Preston County, West Virginia Biography of Frederick William HORCHLER This file was submitted by Valerie Crook, E-mail address: The submitter does not have a connection to the subject of this sketch. This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit organizations for their private use. All other rights reserved. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. This file is part of the WVGenWeb Archives. If you arrived here inside a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at http://www.usgwarchives.net/wv/wvfiles.htm The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 283-284 Preston County FREDERICK WILLIAM HORCHLER has always had his home at Newburg in Preston County, and has devoted fully a third of a century to the varied work and duties of coal mining. He is one of the coal operators of that section, and has borne his share of civic duties in the community. Mr. Horchler was born at Newburg, May 28, 1869. His father, William Horchler, was born in Germany, son of a forester to the king. William left Frankfort on the Maine to avoid the enforced military duty in the German army. Two of his brothers, Frederick and August, also came to America, Frederick spending his life at Eckart, Maryland, where he left a family, while August lived as a neighbor to his brother William at Newburg, was a shoemaker by trade, later in the railroad service, and is now a retired engineer living at Cumberland, Maryland. William Hor- chler established himself at Newburg in 1857. He was. young at the time, and at Newburg he applied himself to the trade he had learned in the old country, shoemaking. He soon became interested in railroading, first as a section hand, was then foreman of the section at Newburg, and from that transferred to the train service, beginning as a fireman, and he ran an engine for more than thirty years. He retired from the service at the age of sixty-five. His home was at Newburg for more than a half a century, and he died there in November, 1910, at the age of seventy- three. For a time he was a member of the town council, was a democrat and a member of the Lutheran Church. William Horchler married Mary Hilgartner, a native of Hesse Darmstadt, Germany. She came to the United States as a young woman and met her husband at Newburg. She was a working girl, and they were married at Independence in the home of her employer, Colonel Monroe, then a super- visor of the Baltimore & Ohio Railway. She died in No- vember, 1913. The children of this good old couple were: Henry, who left a family at Newark, Ohio, at his death; Annie, wife of G. M. Frazier and living at Laurel Lee, West Virginia; Amelia, wife of J. F. Stanhagen, of Fair- mont; Frederick W.; and Lena, wife of John M. Carrico, of Rowlesburg, West Virginia. Frederick W. Horchler spent several terms in school at Newburg, but his substantial education has been the result of working experience. At the age of fourteen he entered the service of a coal company. Through successive duties as mule driver, coke worker, store clerk, boiler fireman at the mine, he eventually became mine superintendent, and for eighteen years had charge of the Austen Mine. Leav- ing the Austen Coal and Coke Company in 1916, Mr. Hor- chler became an operator on his own account and on his own capital. Under the name of the Horchler Coal Mining Com- pany he opened a mine in the Upper Freeport vein, and this company when operating to capacity employed sixty men. He opened a new coal field at Newburg, the property being operated by the Horchler Big Vein Coal Company, working the Pittsburg and Bakerstown seams. Mr. Horchler was also one of the original stockholders and is a director of the First National Bank of Newburg. In the role of good citizenship he was elected in 1918 as county commissioner for Lyon District as successor of Commissioner O. W. Zinn. During his term on the court the Morgantown- Kingwood Pike was improved and a number of wooden bridges over the county replaced by concrete and steel structures. Mr. Horchler grew up in a democratic home, cast his first presidential ballot for Grover Cleveland, and has departed from party regularity only in local elections, where the man is more important than the ticket. Mr. Horchler is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias. His two older sons, Frederick and Albert, are Masons, Frederick having reached the thirty-second degree of Scottish Bite, and his other son, Edward, is a member of the Knights of Pythias and the dramatic and social branch of that order. At Newburg, August 5, 1901, Mr. Horchler married Miss Annie Brain, who was born at Newburg, October 4, 1869. Her father, John G. Brain, married a Miss Downey and their three children were: Frank Brain, who died in the Philippines as a member of Company C of the Tenth Penn- sylvania Volunteers; Mrs. Horehler; and Ollie, who died at Connellsville, Pennsylvania, in 1910, wife of Samuel Moxley. The oldest of Mr. Horchler's children is Frederick W., Jr., now associated with his father in the coal business and who was a member of Company C of the Thirteenth United States Marines during the World war, fighting with that organization in France one year and coming home after the signing of the armistice. The second son, also connected with his father's coal industry, is Albert Lee, who married Mary Dorsey, of Fairmont. The third son, Edward J., is a farmer at home. The two daughters are Mabel and Mary, the latter attending high school.