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Below is a family biography included in Portrait and Biographical Record of Berrien and Cass Counties, Michigan published by Biographical Publishing Company in 1893.  These biographies are valuable for genealogy research in discovering missing ancestors or filling in the details of a family tree. Family biographies often include far more information than can be found in a census record or obituary.  Details will vary with each biography but will often include the date and place of birth, parent names including mothers' maiden name, name of wife including maiden name, her parents' names, name of children (including spouses if married), former places of residence, occupation details, military service, church and social organization affiliations, and more.  There are often ancestry details included that cannot be found in any other type of genealogical record.

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JONATHAN HARTSELL, a practical general agriculturist and successful stock-raiser, and a native of Michigan, has been associated with the growth and history of the State for more than a half-century. Born in Cass County, November 11, 1836, he was the son of Jonathan and Betsey (Muffley) Hartsell, pioneer settlers of the county. The parents were both natives of Ohio and, reared in the homes of their childhood, had attended the primitive schools of their birthplace and, attaining to mature age, married. They remained for some time longer amid the familiar scenes of their childhood and then decided to emigrate to the State of Indiana. They finally made their home in Cass County, Mich., where the father bought one hundred and sixty acres of land in the dense woods. A man of energetic industry, he resolutely set himself to work, and aided by his elder sons cleared the fertile acres, which he afterward brought up to a high state of cultivation and improved with a good dwelling, barns and sheds. The father, who was born in 1804, survived to reach seventy-three years of age and, respected by all who knew him, passed away upon the old homestead in the year 1877.

The Hartsells were of direct German descent and from their sturdy ancestry received the bequest of thrifty and industrious habits, which assisted them to successfully make their way in life. The mother survived her husband and died in 1887. A pioneer woman, facing the privations and self-sacrifices of frontier life with courage and resolution, she welcomed to her heart and home sixteen children, to whose care and training she unweariedly devoted herself, aiding them and stimulating them to effort. The little primitive subscription schools were for long the only educational opportunities offered her elder children, but at the time when Jonathan had arrived at an age to attend school the facilities for instruction had much improved and the district schools offered to all a good common education. Our subject was the tenth child of the family and spent the days of boyhood upon the Cass County homestead. While yet a young lad he was thoroughly drilled in the various work of daily farming labor and, growing up a self-reliant youth, was practically fitted by habits of observation and experience to make his way successfully in life.

When about twenty-three years of age Jonathan Hartsell was united in marriage with Miss Laura Harger. The union was blessed by the birth of one child, Florence, now the wife of Lester Kempton, a native of the county of Berrien and a prosperous merchant of Glendora. Our subject first made his home in Berrien County in 1874, then locating in Berrien Springs. He not long after removed to Weesaw Township and settled upon the valuable farm of eighty acres, all under a high state of cultivation, well improved with substantial and commodious buildings and pleasantly situated about a half-mile from Glendora. Mr. Hartsell cast his first Presidential vote for Stephen A. Douglas, and, although never anxious for political office, takes an abiding interest in both local and national issues of the day. A man of intelligence and earnest purpose, he is identified with the progressive interests of his home locality and is esteemed by the entire community as a self-respecting and upright citizen of sterling integrity.

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This family biography is one of numerous biographies included in the Portrait and Biographical Record of Berrien and Cass Counties, Michigan published in 1893. 

View additional Berrien County, Michigan family biographies here: Berrien County, Michigan Biographies

View a map of 1911 Berrien County, Michigan here: Berrien County Michigan Map

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