Pgs 752-53

DELOS W. KRAKE, one of the honored pioneers of Shawano county, was born in Montgomery county, N. Y., December 10, 1828, and is a son of Jacob and Eve (Dillenbach) Krake. The family is of Holland extraction, and both parents were natives of New York. The father followed farming as a means of livelihood, and though he never attained wealth he supplied his family with the comforts of life. Mr. and Mrs. Krake were the parents of fourteen children, ten sons and four daughters, namely: Josiah, David, Nelson, John, Charles, Walstein, Delos W., Jonas, Ira, William H., Eve A., Sarah, Almira, and one daughter who died in infancy. 
     
Upon the old home farm our subject spent his early boyhood, and attended the district schools of the neighborhood. Since the age of fifteen he has been dependent upon his own resources, at which time he began to earn his living as a farm hand. When a young man of twenty-three years, he resolved to seek his fortune in the West, hoping that upon its broad fields he might find better opportunities. His first location was in Fond du Lac county, Wis., where he worked in a shingle-mill. On leaving that place he came to Shawano, which at that time contained only a few buildings, and here secured employment in the woods and on the river. Being pleased with his western home, he returned to New York and brought his parents to Wisconsin, the father renting a farm in Fond du Lac county, where he resided until his death, in 1861. During the greater part of the time afterward Mrs. Krake made her home with our subject, and died in Hartland township, Shawano county, in 1876. 
     
When his parents arrived in this State, Mr. Krake was employed in the lumber woods along the Wolf river and its tributaries. About 1859, in connection with others, he took up land in Section 16, Hartland township, and began the improvement of a farm, not a furrow having been turned or an improvement made upon the place. He built a shanty, 8x12 feet, the roof  being made of basswood logs hollowed out. He then cleared five acres of the land, and remained in the vicinity of Hartland township until 1861, when he rented a farm near Oshkosh, and immediately began its cultivation; but in October of that year he laid aside all civil pursuits to engage in his country's service, enlisting at Oshkosh as a member of Company A, First Wis. V. I. under Captain Goodrich. The troops were sent to Camp Randall, at Milwaukee, thence to Louisville and West Point, Ky., where they remained until December. At Green river, while en route for Nashville, they took part in their first skirmish. The following year they participated in the battles of Murfreesboro, Perryville and Chattanooga, and Mr. Krake was then chosen from his company to return home and secure recruits. This work being efficiently done, he joined his Command at Chattanopga, was in the Atlanta campaign, and continued in the engagements until Jonesboro, whence his regiment was sent to Nashville. While there his term of service expired, and he was mustered out at Milwaukee in October, 1864. 
     
Mr. Krake then returned to his mother's home in Fond du Lac county, and in the spring of 1865 rented a farm in Winnebago county. On October 22, of that year; he married Miss Polly Jane Strate, who was born in Steuben county, N.Y., July 20, 1829, a daughter of L. B. Strate who was born in Troopsburg, N.Y., in 1813.  With her parents she came to Wisconsin in 1856; the family locating in Oshkosh township Winnebago county. Her brothers and sisters were Levi, a farmer of Snell's Station, Winnebago county; Helen, who became the wife of Hiram James, and died in Port Washington, Wis.; Squire L., who enlisted in the Union army, and was taken sick at Madison, Wis., where he died a few months later, being only seventeen years of age at the time. The father of this family died March 8, 1889, and was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Neenah, Wis. His widow is living at Snell Station with her son Levi. In the spring of 1866 Mr. Krake located upon his farm in Section 16, Hartland township, making the journey from Winnebago county in a sleigh. His home was a building 14 x 22 feet, that had served as the first school house of Hartland township. He has since been engaged in the cultivation of his farm, and now has eighty acres of land, of which fifty acres are under a high state of cultivation, yielding to him a rich return for the care and labor he bestows upon it. Mr. and Mrs. Krake have had five children: Waldo, who died at the age of two years; Ella, wife of William Shier, of Angelica, Wis.; Louis, Effie and Adelaide, at home. The mother is a member of the Methodist Church, and is a most estimable lady. Mr. Krake is a supporter of the Republican party, and served as postmaster of Bonduel for three years. He was also township treasurer and assessor, was census enumerator in 1890, and has held various school offices, discharging all public duties with promptness and fidelity, and being equally true in all the relations of business and private life.