Five Cent Drink Token

I grew up in Fond du Lac, 25 miles north of Mayville.  My great-grandfather, Albert Schuessler,  had a tavern there. Below is a five cent drink token from that tavern, which I found thanks to Hank Thoele.    Unpublished pamphlet titled  Wisconsin Three Hundred Saloon Era Tokens-1865-1920 (Unpublished document prepared for meeting of Numismatists of Wisconsin, State Convention, Appleton, Wisconsin: May, 25 & 26, 1985, and 10 Year Update 2008).  Thanks, Hank!   

My grandmother, Margaret Schuessler (1896-1990),  wife of Arthur Schuessler who was a child of Albert, told me that when she was at the Schuessler house there was always a pitcher of beer which they would set down in the  middle of  the supper table.   

Albert Schuessler came from a brewing tradition going back to his grandfather, Joseph Schuessler (1819-1904).  Joseph Schussler was born in Gottesdorf, Province of Baden, Germany where he learned to be a cooper (barrel maker)  and brewer.  He came to this country in 1840, to Milwaukee,  and there for a time he worked at the same trades with Franz Neukirch, a fairly well known Milwaukee settlor and pioneer Milwaukee brewer.  Joseph  claimed that while in Milwaukee he was the only brewer who could also make casks and barrels.    In 1848 Joseph married Fannie Neukirch, a daughter of Franz, and in 1849  they moved to Oshkosh where Joseph opened a brewery, and after that venture failed he worked at his barrel making and may have helped out at one of the two local breweries  until 1861 when he moved to Fond du Lac.  Before you get to the Fond du Lac part of Joseph's working history, anyone interested gets jarred by what happened on Friday, January 18, 1861:

In 1861 Schussler’s story takes a tragic and somewhat odd turn. Following in his father’s footsteps, Schussler’s 12 year-old son August had gone to work at the Frey Brewery in Fond du Lac. On January 18, 1861 August Schussler was tending a machine probably used for milling grain at the brewery when he fell into the machinery and was instantly crushed to death. Within months of August Schussler’s death, Joseph Schussler moved his family to Fond du Lac and went to work at the brewery where his son had been killed.

Oshkosh Beer blog  of Lee Reiherzer, an excellent Oshkosh beer historian.

A 12 year old dies on the job? I looked up the law and found that Wisconsin law at that time allowed minors at least 12 years of age (changed to 13 in 1889 and 14 in 1897) to work, but what parents would let their boy do that? Actually, in 1861 there was nothing unusual about a 12 year old working. Why wasn't August in school that Friday? Wisconsin did not enact compulsory education into law until 1879, and in 1861 only the more well-to-do families would have had a child in school at age 12 or older. Boys and especially farm boys, but others as well, had to work to help the family make ends meet.  My heart goes out to young August,  who was sent off from Oshkosh to work in Fond du Lac, and ended up dead. No doubt his mother and father were sick about this horrible accident for the rest of their lives.

But Joseph persevered. As Lee Reiherzer says, after this tragic death in  Fond du Lac, Joseph Schuessler moved from Oshkosh to Fond du Lac where he ran that  Frey Brewery, the brewery on Macy Street which was owned by a brother-in-law. Joseph operated that brewery until 1865, and then he  went back to barrel making until 1871. In 1871 he built the West Hill Brewery in  Fond du Lac. With the West Hill Brewery Joseph finally experienced some success, for almost 20 years. Joseph owned and operated that brewery until 1890, when he turned the brewery over to his sons, but the place was destroyed by fire in 1891.   You can read some of this history here,   but there are parts of what I've just recited  which are  Schuessler oral history, handed down by way of stories from one generation to the next.

My reaction to Joseph?  He was an immigrant,  only 30 years old when he started his own business with a partner in Oshkosh, and if you read that Oshkosh-Fond du Lac story you see that there were many ups and downs, and that he needed the barrel making to get  through the downs.   Life today is tough as well, but you can't compare it to those difficult  nineteenth century days, when making a living and just having enough food to eat was a  huge struggle.  On top of that he had to live with the guilt that he must have experienced after August died.    But  Joseph  stuck with his work for over 50 years.  Most people at that time were lucky if they lived to age 70.  Joseph not only lived but he worked and ran a business until that age, and then he lived to age 85.    Now for a guy from the old country to pull that off,  to bounce back from struggles, and keep at it, as Joseph did,  that's what this  country is all about.  Give a person a chance, and see what he can do with it.

Joseph was a skilled cooper and entrepreneur brewer.   His grandson, Albert Schuessler,  the son one of Charles, who was one of Joseph's ten children,  had the Fond du Lac tavern, where you would have found  these year 1911 tokens which bore his name.  That's not so bad either.

Albert Schuessler Tavern "Five Cent Drink" token. Ca. 1911.                
Public Domain image.    In  1911 Albert Schuessler was listed
  at 14 N. Brooke St., Fond du Lac, WI  Credit: Hank Thoele, image at   tokencatalog.com

About the Blog

From the "About this Blog" side section on the main page:

This is is a local history blog. Anyone who deals with this subject must be careful to state facts correctly and give credit to sources.    I will make every effort to do that.  And perhaps I'll turn up some new material.   But  I’m not focused on revealing new things.   I prefer to provide reactions to  facts which are already well documented.

What does this  mean?   It means that you have to get the story right, because if you don't get it right you confuse the community.  But if  local history is all about the facts, and only the facts,  then my rebuttal comes from  the Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller song made  a hit  in 1969 by the great jazz singer Peggy Lee, and with Peggy I would say this:    "Is That All There Is?"

Is local history a collection of facts, of news, maps, photos, statistics and objects?   Yes, these are the raw material.  But there is also the matter of reacting to the facts.  What does it mean to react?   It's what we all do every day as we talk to each other in response to the news, at work, at the local bar and at church.   

Reaction can be pure observation, finding something interesting, upsetting or engaging  in local  persons, places and things.  Or, it can go deeper than that to that point where you can ask a broader questions such as this: Does a fact of Mayville’s history have a connection to  the history of the nation?  (Before you roll your eyes, this issue actually comes up in the opening post  about the stove.) What makes a particular detail important, or interesting,  from the standpoint of culture study?  Also, when your only concern is getting all of the facts, you can miss the "pathos," the suffering, passion, beauty and emotion in the history.


Because I'd like to work from the facts and reflect on them as best I can, in this blog I'll ask a lot of questions. I see six questions in this post alone. That used to drive my parents crazy. But for me it's the best way to frame an issue, and deal with a story.

Why Local History?

From the naming of this blog you get an idea as to  why I have launched it.     This is a blog about “place.”   To get to know the place, locals learn of  the life and times of individual people, and about businesses, groups, churches and organizations. We also look at particular places and objects (like the stove) to see  how they fit with the history of the place.  Why bother to do that? For me one reason is that study of local history is an excellent cure for boredom.  But a second reason is that those who learn may also become those who care about the welfare of the place.

David Orr argues that for a community to thrive  people need to have an active understanding of place, an “intentional involvement” with the  place where they live.  David W. Orr,  Ecological Literacy: Education and the Transition to a Postmodern World, p. 130  (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press 1992). Attending to place is  "good inhabitance"  which  requires "detailed knowledge of a place ... and a sense of care and rootedness."  P. 130.     Orr compares good inhabitance with mere residency which requires only "cash and a map."  P. 130.   Some people achieve a deep connection with a place, while others, and this includes long 
time residents,  merely pass through.  P. 130.  People who ignore the place suffer as a result, and the place suffers as well.

Mayville, WI   1861    Credit:  Image of  1861 Drawing by
Paul Biersach,  Public Domain   For more on this
drawing contact  Mayville Historical Society, Inc.  

Getting "detailed knowledge of a place" means  that you learn the local stories, the history.  You have to hope that those who take time to learn will be more than dilettantes.  That's where Orr's "sense of care" comes in.   If you care, you will work to improve your city.   This is my take on David Orr's theory of community improvement. His ideas as I have stated them  may sound simplistic,  but they make sense to me, and I see live examples in Mayville.   I  know some solid people here who won't be reading Orr, but who tell  the stories, take pride in the city,  and help out around town just as Orr describes


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Cast Iron Stove

This blog is a collection of thoughts on local history.  I'm not likely reveal a lot of new factual  material in this blog.  The purpose here is to interact with the facts that have already been well documented.   I have titled this blog  Cast Iron Stove,  in recognition of the famous stove which is the subject of this post.   For me local history starts  with the stove.  It is pictured and discussed in  this Wisconsin Historical Museum article.   The thing itself is not what's important here.  If you stop to look at the stove which now sits at the Mayville Limestone School Museum you might not give it much thought.  After all, a parlor stove was a commonplace  item in 1846.   Why name this blog after an ordinary object?  Local history is about finding meaning in the commonplace.  The stove came to life for me after I read this striking description from the Wisconsin curator:  

Objects that document a single moment of transition from "frontier" to "civilization" are rare. The Mayville stove is one such object. Cast in 1846, it is the first stove ever made from iron deposits in Wisconsin, and it marks the birth of an industry in what was then just a fledgling village in Dodge County.

Online curator's  Exhibit description of Mayville Iron Parlor Stove [Museum object #1999.141.1].  This exhibit description has a good history of the stove, and I won't repeat it here.  See also  item 3 of the Mayville references below.

Chester May and his son  Eli May had the stove built,  from iron deposits taken from their land just south of town,  and now the stove serves as a kind of historical sign which "marks the birth" of iron mining and points to the future of iron work in Wisconsin.   The iron works started with the state's first furnace which began smelting iron ore in Mayville in 1848.

Northwestern Iron Works 1916 postcard, Mayville, WI

One way to achieve a connection with a place is to get to know its stories.  That gets back to my thoughts as to the naming of this blog.  The stove takes you back to the birth of Mayville and the great story of of the discovery of iron by Chester and Eli.  (And yes, I know there are some who say it was  the local native Americans who pointed out the iron  - the "red dirt" -   to the Mays.)   Life gets pretty drab without stories, but I don't have to worry about that because this community is full of them. 

And with the closing  of the Mayville  Iron Works  in 1928 leaving the city without its major industry heading into the Great Depression,  the following decade became what we now might call early “rust belt” history, full of struggle, pain and "iron works" talk.    For more on this subject of living in a city shaken  by its  industrial ups and downs see this excellent article  from the Cleveland bloggers at rust belt chic.

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Mayville References and Resources:

1. When Iron was King in Dodge County, Wisconsin, by George G. Fredrick (Mayville, WI, Mayville Historical Society 1993).

2.  Website of Mayville Limestone School Museum ("MLSM"), information on basement gallery where you will find the stove, and the mining, blast furnace and coke plant items:  http://www.mlsm.org/galleriesbasement.htm    

3.    Facebook Spring 2012 post from MLSM: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.295280560554365.69751.100608006688289&type=3which has photos  and a description stating as follows:  "In 1846, iron ore from the old Iron Ridge (Neda) area was sent to the St. Joseph Iron Works in Mishawaka, Indiana, where it was smelted and cast into a parlor stove. This was the first object to be made from Dodge County’s iron ore. The “Mayville Stove” was used in the homes of both Chester May and his son, Eli. In 1909, the May family donated the stove to the Wisconsin State Historical Society. For many years it was on exhibit at the Stonefield Village in Cassville, Wis., and this year at Grohmann Museum in Milwaukee. The MLSM now will put it on display in our own “Iron Country” room beginning May 2012." 

4.    Website of Mayville Historical Society, Inc.:  http://www.mayvillehistoricalsociety.org/