In the books' own words, not ours, with obvious scanning errors fixed. The later printing (1911) is folded below the first. Families often supplied these stories to the publisher, so check key dates.
From History of Muscatine County, Iowa, from the earliest settlements to the present time; (1911), Portrait and biographical album of Muscatine County, Iowa (1889)
WILLIAM HUTTIG, who is probably associated with more public and business enterprises than any other citizen of the county, was the subject of an interesting sketch in the Muscatine Daily Journal, of May 15, 1886, to which we are indebted for the many salient features of this biography. Mr. Huttig was born near Jena, the old capital of the Duchy of Saxe- Jena in 1836. To the student of history the name of Jena will recall one of the most famous battles and victories of Napolean I., and to the over of belles-letters and the arts the still more famous and noble seat of learning, founded here as the central university of the Saxon States, surrounded with its halls of art and schools of music. In the companionship of three elder brothers and one younger sister William Hut tig passed his boyhood, attending the village school until completing its course at the age of fifteen, when he took up his residence in Jena as a pupil in music of the distinguished Professors Winkler and Held, little dreaming at the time that the first practical use of his art would be to lead a brass band through the streets of an infant town, thousands of miles away, across the Atlantic, in the prairie wilderness of Iowa. He pursued the prescribed tuition under these eminent teachers, and then went to Cable, and subsequently to Leipsic, and it was from this latter city that at the age of twenty-one he departed for America. It is often remarked that nature delights in violent contrasts, and human fortune is certainly subject to the same law. What greater transformation could occur to a young man than to be taken out of the scenes of historic old Leipsic, nestling by the walls of the ancient castle of Pleissenburg, its Easter Fair, of 600 years’ observance still attended by crowds of Turkish, Greek, Armenian, Persian, and Chinese mer- chants; its streets paraded by the thousand students of its university, five centuries old, and a like number of pupils of its art schools and conservatories of music; the trade of its 150 bookstores making it the principal seat of the publishing business in scholarly Germany, and ranking only second in the world to London and Paris; a city five times be siege and taken in the Thirty Years’ War; the scene also of that battle of nations in which Napo leon’s victory at Jena was more than counterbalanced by his overwhelming defeat — out of the scenes and associations, and from the art studies of old Leip sic, to suddenly find himself, in June, 1855, on the west bank of the Mississippi at Muscatine. In his recounting of that earlier experience in the West it was laughable, though revealing a very somber state of things, to hear him say that he spent the first two years in Muscatine at odd jobs of masonry and other work in trying to get enough money to take him back home. If there was ever a genuine case of homesickness we can believe that this was one. But the dark clouds began to break after the strain of the first two years. More congenial occupation was found. He began teaching music, and was given the leadership of the brass and string bonds of Muscatine. On the breaking out of the war this patriotic young music-student of Leipsic and Jena organized a band to accompany the 35th Iowa Regiment, but before they left Camp Strong an order was issued to discharge all regimental bands, and Mr. Huttig returned home. He con sold himself in this disappointment by the happiest of alternative in his marriage with Miss Catherine Becker, of this city, in which auspicious union the last strand of regret parted which had bound his allegiance to old Saxony. It was about this time also that he entered the grocery business, opening a store adjoining the Weed & Bridgman block. The following year his brother Fred, the present city member of the County Board of Supervisors, now absent in Europe, was admitted to a partnership, and since then the two have gone through their business career under the well-known title of Huttig Bros., which they still retain.
In 1868 the brothers started a lumber-yard, the initiatory step to the creation of that fame and fortune which made the name of Huttig Bros., the whole country over, synonymous with the highest business enterprise and success. After two years in the lumber trade it was superseded by the sash, door, and blind business, which has been followed to date. The brothers confined themselves to trade until 1881, when their present mammoth factory and works were built in this city, and a company incorporated with the following organization: Fred Huttig, President; William Huttig, Manager and Treasurer; Er. Lumpe, Vice President; Harry Hut tig, Secretary.
In 1883 the firm incorporated the Western Sash and Door Company of Kansas City, with William Huttig partner and President, as now conducted.
In 1885 the Huttig Bros, established the Huttig Sash and Door Company of St. Louis, Mr. Charles II. Huttig being admitted to the new company and elected to the management of its operations, with Mr. William Huttig, Secretary.
In 1888 the Muscatine Real Estate Company, embracing a number of local capitalists, was organized, and Mr. Huttig was made its President. In the same year the Ashton Flour and Feed Company was formed, and Mr. Huttig was elected to the presidency. In this year Muscatine saw the necessity of reviving and reorganizing the Board of Trade on an active and substantial basis, and Mr. Huttig was chosen President, an office which he still fills to the advantage of this city.
In December, 1 887, he associated with his brother Fred and other liberal Republicans and Democrats of Muscatine in organizing the Muscatine News Company to sustain the publishing of a daily and weekly newspaper in the city and county of Muscatine for the dissemination of liberal political ideas, of which company he was elected President, and to whose business energy and enterprise the Netcs is largely indebted for its remarkable success. Mr. Huttig being unanimously re-elected to the presidency in the second year of the paper.
In the organization of the Muscatine Bridge Company for the building of a high bridge over the Mississippi River at Muscatine, Mr. Huttig was elected to the Board of Directors, and at the second annual meeting held April f), 1889, he was elected to the presidency of the company. As the company at this last date had the problem and labor before it of providing means for the construction of a $140,000 bridge, the election of Mr. Huttig was no light compliment to the executive force of that gentleman.
Our subject took an active part in the incorporation of the Muscatine Oatmeal Company, of which he was elected Vice President, holding the same office in the Muscatine Terra Cotta Lumber Company, and being prominent in the organization of the Muscatine Street Car Company and other local enterprises.
The opening of Oklahoma to settlement, in April of this year, furnishes another illustration of Mr. Iluttig’s active and far-reaching enterprise. No sooner was the Presidential proclamation issued for the opening of the Territory than Mr. Huttig was immediately heard of at Purcell on the border, when the Oklahoma Lumber and Grain Company was forthwith organized, with Mr. Huttig as President, and provision made for the establishment of three lumber-yards and depots in the Territory as soon as the stock could be shipped in by fast freight dispatch.
Following our subject into his fraternal and social fellowship with the world it will scarcely surprise to find that one of such cosmopolitan tendencies holds attachments in these kindly spheres equally broad as his business relations. He enjoyed an eminent membership in both Free Masonry and Old Fellowship. He belongs to the Knights of Pythias Protective Association. A distinguished member of the United States Knights of Honor, he enjoys the prestige of being twice elected Grand Dictator of that order of Iowa. Quite as honor ble and useful as these State-wide and national connections he is a member of the Muscatine School Board.
Mr. Huttig was among the founders of the Republican party in Iowa, and remained true in his allegiance to that party in State and Nation until its prohibitive legislation, in Iowa, and confiscatory enactments impelled him to the political independence which he maintains to-day. Before his party relations were thus strained he was frequently soho ited by his party to represent it as a candidate, and, though as persistently declining, he was given, in 1883, the nomination for mayor of Muscatine. In a city where Democracy is accustomed to carry the election by a majority of hundreds he was defeated by the nominal majority of twenty-three in a total vote of 1,461.
His youth reared in a duchy which had a population of 300,000 Protestants to 10,000 Catholics, and a resident student of a city celebrated for the Leipsic Conference in which Luther bore part, Mr. Huttig could not be otherwise than a child of the Reformation and a member of the German Evangelical Church of Muscatine. But he is known for the liberality of his religious culture and faith, and in no ecclesiastical view could he be classed as an offensive partisan.
Of the marriage of our subject with Miss Becker, there have been born three children: Anna, wedded to Mr. G. W. Brandt, of Brooklyn, N. Y.; Nellie, recently married to Mr. D. S. McDermid, now of Muscatine; and Harry, the indefatigable and accomplished Secretary of the Huttig Bros. Manufac during Company.
Here we close this brief story of pluck, energy, and application. It does not lose in moral because there flash and re-echo over it the music and lights of Leipsic and Jena, but the indomitableness exhibited rather takes on a higher virtue and beauty for being graced with the arts of the school and the conservatory.
A portrait of this honorable gentleman is found on another page.
As printed in Portrait and biographical album of Muscatine County, Iowa (1889). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.
WILLIAM HUTTIG.
There are men with abilities so comprehensive that they succeed in anything they undertake. They have a clear discernment, a wise discrimination and a well balanced judgment not possessed by ordinary men. They also have the ability to inspire confidence in others and when they need assistance in any undertaking it is forthcoming. They do not seem to be hampered by difficulties to which others bow and they apparently with ease become the leaders in their respective communities. To this class belongs William Huttig, president of The Huttig Manufacturing Company of Muscatine and for fifty-five years a resident of this city.
He was born near Jena, Saxony, Germany, February 5, 1836, and is a son of Frederick and Dorothea (Sieburg) Huttig, both natives of Germany. The father was a farmer and died in the village of Isserstadt, near Jena, in 1874, at the age of eighty-one years. The mother departed this life at the age of eighty-two years, in 1884. They were both members of the Lutheran church. There were five children in their family: Carl, of Davenport, Iowa; Christian, who died in 1876; Frederick, who died in 1906; William, our subject; and Malvina, now Mrs. George Kinsle, of Kansas City, Missouri.
William Huttig received a gocxl education in the public schools of his native land and, having early shown a talent for music, was instructed in that art under the distinguished Professors Winkler and Held. At nineteen years of age he decided to seek his fortune in a foreign land and came to America, settling in Muscatine, Iowa, as a music teacher. At the outbreak of the Civil war he organized a band, of which he was the leader, which became connected with the Thirty-fifth Iowa Volunteer Infantry. However, the services of the leader and the band were both dispensed with before the regiment left Camp Strong by an order from the war department discharging all regimental bands. Mr. Huttig returned to Muscatine and in 1862 entered the grocery business, in which he continued for several years, starting in the lumber business in 1868 with his brother Frederick. They continued together until about 1900, when Frederick withdrew from the firm.
In 1870 Mr. Huttig began the manufacture of sash and doors under the firm name of Huttig Brothers & Falter. After about si.x years Mr. Falter withdrew and went to St. Louis, the title of the firm becoming Huttig Brothers Manufacturing Company. In 1881 the company erected a large plant in this city and the firm was incorporated as The Huttig Manufacturing Company. Two years later the Western Sash & Door Company of Kansas City was incorporated and in 1885 the Huttig brothers established the Huttig Sash & Door Company of St. Louis. The company in Muscatine employs about three hundred persons and also maintains a large factory at Billings, Montana, being recognized as one of the leading concerns of the kind in the west. However, Mr. Huttig has not confined his entire attention to the manufacturing field. In 1888 the Muscatine Real Estate Company, embracing a number of local capitalists, was organized and he was made its president. He became the same year president of the Ashton Flour & Feed Company and also filled the office of president of the Board of Trade of Muscatine. In December, 1887, he was associated with his brother Frederick and other liberal republicans and democrats in organizing the Muscatine News Company, of which he was made president. He was elected a member of the board of directors at the time of the organization of the Muscatine Bridge Company, which was founded for the purpose of building a high bridge over the Mississippi river at Muscatine, and on April 9, 1889, at the second annual meeting of the board, he was elected to the presidency of that company. He was also an incorporator of the Muscatine Oat Meal Company and became its vice president, holding the same office in the Terra Cotta Lumber Company and being prominent in the organization of the Muscatine Street Car Company and a number of other local enterprises. Few men in this part of the state have been more active in business life and few have been more successful in forwarding the enterprises with which they were connected.
On the 9th of August, 1860, Mr. Huttig was married to Miss Catharine Becker, a daughter of Michael and Salome (Bauer) Becker. Mrs. Huttig was born in Marietta, Ohio, August 6, 1839, while her parents were natives of Bavaria, Germany. They became acquainted in the fatherland but were married at Marietta, Ohio. Mr. Becker settled for a time near Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, but came to Muscatine in 1850 and here followed the baker's trade. He died at the age of seventy-eight years, in 1889, his wife being called away in
1902, at the advanced age of eighty-seven years. They were both members of the Evangehcal church. Eight children constituted their family: Catharine, August, Henry, Theodore, Albert, Henrietta, Elizabeth and William. To Mr. and Mrs. Huttig three children have been born. Anna is the wife of Conrad Heney and they live at Newark, New Jersey. Nellie married Albert McDermid and is now deceased. She was the mother of one son, Harold. Harry married Kathryn Musser. He is a partner in his father's business, being treasurer and manager of the company, and is identified with a number of important enterprises in Muscatine and elsewhere.
Mr. Huttig holds membership in Iowa Lodge, No. 2, A. F. & A. M., and also in the Knights of Pythias lodge and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He and his wife are connected with the German Evangelical church and contribute liberally toward its support. Mr. Huttig has noted the disadvantages under which a young man labors who starts in his business career without adequate school training and has become a stanch friend of education, serving for about ten years as member of the Muscatine school board. Politically he is an adherent of the republican party, believing that its principles are most conducive to the best interests of the country. He is a liberal contributor to all worthy causes, recognizing the obligation of large employers to assist in the advancement of the general good. For many years connected with important business interests, he takes a broad view of all subjects and his opinions have largely influenced others with whom he has associated. An honor to the city of his adoption, Mr. Huttig has performed a great work in building up its industries and it is doubtful whether any other man the city has known has ever contributed more toward its permanent prosperity than the gentleman whose name introduces this review.
As printed in History of Muscatine County, Iowa, from the earliest settlements to the present time; (1911). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.
Named in this biography: Huttig Bros (b. 1832)
Their biographies name William Huttig: Harry W. Huttig Frederick Huttig
The printed record stops around 1911. We trace your line from there down to you, with every source cited.