JOHN F. STRUNK, one of the substantial residents of West Point Township, was born at Spring Mills, Center Co., Pa., Aug. 29, 1832. He is the son of John and Nancy (Henry) Strunk, and his family is of German extraction. The father of our subject was brought up to the miller’s trade, and operated a mill in Center County for a Mr. Duncan. It was in the early days when there were no railroads, and Mr. Duncan used to construct large boats, load them with barrels of flour, and take them down Penn’s Creek to the Susquehanna River, thence to Philadelphia, where the flour was sold. After his children were grown, he decided to change his business, and purchased a farm in Marion Township, where he passed the remainder of his life engaged in agricultural pursuits. His death occurred in 1884, in his seventy-sixth year. His wife, who was born in Union County, Pa., died in 1860. They had a family of fourteen children, of whom John F. was the fourth in order of birth. While a boy he attended the district school a part of the time, and also assisted his father on the farm. When our subject was twenty years of age, he applied himself to learning the carpenter’s trade, and continued in that business until 1855. He then came to Stephenson County, where he worked at his trade until 1862, when he married and settled on a tract of land in Ridott Township, which was presented to him by his wife’s father.

The land which Mr. Strunk’s father had purchased in Pennsylvania was secured from that State by Catherine Colman, and the patent for it is now in Mr. Strunk’s pos-session. It bears the signature of Benjamin Franklin, also the seal of the State, and in the center is a figure in relief, representing Liberty, with one foot on a lion crouched at her feet, and on it is inscribed this motto “Both cannot survive.”

Mr. and Mrs. Strunk lived on the farm in Ridott Township sixteen years, and then removed to Freeport. He had managed the grange store there two years previous to the removal of his family from Ridott Township. Afterward he withdrew from the grange store, and went on the road as traveling salesman for an agricultural warehouse in Richmond, Ind. He traveled in Illinois three years, and in the meantime purchased a tract of improved land in Nebraska, also some town property, which he traded for a farm of 200 acres in West Point Township. He settled on this place in 1882, and lived there until 1884, when he sold out and bought his present place. It contains 143 acres of valuable, well-improved land. He has a commodious brick residence, surrounded by a spacious lawn, embellished with fruit and shade trees.

In July, 1861, John F. Strunk was united in marriage with Miss Mary Catherine Lamb. She is the daughter of Samuel Lamb, and was born in Clinton County, Pa. Her father was a native of Center County, that State, and came to Stephenson County in 1845, where he settled on a farm in Ridott Township, and still resides on the homestead. Mr. and Mrs. Strunk have five children – Edgar, William, Laura, Nancy and Pearl. Mr. Strunk is a Republican in politics.

Contributed by Carol Parrish - Portrait and Biographical Album of Stephenson County, Ill. (1888), p. 271