WI BIO - Dane Co - SACHTJEN, Herman
Biographical Review of Dane County, WI. Chicago: Biographical Review Pub. Co. 
1893, Vol II, pp 352-353

Herman SACHTJEN, a prominent German-American resident of Westport Township, 
Dane County, Wisconsin, was born in north Germany in 1821, his father, 
Thomas, having been born at the same place on 20 September 1792. The latter 
[Thomas] was a farmer on his own little farm, consisting of fifteen acres. 
The maiden name of the mother of our subject was Christie MARIO, and they 
[Thomas and Christie (MARIO) SACHTJEN] were the parents of two sons and two 
daughters, whom they brought to America with them in the fall of 1846. The 
family took passage in a sailing vessel from Bremerhaven to New Orleans, 
where they arrived 03 January 1847. The vessel was a small three-master and 
the journey consumed seventy-two days, as they encountered two severe storms 
with heavy seas. Their first location after leaving New Orleans was 
Louisville [Jefferson County], Kentucky, where they remained four years, the 
father working on a rented farm and his son, our subject, in a brickyard for 
$18 a month, boarding himself the first year, but the second year he had $40 
a month and his board. The family had started for Illinois, but on account 
of the river being frozen they could get no farther than Cairo [Alexander 
County, IL], hence they went to Louisville, but in the spring of 1851 they 
came to Wisconsin and to Dane County, where our subject [Herman SACHTJEN] 
bought eighty acres near the asylum of B. FURGERSON [biographer means bought 
eighty acres of B. FURGERSON, near the asylum], where the asylum stables 
now stand. For this he [Herman] paid $480, and in the spring of 1852 sold it 
for the same and bought the farm where he now resides, this place containing 
sixty-nine acres, for which he paid $6 an acre [$414]. This was wild land 
and many Indians were still here. He built a rough log house, 16x18, one 
story, with two small windows and one door. His cellar was a hole in the 
ground. He set up a stove, but it had to chimney. He paid for this [p 353] 
when he bought it, and this has been the rule of his life, to buy something 
if he had the money and if he had no money to do without, and since he has 
been seventeen years [of age] he has never been without money.

Our subject [Herman SACHTJEN] was married in Germany at the age of 
twenty-five years, just before coming to America. The name of his [first] 
wife was Geske COLEMAN, and she became the mother of five sons and one 
daughter. One son died an infant. George died in 1875, at the age of 
twenty-two; Gesina Marie died at the age of twenty-five years, in 1882, 
unmarried; John E. died in May 1892, aged forty-three, leaving no family, but 
some money; Henry, a farmer on sixty-five acres which his father sold him, is 
thirty-three years of age [biography published 1893]; Johnson is thirty-five 
years of age. He has sixty-two acres of land; also a portion of the old home 
farm. These two brothers [Henry and Johnson] live together in the brick 
house which the father built in 1862, having lived in the first log house ten 
years. William married Paulina HARTKOPF, of Minnesota. He is thirty years 
old and is farming on sixty-two acres of the old homestead. They have four 
children born in five years, two sons and two daughters. The mother [Geske 
(COLEMAN) SACHTJEN] died in 1880, aged about sixty years.

Our subject [Herman SACHTJEN] bought his 360 acres of land in different 
pieces, between 1852 and 1880, when he bought his last thirty acres, on which 
he now resides. This last purchase cost $1,000, with no buildings. He has 
built three dwelling houses on these parcels of land, including the log house 
of 1852. He was married to his present wife in 1883, the widow of William 
LEIR, a near neighbor in Germany. She came to America in 1857, and has six 
children by her first marriage and one by this, named Edward, a youth of 
eight years. The family are German Lutherans, and our subject votes the 
Democratic ticket and does general farming on a small scale, although he used 
to keep from thirty to forty cows, six to seven horses and from twenty to 
forty hogs. He did not go to the war of the Rebellion, although he was 
drafted and paid the bounty. He is still healthy and vigorous and is working 
yet. Had he been brought up and educated in this country he would have no 
doubt been wealthy and influential, as Nature has endowed him with 
possibilities and capabilities. As it is, his life so far has been very 
successful.

Submitted by Cathy Kubly