My Genealogy Hound

JACOB GEBHARD. The prudent ways and careful methods of the Teutonic farmer are conspicuous in La Grange Township, where so many representatives of the German race have settled in order that they may enjoy broader opportunities in every direction. The gentleman whose name is placed at the head of this sketch, and who resides on section 7, is one of the many whose efforts have made this locality so distinctly productive and beautiful. He was born on the River Rhine, in Germany, in 1820, and there remained and received a fair education until a young man. About this time many were emigrating to the United States, and young Gebhard decided to cross the ocean too. Upon reaching the “land of the free and the home of the brave,” he was without means, and all he had to assist him in the struggle for a livelihood was a pair of willing hands and any amount of pluck and energy.

A few years later he had accumulated considerable means, and deciding that it was not good for man to live alone he was married. Still later he emigrated Westward and located in Cass County, Mich., where he was one of the pioneers of La Grange Township. In that township all his children were born and educated. Although Mr. Gebhard speaks the German language in his family, his children have received good educational advantages in the English schools, and are bright and intelligent, more so than the average. The farm upon which he settled on coming to this township was wild and unimproved, but he had inherited all the push and energy of his ancestors, and went actively to work to make it the attractive place it now is. The most of it is under cultivation and the buildings on it are comfortable and commodious. Everything about the place indicates the owner to be a man of progressive ideas and tendencies and one of great industry. All his property is the result of his own exertions, and he deserves great credit for his perseverance.