation is titled From the ‘Burg to the Battlefield…and Back: A Local German-American Family and their Civil War Experiences.

The American Civil War is a huge topic, with many famous—and lesser-known—aspects, and no one talk can cover them all. So, rather than try and squeeze a grand overview of the war and its many battles into less than an hour, we will discuss some interesting and unusual aspects of the war—as experienced by some of Wisconsin’s German-American soldiers— that may have gotten lost over time. And we’ll do this by focusing on the Civil War experiences of one local family, the siblings and future in-laws of recent German immigrant Fred Beckmann.

You’re invited!

My Saturday, September 26, 2026, MCGS presentation will be held in the 1st floor Rotary Club of Milwaukee community meeting room of the Milwaukee Central Public Library Downtown, 814 West Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee. The event will start with a short MCGS business meeting at 10:00 a.m. My presentation begins about 10:15 a.m. and will last about 45 minutes, followed by plenty of time for questions & answers. The meeting is free and open to the public, and I hope to see you all there.

Sound interesting? Click “continue reading” for more details.

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Labor Day – a photo essay

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins. / 1 Comment

Monday, September 7th, is Labor Day, the holiday celebrating the working men and women of our nation, and I thought I’d commemorate the day with a lightly-revised re-post of our annual CHH Labor Day piece that first appeared in 2023. To honor the holiday and salute the American worker, past and present, let’s revisit some of the nineteenth-century occupations we’ve talked about previously at Clark Heritage & History, highlighting a few of the many skills, trades, and occupations common during the Clark House era.

Since it is a holiday, I’m not going to add long commentaries to each image. Enjoy the image galleries, and be sure to click each gallery—and photo—to open larger versions of each. And click the highlighted links to visit the original CHH posts for each topic; they are filled with more images and lots of information about the different skills, tools, and jobs of the Clark family era, and include full image credits.

“Labor”

What’s the first thing you think of when you hear the word labor? Perhaps big men doing hard work with their hands, at a factory, on a job site, or in a workshop? In its early decades—except for the first sawmills, grist mills, stone quarries (and a brewery or two)—rural Mequon didn’t have much in the way of factory work. (Fun fact: Jonathan Clark’s father-in-law Peter Turck set up the first business in the county, a sawmill on Pigeon Creek, in 1838. See the essay on Peter Turck by Clark House young historian Spencer Holloway on pages 4-5 of the Jonathan Clark House April, 2021, newsletter for more.)

Pioneer Mequon did have plenty of men that knew how to use tools to make, improve, or repair all sorts of things. Notably, the Bonniwell family was filled with skilled carpenters, shipbuilders and other tradesmen, and Jonathan Clark and many of his Mequon neighbors had experience surveying, cutting out roads, and building simple bridges and dams. Some of those Clark-era trades and tools are shown in these photos of 1840s-1860s workers and their tools:

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July 4th – Independence Day

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins. / Leave a comment

My apologies for the long silence. I have many Clark Heritage & History projects in progress and hope to start blogging about them shortly. In the meanwhile, please enjoy our annual Independence Day tribute. Be well, and thanks for reading.

Just a reminder…

250 years ago today, representatives of all thirteen of Britain’s American colonies—gathered “in congress” in Philadelphia—approved the final text of the document that publicly declared our independence from “George the Third, by the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, and so forth,” and his distant and unresponsive legislature. The Americans proposed to separate—forever—from their Divinely appointed King, and form a new and independent nation, the “united States of America.” This decision was bold, completely unprecedented in a world dominated by autocratic monarchs, and potentially fatal for anyone that supported this Declaration of Independence. From the King’s point of view, the authors, his subjects, were committing treason.

After a public reading of the Declaration of Independence at Bowling Green, on July 9, 1776, New Yorkers pulled down the statue of King George III.

The authors of the Declaration were clear-eyed about the stakes, yet unwavering in their desire to separate from the King. They closed their—our—Declaration of Independence with their unanimous avowal that, […] for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The Declaration of Independence is our pivotal foundational document. People risked their lives and fortunes by creating and signing it. Thousands of Patriots—including Black Americans and Native Americans—fought and died in the subsequent War of Independence in order to make the “united States of America” a reality. And after the war, a large number of British-Americans, still loyal to their monarch, fled the 13 colonies and migrated to the King’s remaining possessions to the north, including Nova Scotia and the Province of Quebec.

A living document

Through it all, the ideals expressed in the Declaration inspired generation after generation of Americans, including Jonathan Clark and his ancestors, as attested in this excerpt from daughter Caroline (Clark) Woodward’s 1893 biographical sketch:

[…] Jonathan M. Clark, was a Vermonter of English descent, who, born in 1812, of Revolutionary parentage, inherited an intense American patriotism.

Jonathan Clark and his Mequon neighbors—which included native-born “Americans,” as well as more recent immigrants from Ireland, the German lands, the United Kingdom, Nova Scotia, and elsewhere—knew the Declaration, read it aloud at patriotic events (in English and German!), and shared its anti-monarchical sentiments.

This July 4th, before you head to the beach or light the barbecue, why not refresh your memory and read the document that created our nation, and forever declared our freedom from the “absolute Despotism” of kings?

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I’m talking about history – at the MCGS

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins. / 2 Comments

I like to talk about history, especially the history of the Jonathan Clark House, its occupants, and their lives in early Wisconsin territory and state. Sometimes I get invited to share my research with others, and I put together an illustrated presentation. This coming Friday, April 24, 2026, I’ll be talking to the members of the Milwaukee County Genealogical Society about the German immigrant experience in our area circa 1845–1910, as lived by the extended family of German immigrant, and Clark House occupant, Fred Beckmann.

You’re invited!

My April 24th MCGS presentation will be held in the 1st floor Rotary Club of Milwaukee community meeting room of the Milwaukee Central Public Library Downtown, 814 West Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee. The event will start with a short business meeting at 1:00 p.m. My presentation begins about 1:15 p.m. and will last about 45 minutes, followed by plenty of time for questions & answers. The meeting is free and open to the general public, and I hope to see you all there.

Is there more to say about Fred Beckmann?

Indeed there is!

As you may recall from earlier CHH blog posts like (this one) and (this one), Fred Beckmann and his new wife, Lena Hackfeld, lived in the Clark House, and farmed the Clark farm, from 1868 until 1873. Their story connects the history of the early Anglo-American settlement of Mequon with the subsequent influx of German-speaking immigrants to the area.

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RBOH: William Opitz, Plank Road & Index updates

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins. / 4 Comments

I’m still working on several larger Clark House Historian projects, but I still have time to share a few Random Bits O’ History with you…

More Fun with Fraktur

You may remember our recent post, William Opitz – real estate agent (1855), in which we noted the start of a new business venture—a “Land Agency”—by one of Mequon’s earliest and most influential German settlers, Wilhelm Ferdinand “William F.” Opitz (1813 or 1816 – 1882). Well, I found a companion advertisement from W. F. Opitz, published on page 2 of the Milwaukee Banner und Volksfreund on May 18, 1855:

What’s it say? Read on, for all the details…

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William Opitz – real estate agent (1855)

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins. / 1 Comment

I’m in the thick of researching and writing several series of illustrated posts for the blog, as well as for some upcoming public talks that I’m giving this spring and summer, and it’s kept me from posting lately. And as is often the case with these big projects, I find I have so much fresh material, and so many interesting, interconnecting, events and stories, that the problem becomes sorting and organizing all that information, and all those images, into coherent and not-overwhelmingly-long posts and presentations. (Heh. We’ll see about that…)

Anyway, while I continue my writing and editing behind the scenes, I thought you might enjoy this random bit of Mequon history I found while looking for some other, entirely different, information. It’s an advertisement originally dated May 21, 1855; this copy was published on page 3 of the Milwaukee Banner und Volksfreund [Banner and People’s Friend] on February 6, 1856. The ad announces a new business venture by one of Mequon’s earliest and most influential German settlers, Wilhelm Ferdinand “William F.” Opitz (1813 or 1816 – 1882):

How’s that? Your German language and Fraktur-reading skills are a bit too rusty to enjoy this historical advert? Well, just click and read on for all the details!

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Mysteries (and errors)…

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins. / Leave a comment

Our previous two posts (here and here) examined the 1888 recollections of a Mequon man that migrated from Germany to Mequon-Thiensville in 1848-1849, just after completing his schooling. His recollections were published in the form of two “letters” addressed to the Cedarburg News in May, 1888. Both letters were signed with just the initial “L.” Today I’d like to see what we know about our author — “L.” — and whether we can identify him.

But—before we start solving mysteries, there are errors to correct…

Updated dates!

I goofed! I fell into a record-keeping, citation-making trap. As I started this new post, I decided to take yet another look at my sources. And much to my chagrin, I noted that the date at the head of each of our “Mequon Correspondence” letters does not agree with the date that each letter was actually printed in the Cedarburg News. That’s not so strange; I would expect that a letter would be written, dated, and sent to the paper’s editor before the newspaper’s date of publication. But in our case, the letters are dated almost a full week after the newspaper date of publication. What’s that all about?

Anyway, here’s the correct info:
• the first letter of two, titled “Mequon Corrspondeence” [sic], was published on page 2 of the Cedarburg News on May 16, 1888, but the “letter” was dated, in its headline, “May 21, 1888.”
• the second letter, titled “Mequon Correspondence. [Continued.]” appeared the following week, May 23, 1888, also on page 2, but the “letter” was dated, in its headline, “May 28, 1888.”

For the record, earlier today (28 Feb. 2026) I added this corrected date information to thosse two previous CHH posts. And now that we’ve settled that, let’s see what we can do to solve today’s History Mystery!

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How’d they get here? – Germany to Mequon, c. 1848 (part 2)

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins. / 2 Comments

UPDATED, Feb. 28, 2026, to correct erroneous dates of publication of the two Cedarburg News “letters.“

Migration memories, 1848, continued

In our previous post we presented the first part of a personal memoir of travel from Germany to New York City and, eventually, Mequon-Thiensville, circa 1848. Those recollections were published as the first of two “letters” to the Cedarburg News in May, 1888. Both letters were pseudonymous, signed only with the initial “L.”

The first letter of the pair, titled “Mequon Corrspondeence” [sic], was published on page 2 of the Cedarburg News on May 16, 1888, but note that the letter itself was dated, in its headline, “May 21, 1888.” If you missed it, I recommend you begin with that earlier post and then come back here for the conclusion. Today we complete the author’s reminiscences with excerpts from his second letter, titled “Mequon Correspondence. [Continued.]” appeared the following week, May 23, 1888, also on page 2, but the letter was dated, in its headline, “May 28, 1888.”

An 1840s “prank” in NYC

The May 28th, 1888, letter begins with two anecdotes from our immigrant’s first day in New York City. The first incident involves a schoolboy “prank” in which a bottomless peach basked is used to trap the arms of an unsuspecting “fat old bachelor, the universal fool of our ship [illegible] to the greatest merriment of the bystanders.”

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Bitter cold? Sounds like fun!

/ Genealogist & Historian Reed Perkins. / 1 Comment

In an earlier post, “Intensely Cold Weather,” we examined the negative effects of several episodes of bitterly cold winter weather during the Clark family’s era and shortly afterwards. Today we look at some of the positive aspects of frigid winters in our part of the Old Northwest.

It’s no secret. Wisconsinites like to do stuff outdoors in the winter cold. Ice fishing. Skating. Cheering for the Packers.

But the Green Bay Packers professional football team wasn’t organized until 1919, a full eighty years after Jonathan M. Clark bought his first parcel of Mequon land in 1839. So what did our intrepid Wisconsin pioneers do back in the mid-1800s when those deep snows fell and cold north winds began to blow? Well, if you believe the newspapers of the era, there was no finer way to occupy a clear, frosty day—or moonlit evening—than to bundle up, go outside, and enjoy a…

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