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    Unpublished pamphlet titled  Wisconsin Three Hundred Saloon Era Tokens-1865-1920 (Unpublished document prepared for meeting of Numismatists of Wisconsin, State Convention, Appleton, Wisconsin: May, 25 & 26, 1985, and 10 Year Update 2008).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