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Paul
Frauen
Claimed by both Hall and
Merrick Counties, resides in Merrick County but is
financially interested and a director of the First National Bank of Grand
Island. Mr. Frauen has been widely known in both counties for many years, owning
large bodies of land in both sections, and at the present time has two sons
living on his land in Merrick and one in Hall County. His recollections of early
days in Nebraska are exceedingly interesting.
Paul Frauen was born in Holstein, Germany, September 22,
1846. He was one of a family of six children born to his parents, Paul
and Cecelia (Janss) Frauen, both of whom died in Germany, on their dairy farm,
in 1898. Four of their children are living but only Paul and his brother came to
the United States. Mг. Frauen had school training in his native land. In May,
1864, he came to America, and after three years in Scott County, Iowa, located
in Hall County and in 1867 worked on a farm which is now the site of the Grand
Island stockyards. In that year came the grasshopper invasion and the country
was so stripped by the insects that crop harvesting
was a farce. In the fall of 1867 he went to Merrick
County and homesteaded eighty acres. The law restricted homesteaders to
eighty acres within twenty miles of the railroad, while outside that limit, one
hundred and sixty acres were allowed. This eighty acres is the homestead on
which Mr. Frauen now lives. He recalls that when he went to Lone Tree, south of
Central City, to secure his first homestead papers before Judge Brewer, he made
the journey with oxen, in fourteen hours. Within the last year he covered the
same ground in less than one hour, in his automobile.
After securing his claim, Mr. Frauen put up a log house and
the next winter built what was then the largest barn, in Merrick County, at no cost to him except time and labor.
The round trip with oxen from Dannebrog, where logs were obtained, consumed
twenty-four hours, and he and his brother worked on barn building all winter. It
served its purpose for twenty-five years, and in later years when the
magnificent improvements of the present were made on the homestead, the old log
house was used for a granary. In 1876 the brothers were in partnership and
raised their first corn crop. They fattened eight steers, butchered them and
when they offered the meat for sale, could get no price over three cents per
pound. That seemed too low even then, So the following April Mr. Frauen's
brother started with a load of meat to the Black Hills and there was able to
sell it for six cents a pound live weight. The brothers had planned to invest
their meat money in mines, but before doing so Mr. Frauen investigated and found
that the company in which he had thought to invest had made no money that far
and the whole proposition failed to interest him. Therefore when the brother
returned to Merrick County, he yet had their joint
capital in his pocket.
With this money the brothers bought cattle, fed, fattened
and sold in the following spring and still had fifty head left. They invested
their money in land that the government had put on the market near Fullerton,
Nebraska, at one dollar an acre down and the balance at six per cent interest,
and in that and the following year bought two sections of land in Nance County.
With these responsibilities they became land poor, and early in the eighties
sold the land with the improvements they had put on it, to John Riemers. Later
Mr. Frauen bought more land in Merrick County, and
still later in Hall County, at one time owning about 2,000 acres in Merrick County. He has sold all this land to his
children, retaining for his lifetime the old homestead. His Hall County land had
absolutely nothing on it when he bought and all the improvements he made
himself.
In the fall of 1877 Mr. Frauen
married Miss Catherine Paustian, who died in 1898. They had children as follows
: Otto, who lives in Merrick County ; Cecelia,
deceased, was the wife of Max Cornelius; Henry, a farmer in Lake township, Hall
County ; Annie, the wife of Christian Sass, of Merrick
County: and John J., who operates the home farm of 520 acres, raising
Hereford cattle and Duroc-Jersey hogs. Mr. Frauen formerly favored Shorthorn
cattle, thoroughbred, but sold his herd in 1904. Another contrast is presented
when memory goes back to the wearying work on the farm that had to be done with
ox strength, when Mr. Frauen was a young farmer, while now the most modern of
farm tractors solves every problem.
Since he became an American citizen, Mr. Frauen has valued
his political privileges and has conscientiously supported the candidates and
upheld the principles of the Republican party. He has been active in the affairs
of Merrick County and frequently has served in
public office. Early in the eighties he was a member of the county board, for
many years was assessor, and for fully twenty years was a school director. He
has lent his influence in support of more than one worthy enterprise in the
county, has always worked for sobriety, law and religion.
Source: "History of Hall County, Nebraska:
a narrative of the past..."
Edited by August F. Buechler, Dale P.
Stough, 1920
Transcribed
and Contributed by: Kim
Torp
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