Anton Gruner - Caroline Pilz
"The Homestead" Built 1850's (approx.)
176 East Miller Lake Rd, Coldwater, MI
G-2 Anton Gruner (1812-1895).
The farm of 120 acres was purchased by Anton
and Wenzel Gruner, October 27, 1853 for $2,000.00. It is believed they lived in
a log cabin for a short time, but with water powered sawmills available, they soon
were able to build a house. By 1856, Anton, age 44 by this time, married pretty
young Caroline Pilz, also from Bohemia. Two years later, Wenzel married Emily
Randall and established a home a short distance west.
The 1860 Federal Census listed Anton, Caroline, 3 children - Caroline, Frank and Charles,
plus Caroline's mother Mary Ann Waner. Franz von Gruner had died in 1856 and
his widow, Katharina was living with Wenzel and Emily. About this time the two
brothers divided up their lands and continued to acquire more individually.
The house is no longer occupied and most of the other buildings, as
seen in the old pictures, are no longer there. Following the death of Clara Gruner,
the farm was sold to Larry Fraser in 1996 and it can be expected that the old
house being in very poor structural condition will disappear too.
Anton died in 1895 and the farm passed to his eldest son, Frank, who
never married. Frank died in 1924 and the farm was rented for a few years to
Merrill Bradley, a former employee. Anton's grandson, Glen Gruner (son of Edwin)
married Clara Marsh in 1925 and moved into this house in 1929.
They had 7 children (6 boys and 1 girl) all of whom grew up on this farm and went
on to well paying jobs off the farm. Glen had said he wanted his children to avoid
the hard work and poor income of farming.
This land was of good quality being part "heavy" and part sandy and was
at first Indian land and not homesteaded in the 1830-1840s. The Crippen brothers
were land speculators and acquired this land and sold it to Anton & Wenzel, the
German immigrants.
Frank Gruner House 1912
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