SHEBOYGAN HISTORY

Hon. John Ruch, Page 201

HON. JOHN RUCH, a farmer, and proprietor of a sawmill, is an early settler of the town of Scott, Sheboygan County, where he has a well-improved farm of one hundred and forty acres, and a good residence on section 27.  His postoffice is Boltonville, Washington County.  He was born in Massillon, Stark County, Ohio, May 18, 1834.  His parents, Michael and Mary (Lang) Ruch, were natives of Alsace, France, now a province of Germany.  The former was born in 1806, and the latter in 1808.  They emigrated from France to America in 1828, and were married in Ohio, settling in the town of Massillon, Stark County.  Their family consisted of five sons and two daughters.  Mary, who is the eldest, was the wife of Samuel Smith, and died in 1868.  John is the next.  William was a member of Company F, Twenty-seventh Wisconsin Infantry, and died October 20, 1863, from diseases contracted in the service.  Lewis, who enlisted in company I, First Wisconsin Infantry, and served through the war, receiving an honorable discharge, married Mary Smith, and resides in Canal Fulton, Ohio.  Frederick, who is the next in order of birth, was employed in the United States service during the late war in a civil capacity, and his death occurred in Indian Territory in 1873.  Caroline became the wife of Leonard Bammerlin, of Massillon, Ohio.  Christian, the youngest son, who was employed in the United States service during the war, is living at Canal Fulton, Ohio, and married Melissa Kerstetter.  The mother died at Canal Fulton, Ohio, in 1868, and the father at Massillon, August 30, 1887.

    John Ruch received a common-school education, and when twenty-one years of age, in 1855, came to Sheboygan County, Wis., and purchased a tract of land and a sawmill in the town of Scott.  He operated the old mill for four years, and then built a new one, on the same site, which he ran for some sixteen years.  In the mean time he erected a second mill on the same stream, but about eighty rods below the first, and operated it until the race was broken by a flood, in the summer of 1893.  Mr. Ruch bought his land in a wild state, heavily timbered, but he has cleared it, and now has it under a high state of cultivation.  During his long term of milling, he has cut large quantities of lumber for neighboring farmers, and for the market.

    On the 24th of October, 1858, Mr. Ruch was married, in the town of Scott, to Miss Emma Buchanan.  She was born in the State of New York, and is a daughter of Thomas and Prudence (Cable) Buchanan, who were pioneer settlers of Scott Township, arriving in 1846.  They were highly respected citizens, and both are now deceased.  Her mother died in February, 1876, and her father in May, 1886.

    In politics, our subject is a stanch Republican, and has been for many years a leading representative of his party in Sheboygan County.  He served three terms as Superintendent of Schools for the town of Scott; was Town Clerk for two years, and Chairman of the Town Board for six years.  In the fall of 1879 he was elected to the Wisconsin Assembly to represent the then Third district of Sheboygan County, and served in the session of 1880, during which time he did duty as a member of the Committee on Enrolled Bills.  In the Presidential election of 1888, Mr. Ruch was one of the Presidential Electors, representing the Fifth Wisconsin District, and aided in making Benjamin Harrison President of the United States.

    Mr. Ruch is a hard-working farmer and millman.  He enjoys an extended acquaintance throughout the county and State, and has been a reliable and influential member of the Republican party since the beginning of the late war.  In his business and social relations, Mr. Ruch stands deservedly high in the estimation of his fellow-citizens.