SHEBOYGAN HISTORY

Joachim H. Dassow, Page 405

JOACHIM H. DASSOW, who comes of a well-known family of Sheboygan County, owns and cultivates a good farm on section 15, Sheboygan Falls Township.  He is one of the wealthy and influential farmers of his locality, and is a man who endeavors to uphold the interests of his fellow-citizens.  A native of  Mechlenburg, our subject was born February 23, 1846.  He is the second in a family of seven children, four of whom are now living:  Sophia, wife of Peter Bohn; Elizabeth, wife of E. Heidenreiter; Mary and our subject.  The parents emigrated to the United States in 1852, and proceeded from New York to Sheboygan by way of the Lakes.  After stopping for two weeks with John Bitter, the father bought forty acres of wild land, on which he built a small log house.  Afterward he purchased an adjoining forty acres of wild land, on which he built a small log house.  Afterward he purchased an adjoining forty acres, and at once set to work in earnest to improve the farm.  He raised a crop of grain as soon as possible, and before many years had passed had cleared his farm.

    Our subject remained with his parents until he was sixteen years of age, and by constant practice became very skilled with the ax, and of great assistance to his father.  For ten years he worked out by the month, his first employment being on a farm, after which he worked in a sawmill for $14.  At the age of twenty-six years he made his first purchase of land, buying the farm now owned by E. Heidenreiter.  He improved this land for two years, and then looked around for a wife.

    On the 2d of October, 1871, Mr. Dassow and Henrietta Markwardt were united in wedlock.  They started their domestic life with about $1000, which our subject had accumulated by his own hard labor.  In 1874, his father desired him to remove to the old homestead, and he did so, disposing of his former land.  He has continued to live on the old farm up to the present time.  It is a place of one hundred and eighty acres, with fine improvements, and is valued at about $18,000.  The farm is three miles from Sheboygan Falls, eight miles from Plymouth, and seven and a-half miles from Sheboygan.  In addition to its cultivation, Mr. Dassow owns and operates a cheese factory, of which the output amounts to about $12,000 per year.

    The union of our subject and wife has been blessed with six children.  The happy family circle is unbroken and they are all at home.  Rudolph has just attained his majority, and the others, Ida, Anna, Alvina, Helen and Leonora, are aged, respectively, nineteen, seventeen, fifteen, twelve and nine years.

    During the late war, Mr. Dassow twice enlisted, but his services were not required.  His first Presidential vote was cast for Lincoln, and he is a Republican, but not limited by party lines.  For some eight years he has been District Clerk, and for two years School Director.  Religiously, he belongs to the German Lutheran Church of Sheboygan Falls.  He has many reminiscences of former days, when the county was a wilderness and Indians and deer were in abundance.  One time, when he and his father were engaged in sawing stave blocks, two deer came and lay down within two rods of them.  There are few men in this vicinity who enjoy a higher position in the regard of all then this gentleman, to whose work we are glad to pay this brief tribute.