HESCH HISTORY: Sheriff Armstrong objects to mudslinging c. 1912

This branch of the Austrian Hesch family is descended from Johann Hesch and his wife Marya (Schlinz) Hesch, who came to America from Oberschlagles, Bohemia with three sons: Paul, Mathias, and Anton. +++Johann & Marya settled in Buffalo County, Wisconsin but moved to Pierz, Mn in about 1885. .+++Mathias settled in Waumandee, Wisconsin and moved to Pierz in 1911. +++Anton never married but farmed with his dad in Agram Township, where he died in 1911.+++And Paul, my great grandfather, settled five miles away, in Buckman, Minnesota. He died there in 1900.

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Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Sheriff Armstrong objects to mudslinging c. 1912

In May of 1912 there was a murder in Rail Prairie, Morrison County (now part of Scandia Valley Township). Here's the account of the murder from the

PJ article, May, 1912. Jeanette Page, 52, wife of Freeman Page, died on her way home from Sunday school that day a hundred years ago.

Later, in September, when the election for Sheriff was heating up, the incumbent posted this article in the Pierz Journal to refute what his opponent was saying about his extravagant ways with YOUR money.

Politics never changes, huh?

I'm posting the article not because of the murder, but because it's an amazing and unexpected snapshot of that point in time--how available the telephone was or wasn't, how much a hotel room and train travel cost, that 'livery' meant renting a car OR renting horses, and that bus routes existed in Morrison back then. It's interesting too that the sheriff's "aids" were paid $3.00 a day, including one Mack Rail, whose family the township was named after.