Erwin Gauthier

Two Rivers, Wisconsin

"Erwin Gauthier, of No. 1005 Nineteenth street, Two Rivers, is a well known fish shipper of this city, and belongs to the firm of Gauthier & Gauthier. He was born March 10, 1865, at Carlton, Kewaunee county, Wisconsin, a son of Antoine and Priscilla (Greenwood) Gauthier, who were married in Upper Canada. The grandfather of Erwin Gauthier, Captain Gauthier, received land grants in Upper Canada for services performed in the French army, and there he emigrated at an early day.

The maternal grandfather was a native of Canada, from whence he visited the site of Chicago, then a trading post, and also went to Fort Howard, at Green Bay, making the trip in a canoe, which he carried across Sturgeon Bay shallows. He was well versed in the Indian languages, being employed by the Hudson Bay Company, and while at Chicago he secured the release of a white man from the Indians by the gift of several kegs of whiskey and took this man to Sturgeon Bay with him.

On his last trip to Canada, this old pioneer died, nearly one hundred years ago.

During the early ‘50s Antoine and Priscilla Gauthier came to Two Rivers with their two daughters, Mary and Jessie, both of whom are now deceased, and Antoine Gauthier was engaged in fishing here until he enlisted in the Union army during the latter part of the Civil war, becoming a member of Company G, Twenty-seventh Wisconsin Infantry, with which he served for one year.

On his return from the war he began to farm in Carlton, Kewaunee county, purchasing twenty seven acres of wild land, on which he built the log cabin in which Erwin Gauthier was born. He cleared this property and sold it, as he did also a tract of sixty-six acres in the same township, and a forty acre farm in Pierce township, and he became a well known and highly esteemed citizen, serving for seven years as supervisor of the poor in Kewaunee county, and as justice of the peace for many years, and assisting to build the Catholic church at Two Rivers and the one at Kewaunee, as well as a log schoolhouse in Canton township.

The last three years of his life were spent in the Old Soldiers’ Home at Waupaca, where he died in 1907, aged seventy-six years, his widow surviving him only six months and being seventy-eight years old at the time of her death. The children that were born to them in Wisconsin were: Adolph; Edward; Zachariah, deceased; Erwin; Rosa; and Susan, Alec and an unnamed infant, all deceased.

Erwin Gauthier received his education in the schools of Carlton, and at the age of thirteen years started out to make his own way in the world, working in the lumber woods for five or six years and then becoming a cook on the lakes and in the woods until coming to Two Rivers, twenty-two years ago. For the next five or six years he was engaged in fishing, and he then formed the present partnership of Gauthier & Gauthier, with his cousin, Frank, and they have been very successful in their operations.

In 1889 Mr. Gauthier was married to Jennie Charles. who was born in Lincoln township, Kewaunee county, and she died in Two Rivers in 1893, leaving one daughter, Angeline. Later Mr. Gauthier was married to Delia Burkhart, a native of Green Bay, Wisconsin, and five sons were born to this union: Georgie, Wilfred, James, Benjamin and Melcher, of whom Wilfred is deceased. In political matters Mr. Gauthier is a democrat, and he has held the office of alderman from the first ward for two terms".

This is a sketch from "History of Manitowoc County Wisconsin" by Dr. L. Falge, 1911-1912, v.2, p.552-553.

          Erwin is a descendent of Jacques Gautier and Ursule DeNevers.

Copyright © 1999 Association de généalogie des familles Gauthier

Any reproduction of this site without the permission of the authors is prohibited.