August Friedrich Wilhelm Braasch

AUGUST BRAASCH Biography 1934 August Braasch of Hadar was born at Ixonia, Wisconsin, 2 September 1858. He came to Madison county with his parents in 1866. His father, Herman Braasch and Frederick Wagner were the first explorers of Madison county, who left their home in Jefferson county, Wisconsin, 1 September 1865 to look for new homes in Nebraska. They came by way of St. Joseph, Missouri, Omaha, Elkhorn City, Fontanelle and West Point. At the latter place they hired a team to take them to the North Fork of the Elkhorn. Eight miles above West Point the most advanced settler was found. Passing on they reached their destination September 15. After selecting a location for a colony, they returned to Wisconsin to spend the winter in preparations for removal in the spring. On the 14th of May, 1866, twenty-four families, consisting in the aggregate of about one hundred and twenty-five persons started to Madison county, under the leadership of Herman Braasch. On the 4th of July they reached West Point, and on the 17th of July, 1866, having built numerous bridges across streams they could not ford, they arrived at the present site of Norfolk, on the North Fork of the Elkhorn, four miles above its confluence with the main stream. Some of the men who came with Mr. Braasch were Martin Raasch, Gottlieb Rohrke, Charles Nenow, William Ruhlow and William Winter. The colonists then arranged themselves on either side of the creek on quarter sections in the form of a rectangle, four times as long as wide, endwise to the creek, so that a compact settlement might be formed, that each man’s stock might have easy access to water, and that it might be easy for the whole colony to collected on either side of the stream in case of an attack upon them by Indians. The first rude survey of these lands was made by William Sharpe with a pocket compass and a pair of harness lines. After the laying out of the claims, the selection was made by lot, each settler taking as his the 160 acres corresponding in number to the number on a slip of paper drawn by him, blindfolded, out of a hat. Thus did this colony of honest Germans recognize the equality of each with the other in his rights, and thus were many possible future bickering, quarrels and envying prevented. While these preliminaries were being arranged, the families lived in their wagons, as they continued to do, while houses were built. This was not so arduous a task as in some localities, for there was plenty of cottonwood timber on the Elkhorn. All had neat comfortable log houses ready for occupancy before the approach of winter, which proved to be a very serious one. It was here that August Braasch lived until 1884 when he took a homestead in Pierce county, about seven miles south of Pierce. He was married to Miss Augusta Knaak in 1886. Mrs. Braasch was born in Germany on 11 March 1866 and came to Pierce county with her parents when a small girl. Mr. and Mrs. Braasch are the parents of eight children. A few years ago they retired from the farm and moved to a very comfortable home in Hadar. Both are enjoying good health.