Mesa County CO Archives Biographies.....Welch, Stephen R. April 4, 1857 - ?
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Judy Crook jlcrook@rof.net March 23, 2006, 7:06 pm

Author: Progressive Men of Western Colorado

     Stephen R. Welch, one of the leading fruit-growers and representative

citizens of Mesa county, this state, whose postoffice is at Grand Junction and

whose farm is three miles northwest of that city, is a native of Bureau county,

Illinois, where he was born on April 4, 1857.  His parents, Enoch and Eliza

(Richardson) Welch, were natives, respectively, of Vermont and Ohio.  The father

came west when a young man and was married in Ohio.  By this marriage he had two

children.  His wife died in that state and he moved to Bureau county, Illinois,

where he married a second wife, the mother of Stephen.  He was a mason by trade

and wrought at his craft in various places of his residence.  In 1869 he moved

his family to Benton county, Iowa, and three years later to Woodbury county,

that state.  He died at Sioux City, that county, leaving a third wife to survive

him, his second having died at their Illinois home in 1866.  The second marriage

resulted in three children, all living, Stephen being the first born.  He was

reared in Illinois and Iowa, and received a public-school education.  After

leaving school he worked on farms in Iowa until 1874 when he returned to

Illinois and located in Lee county, where he passed four years working on farms.

 He then moved back to Woodbury county, Iowa, but not long afterward again

returned to Illinois.  Soon after his marriage, in the spring of 1882, he

settled in Clay county, Iowa, and there he remained engaged in farming until

1896.  He then sold his farm of one hundred and sixty acres at twenty-nine

dollars per acre, having purchased it at twelve dollars per acre.  He then came

to Colorado, locating in Mesa county and bought the forty acres on which he now

lives, about half of which had been planted in fruit trees a year before.  He

has brought his land and orchards to a good state of productiveness and reaps

large returns from his labor, having in 1903 one thousand boxes of apples and

eight hundred of pears, also sixty tons of hay and five tons of potatoes, which

brought him an income of over two thousand dollars.  These figures will be much

increased as time passes, as his trees are just coming into full bearing order.

 On February 24, 1881, he was married to Miss Arella Geisinger,  a native of

Dixon, Illinois, and daughter of David and Sarah (Barrett) Geisinger, the former

born in Pennsylvania and the latter in Ohio.  They are now living at Storm Lake,

Iowa.  Mr. and Mrs. Welch are the parents of three children, Leo W., Clara V.

and Russell E.  In political faith Mr. Welch is a Republican, and in fraternal

alliance a Modern Woodman of America.  

Additional Comments:
From Progressive Men of Western Colorado.  Chicago:  A.W. Bowen & Co., 1905

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/co/mesa/bios/welch367gbs.txt

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