Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1891
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 418
WILLIAM GANZHORN

William GANZHORN, a successful farmer and stock-grower residing on section 1, of Magnolia Township, has been a resident of the county for twenty-one years, coming as he did in the spring of 1870, and worked by the month for Frank Clark, remaining with him ten months. In the spring of 1871, he rented a farm in Magnolia Township, for one year, in partnership with Uncle Henry Zanker, who, the following year, bought a half of section 36, in Allen Township. This was wild prairie land, which they improved and farmed for three years, at the end of which time "Uncle Henry" got away with our subject financially, when he again became a renter, having lost everything except one horse. But being possessed with the genuine grit he rented two years and then bought eighty acres where he now lives. He built a frame house 16x24 feet, with an addition of 14x16 feet, and the same year (1880) erected a barn 24x26 feet, to which he has since added. Year by year this good manager and hard worker has accumulated until he has four hundred and eighty acres in Magnolia Township, and eighty acres in Allen, with two hundred and fifty-five acres under the plow. He usually feeds two car loads of cattle a season.

Mr. GANZHORN was born in Wurtemberg, Germany, May 2, 1848. When eight years of age he accompanied his sister to America, having an uncle in Lancaster County, Pa. In 1865 they both came to Johnson County, Iowa. Our subject remained with his uncle two years, receiving $5 through the season, and working for his board in the winter. The next three years he worked for another farmer, at $20 per month, and then came to Harrison County.

He was married in this county, January 1, 1873, to Miss Bertha BOLLIER, and they were the parents of seven children�Caroline, Magdalena, Arthur, Ernest, Anna, Henry and Effie.

Bertha (BOLLIER) GANZHORN was born in Switzerland, May 1, 1855, and accompanied her parents to Pottawattamie County, Iowa, in 1863, and to Harrison County, in 1868. Her parents settled in Magnolia.

Mr. and Mrs. GANZHORN are members of the Evangelical Church at Magnolia.

Mr. GANZHORN has seen many a hard year, and knows full well the cost of every dollar's worth of property he possesses. Coming as he did to this country from the Old World, working by the month at low wages and then losing all that he had gained by reason of a faithless partner, and then rising again to become one of the largest landholders in his township, he is entitled to much credit, and the writer believes that he does have the respect of all within his community.

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