Neu

Mathias Neu
Mathias Neu, who owns an excellent farm of one hundred and sixty acres in Paris township, still resides upon that place although it is operated by others.  His birth occurred in Sulm, Kreis, Bittburg, Rhine, Province of Prussia, on the 13th of January 1850.  His parents were Valentine and Eva (Lawrence) Neu, the former born in 1819 and the latter in 1827.  The father was a well to do  farmer and passed his entire life in the fatherland, dying in 1863.  He had survived his wife for thirteen years, as she was called by death in 1850.  They were married in 1845 and had two children:  Herbert, who was a successful farmer in Germany and died in 1914; and Mathias.  The religious faith of the family was that of the Roman Catholic Church.
Mathias Neu received a good education in the public schools of Germany and after putting aside his textbooks engaged in farming until 1873, when as a young man of twenty-three years he came to the United States as he wished to avoid compulsory service in the German army.  He first located in Chicago and there worked in a lumberyard for six months, after which he went to Iowa.  Four months later he returned to Chicago but in December 1873 arrived in Kenosha County.  During that winter he worked on a farm for his board and for the following three years he was employed as a farm hand.  In 1877 he bought eighty-two acres of land with his savings and subsequently he purchased his present farm of one hundred and sixty acres.  He operated both places and his well directed labors broght him a good annual return.  He managed his business affairs well and in time accumulated a competence which now enables him to live retired.  When he took up the occupation of farming he owned two hundred and forty-two acres of land but has since disposed of eighty-two acres, still retaining title to the one hudred sixty acre farm, which he rents.
Mr. Neu was united in marriage in Racine in 1876, to Miss Elizabeth Honold, who was born in Paris Township, and they had five children: Hobart, who is employed in the shops in Racine' George, who is farming one hundred and sixty acres of land in Somers Township; Phillip also farming in Somers Township; John, who is farming in Paris Township; and Nicholas, a milk dealer in Racine.  The wife and mother passed away in 1886 and in 1887 Mr. Neu was married to Elizabeth Huck, of Paris Township, by whom he has four children:  August who is farming in somers Township; Josephine the wife of Nicholas Wilcomb, a farmer of Paris Township' Agnes who married Frank Bowers; and Joseph who is employed at farm work in Iowa.
(Source:  City and County of Kenosha, A Record of Settlement by Frank H. Lyman, Vol. II, Chicago, S.J. Clarke Publishing Co. 1916)

1887 Partial Map of Somers Township
Section 18 - Mathias New (Neu)
Note:  Section 7 - 80 acres of J. Huck father of Elizabeth Huck Neu. 
The 1908 Somers map shows Section 7 owned by Mathias Neu.