PETER BOHLENDER, one of Tippecanoe City's most respected citizens, an old and experienced man in the nursery business, to which he has devoted twenty-seven years in Miami County, was born in the walled village of Arlembaugh, in the Kingdom of Bavaria, Germany, February 1, 1838. His parents were George and Mary Bohlender.

In the spring of 1847, when Peter was scarcely ten years old, his parents decided to emigrate to America. They secured passage on a sailing vessel and after forty seven days of voyaging, the ship safely reached the harbor of New York, where another long trip awaited them before they could join their relatives living at Dayton, Ohio. This included a voyage by boat up the Hudson River to Albany, then by the Erie Canal to Buffalo, from there by steamer to Erie, and thence to Beaver, Pennsylvania, thence to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, from there to Cincinnati, and then on to Dayton. In a short time the father purchased a little home, some three miles from Dayton, between the Covington and Salem Turnpikes, and there both parents of Mr. Bohlender lived during the remainder of their lives, the father dying when aged fifty-four years and the mother when aged seventy-three years. Their family consisted of two daughters and three sons, namely; John, Frederick, Peter, Adaline and Catherine.

Peter Bohlender, who is the only survivor of the above family, was early put to work, beginning with George Heiks, a nurseryman, with whom he continuedfor a number of years, and later he was with George Muma and for several years in the employ of John Wampler, receiving a salary of $1,000 a year. Mr. Bohlender developed a natural taste for the nursery business and has devoted to it the whole of his industrial period, covering some sixty years. His present enterprise is one of importance. He erected his present buildings in 1908 and handles all kinds of shrubs and evergreens and all varieties of fruit trees and ships his stock all over the country and even to Mexico.

In 1863 Mr. Bohlender was married to Miss Annie Belle Elmore, who resided near Covington, Miami County, and they have had the following children: Thomas, who has full charge of the field work of the Gen. Bidwell ranch in California, and is there engaged in the cattle business; Edmond, who is a graduate of the Ohio Medical College, at Cincinnati, and engaged in medical practice at Dayton; Howard, a graduate jeweler, who is prospering in the jewelry business at Dayton; Fletcher, who is associated with his father in the nursery business at Tippecanoe City; Lou V., who is the wife of Harry Kyle, who is connected with the Spring Hill nursery, and has three children, Mary Belle, Elizabeth and Thomas Barton; and Ivy, who is assistant teacher at Steel High School, Dayton. Mr. Bohlender has given all his children good educations and has the satisfaction of seeing them all well established in life. He has never taken any active part in politics, but has so lived that his fellow citizens fully understand where he stands when just laws are to be upheld, desirable public measures are to be furthered, or contributions to charity are being collected.