Champaign County IL Archives Biographies.....Schweizer, John F 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Celia Snyder cgsnyder@uiuc.edu September 1999

Biography of John F SCHWEIZER, Champaign County, Illinois

From:  "History of Champaign County, Illinois with Illustrations," 1878

JOHN F. SCHWEIZER - Among the many foreign-born residents of our 
county none stand higher, or are more respected, than he whose 
portrait adorns the head of this article.  John F. SCHWEIZER was born 
in Obersielunngan, O. Stuttgard, Kingdom of Wirtemburg, Germany, on 
the 14th day of March, 1827.  His father, Jacob SCHWEIZER, and 
mother, Margaret SCHWEIZER, were natives of that country.  There were 
eighteen children born to them.  Of that number fourteen were boys 
and four girls.  Seven of the children are still living.  The father 
died in 1865.  The mother still lives in her native place.  Two of 
the children, viz. the subject of this sketch and George G., who is a 
resident of Philadelphia, came to America.  John F. worked at home in 
his father's hotel until he reached the age of twenty-one.  On the 
4th of March, 1848, he emigrated to this country, and landed here on 
the 1st of June following.  He worked on a farm in New Jersey for two 
months after arriving here, after which he went to Philadelphia, 
where he worked at the butchering business, and then again went to 
farming.  After that he tended bar in a hotel, and continued in that 
business from the winter of 1848 until the spring of 1852.  He then 
left Philadelphia and went to Cincinnati, and worked in the Galt 
House as a cook.  He remained in that capacity but a short time.  He 
obtained a situation in the wholesale clothing house of Mack Bros., 
and remained with them until 1856, after which he embarked in the dry 
goods and notion trade, and remained so engaged until the 24th of 
May, 1857, when he emigrated to Urbana, Champaign county, where he 
opened a clothing house.  He continued in the same business in Urbana 
until the spring of 1862, when he removed to Champaign, where he 
still resides and continues in the clothing and merchant tailoring 
business.  In October, 1855, he married Ann Barbara HERBSTREIT, a 
native of Germany, but a resident of Cincinnati at the time of her 
marriage.  There have been two children born to them to bless their 
union, one boy and a girl.  The daughter, Vinnie, married Paul W. 
WOODY, Esq., a resident of Champaign, and a member of the firm of 
Schweizer and Woody.  The son is unmarried, and remains yet under the 
parental roof.  Mrs. Schweizer departed this life at her home in 
Champaign on the 4th of July, 1878, at the age of 43 years.  She was 
a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church.  In politics, Mr. 
Schweizer is a Republican, and cast his first vote for John C. 
Fremont in 1856.  He has acted and voted with that party ever since. 
On the 16th of May, 1874, Mr. Schweizer paid a visit to the home of 
his birth, and spent some time with his mother and remaining members 
of the family.  He returned the same year, and since has given his 
entire time to his large and constantly increasing business.  He has 
carried out of his business a comfortable competency, but he has not 
been without some serious reverses.  His stock and buildings were 
twice destroyed by fire, but he each time redoubled his efforts, and 
such was his energy and industry that he soon regained what he had 
lost by fire.  In 1868 he enlarged his business and added thereto the 
merchant tailoring business, and now in this department the 
reputation of the firm is second to none in Central Illinois.  Mr. 
Schweizer has been eminently successful, and it is attributable to 
his correct method of doing business.  He is honest and honorable in 
all of his dealings with his fellow-man, and the word of John F. 
Schweizer in the community where he resides and is best known is as 
good as his bond.


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