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Previously Unrecorded First Augustus Koch View of Manitowoc, Wisconsin (Koch's Home Town)

Previously unknown birdseye view of Manitowoc, Wisconsin, drawn by Augustus Koch, one of America's preeminent view makers, and almost certainly the earliest ever view by Koch, who was a resident of Manitowoc in the years prior to the creation of the view.

This first view launched a career as perhaps the most important American Viewmaker, which would last from 1868 to 1898.

Located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, the view shows the town at the mouth of the Manitowoc River, with 4 large wharves  The key locates tanneries, mills, factories, foundries and 3 early breweries (Rahr's Brewey, Wittenberg's Brewery and Kunz's Brewery).  Churches, Hotels and other important structures are also noted.

The view is almost certainly the earliest view by Augustus Koch.  Reps notes that Augustus Koch was likely living in Manitowoc in 1861, when he enlisted as a private in the Wisconsin Infantry, and later applied for a discharge from military service using the state of a Manitowoc physician, where his parents were still living.  Interestingly, Reps was completely unaware of Koch's first view of Manitowoc, stating "how [Koch] came to be an artist of views is, of course, unknown.  Perhaps he sought employment as a skilled artist in Milwaukee or Chicago . . . Possibly he met and was hired by Eli. S. Glover, who, in 1868, started his Merchants Lithographic Co., where Koch's first two city views were printed."

The present view, printed by Chicago Lithographing Co. in 1868, seems to be the missing link to the start of Koch's career.

Manitowoc

The Northwest Fur Company established a trading post at the mouth of the Manitowoc River in 1795. 

In 1835, just prior to the transfer of the land from the Menominee Nation to the United States, Andrew Jackson authorized land sales, with the majority of the land being procured by the Chicago firm Jones, King, & Co. Benjamin Jones, brother of William, took the Wisconsin property as his share and is considered the founder of Manitowoc. Manitowoc was chartered as a village on March 6, 1851 and on March 12, 1870 was incorporated as a city. 

In 1847, Joseph Edwards built the first schooner in the area, the Citizen, a modest precursor to the shipbuilding industry that produced schooners and clippers used for fishing and trading in the Great Lakes and beyond the St. Lawrence River 

Rarity

The view was previously unknown.

The Wisconsin Historical Society holds a reduced size photographic image of the view, but there seems to be no other record of its existence, giving the size as 9.5 x 8 inches and the maker as Middleton, Wallace & Co. of Cincinnati, dated 1869. The on-line photo reveals that it is almost certainly this 1868 Koch view of the town.