Hartzler, Abram

HARTZLER

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 6/13/2021 at 15:24:08

ABRAM HARTZLER
born Oct 7, 1844, PA

Abram Hartzler. - The subject of this sketch is a descendant of two of the pioneer families of the famous Lancaster county of Pennsylvania. He was born in Cumberland county, that State, October 7, 1844, one of the nine children of John and Fannie (Erb) Hartzler, all of whom are living except one. The names of his brothers and sisters are as follows: Mary, wife of Joseph Ruhl, Cumberland county, Pennsylvania; John, on the old homestead in Pennsylvania; Samuel, Cumberland county; Daniel; Annie, wife of Jacob Herr; Barbara, wife of John Greble; and Harry, - the last four being residents of Carlisle, Pennsylvania. John Hartzler, the father, was born in Lancaster county, near the city of that name, in the year 1800, and when five years of age removed with his father's family to Cumberland county, where his life was spent. He was a farmer, enterprising and successful, and after he was retired from active life spent his closing years in the city of Carlisle, where he died at the age of seventy- seven. His wife, nee Fannie Erb, was also a native of Lancaster county, born in the year 1805, daughter of Rev. John Erb and Catherine, his wife, both natives of Lancaster county. Her father was a Mennonite preacher, and lived to be sixty years of age. Mrs. Hartzler died at the age of seventy-five. Grandfather Abram Hartzler was born in Lancaster county in the year 1769. That place continued to be his home until 1805, when he removed to Cumberland county, where he died at the age of eighty-seven years. He was a well known and highly respected man. His father, the great grandfather of our subject, was the progenitor of the Hartzler family in this country, having emigrated from his native land, Switzerland, to America far back in the Colonial period, and made settlement among the earliest pioneers of the Keystone State. He died in Pennsylvania at a good old age.
Abram Hartzler, whose name graces this sketch, started out on his own responsibility early in life. He was married in October, 1868, to Miss Fannie Strickler, a native of Carlisle and a daughter of Jacob and Elizabeth (Brenneman) Strickler, she being one of their six children. Her parents were Lancaster people by birth, and by occupation her father was a farmer. He died at the age of seventy-six years; her mother, at forty-two. Mr. and Mrs. Hartzler have nine children living, namely: Traub, Lincoln township, Warren county, Iowa; Ada; Effie, wife of William Spray, Indianola, Iowa; Harry, also of Indianola; and John, Lula, Berty, Frank and Katie, at home.
Mr. Hartzler has always been engaged in farming, and on a large scale. In the year 1887 he came West to Iowa and took charge of the noted Bozler farm near Indianola, a property comprising about 1,000 acres, where he has since carried on his operations, cultivating some 250 acres, chiefly in corn and oats, and utilizing the rest of the land for stock purposes. He is one of the noted stock men of this region. He keeps from 150 to 200 head of cattle, a large flock of sheep, and between 100 and 150 hogs. Also he deals to a great extent in horses, owning, buying and selling, and frequently making shipments to Pennsylvania. His cattle market is Chicago. m In politics Mr. Hartzler is a strong Republican, deeply interested in the principles represented by his party. During the war he enlisted in the Two Hundred and Ninth Regiment of Pennsylvania, Company A, and went to the front, where he rendered the Union valiant service until he was honorably discharged in June, 1865, at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Such, in brief, is a review of the life of one of Warren county's most enterprising and broad-gauge men. Source: A Memorial and Biographical Record of Iowa, Lewis Publishing Co., Chicago, Illinois, 1896, vol.1, p.211