09/02/2025
Land Between The Marshes | A Letter Home
Rob Bowe
Contributor
Alvin Foster, along with Chester and Eli May were the earliest settlers in Mayville in 1845. Others soon followed from the eastern states. A dam was constructed on the Rock River at the Mayville settlement, and soon after, waterpower was harnessed to operate both a sawmill and a gristmill. That same year iron ore was discovered 6 and half miles south of Mayville by the Mays and Solomon Juneau. The settlement grew. German immigrants arrived in the area in 1846-1847 and by 1849, iron ore was being mined at Iron Ridge/Neda and was being smelted in Mayville. There was a growing need for workers in the mine, smelter, and other nearby areas as well as other areas of Wisconsin.
The State of Wisconsin started to run advertising in Eastern and European newspapers. These ads along with letters from the first pioneer settlers sent back home to relatives and friends started to pull people to Mayville and the land between the marshes. One such letter was written by Ernest Schoen.
Schoen, and his family immigrated from Silesia province, Prussia, arriving at the Port of Milwaukee in August of 1856. Schoen was a stone mason by trade. He gave Milwaukee a try but due to poor wages, the family took the train to Hartford and found the situation there to be the same. By this time the railroad from Milwaukee to Horicon had been completed, so Schoen and his family boarded the train and got off at Hartford. Schoen didn’t find decent work in Hartford so the family they hopped a ride abroad a dray freight wagon to Mayville where Schoen found masonry work in the village, laboring from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., for $1.25 a day and reasonable housing.
One year later in 1857 Schoen wrote a letter to family back in Silesia, Prussia. In that letter posted at Mayville, January 21, 1857, Schoen appealed to 11 different families he knew back in the old country, lobbying them to emigrate to Wisconsin. Excerpts from that letter provide interesting insight into the times.
Pictured: Mayville in 1861 as drawn by Paul Beirsack. Photo credit: WI and Mayville Historical Societies
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