Waukesha County Wisconsin Genealogy

Waukesha County Biographies

Surnames Starting with:

[ A ]	[ B ]	[ C ]	[ D ]
[ E ]	[ F ]	[ G ]	[ H ]
[ I ]	[ J ]	[ K ]	[ L ]
[ M ]	[ N ]	[ O ]	[ P ]
[ Q ]	[ R ]	[ S ]	[ T ]
[ U ]	[ V ]	[ W ]	[ Y ] & [ Z ]

 

JOHN GEORGE KESTELL

For more information on this family see this website.

John George Kestell was born 24 August 1853, the son of Johann Baptist Kastel and Ursula Kreppel/Krebbel/Krippel, in the town of Germantown, Washington County, Wi. He married , Jane Daily, a neighbor girl, about 1880. She died giving birth to their first born son on 12 March, 1881. Jane was born December 20, 1840 at Rochester, New York, the daughter of John and Nancy Daily. She was 40 years old when she died. She was 13 years older then John George. She is buried on Nelson's burial ground, Waukesha, Co.

The 26th of August 1880, John Kastell bought the farm from his mother for $1,000. with the personal. In the 1870 census, the property was valued as follows: 20 acres improved land, 20 acres woods valued at $1500. and $50. worth of machinery: 2 milking cows, 2 working oxen, 5 swine, $100. all livestock; 80 bushels wheat, 20 bushels rye, 10 bushels oats, 10 lbs. wool, 25 bushels peas and beans, 60 bushels Irish potatoes. $10.00 orchard products, 300 lbs. butter, 8 tons hay, $55.00 worth of animals slaughtered; $650.00 estimated value of all farm products. There was also a plow, a spring tooth, and a drag included in the machinery.

On October 3, 1881, there was a land entry between Nancy Daily and John G. Kestell (as he spells his name now) . According to the indenture, Jane, John George's wife, had bought the farm a few years earlier from her mother, but I guess the papers were not made at the time. Jane had died in March and the estate was being settled. Before the death of Johann Baptist Kastel, John George went by the name of 'George", because of the confusion with his father's name. He kept using the name of 'George until the time of his death, even though he had a brother by the name of George.

Eight months after Jane died, John George Kestell married Magdalena Breckheimer, daughter of Ambrose Breckheimer and Anna Maria Koblenz in St. Francis Church in Milwaukee. They were married by Rev. P. Ignatius Ullrich on 15 Nov. 1881. Lena Breckheimer was born 28 June 1855, in the town of Rhine, Sheboygan County. She went to Milwaukee to find work as a young girl and that is when she met John George. Magdalena died of Broncho pneumonia following a case of the measles, on the 14 Sept. 1902. She is buried on St. George's Catholic Cemetery in the town of Rhine - just one half mile north from the family homestead.

On the 19th Jan. 1882, John George sold the homestead farm to John Conrath Wiseckel with the personal. He must have gotten the farm back, as on the 15 Oct. 1886, GEORGE John Kestell and wife Magdalena sold the farm to John Tiry (George Kestell was married to Ferdinanda Tiry), and on the same day, 15 Oct. 1886, John Tiry sold the homestead farm to Charles Dallmann of Milwaukee County. Charles Dallmann was married to Christina Kaestel, a sister of John George's.

John George Kestell and his wife Magdalena and family of seven children, lived on the "Daily" farm in Germantown until 9 June 1894, when they bought the farm in the town of Rhine, Sheboygan County, from Ambrose Breckheimer and his wife Anna Maria. The Breckheimers were the parents of Magdalena Kestell. They paid 3500.00 for 110 acres of land and all the buildings. Magdalena and smaller children came to Elkhart Lake by train, and the household furniture was moved up by wagons and teams. John G. Kestell III was ten years old at the time. The Breckheimers moved to a house in Elkhart Lake to retire. Ambrose lived until 2 July 1901, and Anna Maria outlived her daughter by a good many years and passed away 16 Jan. 1917.

A few years before John George's death, he was picking apples in the orchard. He used a chair that had posts on the back lean, to climb up into the tree. He slipped and fell from the tree and hit the chair on one of the posts and injured his intestines. He lived for several years, but he was not in good health. He died 31 Jan. 1905. He is buried beside his wife on St. George's Cemetery in the town of Rhine, just one half mile north of the farm

Anna and John were the only ones who were over 21 years of age when their father and mother were both dead. Anna had just married the September before her father's death. Francis Williams was appointed guardian of Julius, Charles, Arthur, Margaret and Catherine. Katie was 10 years of age when her mother died and just 13 when her father died. She was the youngest in the family. John had just signed papers with his father on his 21st birthday to take over running of the farm. When Julius was 21, he went into partnership with John. The 5th of October 1905, John George III bought 26 acres from Julia Feldmann and her husband John for $1000.00. Now the farm was 136 acres total. John George III also bought the personal property from his father before his death. He borrowed the money from his grandmother Breckheimer.

 

John T. KIEBEL

Source: The Milwaukee Sentinel, (Milwaukee, WI) June 04, 1897; pg. 2; col B

John T. Kiebel, an employee of the Imperial Spring Brewing company, was married to Miss Emma M. Cox at her home in Chicago. They will reside here.

 

MARY R. BURGESS-KLINE

Source: A Complete Record of the John Olin Family, by C.C. Olin, Historian, 1893; Baker-Randolph Co. Printers, Indianapolis

Mrs. Mary R. Burgess-Kline was born in Mukwonago, Waukesha County, Wisconsin, November 24, 1844. The mother Louise M. Olin, died in 1847 when she was three years old. In 1848 her father, Wm. W. Burgess, married Mary E. Botsford, of Trenton, Dodge county, Wisconsin. Mary lived with her parents and attended the public schools until she was about seventeen years of age, then finished aspupil by taking three terms of school work at Carroll College, Waukesha, Wisconsin. She was then abble to teach, which vocation she followed until her marriage, in 1866, to Samuel S. Kline, of Mukwonago, Wisconsin, soon after which event they moved to Pierce county,, Wisconsin, where Mr. Kline had bought land......

 

AUGUST R. KLUG

Source: Submitted by a researcher, see contributors page

Notes for AUGUST R. KLUG:
August Klug served as pastor at the following churchs:
1 Crown Point, IN 1904 - 1908
2 St. John's Evangelical Church, Peotone, IL 1908 - 1923
3 Trinity Church, Brookfield, WI 1923 - 1930
4 St. Michael's Church, West Chicago, IL 1930 - 1953

More About AUGUST R. KLUG:
Burial: Sunnyside Cemetary, Lannon, WI
Confirmation: 1894, Menomonee Falls, WI
Ordination: June 1904, Christian Ministry of Evangelical Synod of NA
Retirement: June 01, 1953, Bensenville, IL

More About WILHEMINA "MINNIE" DUMMER:
Burial: Sunnyside Cemetary, Lannon, WI

 

ALBERT H. KUHN

Source: A History of the Puget Sound Country: Its Resources, Its Commerce and Its People: with Some Reference to Discoveries and Explorations in North America from the Time of Christopher Columbus Down to that of George Vancouver in 1792. By William Farrand Prosser, Published by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1903, v.2

Mr. Kuhn is the superintendent of the Hoquiam Lumber and Shingle Company, and the history of his family connections and of his business career will form an interesting chapter in the annals of Puget Sound. His father was Henry Kuhn, a native of Switzerland, and of French and German origin. At the age of fourteen he left home, and after living in France for a time came to the United States, finally taking, up his permanent residence in Wisconsin. He was a prosperous farmer of that state till his death, which occurred at his home near Oshkosh in 1900. After he had come to Wisconsin, Henry Kuhn married Soloma Wellauer, who was also of German ancestry and a native of Switzerland, coming to this country when a young lady. She was a sister of Jacob Wellauer, of Milwaukee, a wealthy and prominent citizen of that place, and at one time owner of nearly one-half the land of the city. Mrs. Kuhn died at Oshkosh in 1902.

Albert H. Kuhn was born at Waukesha, Wisconsin, in 1860, but when an infant was taken by his parents to a farm near Oshkosh, where he grew to manhood and received a good education. After finishing at the State Normal School at Oshkosh he taught for a year at Dale. In the meantime he had learned telegraphy, and when his school year was over he went to Chicago and secured a position as operator with the Western Union. He was next a railroad operator and was appointed agent at Fridley, Minnesota, for the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railroad, afterward the Great Northern. In 1881 he became agent for the Northern Pacific at Medora, Dakota, and was there during the trouble between the Marquis de Mores and the cattle men, being the chief witness for the state in the murder trial of the Marquis. Roosevelt was there on his ranch during the summer.

In 1883 Mr. Kuhn came to the Pacific coast, and made one trip from San Francisco to Australia as a sailor, but in 1884 he came to Hoquiam, Washington, where he has made his home ever since. He became engaged in lumbering, and for eighteen years was foreman of the logging and all outside work of the Northwestern Lumber Company. He was an interested party in the formation of the Hoquiam Lumber and Shingle Company, and early in 1902 he designed and built for that company a shingle mill which is pronounced by experts to be the finest mill of the kind in the northwest, as it cuts more and better shingles and more cheaply than any other mill in this region. Mr. Kuhn is superintendent of this plant, and is now engaged in building for the same company a large lumber mill which he will also operate. These interests now form Mr. Kuhn's principal business.

In 1900 Mr. Kuhn was married to Mrs. Ida Soule Howes, of Hoquiam. Mrs. Kuhn organized and is regent of the Robert Gray Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and is a member of the Society of Mayflower descendants. From these connections it will be inferred that Mrs. Kuhn has a line of famous ancestors, and the following paragraphs will be devoted to them.

This branch of the Soule family traces its authenticated ancestry without a single break through Constant Southworth back to Childric, King of the Franks, born in 458. The line comes down through Charlemagne; his descendant, Louis IV. of France called "D'Outremer"; his descendant, Robert de Bellomont, who was associated with William the Conqueror in the invasion of England, and was created the first Earl of Leicester. He was descended on his mother's side from Alfred the Great of England. There were many succeeding Earls of Leicester in the Bellomont name whose wives were of the ducal houses of Pembroke, Hertford, Gloucester, Winchester, Norfolk, March, Salisbury, etc. The line then comes down through females to Lady Isabell de Button, who married Sir Christopher Southworth, of Salmesbury, in 1465. From them was descended Constant Southworth, whose granddaughter Mercy Southworth married Moses Soule, grandson of George Soule, a passenger on the Mayflower, and thirty-fifth signer of the famous "Compact." Mercy Southworth was also a great-granddaughter of John Alden and Priscilla Mullens. Seven of the Southworth ancestors were signers of the Magna Charta, four were among the founders of the Order of the Garter, and one, William Marshal, third Earl of Pembroke, was Lord Protector of the Realm during the minority of King Henry III. of England. Another ancestor, Ralph de Stanley, second Baron Stafford, had a principal command at Cressy.

Barnabas Soule, grandson of Moses and Mercy, founded the Soule shipyards at Freeport, Maine, one of the oldest in the country and in active operation up to a few years ago, twelve of the Soule ships being now in commission on the Pacific coast. Nearly all the descendants of Barnabas have been engaged either in shipbuilding or in seafaring life. His son Thomas was captain of their privateer Fairplay in the war of 1812, and was captured by the British and confined in Dartmoor prison. Joseph, the son of Thomas Soule, was born in Freeport, Maine, and was descended, through his mother, Sallie Follansbee, from David and Daniel Currier, of Amesbury, Massachusetts, father and son, who were patriots in the Revolutionary war. Joseph Soule continued in the shipbuilding business for many years. He made a trip to California in one of the family ships in 1852, and a few years later moved from Maine to Illinois, where he engaged extensively in the manufacturing of farm machinery, which he continued until 1879, when he located in California. In 1885 he removed with his family to Hoquiam on Gray's Harbor, but again returned to the east and died in New York in 1900. His family all reside in Hoquiam.

Joseph Soule married Miss Frances Fensley, now living at Hoquiam, who is a fine, intellectual and well preserved woman. She is a direct descendant of General Schuyler of Revolutionary fame; of John Folsom of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, another patriot and an ancestor also of Mrs. Grover Cleveland, and, on her mother's side, from Sir Robbie Murray of Stirling, Scotland, and Timothy Pickering, Washington's secretary of state.

In the collateral branches of the Soule family are some interesting characters, among them being the despotic Rev. John Wheelwright, brother of Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, and the founder during his enforced exile from Massachusetts colony of Wells, Maine, and Essex, New Hampshire; the Rev. Peter Bulkley, the saintly founder of Concord, Massachusetts; Major Robert Pike, the famous lawyer and Indian fighter, who saved many an old woman accused of witchcraft from the gallows, and who was one of the founders of Salisbury, Massachusetts: and the above mentioned Constant Southworth, stepson of Governor Bradford, who came to the country in 1628. During his long life he held many important offices in Plymouth colony, being deputy governor for twenty-two years, treasurer for sixteen years and commissary general during King Philip's war.

Mrs. Kuhn is one of the children of Joseph and Frances Soule, the others being John Fensley Soule, secretary of the Northwestern Lumber Company; Mrs. Sarah Soule McMillan, Captain Thomas Soule and Mrs. Josiah Onslow Steams, all of Hoquiam.

 

DAVID KYLE

David Kyle, deceased, who for many years was one of the most prominent residents of the West Bloomfield township, Oakland County, was engaged in farming on the old Kyle homestead in section 26, where Mrs. Kyle now readies. He was born upon this farm April 25, 1834, and died there February 11. 1890.

David Kyle was a son of David and Jane (Jagger) Kyle, who were pioneers of this county. David Kyle, Sr., was born in the north of Ireland, December 28, 1793, and in 1814 came to America, locating in West Bloomfield township, Oakland County, Michigan. In June, 1831, he settled upon the farm in section 26, which is now owned by our subject's widow. He married Jane Jagger, of Orange County, New York, and they became the parents of children, seven of whom grew to maturity as follows: Sarah J., who first married Charles H. Murray, and after his death on August 24, 1883, married Pickering Nicholson, of Detroit; James H., born January 29, 1833, who died in September, 1864, leaving one son--Don; Robert and David (twins), who lived almost the same age, Robert dying in March, 1891, and about one year after his brother; William John, born April 17. 1837, who died January 20, 1857; Mary A., born May 20, 1840, who married Thomas Brown, lives in Ionia County, Michigan, also has three children-Charles, Edward and Minnie; and Charles, born September 27, 1843, who died June 10, 1892.

David Kyle, subject of this sketch, was educated in the public schools of West Bloomfield township, and in his boyhood worked upon the homestead farm. After his father's death he purchased the interests of the other heirs in the home farm and carried on farming until his death.

David Kyle was joined in marriage with Jennie Smart, a daughter of Isaac and Elizabeth (Clegg) Smart, both natives of Newburg, Yorkshire, England. Her father was born September 15, 1809, and was married to Elizabeth Clegg in 1832. In 1834 they came to America and in 1835 located in Waukesha township, Wisconsin. In 1836 Mr. Smart took up government land at the time when there were few white settlers and the Pottawattamie Indians were threatening trouble. Gen. Winfield Scott being stationed in the locality to protect the residents. Mrs. Smart did the mending for this distinguished soldier. Mr. SMart was the earliest settler in Waukesha township, and Jennie Smart, now MRs. Kyle, was the first white child born in this section. The Smart home was thronged with Indians on the occasion of Mrs. Kyle's birth, their curiosity being excited to see a white baby, and the chief of the Pottawattamies, with some of his tribe brought $1,500 which he offered to MR. Smart for the purchase of the child. Mrs. Jennie S. Kyle was born September 21, 1836, in the little log house which her father first built. In 1840 he built the first frame house erected on the prairie, and throughout his life was one of the most progressive spirits of this section. Mrs. Kyle is one of six children, form of whom are living, namely; Jennie; Benjamin, born in 1838, who lives on the old home farm; Mary, born in 1840, who lives four miles from the old home farm; and Maria A., born in 1856, who married Robert Boyd, and is now living in Waukesha, the noted Fountain HOtel, with accommodations for 800 guests, being built on the property.

Mrs. Jennie Kyle was educated at the Milwaukee Institute and in 1853 was married to Mr. Kyle, by whom she had one son, George H. The latter was born July 25, 1860, and married Susan Newton, a daughter of Loomis and Sarah Newton, of Pontiac, Michigan. George H. Kyle and his wife have two children, Grace and Lola. Mrs Jennie S. Kyle was christened in the Protestant Episcopal Church but became a member of the Methodist Church, to which her husband's family belonged.

Source: Biographical Record; Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens of Oakland County Michigan; Biographical Publishing Company, Chicago, Illinois, 1905.