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(Source: A Centennial Biographical History of Crawford County, Ohio -
Chicago: 1902)
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~ Thanks, Sharon Wick
JOHN FISHER, an
engineer on the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad,
residing at Crestline, was born in Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany,
February 9, 1852. His father, Adam Fisher, was a
native of the same locality, and in the year 1855 crossed the
Atlantic to America, bringing with him his family. He believed
that he might better provide for his wife and children in the
new world, and accordingly he located upon a farm in Crawford
county, Ohio, where he carried on agricultural pursuits until
his death, which occurred in the year 1878. His wife, Mrs.
Catherine Fisher, was also born in Hesse-Darmstadt,
passing away in Crawford county. Their children are Adam,
Mrs. Grufstein, Mrs. Elizabeth
Clemens, Philip, Lein, George, Eliza,
Fred, Jacob, John and Mrs. Mary
Fiddler.
In taking up the personal history of John
Fisher we present to our readers the life record of one who
is widely known in Crawford county. He was brought to Ohio by
his parents when only three years of age, and has here passed
his entire life. He pursued his education in the schools of
Crestline and in his youth worked upon his father's farm,
assisting in the labors of field and meadow from the time of
early spring planting until the crops were gathered in the
autumn. Not desiring to follow the plow as a life work, however,
he left home in 1871 to enter the railroad service as a fireman
in the employ of the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad.
He was thus engaged for five years, on the expiration of which
period he was promoted to the position of engineer, in which
capacity he has served for a quarter of a century. He has been
offered positions on passenger trains, but has refused these,
preferring to run on a freight engine. He is most reliable,
painstaking and careful, and he enjoys in an unusual degree the
confidence of his superiors. In the line of his chosen life work
he has social relations with the Brotherhood of Locomotive
Engineers.
In 1876 Mr. Fisher was united in marriage
to Miss Louisa Metz, who was born in
Crawford county, October 12, 1854, her parents having come to
Ohio from Germany in an early period of the development of the
Buckeye state, Two children grace the union of our subject and
his wife,—Amos and Howard. The parents hold
membership in the Lutheran church, and in his political
affiliations Mr. Fisher is a Democrat, supporting
the men and measures of the party and keeping well informed on
the issues of the day. He has never been an aspirant for office,
preferring to give his entire attention to his work. He has a
wide acquaintance in Crawford county and his friends are almost
as numerous. |
ANDREW
FRANKENFIELD. Reference has been frequently made in
this work to the good influence of Pennsylvania blood upon the
settlement and development of the great, middle west. Of such
ancestry is Andrew Frankenfield, of Texas
township, Crawford county, Ohio, who was born in Northampton
county, Pennsylvania, April 6, 1820, and was there reared to a
practical knowledge of farming and educated in the common
schools. In due time he married Rebecca Besulma,
who bore him five sons and five daughters, of whom seven are
living.
In 1851 Mr. Frankenfield removed to
Crawford county, Ohio, where he bought five acres of land, on
which he erected a cabin and a log blacksmith shop. Later he
bought fifty acres of heavily timbered land, which he gradually
cleared and put under cultivation and on which he lived for
twenty-five years, farming and doing carpenter work as there was
a demand for his services. At the expiration of that time he
located on a farm in Seneca county, Ohio, where he lived until
1868, when he removed to his present farm of one hundred and
seventeen acres in Texas township, Crawford county, Ohio, where
he has given his attention to general farming with much success.
Politically Mr. Frankenfield affiliates
with the Democratic party and his influence in local public
matters is recognized. At the same time he is not in the
ordinary sense of the term a practical politician and he has
never sought nor accepted office. He is a communicant of the
Presbyterian church and has for many years been a liberal
contributor toward the support of its various interests. He
began life poor and is a self-made man, whose success has been
won most worthily and who is highly regarded by all who know
him. |
SAMUEL S. FREESE.
The family of Freese has long been well known in
Pennsylvania, where the name has become identified with success
and agricultural and mechanical pursuits, in financial and
commercial circles, in the professions and in politics. Wherever
representatives of the family have gone, following the westward
course of the empire, they have not only planted well,
cultivated thoroughly and reaped abundantly, but have been so
upright in their dealings with their fellow men and so
public-spirited in their relations to their fellow citizens that
even-where the name has become a synonym for good citizenship.
There may have been men named Frees who have fallen short
of realizing this description, but such have never been known in
Crawford county, Ohio, where the family has been well
represented by Samuel Freese, of Jefferson
township, and by others.
Samuel S. Freese was born at
Lancaster. Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, October 8, 1820, one
of the five children of John J. and Susan (Eldis) Freese,
and he is the only one of them now living. The others were named
William, Elizabeth, Susan and Adam.
In 1823. when the subject of this sketch was about three years
old, he was taken by his parents to Holmes county, Ohio, where
the family lived until 1831, when they removed to Crawford
county. John J. Freese bought eighty acres of land in
Jefferson township, on which some improvements had been made and
a one-room log- house had been erected. Mr. Freese
died at Galion, Ohio.
Samuel Freese was brought up to farm work
and received a meager education in the subscription school
taught in a log school house near his pioneer home. He has a
vivid recollection of early days in Crawford county and
remembers the now flourishing city of Gallon at a period in its
history when it consisted of only a few scattered log cabins. He
remained on the farm, assisting his father, until 1848, when, at
the age of twenty-eight years, he married Lena Eberly
and moved on his present farm, on which there then stood a small
log house, which has since given place to a substantial modern
residence. He proved himself to be a man of exceptional business
capacity and became the owner of more than five hundred acres of
land, three hundred acres .of which he has divided among his
children. His home farm of two-hundred acres he devotes to
general farming and stock-raising.
Samuel and Lena (Eberly) Freese have children
named John, Caroline, Eliza and William. |
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