Zechariah Spitler Biography


	This biography appears on pages 1481 in "History of South 
	Dakota" by Doane Robinson, Vol. II (1904) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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	ZECHARIAH SPITLER, one of the representative citizens of Aberdeen, 
was born on a farm in Newton county, Indiana, on the 24th of March, 
1855, being a son of Zechariah and Sally (Rider) Spitler, the fonner of 
whom was born in Virginia and the latter in Pennsylvania. The paternal 
ancestors settled in the Old Dominion state in the colonial epoch of our 
national history, the name being prominently identified with the annals 
of that patrician section of the Union, where a fine old homestead has 
been retained in the family for many generations. The maternal ancestors 
were numbered among the early settlers in York county, Pennsylvania. The 
parents of the subject became residents of western Indiana in the latter 
'thirties, and there their marriage was solemnized in 1842, while for 
fifty-eight years they resided continuously on one farm, retiring to 
town for the remainder of their old age. The subject received his early 
education in the common schools of his native county and supplemented 
this discipline by a course in an academy at Battle Ground, Indiana! in 
which institution he was graduated in the early 'seventies, after which 
he gave his attention principally to teaching in the country schools of 
Indiana and farming until September, 1880, when he entered the law 
department of the famous University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, where he 
was graduated in 1882, with the degree of Bachelor of Laws, Within the 
same year he came to the territory of Dakota, locating in Frederick, 
Brown county, where he remained until the fall of 1887, engaged in the 
land business and in a desultory practice of his profession. He then 
took up his residence in the city of Aberdeen, where he was most of the 
time in the employ of Lincoln & Boyd, in the real-estate mortgage 
business until the 1st of January, 1901, since which time he has been 
personally engaged in the real-estate business as an individual 
enterprise, never having entered actively into the practice of his 
profession. He is one of the incorporators of the Aberdeen Clothing 
Company, a manufacturing institution. Soon after coming to the territory 
Mr. Spitler took up tracts of government land, and he has given much 
time, thought and energy to the handling of realty for others as well as 
his own properties, controlling a large and important business in the 
line at the present time. In politics Mr. Spitler is an advocate of the 
basic principles of the Democratic party, is in favor of free trade or 
of tariff for revenue only, while he is unequivocally opposed to the 
expansion policy which has been manifest in governmental affairs since 
the late Spanish-American war. He and his wife are zealous members of 
the Presbyterian church and are earnest workers in the cause of the 
divine Master. 

	On the 20th of November, 1887, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. 
Spitler to Miss Sarah Drum, who was born in Chittenden county, Vermont, 
and their only child, Lela Mae, was born on the 14th of November, 1889.