JOHN P TROMPETER

JOHN P TROMPETER

Among the worthy citizens of Brown county of German birth is John P. Trompeter, and he possesses many of those characteristics which have made his countrymen a valuable addition to our nationality. He was born in Mach, b. Coeln, Germany, on the 21st of July, 1842, and is a son of Henry and Mary Trompeter, natives of the same village. On leaving the Fatherland they crossed the Atlantic to the new world and took up their abode in LaSalle county, Illinois, where they made a good home. They became residents of Peru and there it was that John P. Trompeter grew to manhood. The mother died in LaSalle county, in the faith of the Catholic church, in which she had been reared and of which she was a consistent communicant. Her death occurred at the age of fifty-four, and the father passed away in Kansas, when eighty-four years of age. He, too, was a member of the Catholic church and in politics was a Democrat. He made farming his life occupation and his well known industry and honest success placed him among the reliable citizens of the community in which he resided.

John P. Trompeter was one of a family of ten children, nine sons and one daughter, and two of the sons were soldiers of the Union during the civil war, namely John and Frank, the latter having been a member of the One Hundred and Fourth Regiment of Illinois Volunteers. He is now living in Illinois.

Mr. Trompeter, whose name introduces this record, was a lad of ten years when his parents left Germany and made the voyage across the Atlantic to the new world. He was reared in La Salle county, Illinois, and for some years worked in a flouring mill. He had begun his education in the schools of Germany and afterward attended night school in Peru. In his home he was taught lessons of honesty and industry and these have been salient features in his career in later life. In touch with liberty and with a spirit of patriotism he responded to the country's call for troops in 1862, enlisting at the time President Lincoln asked for three hundred thousand men to aid in crushing the rebellion of the south. He joined the "boys in blue" of the One Hundred and Fourth Illinois Infantry under the command of Captain Palmer and Colonel Moore, and participated in a number of very important engagements. including the battles of Murfreesboro, Hartsville and others. He was taken prisoner, but was afterward paroled and exchanged, being stationed at Camp Douglas, Chicago, for some time prior to his exchange. When he again enlisted he became a member of the One Hundred and Thirty-eighth Illinois Infantry, under the command of Captain Lyon, and was stationed for some time at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. At the close of the war he received an honorable discharge and returned to La Salle county, Illinois, where he lived until 1878, the year of his arrival in Brown county, Kansas. Here he has since made his home and throughout the greater part of this time has been numbered among the successful agriculturists of the community.

Mr. Trompeter was married in LaSalle county, Illinois, in 1865, to Miss Mary Klein, a native of Germany and a daughter of Sebastian and Eva Klein, also natives of Germany. Her parents died in LaSalle county, however, and there Mrs. Trompeter spent much of her early life. By her marriage she has become the mother of fourteen children: Frances, now Mrs. Wintersdeidt; George; Lizzie; Katie; Willie; Rose; Minnie; Oscar; Louisa; Ernest; Peter, who died at the age of nineteen years; Robert, who died at the age of seventeen years; Eva, who died at the age of eight years; and Otis, who died at the age of one year. The family reside upon a fine farm of one hundred and twenty acres. It has all of the characteristics of a model farm of the twentieth century, being improved with a good residence, substantial barn, a large orchard and well-tilled fields. To its cultivation Mr. Trompeter devotes his time and energies and the fields yield to him good crops, Whereby his income is largely augmented. He and his wife are members of the Catholic church and are representative people of the community. Mr. Trompeter is a progressive and public-spirited citizen who withholds his support from no measure which he believes will prove of general good. He is a self-made man whose advancements in life has come through his own well-directed efforts, and he certainly deserves great credit from the fact that he has gained a leading position among the farmers of his neighborhood.