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Franz W. Schmidt
The History of Renville County, Volume 2
Compiled by Franklyn Curtiss-Wedge
Chapter XXXVIII
p. 1101

Franz W. Schmidt, who lived in Renville county before the Indian massacre, was born in Germany, July 4, 1833, and died March 17, 1914. He came from Germany to America in 1850, remaining one year in Illinois and then coming up the Mississippi river in the steamboat to the mouth of the Minnesota river; went up the Minnesota river to North Redwood, where he worked for the government, putting up buildings and breaking land for the Indians on the south side of Big Stone Lake. After two years of this kind of work he worked in New Ulm for two years and married in 1859 at West Newton, Minnesota, Mrs. Mary Rissor. Her maiden name was Mary Euchegel and she was born Aug. 24, 1827, and died April 14, 1907. Her first husband was killed by a falling tree. She had one son, Henry, by the first marriage, who is now a farmer of Beaver Falls township. Franz W. Schmidt homesteaded 160 acres in sections 14 and 15 in Beaver Falls township, about Jan. 1, 1860. He left this place at the time of the Sioux uprising and brought his family to Ft. Ridgely and then to Hastings, Minnesota, where he left them for a year. He came back after a two hours' stop in Hastings and enlisted in Company L, First Minnesota Calvary, and served one year, fighting the Indians. Then he moved his family to New Ulm, where he lived three years, then coming back to the homestead in Beaver Falls township in 1867, where he lived until his death.


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