Gottlieb Wehrle (March 14, 1822 – July 31, 1886) was an American farmer from Fennimore, Wisconsin who spent a single term as a Reform Party member of the

Wisconsin State Assembly The Wisconsin State Assembly is the lower house of the Wisconsin Legislature. Together with the smaller Wisconsin Senate, the two constitute the legislative branch of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The Assembly is controlled by the Republican ...

from the third

Grant County Grant County may refer to: Places ;Australia * County of Grant, Victoria ;United States * Grant County, Arkansas * Grant County, Indiana * Grant County, Kansas *Grant County, Kentucky Grant County is a county located in the northern pa ...

district.

Background

Wehrle was born in the

Grand Duchy of Baden The Grand Duchy of Baden () was a German polity on the east bank of the Rhine. It originally existed as a sovereign state from 1806 to 1871 and later as part of the German Empire until 1918. The duchy's 12th-century origins were as a Margravia ...

, Germany, on March 14, 1822. He received a

common school A common school was a public school in the United States during the 19th century. Horace Mann (1796–1859) was a strong advocate for public education and the common school. In 1837, the state of Massachusetts appointed Mann as the first secretar ...

education and became a farmer. He came to the United States on March 10, 1854, in

steerage Steerage is a term for the lowest category of passenger accommodation in a ship. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, considerable numbers of persons travelled from their homeland to seek a new life elsewhere, in many cases North Amer ...

, having embarked in

Le Havre Le Havre is a major port city in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy (administrative region), Normandy region of northern France. It is situated on the right bank of the estuary of the Seine, river Seine on the English Channel, Channe ...

, eventually moved to Wisconsin in 1855 and settled on a farm in Fennimore. Wehlre died in 1886 and was buried in Fennimore.

Public office

He was twice elected chairman of the Fennimore town board, before being elected to the Assembly in 1873 on the Reform ticket (in the same election which brought

William Robert Taylor William Robert Taylor (July 10, 1820March 17, 1909) was an American politician and the 12th governor of Wisconsin from 1874 to 1876. Early life Taylor was born in Woodbury, Connecticut. He was orphaned at age 6 when his father's ship was lost a ...

to power), with 584 votes to 530 for Republican former Assemblyman Jonathan Baker Moore. (The incumbent, Republican John Monteith, was not a candidate for re-election.) He was assigned to the

standing committee A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly or other form of organization. A committee may not itself be considered to be a form of assembly or a decision-making body. Usually, an assembly o ...

on education. In 1874 he sought re-election as a Democrat, but lost by 645 votes to 838 for former Republican Assemblyman Benjamin M. Coates.

Heritage

The

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

of Werley, Wisconsin was named after him."Term: Werley [origin of place name]" ''Dictionary of Wisconsin History''

References

Farmers from Wisconsin People from the Grand Duchy of Baden People from Fennimore, Wisconsin Wisconsin Reformers (19th century) 1822 births 1886 deaths Democratic Party members of the Wisconsin State Assembly Immigrants to the United States 19th-century members of the Wisconsin Legislature {{Wisconsin-WIAssembly-Democratic-stub