Description

Today we know Lippers Mills as the Village of Franklin. Tucked away along the Sheboygan River in Town Herman, Sheboygan County, Wisconsin sits an unincorporated village. This slightly out-of-the-way place is located twelve miles northwest of the city of Sheboygan just off County Hwy A four miles west of Howards Grove.

In 1847, the area along the river was wooded by large popple trees within a vast thick forest of white pine and mixed hardwoods. It was also the site of a large Indian camp.

For the first few years, the village was called Lippers Mills because the people had come from Lippe-Detmold, Germany, and thus were called Lippers.  The Mills refers to the sawmill and a flour mill constructed there on a stretch of rapids on the Sheboygan River.

It was 170 years ago and over 4,000 miles away that a group of 112 people from the village of Langenholzhausen, Lippe-Detmold, Germany left for America. They were in search of better opportunities leaving poverty, political chaos, and religious persecution.

This publication about the village of Franklin is filled with color images, historic and contemporary, and great stories along with a history of settlement, growth, and decline.  It is available in the Millhouse store or online at schrc.org.  The cost of this 147-page book is $20.00 plus tax.