Frederick A. Beisser

 

SOURCE: "Portrait and Biographical Album of Champaign County, Illinois," Chapman Brothers, Chicago, 1887

SURNAMES: BEISSER, FIEG, MEISSNER

FREDERICK A. BEISSER, a successful and skillful market gardener of Champaign Township, has been a resident of this section since the spring of 1855, and a year later located on the snug homestead which he now owns and occupies. Here he has a good frame house, and for the prosecution of his calling, has nine greenhouses. He raises the first vegetables of each season, and finds a good market for his earliest produce at the city of Chicago. Later in the season he sells vegetables at Champaign and Urbana. He has a good understanding to it, and takes pride in producing the finest specimens of the garden and greenhouse.

Mr. Beisser was born in the Province of Saxony, Prussia, Aug. 12, 1825, and five years later removed with his parents to Brandenburg, where he attended school until fourteen years old. The family then returned to Saxony, locating in the city of Magdeburg, where he lived until eighteen years old. His parents soon afterward began to make preparations to emigrate to the United Sates, and on the 10th of July following, set sail from Hamburg, arriving in New York on the 20th of September, after a very stormy passage. They proceeded to Buffalo, via the Hudson River and Erie Canal, and remained residents of that city for three years. From there they removed to Mahoning County, Ohio, whence, after four years they removed to Cleveland, and were residents of the Forest City for seven years following. In 1855 they came to this county. The mother died a short time afterward. The father then returned to Cleveland, where he spent the last years of his life.

While in Mahoning County, Ohio, Mr. Beisser was employed in a coal mine, and after taking up his residence in Cleveland, engaged as clerk in a drug-store, remaining six years under one employer. In the meantime he gained a good understanding of the business, and then set up a store for himself. This was destroyed by fire eighteen months later, and having lost all his possessions, he concluded to emigrate to the farther West. Coming into Champaign County, he engaged as clerk in a general store, where he was employed for six months, and then became connected with the mechanical department of the Illinois Central Railroad, most of his time being occupied in repairing. After two years he was placed in charge of a gang of men in Effingham County. After a year thus employed, he purchased a tract of unimproved prairie land on section 24, in Champaign Township, which, after another year, he sold out, and in 1858 tool possession of his present place. Upon this he has effected marked improvements, and is doing a profitable and steadily increasing business, enlarging each year his facilities for the raising of choice garden products. He is universally respected by his fellow-townsmen, and in politics inclines to Democratic principles, making it a point, however, to cast his vote for the men whom he believes to be the best qualified for office. He commenced in life at the foot of the ladder, and has attained to a good position in the community, with an assured competency for his old age.

Mr. Beisser was marred in Buffalo, N. Y., in 1846, to Miss Amelia MEISSNER. Mrs. Beisser was born in the Province of Silesia, Prussia. They have no children of their own, but are supplying the place of kind parents to an adopted son, Robert J. FIEG.