My Genealogy Hound

LEWIS ROESCH was born in Baden, Germany, January 4th, 1851, and is a son of Philip and Mary (Glaser) Roesch. His parents are both natives of Baden, where his father was born in 1825. His youth was spent in his native home among the foot-hills of the Black Forest, in the beautiful valley of the Wiese, celebrated for the numerous large cotton, wool and other mills that line its banks, as well as by its own native poet, J. Peter Hebel, the Robert Burns of that country.

There Mr. Roesch received a common-school education and in 1868 came to Albany county, N. Y., and the year following to Fredonia, where he has resided ever since. Having no particular trade or occupation, he followed his natural bent and soon drifted into the growing of fruit and vegetables, which business he started with a capital of two hundred and eighty dollars. This he soon developed beyond the requirement of the home market, and he opened a line of trade along the Erie and D. A. V. & P. railroads. This trade in turn was pushed beyond the ability of his own gardens to supply, and he became a dealer in country produce, which trade by the year 1880 amounted to over $10,000 a season.

The growing of strawberries, raspberries, etc., incidentally got him into the small fruit plant trade, which he also developed and added to it, dealing in general nursery stock. In 1879 Mr. Roesch contracted to grow grape-vines for another nursery on a larger scale for four years, at the expiration of which term he continued the business on his own account. This trade flourished and in a couple of years became of such magnitude that he decided to drop that of growing and dealing in fruit and vegetables, which by the way had grown poorer and more unsatisfactory every year, owing to over-production, southern competition and the failure of canning factories. Mr. Roesch continued to increase the grape-vine and small fruit nursery, and has recently extended the same to include general nursery stock. At present Mr. Roesch’s business consists of forty acres of grape-vines, currant and gooseberry plants, etc., ten acres of fruit and ornamental trees, four acres in experimental and sample vineyard and some two acres of lawn and ornamental grounds, fruits and vegetables, etc., all in a high state of cultivation and fertility.

He has a fine office; a cellar 60 by 100 feet for the storage of grape-vines and other nursery stock; a large packing-house and grading-room connected and under one roof. He employs from ten to forty men and boys, according to the season. His market extends all over this country and Canada, but principally in the grape-growing section east of the Rocky Mountains.

In 1879 Mr. Roesch married Sophia Miller, of Dunkirk, N. Y. To their union have been born three children, two sons and one daughter: Flora M., Sidney C. and Milton E. Without political aspirations, Mr. Roesch is a business man; he gives most of his attention to business and personal affairs, is careful, patient and methodical, and never embarks in any enterprise without a thorough investigation embracing every possible detail of the same. To these qualities as well as to his enterprise and push is due the large degree of success attained in a business for which he had no special education or preparation.