Harry Brenner Shue

Bibliography: Library of Congress. "Pioneering the Upper Midwest: Books from Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, ca. 1820-1910." Washington: Library of Congress, 1999. Aiken, Andrew J. "Men of Progress, Wisconsin." Milwaukee, WI: Evening Wisconsin Co., 1897. p. 390

SHUE, Harry Brenner, a lumberman of Hayward, Sawyer county, is a native of Safe Harbor, Lancaster county, Penn., where he was born on the 22nd of January, 1845. His father was John Shue, a hotel-keeper and farmer. His mother was Melinda Brenner before marriage. Both parents were of German ancestry. Their boy, Harry, received the usual common school education, and when eighteen years of age enlisted for service in the war against the rebellion, in the Fiftieth Pennsylvania volunteer infantry, which was disbanded after three months service. In 1863 he re-enlisted in the One Hundred and Eighty-sixth Pennsylvania infantry, serving to the close of the war. In 1868, when twenty-three years of age, he came to Wisconsin, settling first at Chippewa Falls, where he engaged in the lumber business as a "land looker." He remained in Chippewa Falls for fifteen years, and, in 1883, removed to Sawyer county, where he engaged in the buying and selling of pine lands, from which he has gained a competence. There appears to have been a mental and physical stimulant in the breath of the pine forests or in the mighty growth of trees which there seemed to defy the power of man; for, in most cases, the men who persistently waged war upon those grand forests have come out of the contest invigorated in mind and body and greatly enlarged in estate. Not only have fortunes been made in those forests, but men as well; for some of Wisconsin's most useful and broad-minded citizens have come out of this struggle with those great products of nature. Mr. Shue is one of those who have been broadened every way by the struggle through which he has passed.

In politics Mr. Shue is a Republican, who began the discharge of his duties as a citizen by casting his first vote for Abraham Lincoln for re-election to the presidency in 1864. He was elected chairman of the town and county boards in 1877 and 1888. In 1890 he was elected sheriff of Sawyer county, and served the full term of two years. In 1894 he was again elected chairman of the town and county boards and re-elected in 1896, and is now holding those positions. He has also been chairman of the Republican county committee for the past two years. He is a member of the Knights Templar, the Mystic Shrine, and the Knights of Pythias.

Mr. Shue was married, in 1872, to Edith M. Coleman, and they have had three children, namely; Melinda, Frances and Maie. The latter died in 1886.