Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1891
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 775
HENRY SEHLKE

Henry SEHLKE, The subject of this notice came to Harrison County in the autumn of 1875, and is now a resident farmer of section 17, Magnolia Township, having lived there ever since he came to the county. Two years prior to that he purchased eighty acres of partly improved land. Upon this there was a frame house 16x22 feet, the same being boarded up and down. In this he lived until 1884, when he built a frame house 16x26 feet, with an addition 14x24 feet, which was completed in 1884, as was his barn, which is 28x32 feet. He has added to his original tract of land until he now has three hundred and sixty acres. He usually keeps about sixty head of cattle and an accompanying number of hogs. His whole premises show evidence of thrift and industry.

Our subject was born in Mecklenburg, Strelitz, Germany, February 16, 1843, and at the age of fourteen left his father's home and worked out for $16 per year for the first year and $20 the next year. In the fall of 1859 he sailed for America. He was seven weeks on the ocean and came direct to Cleveland, Ohio, where he worked by the month until September, 1861, and then enlisted in Company H, Thirty-seventh Ohio Infantry. He was sent to West Virginia, and was with Grant and Sherman, marching with the latter on his famous "march to the sea;" was at the siege of Vicksburg, and assisted in driving Johnston out of Jackson, Miss., then went to Chattanooga, Tenn., and was engaged in numerous hard-fought battles. He was discharged at Cleveland, Ohio, August, 1865, having served his adopted country four years, lacking one month. After his return from the war he worked by the day at the manufacture of kerosene oil, following this until the autumn of 1875, and then came to Harrison County, Iowa.

Miss Mary (MICHAEL) SEHLKE was born in Germany, April 7, 1849, and came to Cleveland, Ohio, with her mother, brother and sister when fifteen years of age and worked out until the date of her marriage, her father having died in Germany. Her father, Frederich MICHAEL, was born in Mecklenburg, Strelitz, and died there in 1863. Her mother, Dorathea, (GIESE) MICHAEL, was born at the same place as her husband, and died in Harrison County, Iowa, in 1887. They bore nine children, of whom she is the eighth child.

His father, Christian SEHLKE, was born in Mecklenburg, Strelitz, Germany, March 5, 1813, came to America in 1866 and settled at Cleveland, Ohio, where he died. Mary (BELLIENG) SEHLKE, the mother, was born in Mecklenburg, Germany, in 1815, and died in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1888. They were members of the German Lutheran Church, as are also our subject and his wife.

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