This is an article about the brickmaker Fred J. Kuhn in Princeton. For the St. Cloud Brickmaker (also Fred J's father), see Frederick Kuhn
Fred John Kuhn was born February 19, 1861, in Stearns County, Minnesota.
The 1870 United States census showed Frederick Kuhn (age 10, born in Minnesota) living with his parents Frederick (age 44, born in Prussia, farmer) and Maria A. (age 36, born in Hanover) in St. Cloud Township, Stearns County, Minnesota. His other siblings were Maria C. (age 14, born in Minnesota), Heinrich (age 12, born in Minnesota), Joseph (age 7, born in Minnesota), Bernhard (age 4, born in Minnesota), and Lena (age 1, born in Minnesota).
The 1875 Minnesota census showed Fred Kuehne (age 14, born in Minnesota) living with his parents Fred (age 49, born in Prussia) and Anna (age 41, born in Prussia) in St. Cloud Township, Minnesota. His other siblings were Henry (age 17, born in Minnesota), Joseph (age 12, born in Minnesota), Barney (age 8, born in Minnesota), Magdalena (age 6, born in Minnesota), Mary (age 4, born in Minnesota), and Edward (age 1, born in Minnesota).
The 1880 United States census showed Fred Kuhn (age 22, born in Minnesota) living with his parents Fritz (age 54, born in Germany, farmer) and Anna (age 46, born in Germany) in St. Cloud Township, Stearns County, Minnesota. His other siblings were Henry (age 23, born in Minnesota), Joseph (age 17, born in Minnesota), Barney (age 14, born in Minnesota), Helena (age 11, born in Minnesota), Mary (age 9, born in Minnesota), Edward (age 7, born in Minnesota), and Barbara (age 4, born in Minnesota).
Thursday, March 22. Fred Kuhne (father), an old and prosperous farmer and for 40 years a resident of Stearns county, died. He leaves a large family of grown children. (The Princeton Union, Thursday, March 29, 1894, Volume XVIII, Number 14, Page 2)
The 1900 United States census showed Fred J. Kuhn (age 39, born in February 1861 in Minnesota, farmer) married to Katie (age 33, born in October 1866 in Ohio) and living in Sauk Rapids Township, Benton County, Minnesota. Children Fred A. (age 7, born in August 1892 in Minnesota), Walter A. (age 3, born in July 1896 in Minnesota), and Alner M. (age 11, born in September 1898 in Minnesota) also lived with the couple.
The 1910 United States census showed Fred J. Kuhn (age 49, born in Minnesota, laborer odd jobs) married to Katherine E. (age 43, born in Ohio) and living in St. Cloud, Minnesota. Children Fred A. (age 17, born in Minnesota), Walter A. (age 14, born in Minnesota), Anna M. (age 11, born in Minnesota), John H. (age 9, born in Minnesota), Mary A. (age 6, born in Minnesota), and Irene M. (age 4, born in Minnesota) also lived with the couple.
Fred Kuhn of St. Cloud was here last week to visit his brothers, Henry and Joseph, and to look over the half interest he bought in the Joseph Kuhn brickyard some time ago. The name of the firm will hereafter be Kuhn Bros., and will be managed by Joseph Kuhn, who is now at the yards buying wood for the highest cash market price. Fred left for St. Cloud well satisfied with Princeton, and will move here with his family in the spring to make his home. (The Princeton Union, Mille Lacs County, Minnesota, Thursday, December 10, 1910, Volume XXIV, Number 49, Page 1)
Death of Mrs. Mary A. Kuhn. On May 31 Mrs. Mary A. Kuhn, mother of the Kuhn brothers of Brickton, died at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Mary Reinart, in St. Cloud. She was 77 years of age on the day preceding her death, which resulted from an affection of the heart. Her husband died in 1884. The funeral was held on Friday from the church of the Immaculate Conception at St. Cloud, and the funeral was largely attended by relatives and friends of the truly good woman who had been called to the other shore. Mrs. Mary Anna Kuhn was born in Hanover, Germany, on May 20, 1824, and moved to Green Creek, Ill., with her parents when ten years old. She was married to Fred Kuhn, October 24, 1854, and two days later moved to Minnesota and settled on a farm three miles south of St. Cloud. A year ago she moved into the city of St. Cloud and has lived with her children. She is survived by nine children: Mrs. Elizabeth Gau, Melrose; Mrs. Mary Reinart and Miss Magdelene Kuhn, St. Cloud; Mrs. Barbara Reinhart and Edward Kuhn, town of St. Cloud; Barney Kuhn, Duelm; and Henry, Fred and Joseph, Brickton. (The Princeton Union, Mille Lacs County, Minnesota, Thursday, June 8, 1911, Volume XXXV, Number 24, Page 3)
The road between Brickton and here has been greatly improved by our road overseers, Fred Kuhn and Otto Polsfuss. (The Princeton Union, Mille Lacs County, Minnesota, Thursday, June 17, 1915, Volume XXXIX, Number 26, Page 8)
The 1920 United States census showed Fred Kuhn (age 59, born in Minnesota, farmer) married to Kathryn (age 53, born in Minnesota) and living in Princeton Township, Mille Lacs County, Minnesota. Children Walter (age 23, born in Minnesota), John (age 19, born in Minnesota), Mary (age 16, born in Minnesota), and Irene (age 14, born in Minnesota) also lived with the couple.
The 1930 United States census showed Fred Kuhn (age 69, born in Minnesota, farmer) married to Katherine (age 64, born in Kentucky) and living in Princeton Township, Mille Lacs County, Minnesota. A son, Walter (age 34, born in Minnesota), also lived with the couple.
Fred Kuhn died September 19, 1944, in Mille Lacs County, Minnesota.
The Life and Times of Fred Kuhn the 2nd. My dad was born on a farm 3 miles out of St. Cloud in 1861. He died in 1944. He was a very smart and good man who could do anything. He came from a large family of 5 boys and 3 girls. He was the son of Mary Ann Kuhn and Frederick Kuehne. That is the way our name was originally spelled. He met my mother at a dance all the young people went to at that time. He took her home and after that they saw a lot of each other. They were married on June 17, 1890. He took her home to a farm he owned near Sauk Rapids. It had two stone quarries, so they hired a lot of men. One was a Mr. Fandel who later opened a dry goods store in St. Cloud. And the other man Mr. Zapp who opened the bank there. They always gave my mother their money to hold for them. They were always happy to see my folks, even when they moved to Princeton. Their son Fred was born on the farm and then Walter four years later. Two years after that their daughter Eleanor was born and then another son John. My dad got tired of trying to farm with all the granite and broken tools, so he decided to move to St. Cloud and do carpenter work. He lived in a nice house by the fair grounds which my mother liked very much. It had a nice open stairway. Mary and I were born there. They always placed a little stuffed chicken of the type we have at Easter time on the stairs so I wouldn’t climb them. I think that is where I got to be afraid of chickens. My dad would never eat chicken. He claimed that when he was out threshing, someone served chicken with some of the feathers left on it, so my mother always had to fix him something else. Usually a piece of pork.
My dad felt like moving on and uncle Joe knew he had the money for the farm. He talked my dad into coming into the brickyard with him. My dad came back to St. Cloud and told my mother that he bought into the brickyard, and that we were going to move to Princeton. She didn’t like it. I was five years old and can barely remember the train ride, but I sure didn’t like our home in Princeton. Neither did my mother. She had to work very hard. Every day she had to cook dinner for the men in the brickyards. Some times there would be two tables full in that big dining room. My mother was a very good cook and made very nice baked goods. She had a hired girl and Eleanor to help her. The hired girl’s name was Maggie Snalitch. Mary said she also had to help. Most of the men were from Princeton. My dad and Uncle Joe did not get along too well and it was time to fold up as the brick business was getting slow. They decided to buy each other out. Uncle Joe was a mean man, who always kept a loaded revolver in his desk. But maybe he had to handle all that money for the brickyard. He went through the eighth grade and taught school for awhile. One time he even drew the loaded gun on my dad. When it came time to buy him out, every day that my dad didn’t buy, he would raise the price another hundred dollars. Finally they did buy the place and planned to stay. It was forty acres and the brickyard. Uncle Joe stayed for awhile but he always had to have the best. He took the kitchen, dining room and Walter’s room up stairs for himself. Mother and Dad had the living room, bedroom, and the two back rooms up stairs.
The living room was our kitchen and living room all in one. In the winter dad would always bring in a horse harness to fix or a saw to sharpen. It seemed he could do anything and really sewed nice. He would take linen thread, twist it and then was it for his repair work. We had to go out into the cold every night and run around to the back of the house to go upstairs to our cold beds. In the morning it was the same thing in reverse. Uncle Joe then rented out Walter’s room to a young couple, which was one more thing for my mother to worry about. Eleanor used to teach catachism to the children that lived around Long Siding, so every Saturday they would bring two long benches my dad had made into the house and she would teach. Every afternoon Uncle Joe would hitch up his horse and buggy and go to town for his daily beer. He had a very pretty horse and buggy with a fringe on top. His horse was said to be related to the great Dan Patch. He was a smart horse who knew the way home, which was fortunate as sometimes Uncle Joe was in no shape to drive. When Walter came back from the service, he wanted all the toys to start farming, so Walter bought 60 acres up at Malmo. My dad always liked something rough and hard to handle, so he drove a team up there with a wagon loaded down with supplies. It took him several days to get there and he had to stay in a hotel at night. There they built a house and barn out of logs.
Times on the farm weren’t always bad. We raised a lot of potatoes and sometimes we would get one hundred dollars a load. When Walter got home from the service we bought our first car. A nice new Ford for $700. Dad never learned to drive but the boys did. My dad built our barn and was very good at it. They eventually tore it down for the new highway. My dad loved to walk to the end of the farm and then to Luecks. He also loved to go to Morton Becks yard when they were burning the kilns. They had to keep the fires going day and night. Dad sold one acre of land to a man named Bud for a beer parlor. He would take Bob and walk over there and have a beer and buy peanuts or something for Bob. Dad was not a drinking man and was never seen with too much to drink. He liked to go on the train by himself. Once he went to Washington, and came back with exciting stories of all the fruit and warm weather. He always wanted to move there. He always cut wood in the winter for the brick yards and graded roads in the summer for extra money. Whenever mother would want to buy clothes for us girls, there was always some grain, potatoes or livestock to sell. My dad was 83 years old when he passed away, always sharp and spry. A couple of weeks before he died, he helped Walter with a load of hay, when a bad storm came up and blew him off the load. He never fully recovered after that. He had all his own teeth minus a few, and a full head of hair. He chewed tobacco every day and went to town every Sunday to take us all to church. He always sat in an old rocking hair on the porch with his dog right beside him waiting for us to come. After he was gone, we could still see his old rocking chair still a going when we would come and there was the big old white dog in the chair –waiting - By lrene Kuhn Howe