My Genealogy Hound

HENRY FINCK, a prominent citizen and successful business man of the town of Dunkirk, Chautauqua county, New York, is a son of John A. and Frances (Thuilot) Finck, and was born in Prussia on October 19th, 1835.

His father was a native of Prussia and by occupation was a hotel-keeper and brick maker, while his mother was of French descent but born within the confines of Germany. The former was an active, energetic man, conducted his business with success and died in his native country at the age of fifty-four years.

Henry Finck was reared in Prussia, where he received his education in the common schools and passed the first seventeen years of his life. At the expiration of this time he emigrated to the United States and located in the city of Buffalo, New York, where he received employment as a brewer and continued in that business until the year 1869. During this period, however, — in 1855-56-57, he was employed on a steamer on Lake Erie as a dock hand at ten dollars per month. He also worked for a short time in the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and other places in the West. In 1869 Mr. Finck left Buffalo, New York, and located on the farm upon which he now resides. There was at that time erected upon it a small brewery of the French type, in which he commenced business. He continued the brewing business, gradually increasing the business in its capacity up to the year 1888, at which time he erected a large new brick brewery and equipped it with the most modern apparatus. This brewery is located within a short distance of the city of Dunkirk and is also within a short distance of two leading railroads, so that he is not lacking in facilities for delivery and shipment. His business has grown in extent and importance year by year until at the present time it is one of the most prominent in the town of Dunkirk. Mr. Finck has erected upon his farm a fine brick house of a modern style of architecture, where he lives in comparative ease and complacency, practically retired from the activities of a business life. The life of Henry Finck well illustrates what can be attained through industry, courage and unflagging energy in the business world. His career has been marked by self-effort, by patient struggle with adverse circumstances, but withal honesty and an untiring zeal. He is now recognized, though born in a foreign land and reared under a widely different form of government and type of civilization, as a model citizen and in complete sympathy with our constitution, as well as the political and social fabric of America.

In the year 1864 Henry Finck was united in marriage to Margaret, daughter of Alexander Hadley of Baden, Germany, who has borne him two children, both sons — Henry and Albert.