COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY REMINISCENCE AND
BIOGRAPHY OF NEBRASKA
CONTAINING A History of the State of Nebraska
Embracing an account of Early Explorations, Early
Settlement, Indian Occupancy, Indian History and
Traditions, Territorial and State Organizations; a
review of the Political History; and a concise
History of the Growth and Development of the
State.
ALSO A COMPENDIUM OF REMINISCENCE AND BIOGRAPHY
CONTAINING BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF HUNDREDS OF
PROMINENT OLD SETTLERS AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS
OF NEBRASKA
With a Review of their life
work; their identity with the growth and
development of the State; Reminiscences of
Personal History and Pioneer Life and other
Interesting and Valuable Matter which should
be Preserved in History.
CHICAGO: ALDEN PUBLISHING COMPANY, 1912
http://www.rootsweb.com/~neresour/OLLibrary/Comp_NE/cmp0605.htm
JOHN STAHLECKER
Most of the immigrants from
Europe prove to be thrifty, and in time prosperous, and such may be said of the
venerable John Stahlecker, now living, retired from active labor, in the village
of Naper, Boyd county, Nebraska.
John Stahlecker was born in the village of Fredersdahl,
Prussia, December 17, 1843. His parents, Josias and Katrina (Koch) Stahlecker,
soon after his birth, moved to Russia, where that government gave immigrants a
tract of free land. Here he followed the life of a farmer until emigrating to
America in 1873. Sailing from Hamburg, he landed in New York after a voyage of
fifteen days, and came directly to Columbus, Nebraska. He rented farm land there
for five years, thence moving to South Dakota, and filing on a homestead in
Hutchinson county, where he lived for fourteen years. Selling his land here, he
removed to Nebraska, in 1892, and bought one hundred and sixty acres of land in
Boyd county, two and a half miles west of Naper. Here he resided until 1905,
when he bought a comfortable cottage home in town and has since refrained from
active labor. He is, with two sons-in-law, interested in two hardware and
implement houses, one in Naper and one in Herrick, South Dakota.
Mr. Stahlecker was married in the old country, in the year
1863, to Miss Barbara Reuter, who is the mother of eleven living children, named
as follows: Conrad, who lives on his farm north of Naper; Fredrika, wife of
Fernand Klaudt, Gottlieb, who resides at Delmont, South Dakota; Josias, who
rents a farm one mile west of Naper; Katrina, wife of Samuel Statsmann, who is
one of the partners in the hardware business and runs the store in Naper; John
has a farm two miles west of town; Barbara, who lives in Naper, where her
husband, Claus Vogt, is engaged in the furniture business; Elizabeth is the wife
of Charles Reichel, the third member of the hardware firm and who runs the
Herrick branch of the business; Marie is married to John Blakkolb, who owns a
grocery store in Naper; Dora and her husband, John Houf, live on their homestead
claim in Gregory, South Dakota; and Jacob clerks in the Naper store of his
father's firm.
Mr. Stahlecker is republican in political
faith. and is a lifelong member of the Lutheran church.
He has endured the many winter storms that prevail in this
region and has weathered a number of the fierce blizzards that sweep the plains,
including that of January 12, 1888. Prairie fires have devastated his farm from
time to time, carrying up in smoke many tons of hay and endangering his
buildings. His earliest home was the typical sod house of the pioneer, but later
he built frame dwellings and has had good houses on all the tracts of land that
have been his home.
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