Bio: Dern, Anton (1832 - 19??)

Contact: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Dern, Goldsberry, Hyer, Grossman, Kuhl, Forcey

----Source: History of Marathon County Wisconsin and Representative Citizens, by Louis Marchetti, 1913.

Dern, Anton (15 April 1832 - 19??)

Anton Dern, who has lived in Marathon County for fifty-two years, was one of the pioneers of Wausau and is the oldest living German settler in the county. He was born in Germany, April 15, 1832, a son of Anton Dern and his wife, the latter of whom died in the son's infancy and he was reared by a step-mother.

Anton Dern the younger attended a German school in boyhood and then worked in a malt mill until he was twenty-one years of age, when he secured passage on a sailing vessel bound for the United States. It is probable that he will never forget the eight months he passed on that vessel before he was finally landed in the harbor of New York. The country was strange and the people spoke a language he could not understand, but, at least, solid ground was under his feet and he immediately continued on his journey, his objective point being Marathon County, Wis. There he found employment in the woods but after one day's work was offered the job of taking lumber on a raft to St. Louis, Mo., as tales-man, and accepted and when the trip was concluded was paid the sum of $105. He returned to Marathon County and went to work for a Mr. Goldsberry in a saw mill and remained for four years, when he entered into the teaming business. For the two following years he drove a two-horse wagon from Stevens Point to Wausau, making the round trip in three days, hauling beer, whiskey, flour and other commodities. He then began to make use of a four-horse team and for twenty-two years operated between Gill's Landing and Wausau. When the railroad was completed through here he gave up his teaming business as it no longer was profitable. Mr. Dern spent the next eighteen years as a logger, for eight years being in one camp and nine years in another. Mr. Dern's recollections of this hard-working period of his life are very interesting. Many changes have come about in the logging industry since those days and the same conditions will never again prevail but they developed robust and resourceful men. Mr. Dern then built the Northern Hotel at Wausau and conducted it for twenty-one years, his son and step-son conducting it since he retired. In 1908 he erected his fine brick residence which adjoins the hotel. He purchased the land on which these structures stand, over forty years ago, and during all the time that he was engaged in teaming he had his barn on this property. When he came to Wausau it was a little frontier settlement, no city having yet been laid out, and no one being able to see far enough into the future to imagine its present beautiful proportions.

Mr. Dern was married first to Miss Anna Hyer, who, at death, left three children, the only survivor being Elizabeth, who is the wife of August Grossman of Wausau. His second marriage was to Mrs. Eliza (Kuhl) Forcey, widow of George Forcey. She had three children and one of her sons, George Forcey, is associated with Walter Dern in the management of the Northern Hotel. Six children were born to Mr. Bern's second marriage: Walter, Myrtle, Regina and Arthur, living, and Cornelia and Anton, deceased. Mrs. Dern died in December, 1910.