MONTICELLO — “Coming to Green County on the Erie Canal,” will be the focus of the Aug. 23 meeting of the Monticello Historical Society. The meeting begins at 7 p.m. in Zwingli United Church of Christ, 416 E. Lake Ave. There will be a short business session before the program.

Duane H. Freitag of Greendale will have an illustrated presentation on how the famed canal was used by European immigrants in the 1800s as they traveled from New York City to Milwaukee and on to Green County. 

Freitag, a retired reporter and editor for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, is a native of New Glarus.

He has written several books about the Swiss of Green County. His study of the Erie Canal was part of his research for a forthcoming book on the difficult first 10 years of the Swiss Colony of New Glarus. That book will be issued in time for the 175th anniversary of New Glarus in 2020. Among those traveling on the canal was the large group from the Canton Glarus village of Bilten that settled west of Monticello in 1847.

The program will include a discussion of building the canal as well as “traveling along” with several families who came from Switzerland in 1846, went west on the canal, and settled at New Glarus.