WABASHA COUNTY, MINNESOTA ***************************************************************************** Biography transcribed & donated to Wabasha County, MN Bios by Barbara Koska Timm. For more information, please check out her site "Biographies and Historical Sketches of Wabasha County, Minnesota" at . ***************************************************************************** HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY TOGETHER WITH BIOGRAPHICAL MATTER, STATISTICS, ETC. GATHERED FROM MATTER FURNISHED BY INTERVIEWS WITH OLD SETTLERS, COUNTY, TOWNSHIP AND OTHER RECORDS, AND EXTRACTS FROM FILES OF PAPERS, PAMPHLETS, AND SUCH OTHER SOURCES AS HAVE BEEN AVAILABLE. ALSO A HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY CHICAGO: H. H. HILL & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS. 1884 Appel, L. W., a Highland farmer, resides on a fine farm of two hundred and forty acres in West Indian Creek valley. He was born in Baden, Germany, September 17, 1842, his parents being Adam and Catherine (Eckert) Appel. In 1845 Mr. Appel, Sr., died of yellow fever in Texas, and two years later the widowed mother emigrated with her family to Mercer county, Pennsylvania, where she engaged in agricultural pursuits. Lawrence working on her farm summers, and attending winter schools until he reached his twentieth year, when he went to Franklin county, Pennsylvania, and learned the blacksmith trade, which he followed in the oil regions and railroad shops for several years in Meadville, Pittsburgh, Sharon and Middlesex. He was in Pittsburgh at the time the raider Morgan menaced the peace of that city. While on a visit to his brother Stephen, in Highland, in August, 1866, he was induced to open a blacksmith-shop, near what was then known as Hampe's Mill. In 1869 he bought the farm where he now resides, from E. Lathrop. November 11 of the same year he was married to Margaret Arvilla, daughter of George and Elizabeth (Brawley) Harncame, natives of Pennsylvania, and Wabasha county pioneers. Mr. Appel is a member of the Catholic church. He was a member of the board of supervisors in 1880.