Portrait and Biographical Album of Fulton County,
Illinois: containing full page portraits and biographical sketches of
prominent and representative citizens of the county: together with
portraits and biographies of all the presidents of the United States,
and governors of the state; Biographical Pub. Co., Chicago, IL; 1890;
page 226-227; Transcribed by Margaret Rose Whitehurst
Charles C. Ehrenhart is prosperously conducting in Lewistown an
extensive agricultural implement business. He owns the handsome
brick block, a large building 42x80 feet in dimensions, on South Main
Street, where he is established, and he is one of the solid men of the
city.
Our subject is a Bavarian by birth, born in the German
Fatherland in the month of November, 1850. His father, Michael
Ehrenhart, was a native of the same locality as himself, and a son of
one Mathew Ehrenhart, the latter having been born in Austria and going
from there to Bavaria during the time of the Austrian Revolution,
spending the remainder of his life there. The father of our
subject was reared to agricultural pursuits, and when a young man
entered the army in accordance with the laws of Germany, and for nine
or ten years served as a soldier. In 1866 he came to America with
his eight children, setting sail from Rotterdam in the month of
October, and landing at New York the following January. He came
to Illinois, and for a time lived in Rio Township, Knox County.
At the expiration of three years he removed from there to Galesburg,
and was in the employ of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad
the ensuing seven years. He still resides in that city.
The maiden name of the mother of our subject was Susanna Lantz,
and she was also of Bavarian birth. She died in Bavaria in 1863
or 1864, and her death was a serious loss to her family. She and
her husband reared eight children, named Phillip, Charles, Amelia,
Mathew, Frank, Martha, Fred and Mary.
The son of whom this sketch is written was carefully trained by
his worthy parents in all that goes to make an honest man and a good
citizen; and in the public schools of his native place, which he
attended most of the time quite steadily till he came to America in
1866, he received an excellent education. The first two or three
years after his arrival in this country he was employed on the farm
with his father in Knox County. We next hear of him as a clerk in
a grocery store in Galesburg, and his six years experience in that
capacity in that place proved of invaluable service to him, and there
he laid the foundation of his career as a business man. His next
employment was as agent for sewing machines in Iowa. He spent
three seasons there very profitably, and then located permanently in
Lewistown in the month of September, 1877. Here he engaged in the
butchering business, continuing in that some six years. After
that he turned his attention to the lumber trade, and one year later
added the sale of agricultural implements, and is still conducting the
implement business, which he has extended greatly, and is in receipt of
a good income from that source.
Mr. Ehrenhart and Miss Eliza Brookmeier united their lives and
fortunes January 5, 1877, and their marriage has been productive of
much domestic felicity. Four children, Lillie, Amelia, Annie and
Clifton, complete their pleasant home circle. Mrs. Ehrenhart is a
native of Iowa, and a daughter of Jacob Brookmeier, a native of
Wurtemburg, Germany, and a pioneer of Iowa. She is a sincere
Christian and an esteemed member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
Mr. Ehrenhart is an ambitious, wide-awake man, whose
capabilities, industry and methodical business habits have been the
making of him, and given him good financial standing in this
community. He belongs to Lewistown Lodge, No. 335, I. O. O. F.,
and to Commonwealth Lodge, No. 61, M. A.
