Hermansville

Charles J. L. Meyer of Minden, Germany, migrated to America in 1849 and continued his family tradition of woodworking by founding a plant in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, for the manufacture of sash, doors, and blinds. In 1878 he bought pine timberlands and founded the town of Hermansville to supply lumber to his Fond du Lac factories. The village was named for his son Herman, the first postmaster, and the township was named for Meyer. His son-in-law, George Washington Earle, of Tully, New York, helped bring the Wisconsin Land and Lumber Company, which Meyer started in 1883, through difficult times. Earle led the company to preeminence by producing precision finished hardwood flooring on machines which Meyer had designed and manufactured. The flooring factory closed in 1943.