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HENRY WERNER owns a valuable estate in section 1, Union township, and he is one of the influential residents of his community. He was born in Hesse-Cassel, Germany, February 22, 1846, a son of John and Elizabeth (Shade) Werner. The father died in Germany, and his widow afterward came to the United States and died in Carroll county, Iowa. Of the seven children in their family the following five are now living: Mary, wife of Henry Frolich, of Cook county, Illinois; Henry, of this review; Andrew, living at Peotone, Illinois; Kate, wife of Peter Heisner, of Will county, Illinois; and Frances, the wife of Fred Sporlader, living in Carroll county, Iowa.
When a lad of thirteen years Henry Werner left his parents' farm and went to Frankfort-on-the-Main, there learning the upholsterer's trade and attending night school. In November of 1866, a short time before his twenty-first birthday, he left his native country for the United States to escape service in the German army, and landing in New York he made his way west to Chicago, where he arrived with seven large copper pennies in his pocket, this representing his entire wealth. On the following Saturday afternoon he bought a loaf of bread, and this was all the food he had until the following Monday afternoon, when he reached friends and relatives in Will county, Illinois. There he remained for eleven years, working at farm labor, and coming to Benton county, Iowa, in 1877, he bought eighty acres of land in Eldorado township, paying six hundred dollars for the tract. He farmed that place for ten years and then sold it for two thousand dollars. He next bought two hundred acres in Eden township, and selling that place in 1892 he moved to his present farm in section 1, Union township, purchasing first three hundred and twenty acres, but his estate now contains four hundred acres in sections 1 and 12, all of the finest land and improved with a beautiful home and farm buildings. For years he was a heavy cattle feeder, but he is now living retired from active work, his sons having charge of the farm. Mr. Werner is a splendid type of the sturdy German-American farmer. He is self-made in the truest sense of the word, but he is a well read man and an influential and public spirited citizen. He has served Union township nine years as a trustee, and for several years he was a school officer and treasurer in Eden township.
On the 28th of February, 1874, Mr. Werner was married to Christine Mausehund, born in Hesse-Cassel, Germany, September 15, 1853, and she came to the United States in 1872. Eight children have been born of this marriage union, namely: Emma, wife of Henry Grote, of Eldorado township; Mary, wife of Will Fry, of Union township; and August, William, Edna, Annie, Fred and Nelda. The family are members of the German Lutheran church at Van Home.
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