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#12, Garrelt Jacob Casper is the son of Jacob Hermannsen Caspers and Antje Garrelts.

Garrelt was the third eldest of the five known children of his father's second marriage. It is unknown if there were children of his father's first marriage to a wife whose identity is not presently known.

Garrelt's father died when Garrelt was 17 and he had to help support his mother and family. He was a master carpenter by trade. The family sailed from Bremen in 1854 and after a nine-week voyage entered the U. S. at New Orleans. They proceeded up the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers and settled first in Peoria on the 9th day of July, 1854 where he worked at his trade, and 2 of his siblings died.

In 1858, Garrelt and his family, and probably accompanied by his widowed mother, Antje, moved to an 80 acre farm which he purchased at Benson in Woodford Co. He was naturalized as an American citizen on 19 Aug 1876 at Woodford Co., IL. It was here that all but his last child was born. In 1877 the family moved to Ash Grove Twp, Sec. 11, in Iroquois Co., IL and became the owner of a 160 acre farm.

In the earlu 1870s, many German settlers came to Ash Grove Township; almost all came to Illinois in the 1850s from Ostfriesland. They brought with them their Lutheran faith, Low German language and customs, even the wooden shoe. John Schwer, who came from Chicago in 1876, built a general store and the first dwelling at Ash Grove, also known as Queen City. The Lutherans erected a church in 1880, a parsonage and a school. The first burial in their cemetery was John Duis in 1876.

German, the mother tongue of most early residents was used almost exclusively for teaching and worship during the first 50 years, being gradually replaced with English in the middle 1930s.

Garrelt became one of the prosperous and well-to-do farmers of the community, having been very successful in his business affairs. He spent his last years in Schwer where he had lived since 1895. He was a long time member of St. John's Evangelical Luth. Ch., was Secretary, and served on the church council.

He saw, and cast his first vote for, Abraham Lincoln. A published biographical sketch of the time called him a Democrat, "but not strictly partisan, preferring to vote for the man whom he thinks will best fill the office." He was called "one of the self-made men of the country, having started out in life with only $20, but has worked his way upward to success...He is highly respected throughout the community, and Germany has furnished no better citizen to Illinois. He has gained all he now possesses by his own industry and enterprise."

On the evening of 24 Jun 1901 at 10 PM as he was retiring, he suffered a heart attack and peacefully passed away. P. G. Langkammerer conducted the last rites using the text 2 Timothy 4 6-8. Garrelt Jacob Caspers was 79 at the time he died.

He married Teda Dirks Conrad on 19 Apr 1893..