The crossroads community of Zander
Crossroads community of Zander, circa 1910, located at the intersection of Highway Q and Zander Road, in northern Manitowoc County.
Manitowoc County’s northern township of Gibson came to life with settlers in the 1850s. The township was named by Darius Peck shortly after his arrival in the 1850s, in honor of the home he left behind in Gibson, Pennsylvania.
William Zander, an early pioneer resident, wrote the following of his experience in early Gibson Township in the book “History of Manitowoc County” by Dr. Louis Falge:
“On August 10, 1855, I came to Manitowoc County with my parents, John Zander and his wife, my brothers, Helmuth and Fred, and my sisters Marie and Caroline, to the town of Gibson, where another brother, Edward, and William Buelkow had already erected a little log cabin on land taken up for us, the only one north of the Green Bay Railroad. Then life in the wilderness began for us. There were no roads at that time. Traveling was quite difficult and was accomplished on foot along a blazed trail to the city. There were no horses and oxen in this part of the country at that time. There was scarcely nothing to live on, so Helmuth and Marie left for Milwaukee, where they found employment.”
“My father and brother Fred made shingle bolts and Caroline and I hauled them home on a little sled, which was constructed for that purpose, and in the evening the bolts were made into shingles with a drawing knife, and when for our five thousand had been made, they were sold to Miles and Falkenburg, who had a store in Mishicot. The storekeepers would send a team for the shingles and at the same time would bring provisions for the family, such as corn meal, midlings and occasionally ten or fifteen pounds of flour.”
“About the first thing my father did was to buy a cow, which was purchased from a man at Two Rivers. As there were no fences, old ‘Bossy’ would wander away from home for miles and I remember late one evening my father and I went in search of her, and after we walked about three miles we stopped to listen for the tinkling of the bell, which was tied to her neck, when my father said ‘there’s the sound of an ax!’ We went in the direction of the noise and there, to our surprise, found another family settled, by the name of Burtt, who were Yankees. But as we were Germans we could not understand each other in a conversation. Notwithstanding this inconvenience, we were only too happy to find others as neighbors in that vast wilderness.”
“In the year 1859 my brother, John, came into the neighborhood, built a log blacksmith shop and became the first blacksmith in Gibson.”
“After the time of the Civil War my brother Helmuth, who fought in the battle of Gettysburg, and was wounded, returned home and soon after started the first general store on the same place where the Zander post office is located. After that the people of our neighborhood, including myself, considered we belonged more to civilization and hard times have since been only matters of history.”
The crossroads village of Zander continued to grow in the 1860s and 1870s in Gibson Township along the corner of today’s Highway Q and Zander Road. William Zander married Auguste Paul, a German immigrant living in Manitowoc, in 1867. The family made their home in the community of Zander where William operated a sawmill until about 1889. Then they moved to Kingsbridge, before going to Eastwin to operate an inn there. Mr. Zander passed away in 1919 at the age of 75.