NEW GLARUS, 18.4 m. (860 alt., 1,010 pop.), lies on the banks of the Little Sugar River. Old World patterns persist in this Swiss-settled community and on surrounding farms. Heavy bells, cast in some mountainous canton of Switzerland, hang from the necks of New Glarus cattle and chime with the slow movement of the herds; speech in street or field is often in the Swiss idiom; and quartets and choruses, fortified with Schnitzel and Zuri beter, yodel like the best of Europe's Alpine mountaineers.
The history of New Glarus begins in the central Europe of 1844 when, because of a partial crop failure and the rigorous times, the government of the Swiss Canton, Glarus, appropriated $600 for organized emigration to North America. An emigration society was formed, and $2,000 more was raised by private subscription. Early in 1845 the society dispatched Judge Nicholas Duerst, 48 years old, and Fridolin Streiff, a 29-year-old blacksmith, to America to find and purchase land for a colony. Carrying money in trust for each of 106 subscribers to the project, they were instructed to choose a locality similar to Glarus in climate, soil, and general characteristics. Each subscriber was to have a tract of 20 acres with timber, pasture, and tillable land.
The two men arrived in New York in May 1845; the next two months they traveled across the mountains and through Illinois, Iowa, Missourim and Wisconsin seeking the ideal spot. On June 27 they finally found this oval valley, like a great natural amphitheater, and in its center the knoll on which the church now stands. Duerst and Streiff purchased 1,200 acres of farmland and 80 acres of good timber in the valley.
Back in Glarus, the departure of the two pioneers had aroused an enthusiasm for emigration that permeated the whole canton. Finally on April 16, 1845, 193 men, women, and children set sail across the Atlantic.
The crossing took 49 days. After landing at Baltimore the Swiss immigrants traveled by rail and canal boat to Pittsburgh, where they embarked on river steamers that carried them down the Ohio to the Mississippi, then up the Mississippi to St. Louis. Here, where they were to meet Streiff and Duerst, they found only a letter from a man named Blumer, of Allentown, saying that the pioneers were somewhere in Illinois in search of land. Unfamiliar with the language of the country, the colonists waited in the frontier metropolis for guides. Some of them became disheartened and returned to the home country, some left for private employment, others died; from 193 their number dwindled to 108.
Finally the group sent out two men to search for Duerst and Streiff. These couriers went by water, and land routes through Illinois and Wisconsin until one day, coming to an opening in the timber, they discovered Duerst and Streiff working on a cabin. Duerst immediately set out for St. louis to guide the colonists to their new home in Wisconsin. Meanwhile, the distracted band had moved up the Mississippi to Galena, capital of the lead region. Duerst, who might as well have gone down the Illinois River, fortunately chose instead to follow the Old Lead Trail to the Mississippi; he, too, arrived at Galena and there encountered his fellow countrymen.
Though the party managed to hire teams to carry the women and children and provisions, all but the smallest and weakest had to take turns at walking. On August 15, almost four months after they had set forth across the ocean, the weary Swiss arrived at the long-sought goal and found there a wilderness, with only the hills to remind them of their homeland.
At first the entire group lived in a single shelter that had been quickly erected in three days. The land was soon divided satisfactorily, and each man set out to clear his own tract. Their implements were of their own manufacture; the methods and markets of the country were entirely new to them. The first year they laboriously planted a small crop of potatoes, beans, vegetables, and a little corn; after 1850 they began to plant a little wheat, which they hauled overland by oxen to Milwaukee.
For 20 years the group lived in relative poverty, raising wheat as the principal crop. Though stock raisers by tradition, they kept only a few cattle, and it was their custom to make a Swiss hard cheese from the skimmed milk for their own needs. After the Civil War, when the price of wheat fell and the worn-out land no longer produced an adequate wheat yield, these farmers, forced by necessity, turned to dairying. It was then the prosperity of the community began. They built larger barns and silos, bought more land, used fertilizers, and pioneered in advanced methods of livestock breeding. Swiss cheese found a market in the East, and Wisconsin dairy produce became recognized.
Upon the knoll, where the first log building of the Swiss Evangelical and Reformed Church was built, is now a new red-brick Church with high Gothic windows. In the churchyard is the Grave of Nicholas Duerst.
At the foot of the hill is a Swiss Pioneer Monument; on the sides of the red-brown pedastel are inscribed the names of the first settlers. Surmounting the shaft is the granite figure of a Swiss pioneer, whose hand at hat brim shades eyes that search the southern hills.
On the second Sunday and Monday of each September the village celebrates Kilbi, a festival that originated centuries ago in old Glarus on the occasion of the dedication of the Reformed Church. As part of the celebration, the names of those confirmed in the church since 1860 are read to the congregation, and as each confirmation year is called those who entered the church in that year rise. Throughout Monday the celebration continues, with parades, folk games, dancing, and the eating of Swiss dishes.
An old-country industry is also continued here. Though a milk condensery is the largest plant in New Glarus, the most interesting is a large lace factory at the southern edge of town. Here artisanns draw designs for the lace, and other workers enlarge the patterns six times and follow it with their stitches.
---Wisconsin, A Guide to the Badger State, 1941
Today the surrounding countryside is dotted with dairy farms. The lace factory is gone. The town has many businesses oriented toward catering to tourists visiting "Little Switzerland". The church building still stands on the knoll, but today houses a Church of Christ. The pioneer monument still stands on the church grounds. I found one pioneer's grave on the church lawn, but could not find Duerst's, but I suspect that it is there somewhere.
The town still celebrates Kilby, but at the end of September, instead of the beginning. They also celebrate several other ethnic festivals including Maitag Trachten (A celebration of traditional European dress, food and song), Heidi Festival, Swiss Volksfest (Swiss Independence Day), Wilhelm Tell Festival, and Schuetzen Fest (a firearm shooting festival.)