Lake County IN Archives Biographies.....Keilmann, Francis P. 1831 - 
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/in/infiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com December 9, 2006, 11:25 pm

Author: T. H. Ball (1904)

FRANCIS P. KEILMANN.

    Francis P. Keilmann, of St. John, has the distinction of being the longest
established merchant of Lake county. He began business in St. John nearly
fifty-five years ago, and a continued record of success has been his lot to the
present time, when, as the dean of Lake county business men, he enjoys along
with his material prosperity the esteem and thorough confidence of all his old
friends and associates. He and the family of which he is a member have been
identified with Lake county and St. John township since pioneer times, for a
period of sixty years, and their enterprise and personal influence have always
been reckoned as important factors in the various affairs of the county.

    Mr. Keilmann was born in Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany, November 25, 1831. His
father was Henry Keilmann, a native of the same place. He left the fatherland
and brought his family to America in 1840, his first location being in Portage
county, Ohio, but in 1844 he moved to Lake county, Indiana, and settled on a
farm in St. John township. His life occupation was farming. He lived to the
advanced age of eighty-five years. His wife was Mary Elizabeth Ofenloch, who was
born in the same province of Germany as he, and died in Portage county, Ohio,
when thirty-eight years old. They were parents of seven children, and all
reached maturity.

    Mr. F. P. Keilmann, the fourth son and the fifth child of the family, was
nine years old when he landed on American soil, and had already begun his
education in his native land. He remained with the family in Portage county for
two years, and then, at the age of eleven, went to Chicago with his older
brother, Henry. He attended school in that city for some time, and then joined
his father on the latter's removal to Lake county. Two years later, however, he
returned to Chicago and clerked in a store for four years. He then came to St.
John township and became a clerk in his brother Henry's store at St. John. The
brothers soon formed a partnership, and the firm of Henry and F. P. Keilmann
continued to do business in St. John until 1865, having the premier mercantile
establishment of the village. In 1865, after fifteen years' connection, Francis
bought the interest of his brother, and then took George F. Gerlach, another
well known merchant of St. John, into partnership, continuing thus until 1885.
Since that time Mr. Keilmann has carried on his business alone, and no other man
in the county has a record for such long connection with mercantile enterprises.
He has a large store and a fine general stock valued at about ten thousand
dollars. He owns Lake county real estate to the amount of over a thousand acres,
and also has property in other places. He has always affiliated with the
Democratic party, and from 1856 to 1885 was postmaster of St. John.

    In 1857 Mr. Keilmann married Margaret Schaefer, who was born in Germany and
came to America in childhood with her parents. There are nine living children of
this marriage: Susan, who is the wife of Joseph H. Gerlach, of Chicago; Francis
B., of Chicago; John, of Crown Point; William F., of St. John; Elizabeth, wife
of Edward Schmal, of Chicago; Margaret, unmarried; George; Lena, wife of Frank
Thiel, of St. John; and Peter. All these children were born in the same house
and in St. John township, and they are now all capable and worthy men and women.


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


File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/in/lake/bios/keilmann426gbs.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/infiles/

File size: 4.3 Kb