This is the story of a woman whose family immigrated from Germany to a small farm near Minster. She would eventually become a world-renowned circus performer and owner. One day, she would marry one of the most famous names in American history: Wild Bill Hickok.

Maria Agnes Polschneider was born August 24, 1826, in the Alsace region of Germany/France. When she was quite young, her mother passed away and her father decided to immigrate to the United States. For unknown reasons her father changed the family name to Messman, sometimes spelled Mersman. The Mersman name should be very familiar to our local readers.

The family first settled in the German-speaking community of Stallotown, about one mile south of Minster, Ohio. There, her father took up farming before ultimately moving to Cincinnati. It was there that Agnes saw her first circus.

Apparently, Agnes was more than impressed. Sometime after her 18th birthday, she declared her independence and eloped with a circus clown named William Lake Thurman. Her family did not approve of her new husband nor her new life with the circus. 

She soon found that if you were not a performer, circus life could be tedious and mundane. "The young bride got tired of doing nothing on these circus travels,” the Jersey City Journal read in 1907, “and under her husband's directions she practiced for a slack wire performance and soon became so expert at it that she was known throughout the circus world as the greatest in her line.” She also performed equestrian acts and worked as a lion tamer.

Agnes and her husband saved until they could buy their own outfit, the Lake Hippo Olympiad Circus. At one time they employed James Anthony Bailey of future Barnum & Bailey fame as their front man. The couple changed their last name to Lake because it sounded better with a circus name.

The pair welcomed a daughter Emma in 1856 who would surpass her mother's equestrian talents. Their circus was successful for decades. But it all came crashing down when tragedy struck…

To be continued in Part 2.