The Remarkable Journey That Created New Glarus
Saturday marks 181 years since the 1845 arrival traditionally recognized as New Glarus’ birthday — the end of an extraordinary four-month journey from Switzerland that survived storms, sickness, hunger, confusion and repeated moments when the plan nearly unraveled.
On Saturday, Aug. 15, New Glarus turns 181 years old.
It is easy, after nearly two centuries, to think of the founding of New Glarus as inevitable: A group of Swiss immigrants left Canton Glarus, crossed the Atlantic, reached Wisconsin and established the community that remains here today.
Mathias Dürst’s diary makes it much harder to see the story that way.
Dürst was a tinsmith traveling with his wife, Verena, their 11-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter. Throughout the 1845 emigration, he kept a remarkably detailed diary of what the colonists encountered. His account, later translated and published, is one of the most important surviving records of the founding of New Glarus. The Swiss Historical Village has described him as an “indefatigable diarist” whose words preserve a journey in which plans repeatedly failed and the travelers were forced to improvise.
The anniversary is usually associated with Aug. 15, 1845, when the first group of Swiss colonists arrived in what would become New Glarus. Historical accounts differ somewhat on precisely when everyone else reached the settlement; the Swiss Historical Village notes that the final group arrived Aug. 17. Either way, what unfolded during those few August days was the culmination of a journey that had begun four months earlier.
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