Betsold, John Joseph

The following data is extracted from Biography and Genealogy of Western Massachusetts, 1639-1925.

JOHN JOSEPH BETSOLD-Hatfield, known for its excellent agricultural and general business enterprises, takes pride in the industrial record of its citizen

ship. John Joseph Betsold has spent his entire life here, and as a farmer and citizen he has been a leading and very influential factor in the general prosperity and the progressive interests of the township, serving in office as a conscientious, generous and broad-minded official, and in his business affairs sharing to a very considerable degree in securing Hatfield's high standing among the agricultural communities of the State. He is the son of John Betsold, who was born in Germany in 1828, and died in Hatfield, November 7, 1897, aged sixty-nine years. Coming to the United States in 1853, he located at Hatfield, where he worked for others many years, and resided to the time of his death. He married, in Germany, Barbara Pocket, who was born in Germany in 1831, and died in Hatfield, Massachusetts, November 26, 1902, aged seventy-one years. They had children: John Joseph, of whom further; Frank I, and Mary, deceased.

John Joseph Betsold was born March 18, 1869, in Hatfield, where he attended the public schools, and has always followed farming and tobacco growing as an occupation. He has come up from small beginnings to be one of the most substantial men of this township. He is the owner of some forty acres of land in the home section of his property, besides fifteen acres in the Northampton Meadows, and two hundred and fifty acres of woodland, and he is one of the large and successful tobacco growers in this part of the State. Mr. Betsold has always been active and prominent in town affairs ; he served as a member of the School Board for nine years, and on the Board of Selectmen for four years; and he was a member of the fire department twenty years, and is now a member of the Sinking Fund Commission. He served on the building committee at the time of the building of the new Centre school house, in 1914, and he paid all the bills incident to its construction. On a memorial tablet in the building that contains the names of the members of the committee, Mr. Betsold's name stands next to that of Jonathan E. Porter, which heads the list. This school building is one of the finest to be found in the State in a village the size of Hatfield Mr. Betsold is rightly accounted one of the solid, substantial citizens of the town, and he bears an honored name; he has lived for thirty-three years on the farm he now occupies, and which he has acquired entirely through his own efforts.

John Joseph Betsold married, October 3, 1892, Eva Doppman, who was born December 6, 1865, in Germany, daughter of John Doppman; she died October 16, 1915. Their children: 1. John, born October 3, 1893, died February 1, 1915. 2. Barbara, born November 4, 1895, married Joseph Kiley, of Northampton, and they have a daughter, Marguerite. 3. Mary C., born September 10, 1901. 4. George, born November 8, 1905.

Source: Biography and Genealogy of Western Massachusetts, 1639-1925

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