Bio: Schmidt, Hon. Nicholas (1860 - 19??)

Contact: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

E-mail: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Schmidt, Friedl, Gunjen

---Source: History of Marathon County Wisconsin and Representative Citizens, by Louis Marchetti, 1913.

---Schmidt, Hon. Nicholas (2 November 1860 - 19??)

HON. NICHOLAS SCHMIDT, a member of the General Assembly of the State of Wisconsin, in 1906, 1907, 1908, 1909, 1910, 1911 and 1912, in which public body he gave honorable and efficient service, has long been one of the representative men of Marathon City, a promoter of many of its most successful enterprises and interested in many of its most important concerns. He was born in a Rhine Province, Germany, November 2, 1860, and is a son of Nicholas and Margaret Schmidt.  

When twenty years of age, Nicholas Schmidt came alone to the United States leaving behind his parents and four sisters the youngest of whom later came to this country also and lived in Minnesota. In Germany Mr. Schmidt had learned the trade of locksmith and machinist and when he found his first home in America, at Westpoint, Nebr., he worked there for six months. He had never before been separated from his people and there are hundreds who read this record who will sympathize with his homesickness that induced him to start on the long return journey to his native land. He had friends in Chicago and when he reached them they succeeded in overcoming his nostalgia and he gave up his idea of going back to Germany and continued to work at his trade in that city until 1887. He then met with an accident that gave him a broken shoulder blade and this precluded all expectation of his ever being able to resume his trade work. He then embarked in a flour, feed, wood and coal business at Chicago, afterward went into the real estate business there which he continued until 1902, in which year he bought the Marathon City Brewery, at Marathon City, Wis., and came to this place and assumed control in September of that year. In 1905 he made it a stock company and it became the Marathon City Brewing Company, Mr. Schmidt being president, treasurer and manager until December 31, 1910, when, on account of ill health, he gave up the management of the business. During this time he had become interested in other enterprises, organizing the State Bank of Marathon City, of which he was elected first president and continued at the head of that institution until December, 1911. He was one of the main organizers of the Marathon City Telephone Company and was its first president, and also organized the Marathon Excelsior Manufacturing Company. Although somewhat retired from business he retains his stock in all the concerns with which he was formerly actively identified.  

Mr. Schmidt was married at Chicago, Ill., to: Miss Mary Friedl, who died there, the mother of four children: Frederick M., a physician and surgeon, at Eagle, Wis.; Charles N., who is engaged in the brewery business at Chicago; Thomas E., who is a member of the class of 1914 in the medical department of the Missouri University at St. Louis; and Arthur, who died at Marathon City, when aged eleven years. On May 2, 1899, Mr. Schmidt married Miss Berta Gunjen, who was born in Germany, and they enjoyed some months of travel afterward in Europe.

They are members of St. Mary's Catholic Church at Marathon City. He has been a lifelong Democrat and has frequently served in local offices and for six years was a member of the village board. He is identified with the Catholic Order of Foresters, the Germania, and the National Union.