Quincy and Adams County history and representative men, Vol. II, Part 4

Author: Wilcox, David F., 1851- ed
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 952

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Obtaining his elementary education in the St. Boniface Parish School, Alfred J. Brockschmidt was graduated from St. Francis College, Quiney, with the class of 1879, on June 20 of that year, receiving the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and subsequently took a post graduate course of two years at that institution. He was then eager to enter upon a mercantile career, but was over-ruled by his father, who was anxious that he should further advance his college studies. Going to Missouri, he entered the St. Louis University, where he obtained a degree. He received his first instructions in law at the hands of the late Hơn. Orville H. Browning, of Quincy, U. S. senator of Illinois, at one time Secretary of Interior in the cabinet of President Lincoln, and one of the ablest attorneys of the State of Illinois. Subsequently entering the law department of Yale University, Mr. Brockschmidt was there graduated June 27, 1883, and there in 1884 and 1885 he took post graduate courses. Returning to Quiney, he has since been actively and successfully engaged in the practice of his chosen profession, having built up an extensive and lucrative patronage. He was admitted to the bar by the Supreme Court of the State of Connecticut, at New Haven, June 27, 1883, admitted to the bar by the Supreme Court of the State of Illinois, at Spring- field, September 19, 1883; admitted to the bar by the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri, October 12, 1886; admitted to practice in the Federal courts by the U. S. District Court, Southern District of Illinois, September 10, 1895; to the Circuit Court of U. S. Southern District of Illinois, September 11, 1905; to the U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit, September 11, 1905; to the Supreme Court of the State of Iowa, October 16, 1908; and to the U. S. Supreme Court, December 10, 1913.

On August 28, 1901, Mr. Brockschmidt was united in marriage with Mathilde L. Loire, a native of Saint Louis, Missouri. Mr. and Mrs. Brockschmidt have no children. Politically Mr. Brockschmidt is a democrat, and religiously he is affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church. Professionally he belongs to the Illinois, Missouri and Iowa State Bar associations, and to the American Bar Association.

JOSEPH J. ZIMMERMAN. The name Zimmerman has been a familiar one in Quincy history for over half a century, and has been especially identified with

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the iron working trades. Joseph J. Zimmerman is an experienced blacksmith and carriage-smith and now conducts the large wagon and carriage factory at 105 North Third Street which was established by his brother, the late Alvis L. Zimmerman, many years ago. Alvis L. Zimmerman died December 1, 1913, and his successor in the business is Joseph J. Zimmerman, who had been in the shops for thirty-two years. The factory is one of Quincy's important local institutions, and turns out a large amount of material in carriages and also automobile trucks. Alvis L. Zimmerman had conducted this business for forty odd years. He was a thoroughly practical mechanic, skilled in every branch of the iron and wood working industry.

Joseph J. Zimmerman was born December 12, 1866, in the old family home at 514 Kentucky Street, where all his brothers and sisters were also born. He is a son of Michael and Josephine (Schmidt) Zimmerman. His parents were both born in Hesse Darmstadt, Germany, of Catholic families. They left their native country when young, came in sailing vessels to the United States and from Castle Garden came westward to Quincy, where they married. Michael Zimmerman owned a rock quarry and lime kiln near Quincy and was a lime burner until his death in 1869 when past fifty-six years of age. His widow survived him until 1902 and lived at the home of her son Alvis, where she died aged seventy-seven. Both parents were members of St. Boniface Catholic Church. Michael Zimmerman was a liberal supporter of church activities of every kind. In the family were three sons and one daughter: Alvis L., who married Mary Avercamp, also deceased, and they had two children, Hilda who is married, and Blanche. Anton died thirty years ago at the age of thirty-two. The next son is Joseph J. Mary, the oldest of the family, was born on Kentucky Street, sixty-five years ago, was educated in the parochial schools, and died November 30, 1918. She was the widow of William Boland and had two chil- dren, Albert and Josie.

Joseph J. Zimmerman grew up at Quincy, was educated in the local schools and learned his trade as an iron worker with his brother. He married in Quincy Cletta Moss, who was born in this city in 1871. Her parents, Henry and Elizabeth (Blickhan) Moss, were natives of Germany, but were married after they came to Quincy. Her father was for thirty-two years a coachman for Henry Bull, a prominent Quincy banker, and died while in his service. Her widowed mother is still living at the age of seventy-four. Mrs. Zimmerman's parents and family were also active Catholics. Mr. and Mrs. Zimmerman are members of St. Francis Catholic Church. They are the parents of eight children : Olivia, wife of Fred Kraemer of Quincy and mother of four children ; Agnes, who married Frank Wattercutter in Camp Grant; Freda, at home; Margaret, wife of Mark Brushan, who is a farmer in this county ; Lawrence J., who is a very capable iron mechanic and employed in his father's shop ; Richard, Alfred and Ralph, the two older still in school.

J. W. EDWARD BITTER, M. D. A physician and surgeon of more than thirty years practice and experience, there is not a member of the profession in Quincy more generously esteemed and liked by his fellow associates and by the public in general than Doctor Bitter. He is a graduate of the Quincy College of Medicine with the class of 1886, and in 1898 was awarded a post-graduate certificate by the Philadelphia Polyclinic. After completing his medical studies he began practice on Washington Street, at No. 829, and was there nearly thirty years, until he removed to his present beautiful home and office at 1130 State Street. This is in many ways one of the most charming homes of Quincy. Doctor Bitter is a man of exceeding domestic temperament and the greatest happiness of his life is when he is spending his hours with his happy family. Doctor Bitter began the study of medicine at Quincy under Dr. John C. Curtis, and pursned his readings under that direction two years before entering college. He is a member of the Adams County Medical Society and his attainments as a practitioner well justifies the esteem in which he is held.

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Adams County has not a more sterling patriot than Doctor Bitter. He is heart and soul in the present great war and regards it an opportunity and privilege to give his time and means to every cause connected with army work and everything that will promote the success of the allied program.

Doctor Bitter, whose full name is John Wilhelm Eduard, was born at Quincy April 4, 1863. The home in which he was born stood on the site of the present Evangelical Lutheran Church at the corner of State and Ninth streets. He was educated in the parochial and public schools, and in early life mani- fested that ambition and determined character which have brought him the position he now enjoys.

Ilis father was John Henry Bitter, a prominent and successful business man of Quincy for many years. He was born at Laar in Kreis Herford, Ger- many, August 3, 1834. He came to the United States, landing at New Orleans, in 1852 and soon afterwards reaching Quincy, where he took up his trade as stone cutter. In March, 1855, he married at Quincy Miss Annie Menke, who was born in the same district of Germany as her husband on February 9, 1834, and had also come to this country in 1852. The father built up a large busi- ness as a stone mason contractor, and lived in Quincy until his death in 1890, at the age of fifty-six. His widow survived him until August, 1917, and at the time of her death was aged eighty-two years, five months, twenty-seven days. They were members of the Lutheran church and the father was a republican and was affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows in both the Lodge and Encampment. He and his wife had six children : Henry, born June 17, 1857 ; Hannah, born November 20, 1859; Doctor Bitter; Anna Wilhelmina, born December 3, 1868; Anna Lidia, born May 11, 1871; and Anna Amanda, born March 3, 1875.

The same year he graduated in medicine Doctor Bitter married at Mays- ville, Missouri, Miss Joanna L. Beatty. She was born in West Virginia, daughter of Josiah and Phoebe E. (Taylor) Beatty, also natives of the same state. In 1863 her parents moved to Maysville, Missouri, where her father died at the age of eighty, and her mother at eighty-three. Both were active members of the Methodist church. They had lived together as man and wife for fifty-seven years, and in that time there was not a single break in the family circle by death.

Doctor and Mrs. Bitter have six children: Eleanor A., a graduate of the Gem City Business College and now an employe with the Booth Fisheries Com- pany at Chicago; Laura, wife of Percy C. Henry, of New York City, is the mother of one daughter Gertrude E .; Arthur W., a graduate of the University of Missouri and from the University of Pennsylvania with the class of 1918 and now a member of the Medical Reserve Corps of the United States Army ; Florence, a trained nurse now in hospital practice; Milton E., a graduate of the Quincy High School in 1917; and Agnes V., who also will graduate from the Quincy High School in 1919. Doctor and Mrs. Bitter are members of the Methodist church.

HENRY F. MUEGGE. In this era of high priced lands and high priced farm products, when a farmer is supposed to be rolling in wealth, it is interesting and instructive to refer somewhat in detail to the experience of such a man as Henry F. Muegge, whose prosperity and enterprise are above question and who acquired that success under circumstances vastly different from those now prevailing in the agricultural world. In fact Mr. Muegge began with nothing but his bare hands. He worked successively as a farm hand, farm renter, modest farm owner, and has bought hundreds of acres of land at a value now repre- sented by ten or twenty bushels of wheat, has sold fat cattle at $50 a head, and hogs at 3 and 4 cents a pound. Mr. Muegge is now living retired in a comfort- able home at Quincy, but still spends much time looking after his farms, and has one excellent place in Burton Township.

Mr. Muegge was born in Germany and was brought to this country in

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infaney by his parents, David and Mary Muegge. He was thirteen or fourteen years old when his old family minister supplied him with the date of his birth- December 25, Christmas Day of 1853. His father died at Quiney about six months after coming to this country. There were just two sons, William and Henry. William, two years older than Henry, was reared by his unele Henry John Menke, remembered as a pioneer planing mill man in Quiney, Illinois. William Mnegge subsequently learned the carpenter's trade, lived for many years at Tioga in Hancock County, and is now retired in Quiney at 12th and Jefferson streets.

Henry F. Muegge grew up with his mother and in after years made a home for her and supported her until his own marriage. She was a woman that de- served mueh credit, and in order to support herself and her son she took in washing. After the marriage of Henry she lived in his home and later went to the home of a daughter, Mrs. Cupp, of Hamilton in Haneock County, and died at a good old age.

For several years Henry Muegge had the advantages of the publie schools in Haneoek County, and also attended parochial school there. He was fourteen or fifteen years of age when he assumed the serious task of supporting himself. He worked out by the year at $10 a month for Sutter G. Budiker. He was then quite small for his age, but was an earnest worker and earned every cent that was paid him. All his wages went to the support of his mother. At eighteen Mr. Muegge came to Mendown Township and was employed at $18 a month by Peter Wible for three years. In a short time his wages were advaneed to $20. For two years he was also employed by Clarke Striekler, receiving $200 for nine months. While in the employ of Mr. Strickler he married Miss Hannah H. Mowe, who was born at 701 Washington Street in Quiney, eighteen years before her marriage.

When he married Mr. Muegge had accumulated $500 in savings, and also owned a house and lot at Tioga where his mother lived. He began as a renter near Mendon for one year, until that farm was sold, and then moved a mile and a half south and half a mile east of Melrose Chapel and five miles from Quincy. His experience there was not profitable and he moved to another farm in the same vieinity, ninety aeres, which was owned by his unele, Henry Menke. He rented that land for $600 a year cash rent, and was on it for eight years. He then bought the place at $6,000, paying $1,000 in cash and the rest on time. In seven years time he had it paid for, and he did this through the produets of the land and by stock dealing. Probably the keynote to Mr. Muegge's suecess has been his skillful and energetie enterprise as a stock dealer. He has always handled stock and seldom has his judgment been betrayed. Besides his home farm he rented other land and frequently had as high as 400 acres under his management. In the meantime he had bought an adjoining forty aeres, giving him 130 aeres of his own. After fifteen years he sold that place and located on the old Daniel Wible farm in Ursa Township, this being a 160 aere place, a mile and a half east of old Ursa. He bought this farm for $16,000, going $6,000 in debt. By this time he was well under way and was willing to assume what many men would have regarded as risky obligations, having complete faith in his own ability to pay out and make good. The next year after buying the Wible farm he bought forty-five aeres at $80 an acre, two years later took on a 140 aere place in Mendon Township at $25 an aere, and in the same year bought twenty aeres adjoining the 140 at $30 an acre. The next year he acquired the 150 acres known as the Grimes farm, which was sold at an admin- istrator's sale for $8,500. These various traets gave him more than 500 aeres and he operated the entire tract under his direet supervision. His policy then as always was running large numbers of stock in his fields, and this was not only a money making plan but did much to improve the fertility and advance the value of the land. At his last sale Mr. Muegge had ninety head of eattle and his total receipts from the sale ran over $5,000. When Mr. Muegge sold the old Wible farm to Mrs. William Nickerson, the sale was talked of for many

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days, as the place brought $20,000. He also sold forty-five acres at $125 an acre, and soon afterwards turned over the Grimes farm of 150 acres to his oldest son, Harry, who still owns it. Mr. Muegge owns 160 acres in the same vicinity, and it also is under the management of his son Harry. After thus disposing of his land holdings Mr. Muegge moved to Quincy, and has one of the good city homes at 1022 Kentucky Street.

However, he was not content to remain idle. Soon afterward he paid $17 an acre for 240 acres in Marion County, Missouri. A short time later he sold this at an advanced value, and then invested in eighty acres at Coatsburg at $40 an acre. He has also bought and sold some property in Quincy, and has always added something of value to every farm he has owned. Several years ago Mr. Muegge bought the Reinhart Cook place of 210 acres in Burton Town- ship, eight miles east of Quincy. He acquired this land at a public sale at the courthouse in Quincy, and at once put his son Fred on the property. Fred operated the farm until his death December 29, 1918. Mr. Muegge spends much time there supervising operations. Fred Muegge, who was born in Mel- rose Township, was thirty-four years of age at the time of his death, and left a widow and four children. He was a devout member of St. James Church.

Mr. Muegge has always kept hogs. At one time he owned as many as 500. Even at $3.35 a hundred he found hog growing fairly profitable. He has sold corn for 25 cents a bushel, wheat at 70 cents, and for three years his crop of this golden grain brought only 60 cents a bushel. This schedule of low prices prevailed during a large part of the time while Mr. Muegge was paying for his lands. The explanation of his successful career is merely the old story of a very able and energetic man who would be successful in any time and under almost any circumstances, and without the aid of high prices fixed by the Government.

Mr. Muegge is a republican in politics. He is a member of the German Lutheran Church and has always been interested in movements for the im- provement and welfare of the various districts in which he has lived.

He and his wife had the following children: Harry, a farmer in Mendon Township ; William, in Lewis County, Missouri; Edward, of Mendon Town- ship; Fred, deceased; Matilda, a trained nurse; Charles, of Rock Island, Illinois; Arthur, who is an invalid; Selma, who attended the Macomb Normal School, has taught in Adams County and is at home; Esther, also a graduate of the Macomb Normal and an Adams County teacher; and Emil, a student of Gem City Business College of Quincy.

GUSTAVE A. BAUMAN has been an active business man of Quincy more than forty years. Since 1886 he has been in the loan, mortgage and general money brokerage business, and continuously at Quincy except two years spent in another city. He is a recognized specialist on the subject of farm loans, and that is now the basis of most his work, carried on in Adams and adjacent counties and also in the State of Missouri. From 1886 to 1898 he was associated with Mr. T. C. Poling, one of the prominent business men of Quincy, and from 1898 to 1905 was in partnership with the late John S. Crittenden. At that time he was located in the Blackstone Building, but since 1907 has been in business for himself at his present location, 300 6th Avenue, North.

Mr. G. A. Bauman is not only a good business man, but one of the men upon whose good citizenship Quincy has come to rely. He has been a most enthusiastic supporter of America's part in the present war and has given two of his sons with commissions as officers to the service. In reviewing his past career Mr. Bauman finds that its most strenuous period was the thirteen years from 1873 to 1886 when he spent from sixteen to seventeen hours every day, including parts of Sundays, in his father's meat market at 20 North 6th Street, between Maine and Hampshire streets, as salesman and general manager. He regards this now as a splendid discipline, one that gave him a thorough com- prehension of the fundamentals of business detail, and likewise developed his

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physical power and endurance, and this has not been the least asset of his sub- sequent business career. Mr. Bauman is still a strong man physically and would easily pass for being twenty years younger than he is.

He was born at Herman, Missouri, thirty miles east of Jefferson City, Decem- ber 14, 1857. He spent his early life at Herman until 1873, when the family moved to Quincy. He is a son of Engel and Louise (Danzisen) Banman. His father was born in Canton Uri, Switzerland, where the name was spelled Bu- man. His birth oceurred in 1824 and as a young man he went to France and later was passenger on a sailing vessel that required three months to cross the Atlantic and land him in New Orleans. He proceeded up the river to Herman, Missouri. He lived in a time when there were wonderful opportunities for a man of courage and dauntless spirit and in his lifetime he saw many countries and played many interesting parts. In 1849, with some others of his fellow countrymen, he crossed the plains to the golden shores of California. While in the West he met the famous Sutter, who was also a native of Switzerland, and whom history credits as having first discovered gold in California. Engel Bauman mined gold for some time, then returned to the States, and again went west, on this trip doubling Cape Horn. He knew California in the time and conditions that have been so vividly deseribed by Bret Harte and other writers. After this experience he did saw milling in Missouri along the Missouri River during the Civil war and until 1873, when he brought his family to Quiney. In Quincy he established a meat market, and was active in that business until 1886, when he retired. He died in 1902, at the age of seventy-nine.

While living at Herman, Missouri, Engel Bauman married Louise Danzisen, who was born in Baden, Germany, February 11, 1838, and as a child was left an orphan. She came to America to join her kindred in Missouri. After her marriage she worked faithfully and loyally with her husband in rearing their family, and is still living in Quincy at the age of eighty-one years. Gustave A. Bauman was the oldest of his parents' five children. One daughter, Louise, died in 1875, at the age of sixteen. The second oldest is Louis P., who with his brother Eugene live in Kansas and both are active stockmen. Both are married but have no children. Otto, the other child, was educated in the Quincy schools and also the State University and for many years has been a clerk for his brother Gustave and is also married but has no children.

Gustave A. Bauman married at St. Louis, Missouri, March 26, 1890, Augusta L. Frendenstein. She was born at St. Louis of German parentage and was reared and educated there. Her father, who died thirty years ago, was in the grocery business at St. Louis and her mother is still living and was eighty-four years of age on December 19, 1918.

For all that he has accomplished in a business way Mr. Bauman takes more pride in his children than anything else. His oldest ehild, Eugenia, born at Quiney twenty-seven years ago, was educated in the high school and St. Louis University and is now the wife of Charles L. Carr, only son of Mr. and Mrs. Daniel J. Carr of Quincy. Mr. and Mrs. Carr now live in Kansas City, Missouri, where he is a successful lawyer, being a graduate of Northwestern University of Evanston, Illinois.

The second child and older son of Mr. and Mrs. Bauman is William G., who is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, is a lawyer by profession, but over a year ago received his commission as a lieutenant at Fort Sheridan and is now first lieutenant in the Forty-Second Machine Gun Battalion, Four- teenth Division, at Camp Custer, Michigan.

The second son, Gustave A., Jr., is a graduate of the University of Wiseon- sin and has taken the agricultural course. He was also a candidate for a com- mission at Fort Sheridan in the officer's Reserve Corps, and is now a First Lieutenant and organizer of the Three Hundred and Forty-Third Tank Corps Battalion, located at Camp Polk, Raleigh, North Carolina.

The family are members of the Congregational Church. Mr. Bauman is affiliated with Lambert Lodge No. 569, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons and

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with the Royal Areh Chapter and Knights Templar Commandery and Con- sistory. His sons are also members of Lambert Lodge.

AUGUST F. STOCKHECKE came to Adams County fifty years ago. For four deeades he steadily pursued his way as a farmer, home maker and one of the most industrious citizens of his community, and sinee then has enjoyed a well earned retirement and some of the comforts of eity life in a good home at 1030 Kentucky Street, Quincy.

August F. Stockhecke was born in Westphalia, Germany, September 18, 1842, son of Philip and Elizabeth (Bolkenbrink) Stockheeke, natives of the same district of Germany and German farmers. They spent all their lives in the old country and were members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Of their sons and daughters only two are now living, Angust and Henry. The latter when a young man eame to America and has been a thrifty and pro- gressive farmer of Mendon Township. He is married and has three children.

August F. Stockhecke grew up on his father's farm in Westphalia and had the usual common school education supplied to German boys. He was called into the army and his period of service was during a particularly eventful time in the growth of the Prussian Empire. He was in some of the campaigns of 1864-66 while Prussia was aequiring from Denmark the provinces of Schleswig- Holstein. He had some very narrow escapes and one time a shell exploded immediately in front of him and threw him down, but by some miraele left him without serious injury. At the conelusion of his army service in Decem- ber, 1866, Mr. Stockhecke married Miss Wilhelmina Stockshiek. She was born in Lippe Detmold, Germany, December 7, 1842, and was reared and educated there. Her parents were Helmer and Louise (Hietkamp) Stockshiek, both natives of Lippe Detmold and farmers there. The Stockshiek family came to America and the mother died at St. Louis at the age of fifty-six, soon after arriv- ing, while the father survived many years and passed away at the age of seventy-four. The Stockshieks were also members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Three of Mrs. Stockhecke's sisters are still living, all married and have children of their own.

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Quincy and Adams County history and representative men, Vol. II, Part 4

Author: Wilcox, David F., 1851- ed Publication date: 1919 Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 952

Author: Wilcox, David F., 1851- ed
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 952