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 732-733; Transcribed by Margaret Rose Whitehurst
John W. Schrodt. The career of this gentleman has been
marked with enterprise, industry and the well-directed efforts that
have been rewarded by the accumulation of a considerable amount of
land, and the machinery and stock necessary for carrying on a
first-class farm. Mr. Schrodt is one of those German-American
citizens of whom we have reason to be proud, on account of the example
they present of industry, morality and good citizenship. He was
born in Hesse-Darmstadt, February 3, 1820, and was about eleven years
old when his parents emigrated to America. He remained with them
until he was fifteen years old, then went to learn the trade of a
shoemaker at Hagerstown, Md. He worked at his trade until early
1847, when he married and established himself on a rented farm.
In 1850 Mr. Schrodt pre-empted eighty-four and a quarter acres
on section 7, Deerfield Township, this county, where he now
resides. In 1869 he added thirty-six and a quarter acres on
section 17, and ten years later became the owner of another eighty
acres on section 7, together with forty acres on section 8. His
first purchase was covered with a thick growth of timber, which he
removed, placing the land under good improvement, as he has that which
he has since bought. He now has about two hundred acres under
fence, and one hundred and forty under cultivation, and is doing a
general farming business. When he took up his abode here there
were few neighbors, but now the country about his is well settled, and
friends are quite near at hand.
On February 7, 1847, Mr. Schrodt led to the hymeneal altar Mary
C., daughter of Philip L. and Anna M. (Schnur) Mahr. Mrs. Schrodt
was born in Hesse-Darnstadt, Germany, September 5, 1826, and her
parents were natives of the same province. Mr. and Mrs. Mahr
emigrated to America, making their home in the Buckeye State, where the
husband died in 1850, and the wife in about 1853 or 1854.
Our subject and his good wife have nine living children and two
deceased: John the first-born, died when about a year old, and
Wendel on March 11, 1884, at the age of nineteen; Henry married Martha
Stick, and lives in Deerfield; Philip married Clara Gardener, who died
August 3, 1888; Jenny married William Knott, who died in 1884, and now
makes her home in Deerfield Township; John M. took for his wife Delia
Melton, and makes his home in Lee Township; Margaret became the wife of
Henry Shaffer, their home being in Deerfield Township; Mary married
David Laswell, and lives in Deerfield Township; George, Lewis P., and
Catherine are still with their parents.
Mr. Schrodt is a Democrat, but of late years has taken but
little interest in politics. He has been Road Commissioner and
School Director, efficiently discharging the duties of those
offices. He is a member of the Lutheran Church, in which he has
held the office of Deacon. For more than five years he has been
lame, and is therefore unable to attend church or go about as he would
like to do.
The parents of our subject were John and Margaret Schrodt, who
emigrated from the Fatherland to America in 1831. They landed at
Baltimore, Md., remained there about a year, then removed to
Westminster, and some time later went to Hagerstown. Their next
removal was to Chambersburg, Pa., in which city they remained two years
and a half, then moved to Ohio. After sojourning in that State
nearly ten years, they came to this county and made their last
settlement on section 10, Deerfield Township. There the mother
breathed her last December 12, 1868, and the father, March 11, 1870.
