Will County IL Archives Biographies.....Plagge, Fred 1840 - 
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Deb Haines ddhaines@gmail.com May 8, 2007, 1:01 am

Author: Portrait & Bio Album, 1890

FRED PLAGGE. This gentlemen is the owner and occupant of a fine farm on 
section 6, Washington Township, where he is engaged in general farming and 
stock-raising. The estate comprises two hundred acres, all improved, and 
supplied with a complete line of well-built structures suitable for the 
various purposes and needs of his occupation. The present appearance of the 
farm is the best monument which could be erected to the energy and untiring 
perseverance of the owner who has brought it from the primitive condition of 
an unbroken prairie to that of cultivated fields. The gentleman of whom we 
write was born in the Kingdom of Hanover, Germany, June 20, 1840, and was but 
a few months old when brought to America by his parents, who settled in Cook 
County, Ill. There he grew to manhood, obtaining his education in the common 
schools and acquiring on the home farm a knowledge of agricultural pursuits. 
In 1863, he took possession of his present estate and began his successful 
career in this county. By his own efforts he has accumulated a sufficiency of 
this world's goods to surround himself and family with comforts and to give 
the promise of an ample support in declining years. The lady who has been Mr. 
Plagge's efficient helpmate for a number of years was known in her maidenhood 
as Miss Christina Kerning. She was born in the Kingdom of Hanover, July 16, 
1839, and was sixteen years old when she came alone to America and began 
making her livelihood as a domestic in Cook County. After a few years she was 
followed by her parents, who settled in that county, dying there when past 
sixty years of age. They were members of the Lutheran Church. The happy union 
of Mr. and Mrs. Plagge has been blest by the birth of eight children, all at 
home except two. These are Augusta, wife of Henry Withkening, a farmer in 
Washington Township, Will County, and Emma, the wife of William Nargers, who 
lives in the village of Beecher. The other members of the family are William, 
who assists his father on the farm; Louis, Gustaf, Fred, Bertha and Herman. 
Mr. Plagge is a Republican in politics. The family attend the Lutheran Church. 
The ancestral line from which our subject derives his descent was a 
respectable one and the blood pure Hanoverian German. His father, William 
Plagge, was reared to farm work and pursued it in his native kingdom until 
late in the year 1840. He then with his wife and two sons—Charles and Fred, —
sailed for America, taking passage at Bremerhaven. After some weeks they 
landed in New York City, coming thence to Chicago by the Hudson River, Erie 
Canal and great lakes. They settled at Elmhurst, Cook County, fifteen miles 
west of Chicago, securing a small piece of land there. About two years later 
the mother died in the prime of life when less than fifty years old. The 
father survived until 1875, breathing his last when sixty-five years of age. 
He had married a second time; his wife is still living in Cook County and is 
now seventy-three years old. He had no children by this marriage. The parents 
of our subject, as well as the stepmother to whom he owes his early training, 
belonged to the Lutheran Church.

Additional Comments:
Portrait and Biographical Album of Will County, Illinois, Containing Full Page 
Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens 
of the County; Chicago: Chapman Bros., 1890

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