Copyright USGenNet Inc., 2015
                           All Rights Reserved
                        USGenNet Data Repository

        Please read USGenNet Copyright Statement on this page:
                <http://www.us-data.org/fineprint.html>

Transcribed and submitted by Linda Talbott
for the USGenNet Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/
===========================================================================
USGenNet Data Repository NOTICE:
These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or
presentation by any other organization.  Non-commercial organizations
desiring to use this material must obtain the consent of the transcriber
prior to use.  Individuals desiring to use this material in their own
research may do so.
===========================================================================
History of the Great Lakes
Illustrated, In Two Volumes, Vol. II
Chicago, J. H. Beers & Co., 1899

           [225]

                  CAPTAIN JOHN KLEPSER, who for the past twenty-five
               seasons has been in the employ of the Falcon Wood Club as
               master of their yacht Falcon, is a son of FREDERICK and
               REGINA (STERELY) KLEPSER, who were natives of Wurtemburg,
               Germany. They emigrated to America in 1836, and settled in
               Tonawanda, N.Y., where our subject was born October 15,
               1842. The father was a farmer in the Fatherland, and also
               followed that occupation for a time in this country.
                  After receiving a very ordinary education in his native
               place JOHN KLEPSER, the subject of this sketch, worked on a
               farm until about the twentieth year of his age, and then, in
               the year 1862, began his seafaring life as a deckhand on the
               Jennie Bell, owned by John Nice, of Grand Island, at the end
               of the third season finding himself in the position of mate.
               In 1865 he was master of the tug Buffalo, of Port Day, near
               Niagara Falls, upon which he remained three seasons consecu-
               tively, the tug being sold at the end of the last season.
               The following seasons. 1868-69, he was made master of the
               harbor tugs Addie and Robert Cooper, and after two seasons
               in this employ, or in 1871, became master of the old
               steamyacht Falcon, owned by the Falcon Wood Club. In 1887
               this tug was sold and replaced by a new one of the same
               name. CAPTAIN KLEPSER was made master of the new Falcon, and
               was in control of her in that capacity at the close of the
               season of 1896; thus he is serving his twenty-seventh
               season in one employ.
                  CAPTAIN KLEPSER was married, on April 30, 1869, to
               BARBARA LEIB, and they have the following named children:
               LYDIA, now (1898) twenty-five years old; FREDERICK, twenty-
               three; REGINA, twenty; FRANK, eighteen; FLORENCE, thirteen;
               HAROLD, ten, and LILLIAN and LUELLA, each six years of age.
               The son Frank is in the employ of the North Buffalo Planing
               Mill at Tonawanda, New York.

===========================================================================