O'Brien County Cemetery
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Fredrick Wilhelm Feldman (Dutch Fred)
5044 Wilson Avenue Sutherland, Iowa
March 19, 1827 - Feb 13, 1873
Fredrick Wilhelm Feldman (Dutch Fred)
5044 Wilson Avenue Sutherland, Iowa
March 19, 1827 - Feb 13, 1873
Frederick Wilhelm Feldman (Dutch Fred)
*"Dutch Fred," Frederick Wilhelm Feldman, was one of the colorful figures of early O’Brien County. He left his native Germany. “Dutch Fred" told Mr. Waterman that he deserted from King Williams Army to live in America in seclusion.
His wife refused to come with him, so he left her and their daughter there. He arrived in America September 12, 1864 and came to the frontier in Iowa in about 1866. In August 1868, he filed a homestead claim in the land office in Sioux City, on 80 acres in section 34, Waterman Township. He built a sod shanty for himself and a shelter for his livestock. He took sick in the winter of 1873 and died on February 13. He was buried on the land he homesteaded. He had expressed a desire that his daughter should be given his property but his land lacked six months of being proved up and reverted to the government.
In 1922, through the perseverance of James P. Martin, a fund was secured by dollar contributions with which to purchase material for a marker for the grave. Roy Lampman disinterred the remains which had been buried in the valley and excavated a new grave on a bluff. Over the grave facing the Little Sioux River a suitable monument, bearing his name and the date of his death, was erected to the memory of Frederick Wilhelm Feldman.
Commenting on early politics, “Dutch Fred” would say, “All hold office but me, and I am de Peoples.”
Today his tombstone is still nestled on a bluff overlooking the Little Sioux River and the land he searched so hard to find is located just five miles east of Sutherland, Ia.
March 19, 1827 – Feb. 13, 1873
*Sutherland, Iowa 1976 p. 75