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| Birth |
1862 |
| Sex |
Male |
| Person ID |
I0088 |
Hawley Family Tree |
| Last Modified |
23 May 2006 |
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| Father |
Andrew KASCHMITTER, b. Sep 1817, Neusiedel-am-See |
| Mother |
Anna PFEMETER |
| Group Sheet |
F028 |
Hawley Family Tree |
| |
| Family 1 |
Caroline ZURLINE |
| Married |
22 Jun 1886 |
St. Joseph's Church |
| Group Sheet |
F103 |
Hawley Family Tree |
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| Notes |
- Matthias Kaschmitter the youngest son of Andrew Kaschmitter was but a boy of about 12 and a half years when he landed in America in 1875. Together with his brother Joseph, he set about working on the farm which his father purchased until he contracted a stubborn case of malaria. The sickness left him so weakened in body that he was quite unable to take an active part in the heavy work on the farm, but it did allow him to spend some months in school where Caroline Zurline, his future wife, was also in attendance.
For half a dozen years, Matthias shared the labors of the Tennessee farm with the rest of the family and then in 1881, set out for Utica, New York, in order to learn the trade of the stone-cutter. His companion on the journey was Mr. Jacob Jenny, uncle of Mr. Jacob Jenny who was but a child of some seven months when the two travellers took up their residence in the latter's father in Utica.
The two young men had set out from Loretto, Tennessee, on February 16, 1881, making the first thirty miles to Pulaski in a lumber wagon, and Matt later recalled with much amusement how after waiting for the train at Pulaski for a long time, they decided to go for some refreshments, only to find that the train had pulled out without them, but taking their grips along. The grips were recovered in Cincinnati, however, and here the two young men stayed for several days.
Arriving in Utica, they found that the last horse-drawn streetcar had already left the station and they had to walk for about a mile and a half to the Jenny home with the thermometer registering from thirty to thirty-five degrees below zero. Accustomed to the warm climate of Tennessee, Matt had taken neither overcoat nor gloves, but only the light dress of the southland. Needless to say, he invested in an overcoat on the very next morning. The snow which had been shovelled from teh sidewalks was piled up 8 or 9 feet in the street.
For a little more than twi years, until May 1883, matt worked in Utica in a stone-cutter's shop owned by another one of the Jenny Brothers, Frank, in which Louis Jenny, father of Jacob Jenny, Jr. was the foreman. Payday came to the young apprentices only once in three months and then the salary according to the general character of the times, amounted to only $3.50 a week, of which $3.10 were required to pay for board and laundry. Matt always remembered with gratitude, that he was given an opportunity in later months, to work in the shops after supper doing piece work for which he was able to earn $17.00 extra during the month of November alone.
In May 1883, Matt transferred to the shops a Quincy, Massechusetts some eight miles south of Boston, for practically two more years when scarcity of work again forced him to seek occupation elsewhere, first in Buffalo, then in Richmond, Virginia, where he remained for three months. When he was already advanced in years, he often recalled with a merry twinkle in his eyes, how on one occasion he gave a keg of beer to the negro assistants in the shop and thereafter could always depend on hearing a cheery "Alright boss" whenever he had to call on them for assistance.
Labor was scarce in those days and Matt's foreman was forced to dismiss all his workers without exception. Matt returned for a time to Utica, New York, then to Philadelphia, then to Minnesota to visit his aged parents, and finally to Cincinnati where he was married to Miss Caroline Zurline in St. Joseph's Church on June 22, 1886.
Memoirs pp. 63-66
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