John F. Ketter
This publication exercises one of its important functions when it enters specific record concerning those sterling and progressive citizens who are representative figures in connection with the various lines of industrial and commercial enterprise in the Hanging Rock Iron Region, and such a one is Mr. Ketter, who is president and manager of the Ketter Buggy Company, which marks one of the important and substantial business enterprises in the city of Ironton.
Mr. Ketter was born at Jackson Furnace, Scioto County, Ohio, on the 26th of April, 1849, a date that indicates that his is the distinction of being a scion of a pioneer family of this favored section of the Buckeye State. He is a son of Henry E. and Mary (Marting) Ketter, both natives of the great Empire of Germany, where the former was born in 1828, and the latter in 1824. Henry E. Ketter was reared and educated in his native land, where he learned the trades of brick and stone mason, and he immigrated to America in 1854, when a young man of about twenty-six years. He became actively identified with the iron industry in the Hanging Rock Region of Ohio in the pioneer days, assisted in the installing of many furnaces and was otherwise prominent as a skilled workman at his trade and in other mechanical lines. He continued to reside in Scioto County until his death, in 1881, and survived by thirty years the wife of his youth, she having passed away in 1851. Of their four children, the eldest is William, who is a resident of Columbus, Ohio; Mary is the wife of Frederick Graham, of Ironton; John F., of this review, was the next in order of birth; and Henry, who married Miss Maria Shumway, is employed as an expert blacksmith in the plant of the Ironton Portland Cement Company.
John F. Ketter attended the common schools of Scioto County until he was sixteen years of age, and he then entered upon a virtual apprenticeship to learn the carriage and buggy business, by entering the employ of Henry Lively, of South Webster, Scioto County. The contract made between them provided that the young employe should provide for his own clothing and should receive for his services forty dollars and board for the first year, fifty for the second, and sixty for the third. At the expiration of his contract agreement Mr. Ketter went to the city of Portsmouth, where he worked as a journeyman at the carriage-maker's trade, until he had attained to his legal majority. Upon reaching the dignified position thus granting him the right of franchise he gave evidence of his independence, ambition and self-reliance by initiating business on his own responsibility. He established a modest shop and through the efficiency of his work and the fairness of his methods his trade grew apace, with incidental augmenting of his prosperity in financial lines. The major part of his independent business career has had Ironton as its stage, and there, in 1902, he expanded the scope and importance of his business by organizing the Ketter Buggy Company, which is incorporated with a capital stock of $25,000, and of which he has been president and manager from its inception, his technical ability and careful administrative policies having been the prime forces in making the enterprise a substantial success. Dr. Clark Lowry is vice-president of the company, and John W. Ketter, son of the founder, is secretary and treasurer.
Mr. Ketter has shown himself most loyal and public-spirited as a citizen and business man, is a stalwart supporter of the cause of the republican party, served one term as a member of the city council of Ironton, is a member of the Ironton Chamber of Commerce, and both he and his wife are zealous members of the First Methodist Episcopal Church in their home city. In addition to other realty in Ironton, Mr. Ketter is the owner of his fine residence property at 431 South Sixth Street.
On the 27th of February, 1870, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Ketter to Miss Emma Frouein, daughter of the late Frederick Frouein, a prosperous farmer of Scioto County. Of the five children of this ideal union the eldest is John W., who is secretary and treasurer of the Ketter Buggy Company; Frederick M., who is superintendent in the factory of the same company, married Flora Cram, and they have one child; Henry, who is a carriage trimmer by trade and vocation, and who now resides in the City of San Francisco, California, married Miss Blanche Rowe; Miss Nora holds the position of stenographer in the office of the Ketter Buggy Company; and Minnie is a student in the Ironton public schools.
From "A Standing History of the Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio" by Eugene B. Willard, Daniel W. Williams, George O. Newman and Charles B. Taylor. Published by Lewis Publishing Company, 1916