WAUPACA COUNTY POST

March 27, 2003

 

When Waupaca Was Young

By Dan Nerhaugen

 

Settler Found the Waupaca He Imagined had ‘Shriveled Up’

 

            A century ago this month, one early Waupaca arrival recalled his shock at the community’s mid-19th-century sparseness and isolation, and his pluck in dealing with the hardships he faced.

            The March 19, 1903, Waupaca Post reported, “The Sunday Sentinel of March contained an interesting interview with C.G. Dreutzer, who formerly lived in this city.  The following extracts will entertain the old settlers:

            “‘When I was a boy in the old country,’ said C.G. Dreutzer, the president of Riverside Printing Company, ‘my people used to get out the map of the United States and study it with a great deal of interest.

            “After a family consultation, or many of them, I finally obtained parental consent to come to America.  It was my ambition to become a civil engineer.  I shipped on an emigrant vessel as second steward, there being 200 passengers on board, headed for this country in search of homes.

            “‘The dot upon the map that had attracted the attention of the old people carried the name of Waupaca, Wisconsin.

            “‘When I arrived the dot on the map representing the large city of Waupaca in my imagination had shriveled up to a few scattered homes, a half-dozen stores, a blacksmith shop, and one or two minor industries.

            “‘In 1862 there were no railroads in Wisconsin north of Oshkosh, that city being the terminus of the Chicago and Northwestern railroad.  The mail in the winter was carried by stages from Oshkosh up to Stevens Point and adjacent territory via Gills Landing on the Wolf River and Waupaca.”

            About two years after Dreutzer’s arrival, the Civil War “‘was on, and I went to Fond du Lac, and in January, 1862, visited the camp of Fourteenth Wisconsin and succeeded in enlisting.’”

            A wound, said the article, ended his wartime service.

            “‘Disheartened and discouraged,’” Dreutzer’s narrative continued, “‘I returned to Waupaca.

            “‘I hired out to a cooper to pile staves with my arm in a sling, making about 50 cents a day.  While I was thus engaged I attracted the attention of the Episcopal clergyman, the Rev. Martin Sorensen, who was the first county clerk.  I boarded with him, sharing his eldest boy’s bed, cleaning his horse, and making myself generally useful so far as I was able with one arm in a sling.  The Rev. Mr. Sorensen was engaged in building an Episcopal church, and I stained and varnished every seat in the auditorium and had it ready for dedication in March, 1863.’”

 

            The article concluded by noting that Dreutzer had gone on to become “principal owner of one of the largest printing offices in the state.”