scheussm  
 

Transcribed from "An Illustrated History of The Big Bend Country, embracing Lincoln, Douglas, Adams and Franklin counties, State of Washington",  published by Western Historical Publishing Co., 1904.


     MATTHEW SCHEUSS was born in Blackenburg, Prussia, on April 6, 1850, the son of Christian and Margaret (Quart) Scheuss, natives of Germany. They both died when our subject was small. Matthew was educated in his native country and when seventeen years of age, learned the blacksmith trade. He followed it there until twenty then came to the United States to avoid being conscripted for the Franco-Prussian war. He landed in the United States in 1870 and went to Pittsburg where he followed his trade and later worked in the oil refinery until 1873, then he enlisted for the Modoc war, being enrolled in the regular army at Pittsburg, on September 25, 1873. He was discharged on September 25, 1878, at Boise, Idaho, at the close of his term. His enlistment paper shows his name correctly, but by error the discharge has it Schultz. During this enlistment he served at Forts Vancouver, Walla Walla and Camp Harney. He participated in the Nez Perce and Bannock war and took part in the Pilot Rock battle, and at Umatilla, near Pendleton, where seventy-five soldiers thrashed three hundred and seventy Indians. Following the war, he bought land near Walla Walla and farmed it until 1881, the year in which he took his present homestead, which lies about six miles northwest from Sprague. Since that time, he has devoted himself to general farming and now has five hundred and twenty acres of good grain land besides forty acres of timber and meadow. He bought one hundred and twenty acres this year at twenty-five dollars cash per acre. The place is well improved with a fine two-story residence, barns and so forth and he has a very valuable farm. Mr. Scheuss experienced considerable hardship during the hard times of 1890 but was enabled by careful management to winter through without leaving his property. The farm is supplied with plenty of running water and well equipped with all stock and machinery necessary. Mr. Scheuss may well take pride in his labors as a soldier in quelling the Indians on the frontier as well as in his labors of development and upbuilding since. He has three sisters, Mrs. Katherine Mueller, Mrs. Agnes Lave, and Christine.
     Mr. Scheuss married Miss Maggie Jensen, at Walla Walla on October 19, 1880. Her parents are Peter and Ingeborg (Peterson) Jensen, natives of Denmark, now deceased. Mrs. Scheuss has one brother, Harry, and two sisters, Mrs. Dawell and Mrs. Sophia Anderson. To Mr. and Mrs. Scheuss seven children have been born, Christian, Grace, William, Hannah, Lillie, Harry, all at home except Grace who is deceased. One other, Christina, is now the wife of Jake Hays, who is in the creamery business at Sprague.
 

BACK