My Genealogy Hound

JOSEPH LANDSCHOOF, JR., is a native of Holstein, Prussia, a territory over the possession of which much blood and treasure has been spent. It was a duchy of Denmark, but now is a part of Schleswig Holstein, Prussia. He was born August 17, 1830, and is a son of Joseph and Margaret (Radden) Landschoof. His father and mother were natives and life-long residents of the same place, and they were the parents of three children, two sons and one daughter. Mr. Landschoof was a roofer by trade at which he worked until his death, which occurred in 1864, in his native land, at sixty-seven years of age, and Mrs. Landschoof died in 1848, in her fiftieth year. In religion he was a member of the Lutheran church.

Joseph Landschoof, Jr., was reared in his native country, and his education was received in her common schools, after leaving which he served an apprenticeship) for four years in a mercantile store. By the laws of the country he was then drafted for the army, and had scarcely had time to be drilled when the war with Denmark broke out, and he was ordered to the front. In a year Holstein was conquered, and he was forced into the Danish army, where he served five years, and after his discharge he was employed as a clerk in a dry goods store until 1857, in which year he emigrated to Canada, where he remained but a few months; coming to the United States, landing in Buffalo, whence he traveled to Silver Creek, this county, where he worked on a farm by the month until 1861, when he came to Dunkirk and secured employment in the car repair shops of the Erie railroad with which he remained until 1869, being steadily promoted from one responsible position to another. In the latter year he was employed by the Brooks Locomotive Works, as foreman of the lumber yard, which position he held until the panic of 1873. In May, 1874, he was placed in charge of the store-room in the Brooks Locomotive Works, where he has been ever since.

In 1884 he engaged in the mercantile business in Dunkirk, which is managed by his wife, and they have built up a very flourishing trade. In politics he is a Democrat, and in religion a member of the Lutheran church. He has been an Odd Fellow since 1862, and is now a member of Point Gratiot Lodge, No. 181, of that order. In November, 1863, he made a visit to his native country, renewing old friendships and returned in the spring of 1864. He is a genial gentleman and commands the respect and esteem of all who know him.

October 27, 1861, Mr. Landschoof united in marriage with Minnie, daughter of Frederick Peters, a retired watchmaker of Silver Creek, this county, and their union has been blest with three children, two sons and one daughter: Emma, Charles and William, whose ages are, twenty-nine, twenty-seven and twenty-two years respectively.