Biography - F Stahl
F. W. STAHL, Secretary and Treasurer of Car and Machine Company, Litchfield, was born in Prussia, Germany, in the province of Posen, on August 3, 1833. At the age of fourteen years, he began learning coppersmithing in his native town of Chodziesin, where he served four years' apprenticeship, and, in 1852, sailed for the United States, landing in New York City; he worked two years in Albany, N. Y., then one year in New York City, after which he went to Texas, remaining a short time. After this, he worked three months at New Orleans, when he came to Illinois, via St. Louis, and settled in Bloomington, where he worked five years in the Chicago & Alton Railroad shops. In February, 1860, he went to Alabama and engaged in the stove and tinware business, but, the war coming on, he returned in August to Litchfield, Ill., and here found employment in the railroad shops for eighteen months, and, at the expiration of that period, he bought out the stove and tinware business of John FOWLER, and conducted with it extensive trade in hardware and agricultural implements, with good success, until 1875; he then disposed of the hardware branch of his business, and for two years dealt in agricultural implements alone; he then settled up his business, and became a stockholder in the Litchfield Car and Machine Company in 1879. In August, 1880, he became a Director of the company; in March, 1881, was made Treasurer; and in August, 1881, he was elected Secretary and Treasurer, a position he still holds. Mr. STAHL is also a stockholder in the McWILLIAMS Oil and Mining Company. In 1857, at Bloomington, Ill., he married Miss Margaret J. WALDRON, a native of New York State.
Extracted 19 Nov 2016 by Norma Hass from 1882 History of Bond and Montgomery Counties, Illinois, Part 2 Biographical Department, page 169.
