My Genealogy Hound

JOHN BAUMGAERTNER, proprietor of the Veranda Hotel, is a native of Canton Graubuenden, Switzerland, his birth occurring May 1, 1843. He is the second of four children born to the marriage of Simon Baumgaertner and Anna Fluetsch, both parents being natives of that country. His youth and early manhood were passed in the vicinity of his birthplace, attending the common schools and also a teachers’ seminary of which he is a graduate. He taught school in his native town until 1865, when he immigrated to the United States, and in December of that year settled in Tell City, Perry Co., Ind., where he taught German school a period of seven years. The spring of 1872 he was elected Town Marshal, serving two terms of one year each, and in 1874 engaged in the wharf boat business, continuing until the fall of 1879. The spring of 1880 he removed to Rockport, Ind., and in April of that year assumed control of the Veranda Hotel, which under his judicious management has become one of the traveling public’s favorite hotels of southern Indiana. Mr. Baumgaertner was married in 1867 to Hedwig Knecht, a native of Prussia, by whom he is the father of two children, only one, Alma H., now living. The mother dying November 8, 1870, the father, on the 7th of July, 1871, wedded Phillipena Neuhart, by whom he is the father of four children, three yet living, named Otto, Henry and Frederick. Mrs. Baumgaertner is a native of Bavaria. Mr. Baumgaertner is a radical Republican and himself and his family belong to the Evangelical Church.