Bio of Roff, Henry (b.1828) Wabasha Co., MN
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Made available to The USGenWeb Archives by: Barbara Timm and Carol Judge
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This bio comes from "HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY" 1884.
Check out Barbara's site for more great information on this book:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~mnwabbio/wab1.htm
There are also some pictures and information from descendents for some 
of the bios on her pages.

Roff, Henry, (page 1063), farmer, Lake City, was born May 26, 1828, in
Yates county, New York, and is the ninth child of Henry and Clementine
(Brown) Roff, who became the parents of eleven children. In 1837 they
removed to Crawford county, Pennsylvania, where the father died in 1841
and the mother in 1845. The early youth of our subject was spent on the
farm, where he enjoyed but a limited means of gaining an education. He was
married in Crawford county, Pennsylvania, September 28, 1852, to Miss
Clarrisa Hotchkiss, a native of Crawford county, Pennsylvania, born
January 28, 1837. Early in the spring of 1856 Mr. Roff decided to seek on
the fertile prairies of Minnesota a better reward for his labor and
investment than the sterile soil of the east then yielded, and at the same
time secure for himself a home in a state where land in value was within
his reach. He came by railroad to Chicago, bringing with him his team and
wagon; at that point he loaded his effects, with his wife and two
children, in the wagon and drove through to Olmstead county, Minnesota,
three hundred and fifty miles, arriving there in May. He at once
pre-empted a quarter-section of government land in Eyota township, on
which he made final proof and paid for the same fall. Fearing the severity
of a Minnesota winter on the prairie, he removed to Winona late in the
fall, where he put in a profitable winter in the wood business,
notwithstanding the deep snow and intense cold witnessed here during the
winter of 1857. The next spring he concluded not to return to his farm,
but came to Lake City, landing here on May 1. The next day he began to
build a house, into which he moved six days later. That spring he started
in the butcher business, opening the first meat-market in Lake City. In
1864 he sold out the market, and with his family went to Montana, where he
engaged in mining two years, and again returned to Lake City a wiser if
not a richer man. Butchering was again resumed and followed till 1876,
when, on account of his own and his daughter's ill health, he sold out his
entire business and took his family to New Mexico. On his return to Lake
City he purchased a small farm near the city limits and engaged in
farming. In the spring of 1880 he bought a farm of two hundred and forty
acres in Gilford township, on which his son now resides. He is a member of
the three Masonic orders of this city. His children's names in the order
of their birth are: Ellen, now Mrs. Frank Bouton; Henry L., on the farm;
Mary L., wife of Henry Nelson, of Red Wing; Clara B., Minnie C. and Julia.