Gottlieb Zurcher has been a
resident of Clayton county since he was a lad of
about seven years, and is a representative of one of
the honored pioneer families of the county. Here he
was reared and educated and here he has long been a
successful and progressive exponent of the great
basic industries of agriculture and stock-growing,
the while he has stood at all times as a loyal and
public-spirited citizen who is well worthy of the
unqualified esteem in which he is uniformly held.
Mr. Zurcher was born in
Baden, Germany, on the 23d of January, 1857, and is a
son of George and Orzilla Zurcher, who continued
their residence in that section of the great German
Empire until 1864, when they immigrated to America
and numbered themselves among the pioneer settlers of
Clayton county, Iowa, where they passed the remainder
of their lives and where the father reclaimed a
productive farm, both he and his wife commanding the
high regard of all who knew them, and.their names
meriting enduring place on the roll of the sterling
pioneers of the county. Of their seven children five
are yet living.
Gottlieb Zurcher was reared
to the sturdy activities of the pioneer farm and
gained his early education in the common schools of
the early period in Clayton county history. He
continued his association with the work and
management of the home farm until he had attained to
his legal majority, and later he purchased this old
homestead, comprising eighty-seven and three-fourths
acres in Section 7, Farmersburg township, and
twenty-four acres in Section 6 of the same township.
He has made substantial improvements on his landed
estate, including the erection of good buildings of
modern type, and with the passing years the property
has greatly increased in value, the while the farm
has been kept up to the highest standard through his
energetic and progressive policies and management.
Mr. Zurcher has been one of
the successful and influential citizens of
Farmersburg township and has given his support to
those measures and enterprises that have tended to
advance the best interests of the community. He was
one of the organizers and founders of the Farmersburg
Creamery Company, of which he served as president
five years and as a director for a period of four
years thereafter. He is a director of the Farmersburg
Savings Bank and is one of the substantial and
wideawake men of the county in which he has
maintained his home since childhood. His political
allegiance is given to the Democratic party and his
character and ability have given him such secure
place in popular confidence and esteem that he has
been called upon to serve in various local offices of
public trust. Since 1910 he has been the efficient
incumbent of the office of justice of the peace, and
the year 1916 finds him in service also as township
supervisor and as a member of the school board of his
district, in which latter office he has served
continuously since 1908. He is a stockholder in a
cement manufacturing corporation at Farmersburg, in
which village both he and his wife are zealous
members of the Evangelical church. There also he is
affiliated with the camp of the Modern Woodmen of
America.
In June, 1883, was
solemnized the marriage of Mr. Zurcher to Miss
Christina Schiff, who was born and reared in this
county, and who is a daughter of Louis and Mary
(Meier) Schiff, who were born in Germany and who came
to the United States in 1851. Later they became
pioneer settlers in Clayton county, where they passed
the residue of their lives and where Mr. Schiff was a
prosperous farmer and honored citizen. Of their ten
children seven are yet living. Mr. and Mrs. Zurcher
became the parents of seven children, whose names are
here entered in the respective order of birth:
Herbert G., Amiel L., Ishmael, Benjamin L., George, a
child that died in infancy, and Truman S. Of the
children, Herbert, Ishmael and George are deceased.
source: History of
Clayton County, Iowa; From The Earliest Historical
Times Down to the Present; by Realto E. Price,
Vol. II; pg. 458-459
-OCR scanned by S. Ferrall
