Barton County KS Archives Biographies.....Dumkow, Fred 1851 - 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joy Fisher sdgenweb@gmail.com November 13, 2005, 12:46 pm

Author: Great Bend Tribune

FRED DUMKOW

THE fall of 1885 saw Fred Dumkow thoroughly disgusted with life in Chicago and
he determined to try his fortune in Kansas. He had come from Berlin, Germany,
five years previously to ply his trade as a bricklayer, but he found that the
pay of four dollars per day was not piling up the fortune he had come to America
to make fast enough, and he must seek other fields. He desired to be identified
with the soil; get down in it and dig, and see his fat and sleek herds come home
at night. Uncle Sam offered free homes to naturalized Dutchmen and this was the
lure that located him in Barton County. He arrived in Great Bend November 8,
1885, and located a homestead of forty acres fifteen miles northwest Later he
purchased enough at ten dollars per acre to make out a quarter section, and is
now a contented farmer reaping his crops and owing no man. He has this improved
with a comfortable cottage, barns and other buildings, and his fields show the
most careful tilling. He also has another farm of a half section seven miles
northeast of Ness City, which is also well improved and in cultivation, so he
takes life easy, and says he much prefers this life to his former existence in
Chicago where the week's wage was usually spent before the next pay day.

  During his first five years in the county he followed his trade and at first
layed brick for one dollar and fifty cents per day. That was the scale paid here
then and he was glad to get the work, although he had moved away from a city
where there was plenty to do and the wages much better. He finally got work from
the county and built several abutments for county bridges, and also laid the
brick in the Walnut Creek Mill flue.

   Frederick Dumkow, born in the vicinity of Berlin, Germany, May 14th, 1851,
and Matilda Baruth, born January 17th, 1852, in the same county, were married
September 29th, 1874. They have two married daughters living in their
neighborhood: Bertie, the wife of Daniel M. Converse; and Minnie, the wife of
John Oetken.

   "Cottonwood Grove," as this farm is now called, occupies a place in Barton
County's history, as it was for a number of years a post-office and stage stand
during the pioneer days, and there the hungry were refreshed and the mail
dispersed by Postmaster Wilkinson, who will be remembered by many now living.
The advent of the railroad and rural routes changed this for the better years
ago, but the memories of those early days still cling to this farm and are often
mentioned by those who talk over "old times."


Additional Comments:
From:

Biographical History Of Barton County

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ks/barton/bios/dumkow136gbs.txt

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