The Friess Family Story
The Friess Family lived in a beautiful section of Bavaria, Germany. The Merkel Family lived nearby. They loved their homeland, but it wasn't theirs anymore. Their boys were being forced into the army, the government was putting terrible restrictions on them. Revolutions were tried, but failed. Anton Friess did not want to see his four boys forced into the army.
Friess Ancestral Home in Germany
So, Anton and his wife, Margaret Stuettgen Friess, and sons George (Susanna Leides), Peter (Maria Konrath), Adam (Katherine Kohler) and .jpg)
John (Barbara Schwartz) and daughters Magdaline (Joseph Kohler) and Margaret (Nicholas Merkel) left their homeland for this new world where there was land enough for all and freedom and peace.
In the late spring of 1843, the family arrived in New York. They came by boat by way of the Erie Canal traveling through the Great Lakes to Green Bay. It is believed their friends and neighbors, the Merkels, came at the same time. After arriving in Green Bay, they followed the Fox River Valley and Lake Winnebago Green Bay trail to Milwaukee. They stopped for a night in the new junction - later to become Richfield which then had only a few buildings. They decided to check the area out and headed west on an Indian trail stopping when they came to a beautiful lake. They traveled around the lake and picked out a beautiful wooded spot just to the southeast of this unnamed beautiful lake. They immediately built a temporary log shelter and started about clearing the land.
On September 2, 1844, their patent was registered in the name of Anton Friess. (NE 1/4 160 acres Section 17) The neighboring farms were registered on the same date to son Fred Merkel (Apolonia Friess) and father John Merkel (Elizabeth Gerhard.) Each paid $1.25 per acre for their land. Their lands were to the east of Friess Lake in Section 17. _
Times were not easy. It was tough clearing the large native timbers of oak, maple, elm, walnut, basswood and the many tamarack in the lowlands by the lake. But they managed, and they also managed to build .jpg)
a sturdy fieldstone house on the hill just SE of the lake, in Section 17. The Friess homestead stone house still stands today. It remained in the Friess family for 126 years -- five generations.
Anton first paid taxes on his property in 1849 - $7.37 on 160 acres with a value of $280. It is not known when the lake became known as Friess Lake, but probably sometime after the children started getting married and establishing their own homes around the beautiful lake.
In his last Will and Testament filed with the State of Wisconsin in July of 1852, Anton Fries "considering the uncertainly of his mortal life and being of sound mind and memory" made provision for his "beloved" wife; daughters Magdaline, Mary, Apolonia and Margaret; and sons Adam, Peter, John and George - all receiving parcels of land in the area of his beloved Friess Lake.
Nick Friess, a descendant of the Friess family, built the Friess Lake Resort. It went through a succession of owners and is now the Copper Dock.
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