Pages  481-2

JOHN KLICKMAN, one of the oldest and most highly respected settlers of Belle Plaine township, Shawano county, is a Prussian by birth, having been born at Gaegersburg, Neumark, Frankfurt, July 26, 1832, a son of William (a day laborer) and Anna S. (Draeger) Klickman. They were the parents of five children, only two of whom we have any record of, viz.: August, who served in the American Civil war nine months, and died, in 1865, in hospital at Louisville; Ky., and John.

Our subject received but a very limited education in the common schools of his native land, and at the age of fourteen commenced learning the trade of a brickmaker, which he followed in the Fatherland till 1854, in that year emigrating to the United States, landing at New York in the month of June. From there he came direct to Milwaukee, Wis., thence by wagon to Watertown, Jefferson county, thence to Oak Grove township, Dodge county, where he hired out to a farmer. Here he remained about two years, working as a farm hand, and then rented land, which he cultivated for a season or two. In the meantime, his father having died in Germany, the widowed mother and her son August came to this country and to Wisconsin, and in 1859 they and our subject settled in Belle Plaine township, Shawano county, the journey from Oak Grove, Dodge county, being made with an ox-team. Here Mr. Klickman bought from Alexander Bucholz forty acres of wild land in Section 21, on which stood a small log slab-roofed shanty 16x20 feet in size, and here the little family set to work in earnest, to make a clearing and prepare the soil for crops, their only implements being an axe and grub hoe, their ox-team being not the least important item in their equipment. Day and night they labored assiduously till finally they succeeded in getting enough clearing made to put in a small crop of potatoes, the next being wheat, which was harvested with a scythe and threshed with a flail.  Here the mother died December 18, 1886, at the advanced age of ninety years, the brother, as above recorded, having passed away, far from home, in 1865. Since his marriage in the latter year, which will be fully mentioned farther on, our subject has from time to time bought more land until he now owns 200 acres, seventy of which are under the plow, equipped with substantial and commodious buildings, all accumulated by hard work, indomitable perseverance and judicious economy. 
       
On November 12, 1865, Mr. Klickman was married to Wilhelmina (Klickman) Klickman, a cousin, also a native of Germany, born in 1834, coming in her girlhood to this country, and locating in Fond du Lac county, Wis.; her father, who was a day laborer in the Fatherland, died there leaving three children:  Ernestine, now Mrs. Fred Eberhardt, of Fond du Lac, Wis.;  August, a farmer in Eau Claire county, Wis.; and Wilhelmina, Mrs. Klickman. Three children have come to bless the union of our subject and wife: John, born September 18, 1866, died November 5, of the same year; Albert, born September 25, 1867, was married January 5, 1893, to Anna Schultz, daughter of Robert and Henrietta (Schewe) Schultz, of Liberty, Outagamie county, Wis., and who was born at Maple Creek, that county, June 20, 1871; they live with our subject; Herman, born February 18, 1870, also lives at home, and is a telegraph operator, having been in the employ of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad Company. Mrs. Klickman died September 20, 1892.  Her mother died April 23, 1881, aged nearly eighty-six years.

In the fall of 1864 Mr. Klickman enlisted in Company F, Forty-fourth Wis. V.I., was mustered in at Madison, and from there sent to Nashville, Tenn., where for a time his regiment did guard duty some six months.  From Nashville it proceeded to Paducah, Ky., and here our subject was taken sick and sent to the hospital, remaining there until his discharge in June, 1865. Politically he is a Republican, has served as chairman of Belle Plaine township ten years, and has also filled the positions of supervisor, assessor and treasurer. In fraternal fellowship he is a member of the F. & A.; M., and in religious faith he is a Lutheran. He is highly respected in the community, and well merits the esteem in which he is held.