JOHN HENSEL. The farm owned and occupied by this gentleman, consists of eight acres on section 7, Hallock Township, and without being sufficiently large to require undue exertion in its management and cultivation, affords an excellent support and abundant field for intelligent labor. The land is naturally good, and is kept in a state of fertility by the use of the best fertilizing agents, and a proper rotation of crops, while upon it the various improvements have been made which stamp it as the above of an intelligent and thrifty family. It has been the home of our subject since 1860, at which time he came to the county from the East. 

Mr. Hensel is one of those industrious and thoroughly honorable Germans, whose citizenship in an honor to the land of their adoption, and who afford worthy examples of the results of perservering, straightforward efforts. He was born in Frankfort-on-the Main, January 1, 1819, received a good education in his native city, among his accomplishments being an excellent knowledge of the English language. He learned the trade of a harness-maker and upholsterer, following it in his native land for some time. There he married Miss Jeanette Fresh, a native of Stuttgart, in which city, and in Frankfort she was reared and educated.

Mr. and Mrs. Hensel bade adieu to their native land in 1851, embarking at Rotterdam on a sailing-vessel which cast anchor in New York Harbor, after a voyage of six weeks. The good wife died in the metropolis four years after her arrival, leaving three children--Charles, Matilda, and Emma, Mr. Hensel continued to live in New York until 1860, when he came West, selected and purchased land, and assisted by his second wife, began the improvements which have resulted in the formation of a pleasant home. The lady whom he chose as his second companion, was Miss Susan Carpes, who had been living in New York City for some time prior to her marriage. She was born in Germany in 1825, came to America when a young woman, and after having lived to the age of forty years, died at her home in this county in 1882. She left two children, Lena and John. 

The sons and daughters of our subject are married and living upon farms in various localities. Charles is located near Hoopeston, this State, having married Miss Mary Fentrick; Matilda is the wife of Charles Weidmann, of Hallock Township; Emma married Albert Shane, their home being in Akron Township; Lena is the wife of Fred Rapp, of Marshall County; John, who married Sabria [Sabra] Bennett, lives in Kansas. Father and sons are sound Democrats, and the entire family belong to the Lutheran Church. 

The father of our subject was Dietrich Hensel, who comes of a good German stock, was an engineer and spent his entire life in the Fatherland, being but in his prime when his career was cut short by death. Our subject, the only child of his parents, was quite small when bereaved of his father’s care, after which time his mother endeavored as far as possible to supply to her son the place of both father and mother. She also was of German blood, having born the maiden name of Catherine Weidmann. She died at Frankfort-on-the-Main, not far from her birthplace, when past three-score years of age. She and her husband belonged to the Lutheran Church. 

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