“The History of Jefferson County, Wisconsin”, published: Chicago:  
Western Historical Company.   1879.


D. BLUMENFELD was born in the ancient city of Creglingen, Kingdom 
of Wurtemberg, Feb. 13, 1828; received a common-school education and 
in 1841, entered a printing office at Stuttgart, the capital city of 
Wurtemberg; left that city in February, 1848, and worked at the case as a 
journeyman type-setter, in the cities of Neuwied, Dusseldorf and 
Schwerin; emigrated to America in June, 1850, via Hamburg, and landed 
in New York Aug. 15, 1850; stayed there and in Philadelphia a few 
weeks and came to Wisconsin in the month of September of that year; 
entered, a few days after his arrival in this State, the service of Messrs. 
Kohlmann Bros, who intended to publish a German paper in Racine, and 
in October, set the first stickful of German type that ever was set in that 
place.  (See Racine History.)  The Messrs. Kohlmann are now citizens of 
Oshkosh and publish a well-known German paper there – the Telegraph.  
In April, 1851, he left Racine and accepted a position as foreman in the 
office of the Daily Banner and Volksfreund, at Milwaukee, published by 
Morritz Schoeffler, who was well known among all the printers in 
Germany, having been, for a number of years, first foreman and manager 
of the world-renowned printing establishment of Baron von Cotta, in 
Stuttgart; in September, 1852, went to New York to get married to 
Nancy Lewensen, of Schwerin, Germany, and in August, the following 
year, removed from Milwaukee to Watertown, in company with John 
Kopp, from Augsburg, a pressman who worked in the same office with 
him in Schwerin, and afterward in Milwaukee.  They commenced the 
publication of a Democratic German weekly paper, called the 
Watertown Anzeiger, and issued their first number Aug. 27, 1853.  D. 
Blumenfeld has since that time continued in the printing business, since 
1859, as sole proprietor of the Watertown Weltburger.  His family 
consists of his wife (with whom he celebrated his silver wedding on 
Sept. 11, 1877) and seven children, of whom two are married; has been a 
member of the School Board and Common Council from 1868 to 1872.


Submitted by:  Linda Pingel  (LPingel@worldnet.att.net)