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Charles and Sarah Wolf. Wolf family photograph collection.
This Great Lakes History Log is presented by Filer Credit Union and the Mason County Historical Society.
On Thursday, Aug. 13, the Mason County Historical Society will present a walking tour of Brookside Cemetery featuring some of the pioneers of Scottville and Amber Township. Among the many pioneers who founded those two communities was Charles Wolf Sr. Tickets are still available for the cemetery tour. The cost is $35 per person with proceeds going to the historical society, a non-profit charitable organization. Click here for more information.
By Rob Alway, Editor-in-Chief
Prussian immigrant Charles Wolf Sr. served the Union in both the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Army during the Civil War before settling in Mason County, where he became one of Amber Township’s earliest pioneers. His journey carried him from Europe to the Mississippi River and the battlefields of Virginia before he and his wife, Sarah Anne Brown Wolf (1848-1920), established the family homestead that became part of the township’s early history.
Historical note: The surname is sometimes written Wolfe.
Much of what is known about the Wolf family’s journey survives because of their eldest son, Charles M. Wolf Jr. (1867-1961). Charles Jr. was old enough to witness the final years of frontier settlement and young enough to preserve firsthand accounts passed down by his father. Through newspaper interviews, contributions to the Mason County Historical Society and personal recollections, he ensured the experiences of his parents and other early settlers would not be forgotten.
Charles Wolf Sr. was born on Nov. 18, 1839, in Słupsk, then part of Prussia. Known as Stolp during the German and Prussian era, the city was a regional market and administrative center in the historic province of Pomerania near the Baltic Sea. Today, Słupsk is part of northwestern Poland, having become Polish following the border changes at the end of World War II.
USS St. Louis, later renamed Baron de Kalb, image by Oscar Parkes.
As a teenager, he left Europe and spent several years as a seaman aboard sailing ships. According to the account later written by his son, one voyage ended in Baltimore while the Civil War was underway. There he encountered a recruiting officer and enlisted in the Union service. Military records indicate he enlisted in Boston in 1861, serving first in the U.S. Navy before later joining the 8th Michigan Infantry Regiment.
Charles Jr. wrote that his father first served aboard Union gunboats on the Mississippi River, including USS Baron DeKalb. The Baron DeKalb was a City-class ironclad gunboat built for the Union Navy during the Civil War. Originally commissioned as USS St. Louis, it was renamed in 1862 after Revolutionary War Gen. Johann de Kalb. The vessel played a key role in the Union campaign to gain control of the Mississippi River and its tributaries, participating in operations including Fort Henry, Fort Donelson and Vicksburg before striking a Confederate mine and sinking in the Yazoo River in 1863. Charles Sr. was apparently one of the casualties, as he was taken to Washington, D.C., for treatment.
USS Carondelet
After recovering, Charles Sr. returned to sailing on the Great Lakes before again answering the nation’s call, this time enlisting in the U.S. Army. He was seriously wounded during fighting in Virginia and was discharged because of those injuries. Throughout his life, Charles Jr. preserved both his father’s Navy and Army discharge papers, documenting the uncommon distinction of serving in two branches during the Civil War.
After the war, Charles Sr. settled in Holland, Mich., where he married Sarah Brown on March 17, 1866. Sarah, a Pennsylvania native, had moved west with her family as Michigan attracted new settlers. Their first son, Charles Jr., was born the following year in Ottawa County.
The family soon looked north to Mason County, where inexpensive land offered the opportunity to establish a farm. Charles Jr. recalled his parents purchasing what later became the John VandenHeuval farm west of Amber Station. They owned 80 acres extending from the present-day northwest corner of U.S. 10-31 and Quarterline Road north to present-day Johnson Road.
The Wolfs arrived while the Flint & Pere Marquette Railroad was still under construction through the heavily timbered countryside. Charles Sr. helped build the railroad grade with a large team of horses before trading the team for the farm that became the family’s permanent home. Charles Jr. later recalled watching crews lay the rails that connected Ludington with the rest of Michigan. Those memories linked the Wolf family to one of Mason County’s defining periods of growth and development.
F&PM locomotive at Ludington roundhouse. Photo from the Mason County Historical Society Rose Hawley Archives.
The Flint & Pere Marquette Railroad reached Ludington in December 1874, a year after the community was incorporated as a city. Along its east-west route through Mason County, the railroad helped establish communities including Walhalla, Custer, Scottville and Amber.
Charles Sr. and Sarah raised three sons on the Amber Township farm: Charles M. Wolf Jr. (1867-1961), George Henry Wolf (1870-1929) and Frederick John “Fred” Wolf (1879-1946).
George moved west, first to Oregon and later to California, where he worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad. He died at a Colorado tuberculosis sanitarium in 1929 at the age of 58.
Fred served with Company B of the 34th Michigan Volunteer Infantry during the Spanish-American War before settling in Montana, where he worked for the Northern Pacific Railroad. He died in 1946 at age 67.
Charles Jr. remained in Mason County, becoming the family’s historian and eventually its last surviving son.
Like his father, Charles Jr. spent much of his working life outdoors. As a young man he worked in lumber camps, hauled logs with horse teams and farmed north of Scottville. Later he worked at Andersen Nursery on North Main Street after turning the family farm over to his sons. Even into his late 80s and early 90s, local newspapers described him as one of Mason County’s few remaining pioneers, noting that he continued cutting wood, working and maintaining an active lifestyle.
The grave of Charles and Sarah Wolf at Brookside Cemetery.
His greatest contribution, however, was preserving the county’s pioneer history. In 1953, the Mason County Historical Society named Charles Jr. an honorary member in recognition of his firsthand knowledge of the area’s earliest settlement. Newspaper accounts, including those written by historian Rose Hawley, noted that he vividly remembered construction of the Flint & Pere Marquette Railroad through Amber Township and willingly shared stories of the pioneers who transformed dense forests into productive farms.
He also donated an etching of the Civil War gunboat Carondelet to the Mason County Historical Society museum because of its connection to his father’s naval service. Like USS Baron DeKalb, Carondelet was a City-class ironclad that played a key role in the Union campaign to gain control of the Mississippi River, participating in major operations including Fort Henry, Fort Donelson and Vicksburg. His recollections and donated artifacts preserved a chapter of Mason County history that otherwise might have been lost.
Charles Jr. married Daisy Alice Parker (1881-1934), herself a descendant of one of Mason County’s early pioneer families. Together they raised four children: Earl Frederick Wolf, Anna Mae Wolf Sebastian, Floyd Martin Wolfe and Lena Isabel Wolf Johnson.
Today, the family’s story is reflected in Scottville’s Brookside Cemetery. Charles Wolf Sr. and Sarah Anne Brown Wolf rest beneath a granite monument marking the graves of the pioneer couple who helped establish one of Amber Township’s earliest homesteads. Nearby are the graves of Charles M. Wolf Jr. and Daisy Alice Parker Wolf. Together, the two generations represent nearly a century of Mason County history, from European immigration and Civil War service to railroad construction, pioneer farming and the preservation of the county’s early history.
Special thanks to Dr. William Anderson for his assistance researching Charles Wolf Sr.’s regiment and Duane Wolf, great-great-grandson of Charles Wolf Sr. for helping with information.
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