Who was Magnus Rauch?

Over the years, two family names in the Buckman/Pierz area sorta ran together in my head until I realized they WERE different.  

Our great grandmother Louisa Sand was born Louisa RAUSCH (pronounced Rau-ssh), right?  

The other similar name was RAUCH (pronounced Rau-K).  
(When I mentioned this to Uncle Tony, he said "well, yeah"...like it wasn't news).

Anyway, the Rauchs lived in Agram township, NE of the Anton Hesch 280, SW of Pierz and Genola. (This Anton was our great-great uncle--born in Bohemia, brother of Paul and Mathias...or, g'head, read the blog header again ☺)

See? Rauchs were just south of the lake...the tan map is 1902, the green one, 1912.

The photos below were in the Morrison Co Atlas, in the Historic Photos section. I don't know names, but the Rauch families were neighbors and friends of the Heschs (John Hesch after Anton died in 1911), so they were part of our history. I assume Magnus Rauch was John Rauch's son, and that Agnes and Claudine were Magnus' daughters.  If you know different, leave it in a comment and I'll change this post--Thanks!

 Next day:  Here's something Larry just found in the Brainerd Paper.  As he said, remember the war games held in Morrison County in 1940?  Magnus Rauch was a land owner and a county Commissioner.  (It's nice to know that the gov't wasn't able to just commandeer the right to  use all that land, too). COOL, huh?

Agram compared over 28 years

                                 

On the left, the plat map from Agram township in 1892, and on the right, Agram in 1920.  It never ocurred to me before that the RR tracks crossed **John Hesch's land--doesn't it make you wonder how that was worked out?  Did those landowners have a provision in their deeds re: if and when the railroad decided to lay tracks?  It couldn't have been part of 'eminent domain' because we know the railroad owned the land in the first place.

When I drove around the area last summer, the tracks were already an ATV trail, and anyway, I couldn't tell which land was originally his from that perspective. 

**This John Hesch (1890-1977), farmer, was born in Waumandee, Wisconsin, son of Paul's brother Mathias.  He moved to Pierz with his parents in 1911, and took over the farm that was originally owned by his grandfather John (Johann) Hesch, the immigrant....so the name on the plat map in 1892 meant Johann Hesch, and the name in 1920 referred to ◄this man...

The third John Hesch (1878-1926) ►was Pauls own son.  He owned a store in Center Valley and in Buckman, and he had five kids with his wife, Ket Mueller. 

(This is most likely why there are few Hesch's named JOHN now...lol)

Agram Township, 1892

Now, THIS is cool. It's 1892, five years before our great-great grandfather Johann Hesch died (me, dad, Anton, Paul, Johann). This map is from the Morrison County Plat book, and the village of Pierz (Rich Prairie) is just off the top right corner.

Click it to biggify. Recognize any names?

There were 57 pages in the book, and on page 56, this "List of Patrons" included the name of their farms, and what they specialized in.

Ok, so John didn't name his farm, but he's listed as "Farmer and Stock Breeder". Close enough.


From the same page, here're the Buckman patrons. I wonder: did Frank Mischke pay extra for all that?

Again, note that these are not ALL the farmers, just the "patrons". Ka-ching!