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Stephenson County, Illinois Genealogy
John Fosha
JOHN FOSHA, of Silver Creek township, Stephenson county,
is widely known as one of the most successful farmers of northern
Illinois, and he has achieved his present enviable position solely through
his own efforts. He has extensive real estate holdings in Kansas as well
as this state, as substantial results of his wise use of brain and brawn,
and can congratulate himself that while he is still erect and vigorous he
has accumulated such a property and stands so well in the business world.
Frank and Anna Maria Fosha, the grandparents of the Silver Creek farmer,
were born in Lippe-Detmold, Germany. He was a common laborer, and died in
America in 1860, aged ninety-one years, 'seven months and twentynine
clays. Frank Fosha, the father of John, was born in the ancestral home in
1805, and died March 5, 1879. He was a linen weaver in Germany, and came
to this country in 1836. He sailed from Bremen October 30th, and was
seventeen weeks on the water. It was a stormy passage and terminated at
Baltimore after many almost unendurable hardships. He found employment in
a store at Frederick, Maryland, and was then employed in a fulling factory
at Chilcott in the same state. He went to Shepherdstown, Virginia, where
he made his home for a number of years, and worked in a cloth factory. In
1848 he made his appearance in this state, locating in Ogle county. He
drove through with a two-horse wagon and found the way difficult. There
were few bridges, and the roads were at times all but impassible. At
Cincinnati he took passage on a boat, and came by water to Fulton, and
from there the way was easy to Mt. Morris, at that time largely a Maryland
settlement. He bought a quarter section, and at the time of his death
owned a fine place of four hundred acres of land. His wife, Dora Sapigal,
died in 1892 at the age of eighty-two. She was born in the same village as
her husband, and was the mother of ten children, only two of whom are now
living-the subject of this review and his brother Henry, whose home is on
the Ogle county farm.
The paternal Fosha left Virginia with three hundred dollars, and after he
had built his cabin on his arrival in Illinois, had only fifty cents left
in his pocket. He had a log house, 15 x 20 feet, in which at times two
families had to live. There were no chairs, but slabs with peg legs
answered every purpose. He sold corn to Waterman's mill and took wheat to
Chicago, then a ten days' trip. These were pioneer days with all the word
implies. The schools were held for many years in rude log cabins, but with
all their deficiencies noble men came from their rude instruction.
John Fosha attended school in Virginia a year and a half before the
removal of his parents west, and worked there in a factory with his father
from twelve to fourteen. In this state he helped to break the wild land,
drove team to market, split rails, and did whatever the times demanded.
After his marriage in 1856 he rented land in Ogle county three years. He
soon began to buy land, and as it is already noted, he is now one of the
most extensive landed proprietors in the west. He owns an entire section
of land in Stephenson county, has forty acres of fine timber in Ogle
county, and a tract of twenty-two hundred and forty acres in Riley county,
Kansas. This is divided into ten farms. He has an invariable rule to sell
no corn, but to feed it all to stock, and sell them whenever the market
presents an encouraging appearance. He has erected every building on his
Stephenson county farm, from which he sends out yearly at least one
car-load of cattle and three of hogs. He has brought this home farm into a
high state of fertility, and enjoys the fruit of seven large orchards. In
1899 he erected a large house and barn on a part of the farm for his son.
John Fosha and Mina Schueneman were married in Freeport February 24th,
1856, by Rev. Wilhelm Wagner. She was born in Polla, Hanover, January 1st,
1838, and is a daughter of Henry Schueneman who died in Freeport in 1879
at the age of sixty-eight. He was a butcher by trade, and emigrated to
America in 1863. He sailed from Bremen, was six weeks on the water, landed
in New York, came to Chicago where he spent one winter, and the following
spring reached Freeport. His wife, Johanna Seifert, was a native of the
village of Mueringen, Hannover, and his father, Henry Schueneman Sr.,
lived and died in Germany.
Mr. and Mrs. John Fosha have had twelve children. Henry died when six
years old, and Eliza at seven months. Lizzie married Fred Biesemeier, a
merchant at Eleroy, a sketch of whom appears elsewhere in this work; they
have six children, Anna, Nettie, Emma, Eddie, Elmer and Walter. Anna, the
fourth daughter, married Louis Otto, and lives near Florence; they have
eight children, Nettie, William, Henry, Anna, Mina, Mary, Roy, and one not
yet named. Emma, the fifth, died when three years old. Henry married
Sophia Klein and lives in Riley county, Kansas, on his father's farm; he
has three children, Leo, Samuel and one not yet named. Johanna married
Fred Otto and has her home in Kansas on the Riley county tract; she has
two children, Dora and Edmund. Frank. Dora married John Rademacher and
lives two miles from German Valley; she has three children, Harry, Roy and
Elmer. John married Annie Stadie and lives on the Kansas tract; he has one
son, John. Daniel and William are at home assisting their father in the
care of his extensive Stephenson county farm; Daniel married Lena
Rademacher.
Mr. Fosha is a democrat and has served as school director and road
overseer, but, though often solicited, has never been a candidate for any
other office. He is a member of the Evangelical church and is a man of
high standing in the community. He has seen many and wonderful changes in
northern Illinois since his advent here. Then it was largely wild land,
and deer and other wild animals plentiful. He remembers fifty-six deer in
one drove. There was no house in sight for seven miles and no road across
the prairies. He has seen farming develop from the breaking of the wild
prairie to its present high state of cultivation, and like Caesar he can
say, " all of which I saw, and part of which I was."
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