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HENRY HARDER, is identified with the business of Keystone as a harness maker. He was born in Kane township August 15, 1869, a son of Hans and Magdalena (Kroehnke) Harder. Hans Harder, born in Holstein, Germany, near the city of Kiel, in 1830, came to the United States in 1856, and for three years thereafter was a watchman at the Davenport-Rock Island Bridge. Going from there to St. Louis he enlisted on the 23rd of September, 1861, in Company I, Twelfth Missouri Infantry, served three years as a loyal soldier, and was discharged at St. Louis on the 23rd of September, 1864. He returned then to Davenport, and in 1866 came to Benton county and bought eighty acres of the unimproved land of Kane township in section 24. He died here in 1887. Mrs. Harder, born in 1839, survives her husband. Their four children are all living and are Henry; George, of Keystone; William, in Stanwood, this state; and Catherine, wife of Fred Zellers, of Kane township.
Henry Harder was reared as a farmer's son and received a district school training, but when he had attained his fifteenth year he went to Traer, this state, to learn the harness maker's trade, spending three years in that city. Returning then to Keystone he worked one year for N. Fitzgerald, and in the fall of 1889 bought his employer's business and has since carried on the work. He also owns a farm of one hundred and sixty acres of finely improved land in Lyman county, South Dakota, and he has been very successful as a business man. He has served nine years as a member of the city council, during a similar period was a member of the city school board, and for four years was town treasurer.
Mr. Harder married on March 17, 1891, Mattie Kroehnke, who was born in Kane township in 1874, a daughter of John P. and Elizabeth (Heyer) Kroehnke, both born in Germany. The father came to the United States in 1865, locating in Wisconsin, and in 1870 he came to Benton county, dying here in 1893, at the age of fifty-five years. The mother became a resident of Keystone in 1870, and she survives her husband and is sixty-two years of age. They were married in Benton county, and their two children are Alva J. and Mrs. Harder, the former living in Perry, this state. The five children born to Mr. and Mrs. Harder are: Edward, Arthur, Robert, Edna and Alvin. Mr. Harder is a member of Keystone Lodge, No. 35, I. 0. 0. F., and of Keystone Lodge, No. 4560, M. W. A., serving as the present banker of the latter order. In politics he is allied with the Democracy.
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