My Genealogy Hound

HANSE MADISON. The great common carrier, the iron horse, has placed every human creature under a debt of gratitude for the incomparable favor of distributing the gifts of the ground all over the country; thus permitting the inhabitants of Michigan and surrounding States to share with the Michigander in the early yield of fruit and vegetables. The fruit industry in the State above mentioned has a noted representative in Hanse Madison, whose fertile farm of forty acres is devoted to the culture of small fruits. So intelligent is his management of this land, so industrious are his habits, so indefatigable are his efforts, and so pushing and enterprising is he, that he has found the business highly profitable from a monetary point of view, as well as agreeable to his tastes.

Mr. Madison owes his nativity to Denmark, where he was born on the 16th of August, 1834, his parents being Madison and Dora (Johnson) Madison, both of whom were born, reared and spent their lives in their native land of Denmark, in which sea-girt land the subject of this sketch was brought up. He was given good advantages for acquiring an education, and obtained a practical knowledge of the common branches. At the age of twenty-four years he decided to seek his fortune across the ocean, and thither he repaired in 1859. Almost immediately after landing he came to Michigan and settled in Berrien County, where he has since made his home. He commenced life on a foreign soil with very little means, but his tastes were never luxurious, and he had been brought up to know the value of money and the virtue of earnest and persistent effort, so he labored patiently, and by rigid economy soon began to see an improvement in his circumstances. He has owned and cleared a number of farms, besides doing much work in the same line for others, and now has a farm of forty acres, which, though small, is amply sufficient to keep him fully occupied during the fruit season. Besides this tract he has five acres in addition, which he has in fruit. This land is located about six and a-half miles from St. Joseph. In addition to this he rents another tract of twenty-six acres, which is in an excellent state of cultivation, and together they yield a sufficient income to meet all his modest requirements.

In 1869 he wisely concluded that it was not good for man to live alone, and he accordingly wooed and won for his wife Miss Mary Johnson, a native of Sweden, who has proven to him a helpmate indeed in his struggles to gain a competency. They have an interesting family of five children, who are as follows: Lewis Alfred, who married Clara H. Strubing, and lives in Iowa; Andrew; Minnie L., wife of William H. Brunke; Anna May and Hattie L. Mr. Madison is much interested in the calling which he follows, is well posted on the subject, and therefore is successful. He is a member of the Berrien County Farmers’ Mutual Fire Insurance Company, and since becoming a naturalized citizen of the United States has been a Republican in his political views, his first Presidential vote being cast for U. S. Grant. His parents were earnest members of the Lutheran Church.