AS WITH ALL MNSQ CACHES, NO SEARCHING AT NIGHT, AND NO SEARCHING WHILE SERVICES ARE ONGOING. RETURN ANOTHER TIME.
***THIS CACHE HAS SOME SPECIAL CAVEATS***
The driveway has a gate that is open during the spring, summer, and fall. If it is closed, park on the road and approch by foot. The driveway to the cemetery passes through private land. Public access is granted but I do not wish for us to be the reason it stops. Please be respectful, use common sense, and leave the land better than you found it. Thank you.
The cache is not at the posted coords, however you will gather info to help you get to it.
The posted coords will bring you to a very impressive headstone belonging to John Fratzke. Trust me, you can't miss it and it is worth the time to visit.
According to "Child's History of Waseca County. MN., 1854-1909"; John Fratzke was one of our Union veterans, and an early settler in the town of Freedom. He was a native of Prossekel, Kreis Filehne, Posen, Prussia, Germany. At the age of twenty years, he sailed for America on a sail ship being nine weeks on the sea. He landed in New York January 3, 1854, and immediately came west as far as Princeton, Wisconsin. Three years later his parents, five brothers and one sister, arrived at Princeton, Wisconsin from Germany. He married Miss Gering in 1859. On the second day of December 1863, he enlisted as a private in Company A, Sixteenth regiment of Wisconsin Volunteer infantry to serve for three years or during the war. He went South with his regiment the same fall. In Louisville, Kentucky, he was wounded twice. In Atlanta, Georgia, he was in a hot place and received two gun shot wounds, one bullet passing through his left thigh and another through his left ankle. He was sent to the hospital and remained there five months. At one time, the rebel firing was so hot that the hospital had to be moved seven times in one day. After his recovery, he again took the field, this time at the Battle of Gettysburg, which continued three days and nights. At the close of the war, he marched to Washington and passed the Capitol in grand review.
Over the following years, his family moved from Germany and arrived to the area via oxen and covered wagons. He was married three times, having lost his first two wives. He worked as the treasurer for Freedom for seventeen years.
Now, onto the final location!
The cache is located at N43 58.ABC W093 43.DEF
ABC = Year of birth minus 1,118
DEF = Year of death minus 1,397
Be careful! There are multiple dates on the stone...