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File contributed to the Fulton County ILGenWeb Project
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Source: Portrait and Biographical Album of Fulton County
Biographical Publishing Co., Chicago, 1890

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The Biography of Charles C. EHRENHART 

Pages 226-227, transcribed in full by Danni Hopkins 

[Surnames: BROOKMEIER, EHRENHART, LANTZ] 

    
CHARLES C. EHRENHART is prosperously conducting in Lewistown an extensive agricultural implement business. He owns the handsome brick block, a large building 42x80 feet in dimensions. on South Main Street, where he is established, and he is one of the solid men of the city. 
    
Our subject is a Bavarian by birth, born in the German Fatherland in the month of November, 1850. His father, Michael Ehrenhart. was a native of the same locality as himself, and a son of Mathew Ehrenhart, the latter having been born in Austria and going from there to Bavaria during the time of the Austrian Revolution, spending the remainder of his life there. The father of our subject was reared to agricultural pursuits, and when a young man entered the army in accordance with the laws of Germany, and for nine or ten years served as a soldier. In 1866 he came to America with his eight children, setting sail from Rotterdam in the month of October, and landing at New York the following January. He came to Illinois, and for a time lived in Rio Township, Know County. At the expiration of three years he removed from there to Galesburg, and was in the employ of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad the ensuing seven years. He still resides in that city. 
    
The maiden name of the mother of our subject was Susannah Lantz, and she was also of Bavarian birth. She died in Bavaria in 1863 or 1864, and her death was a serious loss to her family. She and her husband reared eight children, named Phillip, Charles, Amelia, Mathew, Frank, Martha, Fred and Mary. 
    
The son of whom this sketch is written was carefully trained by his worthy parents in all that goes to make an honest man and a good citizen; and in the public schools of his native place, which he attended most of the time quite steadily till he came to America in 1866, he received an excellent education. The first two or three years after his arrival in this country he was employed on the farm with his father in Knox County. We next hear of him as a clerk in a grocery store in Galesburg, and his six years experience in that capacity in that place proved of invaluable service to him, and there he laid the foundation of his career as a business man. His next employment was an agent for sewing machines in Iowa. He spent three seasons there very profitably, and then located permanently in Lewistown in the month of September, 1877. Here he engaged in the butchering business, continuing in that some six years. After that he turned his attention to the lumber trade, and one year later added the sale of agricultural implements, and is still conducting the implement business, which he has extended greatly, and is in receipt of a good income from that source. 
    
Mr. Ehrenhart and Miss Eliza Brookmeier united their lives and fortunes January 5, 1877, and their marriage has been productive of much domestic felicity. Four children, Lillie, Amelia, Annie and Clifton, complete their pleasant home circle. Mrs. Ehrenhart is a native of Iowa, and a daughter of Jacob Brookmeier, a native of Wurtemburg, Germany, and a pioneer of Iowa. She is a sincere Christian and an esteemed member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
    
Mr. Ehrenhart is an ambitious, wide-awake man, whose capabilities, industry and methodical business habits have been the making of him, and given him good financial standing in this community. He belongs to Lewistown Lodge, No. 335, I. O. O. F., and to Commonwealth Lodge, No. 61, M. A.