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WILLIAM KNUTH, who enjoys prosperous retirement at Vinton, had a successful career as farmer in this county and is owner of a fine homestead of three hundred and twenty acres in Eden township. His life deserves the highest esteem. He was born in Germany, came to America a boy of fourteen, served in the Civil war and permanently impaired his health and strength. After the war he was married and began life on eighty acres of land in Lee county, Illinois, and in 1874 sold out and moved to Benton county, where material prosperity continued to reward his efforts. He was born in Prussia, Germany, August 29, 1842, a son of Ludwig and Louisa (Dohnke) Knuth, who emigrated to America in 1857, settling first at Princeton, Illinois, and later moving to a farm in Lee county, where the father died in the fall of 1900 at the age of eighty-two and the mother on January 22, 1882, aged about sixty-one. William was the oldest of their eight children, two of whom are deceased, and the other five live in Bureau county, Illinois.
Mr. Knuth was reared to manhood in Bureau county, having laid a good foundation of education in his native land and also attended school in Illinois. In December, 1861, he enlisted, from Bureau county, in Company D, Fifty-seventh Illinois Infantry, and had a brief but strenuous military experience. His first battle was at Fort Donelson, with the army of the Tennessee, and he was then at Shiloh, at Philip's Creek, and the two engagements at Corinth. These were among the severest battles of the war, and he had many narrow escapes from death, and after the battle of Corinth was honorably discharged for disability, by an order of General Rosecrans.
Returning to Bureau county, he married, November 19, 1864, Miss Minnie Niederbroecker. She was born in Prussia June 12, 1846, a daughter of Carl and Annie (Schlattmann) Niederbroecker. Her mother died in Prussia at the age of forty-seven, and her father, in November, 1856, arrived in America, settling in Franklin county, Missouri, where he continued to follow his trade of tailor. He died in 1858, at the age of fifty-seven. Mrs. Knuth's only brother was in Company K, Eighth Kansas Volunteers, serving with the Army of the Cumberland, and on September 19, 1863, in the battle of Chickamauga, received a wound from the effects of which he died in Atlanta, Georgia, November 7, 1863. She also has two sisters living, one in Missouri and the other in Council Bluffs, Iowa. When Mrs. Knuth was sixteen years old she went to live in the home of a sister in Illinois, and had supported herself from the time she was ten years old.
Mr. and Mrs. Knuth were the parents of nine children, four of whom were born in Lee county, Illinois, and the others in Benton county. The children are: Amelia, late wife of Charles D. Kretzer, died September 3, 1906, leaving one son, Clellan, who lives with his grandparents; Herman, a farmer on one of his father's farms in Eden township, is married and has two children; Lena lives at home; Charles is married and is a farmer of Eden township; William, farmer of Homer township, is married and has one daughter; Annie, wife of Henry Taschner, of Eden township, has two children; Emma, who lives at home, is employed in a store at Vinton; Edward is a farmer of Eden township ; Mamie lives at home, and clerks in a store at Vinton.
Mr. Knuth is a member of P. M. Coder Post No. 98, G. A. R., and he and his wife are members of the Methodist church.
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