My Genealogy Hound

FREDERICK LINKE, tanner, Allegheny, is the only son of Frederick and Henrietta Linke and was born in Saxony, Germany, in 1836. He came with his mother and three sisters to America in 1854, his father having preceded them one year, in order to provide a home for them on their arrival, which he did by purchasing a small farm in Saxonburg, Butler county, Pa. Frederick Linke, whose name heads this sketch, has three sisters, Laura (widow of August Kornalumpf), Minnie (wife of Fred Stemmler) and Amelia (wife of August Wagner, who was a soldier in the late war, and a long time in Andersonville prison). The father of these children returned to the old country in 1883, and died there at the age of eighty-three years; the mother died in Butler county, Pa., in June, 1885, aged seventy-two years.

Our subject graduated in the high-school of his native place at the age of fourteen years, and then commenced to learn the grocery and banking businesses, giving his services and $100 for four years’ instruction. Soon afterward he came to this country, and set out to make his own way in the world, and for five years but few young men ever met with greater discouragements and hardships. He worked in mills, factories, and on canal boats, with commendable courage and indomitable will, until 1859, when he obtained employment with Rennack, Hart & Co., at $2.50 per week. With that company and their successors he remained for twenty-three years, and was gradually promoted, until he found himself filling the most remunerative position in the employ of that firm. In 1882 Mr. Linke formed a partnership with Mr. Woelfel in the tanning business, and this firm is now ranked among the substantial firms of Allegheny City. Mr. Linke is a director in the German Fire Insurance company of Pittsburgh. He is a member of the G. E. Church.

He has been twice married; first in 1858, to Sophia, daughter of Conrad and Julia Mussler, and by her had one child, Laura. Mrs. Linke died in 1867, and Mr. Linke next married, in 1868, Amelia Steifel, of Wheeling, W. Va., a daughter of J. L. and Barbara Steifel, and by this marriage have been born three children: Norma, Frederick and Edgar.