John Riser

HUNZIKER, RISER, WITMER

Posted By: Judy Wight Branson (email)
Date: 8/15/2004 at 12:18:23

“History of Madison County Iowa and Its People”
Herman A. Mueller, Supervising Editor
Chicago, The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1915

John Riser, Sr., is one of the best known stock-raisers of Madison county and has been very successful in breeding thoroughbred Belgian horses. He was born in Berne, Switzerland, on the 24th of November, 1843, a son Jacob and Elizabeth (Witmer) Riser, also natives of that country. The father was a farmer and passed his entire life in the land of the Alps, dying there in 1901. He had survived his wife for two years.

John Riser, Sr., was reared and educated in Switzerland and as a young man was employed as a farm hand there. In 1869, when twenty-six years of age, he became convinced that more favorable conditions awaited him in the new world and, accordingly, emigrated to America. He made his way to Ottawa county, Ohio, and settled on land in what was known as the Black Swamp. He improved and operated his property for five years and then traded it for land in Clermont township, Fayette county, Iowa. He turned his attention to its development and improvement and later added to his holdings until he became the owner of four hundred acres. After cultivating his land there for twenty-eight years he sold it and removed to Madison county, buying a half section of land on sections 8 and 17, Madison township. He subsequently purchased three hundred and twenty acres of land on section 29. While living in Fayette county he engaged in the dairy business, keeping only Holstein cattle and making a great deal of cheese. Since coming to this county he has turned his attention to the breeding of Belgian horses, and the name of Riser & Sons is associated with thoroughbred stock His farms are all well improved and are operated by his sons in partnership with our subject, who lives upon a ten-acre tract in Earlham, where he has resided for thirteen years. Their stock-raising interests are extensive and profitable and they have fine young horses for sale at all times.

Mr. Riser was married on the 17th of November, 1864, to Miss Maria Hunziker, a daughter of Andrew and Mary Hunziker, natives of Switzerland. The father, who was a farmer, passed away in that country in 1852, and in 1870 his widow and her children came to America, settling in the Cumberland mountains of Tennessee. She passed away there on the 14th of September, 1885.

To Mr. and Mrs. Riser have been born ten children, of whom five daughters and two sons survive, the latter being in partnership with their father, as before stated. Six of the children were present when Mr. and Mrs. Riser celebrated their golden wedding, November 17, 1914, at their home in Earlham.

Mr. Riser is independent in his political views, feeling that in order to secure honest, efficient government it is necessary to decide public questions without reference to the dictates of party bosses, who serve their own ends rather than the public good. He has always manifested a praiseworthy interest in community affairs and served for six years upon the Clermont school board in Fayette county, being president thereof for a number of years. He is a thirty-second degree Mason and is thoroughly in sympathy with the purposes and ideals of the craft His religious faith is that of the Reformed Swiss church and he is equally loyal to that organization. He has succeeded above the average in agriculture and in the raising of fine horses and has not only gained individual prosperity, but has also contributed to the development of his county along those lines and is justly entitled to the place of leadership which he holds in agricultural and stock-raising circles.

Madison Biographies maintained by Linda Griffith Smith.
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