Jefferson County Historical Society

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Henry Hurtgen, blacksmith and dealer in agricultural implements, is a
native of Prussia, born in 1852, and is the son of Joseph and Anna M.
(Hasenberg) Hurtgen, natives of Prussia, where the mother died in 1854.
One year later the father came to the United States, located in Houghton 
County, Mich., and from there, in 1866, went to Hennepin County, Minn.  
One year later he moved to Quincy, Ill., and in the same year to De Soto, 
Mo.  In 1872 he returned to Michigan, but went from there to California, 
and in 1875 he returned to Missouri, this time to Morristown, in Warren 
County, where he still lives.  He has been a life long and competent 
blacksmith, and has been married three times.  Henry received a fair 
education, and worked in a carriage and omnibus factory in St. Louis for 
a number of years.  He learned the blacksmith's trade in 1872, and in 
1874 located at Hillsboro, where he continued his trade and where he soon 
had a stock of agricultural implements.  In 1882 he was elected public 
administrator of Jefferson County, and served two years, when he was 
elected sheriff, and served in that capacity also two years.  He then 
resumed his trade, which he has since continued with success.  He was 
married in 1878 to Miss Rosa, daughter of John G. and Anna M. Guehring, 
natives of Germany, but residents of Jefferson County, Mo., for over 
thirty-five years.  To Mr. Hurtgen and wife were born six children, 
four now living: Joseph, John, Anna M. and Theodore. Politically, Mr. 
Hurtgen is a Democrat, and cast his first presidential vote for Tilden, 
in 1876.  He is a member of the A. O. U. W., was formerly of K. of L., 
but during the strike of 1886 severed his connection with that body.  
Mrs. Hurtgen is a member of the Lutheran Church.