Submitted by Anita Butler
Excerpt from: A History of Northwest Ohio: a narrative account of its historical progress and development from the first European exploration of the Maumee and Sandusky Valleys and the Adjacent Shores of Lake Erie, down to the present time by Nevin O. Winter, Lewis Publishing Co, Chicago, 1917. Volume III of III. Pg. 1570.
Richard Nelson is now serving his first term as a member of the Board of Commissioners of Henry County in the first exclusive Republican Board of Commissioners that the county has ever had. Mr. Nelson’s home is in Harrison Twp. of Henry County. He laid the foundation of his success as a farmer in Illinois, but a few years ago moved to Henry County and has since acquired some very extensive holdings in the fine farming section of that locality. He is a practical businessman and is much esteemed for his excellent judgment on all the issues and problems connected with farm and community affairs.
About forty-five years ago he came a poor boy from the old country to America, and has accomplished his splendid success entirely through his own exertions. He was born October 22, 1852 in Schleswig-Holstein, then a province in Denmark, but now a part of the German Empire. He is of Scandinavian ancestry. His father, Martin Nelson, or Nielson, as the name was spelled in the old country, married Catherine Maria Frödden. She was born in Oevenum Island Föhr, Schleswig, and grew up there. Martin Nelson, a short time after his marriage, and when his only son Richard, was twenty-two weeks of age, took passage on a sailing vessel bound for Australia, where he went to seek his fortune in the gold mines. While working in the mines he was accidentally killed, and then in the prime of life. Mr. Richard Nelson was four years of age when the father died and the mother never remarried again and spent her life in her native country, where she lived when past threescore.
Reared and educated in Schleswig-Holstein, and living under the German Government from 1864 to 1870, Richard Nelson had such training and educational influences as were bestowed upon most boys in that vicinity. His birthplace was the Village of Oevenum Auf Föhr in Schleswig . At the age of seventeen in 1870, together with a neighbor boy, Nicholas Petersen, who was yet younger than himself, he set off from Hamburg, Germany, on a steamship and landed in New York City . From there he went out to the State of Illinois, and found steady employment near Dwight in Livingston County . That was his home for thirty-seven years. By hard work he acquired a modest capital and then used it to the best advantage in buying land, improving and cultivating, and gradually extending the scope of his operations until he was owner of 520 acres of the high class and high priced land of Livingston and Grundy counties.
A few years ago he sold out his extensive Illinois holdings and came to Henry County, Ohio to take advantage of the equally good but lower priced land in this section. Here, in 1906, he bought 240 acres with a fine barn, residence and other equipments in Harrison Twp., and he also owns two other well improved farms, one of 200 acres and the other 120 acres, both in Richfield Twp. of Henry County. Each of these farms have a complete set of building improvements and other facilities and all the land is under cultivation except twenty acres of stump ground. At his home place Mr. Nelson has a very complete establishment for farming and for comfortable country life. His main barn is on a foundation 40 by 80 feet, and there are several smaller buildings in the farm group. His home is a very attractive country residence, built of brick and comprising twelve rooms. The same qualities which made him successful in Illinois have been exemplified in the management of his Henry County farms. His fields produce abundant crops including the great staples of corn, wheat and oats, and he earns his profits through the products of his fine farms.
During his residence in Livingston County, Illinois, Mr. Nelson married Miss Anna M. Lauritzen, who was born in Denmark May 28, 1854, and was still young when she came to the United States alone, and she lived in Illinois until her marriage. Mr. and Mrs. Nelson have some very capable sons and daughters, most of whom are established in homes of their own. Martin C., who finished his education in the schools of Henry County, is now conducting one of his father’s places in Harrison Twp. and is still unmarried. Carl R. lives on one of his father’s farms in Richfield Twp. and by his marriage to Bodil Olsen, who was born in Illinois of Danish parents, has two children, Clifford and a daughter Lucile. Albert T., who is a progressive farmer in Livingston County, Illinois, married Mary Bundessen, who was born and reared in Illinois, and they have two children, Irene and a son Wayne. C. Mary is the wife of Karl F. Kline, who was born and reared in Ohio, and occupies one of Mr. Nelson’s farms in Richfield Twp. Emma is the wife of F. Bert Brillhart, and they occupy one of the Nelson Farms in Harrison Twp. Nora married Vernon Brillhart of Napoleon. Mr. Brillhart for the past nine years has been one of the successful school teachers in Henry County, and they have a son named Gale Nelson.
Retyped 10/14/02 by Anita Butler
Henry County Signal – October 29, 1942 Thursday – Napoleon, Ohio
FIRST G.O.P. BOARD — THEY’LL VOTE TUESDAY
Richard Nelson — J.F. Veigel — George Wolf
There’s an old bromide and it’s a truism too – that ‘history repeats’, meaning that it takes a Republican administration to clean up after Democratic mismanagement.
The people turned to Abraham Lincoln, the first republican president to guide the nation through the internal strife of ’61 to ’65. The post World War I indebtedness was a record breaker up to that time and Presidents Coolidge and Hoover succeeded in whittling it down appreciably. Then the Democrats took control and from its inception all the nation’s debts rolled into one looks picayunish compared to the present red ink figures. It will be a Republican that will have to pare that down.
And so it is in Ohio. It took Gov. John Bricker to clean up the $17,000,000 school fund deficit inherited from the Davy regime.
All of which leads up to the clean-up inaugurated by the trio of Henry county commissioners pictured above. By strict economy, honesty and sound business judgment they paid off a gigantic county debt incurred by their Democratic predecessors.
They are still with us and we’re proud of them. First, there’s Geo. Wolf, born in Defiance county March 10, 1860, but a resident of Henry County for 80 years. Living now on Haly Ave. Richard Nelson is a native Hollander, born October 22, 1852. He, too, has been a resident of Henry County for many years and now lives with his son Martin. J.F. (Fred) Veigel was born in Napoleon Township Feb. 12, 1867, now living at 712 Tyler Street, Napoleon.
This triumvirate of Republican commissioners set a splendid example for future commissioners to emulate.
Typed from copy of original, 9/15/05
