One of the best known and most popular German-Americans in Buck Creek township, Hancock County, Indiana, is John Buchfink, who was born in Wurtemberg, December 14, 1849, and is a son of John and Magdalina (Buchfink) Buchfink, the former of whom was a shoemaker by trade and passed all his life in Germany, dying when John was but three years old. The widow afterward married John Diegel, but he also died in the old country, and the mother likewise passed her life in her native land until coming to the county five years after her sons came here.

John Buchfink passed the summer months of his youthful days as a shepherd in his native land, but this calling was of no avail to him in winter during which inclement season he worked at anything his hands could find to do, in order to keep the wolf from the door, as he had from the fold. August 17, 1869, Mr. Buchfink landed in America, first stopping at Winfield, New York, where for one year he worked in a saloon, and after he had the funds to spare came west to seek, as it were, for a stray sheep. An uncle had located in Cincinnati, Ohio, and to find him Mr. Buchfink visited that city, only to find that his relative had changed his home to some point in the far west, and up the present time has not been found. Mr. Buchfink s next step was to find employment on a farm, a wise step, as it was really the move that led to his present enviable position in life. After two years of labor as a farm hand, partly in Hancock county, he went to Indianapolis, where he secured a position as brakeman on a construction train on the old New Albany railroad. In a few months he was taken sick and resigned, the fifty-eight dollars he had saved going for his medical treatment and other expenses. The next employment Mr. Buckfink could find at which he could readily turn his had was at wood-chopping and as a farm hand; still later he worked in a saw-mill at Julietta, Marion county, in which he worked for four years; he next worked as a ditcher, contracting for both open and tile work, and this work was very successful for several years, much of this work being in Hancock county.

June 28, 1877, Mr. Buchfink was joined in marriage with Miss Christina Kissell, daughter of Peter Kissell, a reputable farmer of Marion County. For six years after marriage Mr. Buchfink continued to reside in that county, but in 1883 came to Buck Creek township, and here purchased the eighty-acre farm on which he still resides, but only thirty-five of which at that time were cleared. For this farm he went into debt two thousand eight hundred dollars, but by hard work and frugality he succeeded in clearing, tilling and otherwise improving the farm and has today as fine a place as there is of its size in the township, and has freed it from debt.

To the marriage of Mr Buchfink have been born six children, in the following order: Anna, who is married to Jess Sanford, a farmer in Buck Creek township, is the mother of two children, Bertha and Estella; Mary, wife of George Marlan, a bricklayer in Indianapolis; John, with his father on the farm; Lena, still at home; Lizetta, also at home, and on child that died in infancy. The family are all members of the St. John s Evangelical church at Cumberland, Marion county. and in politics Mr. Buchfink is a Democrat, but has never been an office-seeker. The venerated mother of Mr. Buchfink now makes her home with her son and his family, which is one of the most respected in Buck Creek township.

Transcribed from Biographical Memoirs of Hancock County B. F. Bowen, Publisher, Logansport, Indiana, 1902 Pages 418-419.

Submitted by Sylvia (Rose) Duda, Laingsburg, MI Aug 15, 2006.

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