| Notes |
- THE JOHN ENGEL FAMILY
According to family tradition, John Engel was a sort of scout or pathfinder to the groups of emigrants from Alsace-Lorraine, France, who came to establish homes in America during the 1830's and later. He left France in 1829 and moved through Pennsylvania to a point in Ohio from which he walked across country to this community. Afterwards, he walked to Galena. Illinois, where there was a lead industry, then to Keokuk, Iowa, where there was a button industry. The buttons were punched out of mussel shells taken from the Mississippi River. He evidently satisfied himself that neither of these places were his cup of tea; so he came back to Metamora, where he purchased a farm within a mile west of that village. When the Metamora Courthouse was built, the timber for the interior structure was procured from the grove on his farm.
John Engel married Barbara Detweiler, who was a sister of Henry Detweiler, the captain and owner of river steamboats operating between Peoria and St. Louis. Tradition has it that he became a friend of General Grant by helping transport Grant's Troops from Missouri to the eastern side of the river early in the Civil War. After the war he continued in the river business until late in the 19th century, when he joined the Woodruff brothers in the river ice business. His son Tom later bought and presented to the City of Peoria the old Payson Farm to be called Detweiler Park in honor of his father.
In 1832 John Engel became the driver of a supply wagon for the troops in the short Blackhawk War. After this he engaged in farming and raising a family of two sons and five daughters.
In 1833 John's father. Christian, who was an ordained minister of the Mennonite Church, came over from France accompanied by his brother Peter who settled on a farm south of Metamora. In the same year, one historian relates, the first church in Woodford County was organized in the home of John; and later, in the year 1854, a brick church known as the Partridge Church was built on the road between Metamora and Germantown. A field stone monument on the south side of the road marks the spot today.
The oldest son, Christian II, who married Elizabeth Nafziger purchased a farm northwest of Washington just across the road from the old Union Church and raised a family of two sons and four daughters. A daughter of John II, Evelyn Smith, resides in Washington as do the children of Matilda, who married John Summer. Her children are Clayton, Harvey, and Lester Summer. Two sons, Ira and Earl, and one daughter, Verna (Foley), are deceased. All of the other daughters of John, the pioneer, married and moved away from this community except the youngest, Rachel, who married Peter Sweitzer and bore two sons, Willard and Fred, the latter of whom is still living. The other son, Joseph, never married. He died in 1921 and is buried in the Union Cemetery. [2]
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1801 - 
d. 15 Sep 1838, Hanover, Tazewell Co., IL