Biography of Heinrich Schroeder
Cottonwood and Watonwan Counties, MN Biographies

A type of the better class of farmers in Cottonwood conty is Heinrich Schroeder, of Midway township. He is a man who uses brain as well as brawn in operating his place, and he has been successful in the various departments of his general work as a husbandman.

Mr. Schoeder was born at Paulsheim, southern Russia, May 11, 1856, and is a son of David and Katherina (Newfeld) Schroeder. The father was born while his parents were moving from Germany to Russia The mother was born in Lectfeld, Russia. The birth of the father occurred on February 27, 1821, and he died in 1885, at the age of sixty four years. His father devoted his life to farming in Russia and there he farmed until he immigrated with a colony to Elkhart, Indiana, in July, 1873. The elder men of the party left their families at Elkhart for seven weeks, while they traveled in the West, hunting a suitable location. They decided upon Yankton, South Dakota, and thither they brought their families. About this time another colony from the same locality in which they had resided in southern Russia had determined to locate at Mountain Lake, Minnesota. The father of the subject of this sketch remained at Yankton, South Dakota, until December, 1873, when he came to Mountain Lake, where he had a number of friends. He purchased land in section 9, Mountain Lake township, Cottonwood county, paying four dollars per acre. The land had a small house on it, and herc he and his family were soon located and here he and his wife spent the rest of their lives. He was a Mennonite preacher. The denomination had but one church, known as Bethel, which was organized in 1877, in the granary of the father of the subject of this sketch. To David Schroeder and wife the following children were born: David, Jr., John, Heinrich, Jacob, Peter, Frank, George, and William. It was to better rear his sons that the father of these children came to America, and is was also largely due to militarism that they left the church.

Heinrich Schroeder grew up on the home farm and received a common school education in Russia, learning the German language, also some Russian. He has devoted his active life to general fanning and the threshing business. Upon his marriage he purchased a part of his father's home place on which he resided from 1990 to 1895, then moved to the farm on which he now resides in the edge of the village of Mountain Lake, his place containing one hundred and sixty acres in section 32. He has rebuilt all the buildings on his land' and has a well improved and valuable farm. In connection with general fanning he breeds full blooded Percheron horses. He has been engaged in threshing since 1876, operating a machine each autumn, and is one of the best known men in this line in the county.

Mr. Schroeder was married in 1877 to Anna Regier, who was born in 1855 at Rudnerweid, southern Russia. She came with her parents to Mountain Lake, Minnesota, in 1876. To this union seven children have been born, namely: Anna, David, John, Henry, Katherina, Helena and Elizabeth. Besides their own they have reared another child, Samuel, a son of George Schroeder, brother of the subject of this sketch, the lad being six years old when he came to their home.

Heinrich Schroeder was for a period of fifteen years a trustee of Bethel church, and was also a Sunday school teacher many years. He is now not a member of any church, being somewhat broad in his religious views, but his family affiliate with the Mennonite church. Politically, he is independent. He was for eleven years assessor of Mountain Lake township, and for seven years was chairman of the Midway township board. He was president of the German school at the time the present school building was erected, remaining in that position for seven years. He has been a prominent man in his community and has done much for the general public welfare.

History of Cottonwood and Watonwan Counties
Their People, Industries and Institutions
John A. Brown, Editor in Chief
B. F. Bowen and Company, Inc.
Indianapolis, Indiana

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Also see Railway Officials in America 1906