Lake County IN Archives Biographies.....Batterman, Herman A. 1853 - 
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Author: T. H. Ball (1904)

HERMAN A. BATTERMAN.

    The country of Germany has aided most materially in the founding of the
great nation of the United States, and its citizens have been especially
prominent factors in the agricultural development which has been the basis of
all other prosperity. The German-American is noted for his pluck, energy,
economy and frugality, and exhibits the best and most productive estates to be
found anywhere. Mr. Herman A. Batterman comes of one of the old German families
of west Lake county, and is a true and typical specimen of the prosperous
agriculturist.

    His early life was spent in Will county, Illinois. Born July 26, 1853, he
was the oldest of eight children, six sons and two daughters, born to
Christopher and Johanna (Doescher) Batterman. The son Henry is represented
elsewhere in this volume. Edward is also one of the honorable men whose lives
are sketched in this work. Charles is married and engaged in cultivating the old
home place in Will county, Illinois. Henrietta is the wife of Charles Borger, of
Hobart, also sketched in this volume. Matilda is the wife of Joseph Echterling,
of Will county.

    The father of the family was born in Hanover province, Germany, was reared
to young manhood in his native land, and in 1842 he came by himself to America,
landing in New York with only eighteen cents in his pocket, so that he began
life at the bottom of the ladder and among strange people and in a foreign land.
He came to Chicago in 1842, when that now great city was small and
insignificant, and out in the neighborhood of the Des Plaines river he got work
at twelve dollars a month, continuing this work for three years and three
months. He then took his earnings and entered two hundred and twenty acres of
land in Will county, Illinois, an unimproved tract. Then for a while he did
teaming in Chicago, but finally returned to his land and erected a little shack
of a shelter, and, aided by his brother Fred from Germany, he developed a farm.
For a time he was also interested in a sawmill enterprise, but then returned to
the farm. He was a successful man, and accumulated almost five hundred acres of
land in Illinois and Indiana. He was a stanch Republican and before the
formation of that party he was a Whig. He had good reason to remember the famous
wildcat money before the Civil war, as on one occasion he had one hundred and
thirty dollars of this currency, but thirty dollars was all he could realize on
the entire amount. Both he and his wife were Lutherans. His wife was also born
in Hanover, and she is still living, at the age of sixty-nine years.

    Mr. Batterman was reared to the pursuit of a farmer and stockman, and was
educated in the common schools and by personal application. At the age of
twenty-one he began life on a capital of one thousand dollars, starting on the
farm where he now resides. He purchased three hundred acres and paid the one
thousand dollars on it, and by his economy and industry in time he lifted all
incumbrances and the beautiful and high-class buildings and other improvements
on the estate he has made himself.

    August 1, 1875, Mr. Batterman married Miss Anna Borger, and twelve children,
six sons and six daughters, have been born to them, seven of whom are living.
Johanna is the wife of Albert Keun, who is connected with a publishing house in
Chicago; Mrs. Keun was educated in the common schools and the Hobart high
school. Julius, educated in the common schools and at the Valparaiso normal, is
married and a farmer at Palmer, Indiana. Maggie, educated in the common schools
and at Hobart, is the wife of Michael Schmal, a farmer of St. John. Edwin is a
resident of Hanover township. Herman is in the ninth grade of the Brunswick
schools. Alvin is in the seventh grade, and Elsa is also in school. Mrs.
Batterman comes from the well known Lake county family of Borgers whose sketch
will be found elsewhere.

    Mr. Batterman is a lover of high-grade stock, and takes especial interest in
the Percheron horses and the Red Poll cattle, and his cattle of this breed are
registered, and he also raises fine grades of Chester White hogs. During his
career he has suffered setbacks and misfortunes, but is a man of such
determination and energy that he has on each occasion risen phoenix-like out of
the ashes of ill-chance, and is now one of the financially substantial men of
Hanover township. Besides his beautiful and well improved estate in Hanover
township, he owns nine hundred and fifty acres in Hinds county, Mississippi,
five miles northeast of Jackson, the state capital, about six hundred acres of
this land being arable. The land on the whole is level, the location eligible,
and as Mr. Batterman thinks the climate there far excels that of the northern
latitude of Indiana he anticipates locating in that vicinity for his future
home,—which will mean the loss of a valuable and prominent citizen from the
ranks of Lake county. Mr. Batterman is a Republican on national issues, but in
local affairs gives his voting support to the man best fitted for the office. He
cast his first presidential vote for R. B. Hayes, and has supported each
candidate since. He is a man who stands high in the estimation of all his fellow
citizens, and has been selected to represent his township in the county
conventions of his party. In 1898 he was appointed a member of the county
council, and his services have been ably and efficiently performed, and he is
accordingly tendered the thanks of the citizens of the whole county.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

ENCYCLOPEDIA
OF
Genealogy and Biography
OF
LAKE COUNTY, INDIANA,
WITH A COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY 
1834—1904

A Record of the Achievements of Its People in the Making of a Commonwealth and
the Founding of a Nation.

REV. T. H. BALL
OF CROWN POINT, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
ILLUSTRATED
CHICAGO   NEW YORK
THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
1904

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