My Genealogy Hound

HENRY A. ROETZEL, of Rockport, is a native of Prussia, born January 3, 1837, being the second of five children in the family of Franz and Mary (Weller) Roetzel, who were also natives of Prussia. The father, who was a farmer, came to America with his family in 1854, and landed at New Orleans, where they remained a few months. They then came to this county and located on a farm in Grass Township, where the father died a short time after the close of the Rebellion. The mother survived her husband about two years. Henry A. Roetzel received the ordinary compulsory education in his native country, and at the age of fifteen he went to work in a mine, where he continued until coming to this country with his parents. He then worked on his father’s farm until 1865, when he engaged in the grocery business at Centerville, which he continued until 1872. Since the latter date he has been engaged in conducting a saloon, restaurant and boarding-house at Rockport. He was married to Magdalena Kehrer in October, 1865, and is the father of eight children—four sons and four daughters. He and wife are members of the German Lutheran Church.