Pelzer, Clamor

Typed by Lora Radiches

This book has no cover, and no index, and no author. I bought it on Ebay; it just has the insides, but it is full of Indiana biographies. I am not researching this family, just thought I would share. I do not know anymore about these families or these surnames. NOTE: I don't know if there is any additional mention of this family in the book, it has no index. I do not want to sell this book. I am typing the biographies from it.

Surnames in this biography: PELZER, Gray, Hanks, Lincoln, Schwinn,

CLAMOR PELZER. The noble life of this revered citizen of Boonville, Warrick County, was its most complete and gracious justification to the world. He made that life count much in high ideals that were translated into high achievement; he won large and worthy success, and he made that success a means for helping his fellowmen; his strength was as the number of his days, and when he passed from the stage pf his mortal endeavors an entire community, rich and poor, influential and obscure, mourned the loss of a distinguished citizen and loyal and valued friend. Clamor Pelzer was born at Osenbrecb, Kingdom of Hanover, Germany, October 29, 1852, and his death occurred at his home in Boonville, Indiana, September 9, 1917. Mr. Pelzer was the youngest in a family of four Sons and one daughter, and after the death of his parents he and his eldest brother, William F., came to the United States in company with distant kinsfolk and landed in the port of New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1859, he having then been a lad of seven years. 

The innate and sterling characteristics of Mr. Pelzer could not mark him for obscurity, and he won advancement by very virtue of his intrinsic powers. Largely by self-discipline he developed his fine intellectual ken and also that mature judgment of men and material values that specially fitted him for leadership in thought and action during the course of his long and useful life. He was a natural diplomat and his prevision of the trend of events was remarkable, even as was his strategic divination, which would have made him a leader had circumstances required his interposition along that line of action. Mr. Pelzer soon came from Louisiana to Indiana, and the latter state gained much during the long years of his constructive activities within its borders. His power of leadership was distinctly manifest during the years of his residence in Warrick County and he became one of its foremost citizens, even as he was one who did a great service in furthering the civic and material progress of his home city of Boonville. His business activities touched diverse lines, he made a success not an accident but a logical result, and his splendid powers directed with circumspection the varied enterprises with which he identified himself and through the medium of which he acquired a large estate. 

Mr. Pelzer, ever a stalwart advocate of the principles of the Republican party, gave more than ten years of characteristically loyal service as a member of the Boonville City Council, and while thus placed he was the leader in the movement that gained to the city its efficient waterworks system, he having fostered other municipal improvements and reforms that add to the well being of Boonville at the present time. Within his six years of service as a member of the local board of education was erected one of the city's best school buildings. As a member of the State Senate Mr. Pelzer served out the unexpired term of Hon. James Gray, and by subsequent election he continued a valued member of the Senate an additional four years, he having previously been its sergeant-at-arms two terms. As a member of the Senate he presented and ably championed the bill for the creation of the Nancy Hanks Lincoln memorial fund and in establishing the birthplace of the mother of President Lincoln as a public park. After several unsuccessful attempts a legislative appropriation of $10,800, was obtained, which constituted the nucleus of the present Nancy Hanks Lincoln memorial fund. 

In later life he expressed the wish that his efforts in this connection might in a sense establish his own memory in the hearts of his friends and all others animated by patriotic spirit. He was chairman of the executive board that made Warrick County do well its part in connection with the centennial celebration of Indiana statehood. He served twenty-six years as president of the Boonville Fair Association and was largely influential in making the annual fairs of the county measure up to the highest standard. Mr. Pelzer's character was the positive expression of a loyal and noble nature, he remembered those who were forgotten, he found innumerable avenues for helpful service to others, his charities and benevolences were ever rendered without ostentation, and it may consistently be said that he was a man who would do good by stealth and blush to find it fame. He was loved by all who came within the sphere of his buoyant, genial and kindly influence, and his circle of friends was coextensive with that of his acquaintances. He was a member of the citizens committee that supervised the construction of the present fine courthouse of Warrick County, and his aid and influence were enlisted in support of virtually every enterprise and movement tending to advance the welfare of his home city and county.

At the time of his death Mr. Pelzer was president of the Tri-State Fair Association, an organization that maintained supervision of eight of the leading fairs in this section of the Union. He was vice president of the Peoples Trust & Savings Bank of Boonville at the time of his death. The memory of this sterling citizen shall long rest as a benediction on the community that long represented his home and was the central stage of his activities. Mr. Pelzer was married, May 20, 1877, to Katherine Schwinn, in Boonville. He was a member of Saint John's Lutheran Evangelical church and was a Mason and a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.