Brunswick
BRUNSWICK
Founded when Zachary Taylor was president.The first store in Brunswick was started by Herman Lepin. It burned but was immediately rebuilt by Ernest Meyer; then Herman Beckman bought the store and ran it for 39 years and sold it to George Piepho who sold out to Ernest Meyer.
During its first years, the town consisted of a general store, blacksmith shop, harness shop, shoemaker, tailor, and wagon shop.
The violin and violin string factory in Brunswick has been very prosperous. Then the town was run mostly by the Einsele family. The blacksmith and wagon shop was in the hands of Valentine Einsele, and the violin factory and the Cedar Lake golf course and club house in the hands of George Einsele.
In 1892 the Brunswick Cooperative Creamery Co. was started. The company won gold medals and gold watches for its butter. It was closed down in 1908 by the larger dairies in Chicago.
Brunswick once operated a small distillery which was owned and operated by John Hiens, a chemist.
The wagons which were manufactured here were the Hildibrant, Insley and Beigrlir, and the Insley Buggy. Brunswick used to manufacture the Perfection violin, which was the finest violin in the United States at that time. Now they concentrate only on making violin strings. Mrs. Insley, who still lives in Brunswick is now the proprietor of the factory. The old school house was condemned and was moved to be the violin factory.
Famous people of Brunswick included Francis Hoffman, who was a tutor for the Sasse family. Later he was a Lutheran minister and a Chicago banker, and was elected Lieut. Governor of Illinois. After a nervous breakdown he moved to Wisconsin and became a writer for the Brumder Periodicals of Buffalo, Detroit and Milwaukee, under the pen name of Hans Buschbauer.
Max Hoffman lived here and later became secretary of state for Indiana.
Dr. August Groman, who moved to Iowa and was honored by being elected into the Iowa Medical Society for life.
Some of the famous buildings which are still standing are one of the old wagon factories owned by Mrs. Insley, on the northwest corner of Brunswick, and the old tavern which stands across the street on the southeast corner, which had the bar in the basement and the dance hall upstairs where the bar room now is. Old timers say that when dances were held, the upper story used to sway 4 to 6 inches.
see also -- Brunswick School
Go to Brunswick, "Pioneer History Index," for further information.
Return to Lowell History.