My Genealogy Hound

JACOB WITTMER, merchant, and proprietor of Rock Island Stone quarries, is a native of Canton Solothurn, Switzerland, born August 7, 1839, and is one of seven children in the family of John J. and Mary A. (Schleivley) Wittmer. The father died when Jacob was quite young, and at the age of thirteen, he came with his mother to the United States, locating on a farm in Union Township. After one year, he went to Louisville and learned the barber’s trade which he followed in that city for seven years. He was afterward engaged as cook on a steamboat until the war, when he enlisted in Company D, Thirty-fifth Indiana Volunteer Infantry, serving as cook for the medical department, and later for Gen. Stanley and staff. He was finally made chief cook for a hospital, and after a service of over three years he returned to Perry County, He conducted a barber shop for a number of years, and for a time was proprietor of Phoenix Hotel. In 1879 he erected a store-house and dwelling upon a farm which he had previously bought east of Cannelton, and where he has since resided and conducted a lucrative mercantile business. He is also engaged in quarrying a sand stone of superior quality for which he finds a good, demand. May 21, 1865, he married Elizabeth Garber a native of Baden, and to them have been born five children now living. They are Phillip, Elizabeth, Charles, William and Amelia. Both himself and wife are members of the Catholic Church.