SOURCE: History of Delaware County, Indiana
Herman Hutzel, head of the firm of Hutzel & Company, general heating and plumbing contractors at Muncie, has been a resident of that city for nearly twenty-five years and in that time has built up a business that has much more than merely a local reputation.
Mr. Hutzel was born in Ann Arbor, Mich., and is a son of August and Sophia (Mann) Hutzel, the latter of whom was a daughter of Jonathan Henry Mann, a Wurtemberger of Huguenot stock. who in 1828, to escape enforced military service, left Europe and came across the water, landing at Philadelphia? A tannery interest there sent him to Vera Cruz, Mexico, where he remained about a year, at the end of which time he returned and established a tannery at Reading, Pa.
He then sent for his family and established his home in Reading. August Hutzel also was a Wurtemberger. He learned the trade of coppersmith in his native country when twenty-two years of age, in 1829. came to America and settled at what then was known as Steam Furnace, down along the river, near Ironton, in Lawrence county, Ohio, and there started a store and not long afterward was appointed postmaster of the village.
In 1839 he sold out his interests there and went to Ann Arbor, Mich., where he established a general store and in that same year was married. In connection with this store he carried a line of stoves and heating appliances and in the course of years, as the demand arose, began to devote his whole attention to the growing call for steam heating and plumbing appliances and became a general contractor in that line, and was thus engaged at that place until his retirement from business in 1887, when he turned the concern over to his sons and the business still is being carried on there by his son.
Titug F. Hutzel, who has associated with him in business his son, Fred G. Hutzel, and a nephew, Robert Gwinner. To August Hutzel and wife were born eight children, those besides the subject of this sketch, the fourth in order of birth, being Sophia, wife of the Rev. Christian Spring; Pauline, wife of Fred Wuster; Martha, wife of Carl Steinbach; Mrs. Eugene Freeauff, Titus F., Mrs. Henry Heim, and Charlotte. Reared in Ann Arbor, Herman Hutzel “grew up” in the plumbing and steam fitting business in his father’s establishment and has all his life been thus engaged in that line.
Upon their father’s retirement in 1887 he and his brother Titus continued the business in partnership until 1892, when Herman Hutzel sold his interest to his brother and in 1900 came to Muncie, where, in partnership with John Kirby, he became established in the heating and plumbing line, operating under the firm name of Kirby & Hutzel.
In 1904 Mr. Kirby retired from the firm and since then Mr. Hutzel has been carrying on alone, two of his sons, Max H. and Victor C. Hutzel. now being associated with him in the business, operating under the firm name of Hutzel & Company Inc., with a well-equipped establishment at 401 East Main street.
Not only does this firm carry on a general contracting business in the heating and plumbing line in Muncie and throughout the surrounding trade area but is in the market for general contracts throughout the country, one of its recent contracts has been a $100,000 job successfully completed at Milwaukee. At Ann Arbor, Herman Hutzel was united in marriage to Pauline Graf, a daughter of Christian Graf. Mr. and Mrs. Hutzel has six children, Robert, Meleta, Sophia, Max, Hugo, and Victor, the latter of whom, with his brother Max, is associated with their father in business at Muncie. Max Hutzel married Helen Gronendyke and has one child, a son, Robert.
For more than twenty years Mr. Hutzel’s eldest son, Robert Hutzel. has been a resident of Europe, now living in Paris, where he is the manufacturing manager for the American Radiator Company’s plants throughout Europe. He married Lulu Spear and had two children, Rita and Hilda. Hugo Hutzel is now living in Buffalo, N. Y manager of the malleable iron works of the Radiator Company of Buffalo. He is the president of the American Association of Heating and Ventilating Engineers of Western New York.
He married Catherine Moritz. Victor Hutzel married Belle Willard. Sophia Hutzel is a teacher in the Muncie public schools, with which she has been connected for more than twenty years. Meleta Hutzel is a member of the educational division of the Michigan State Department of Health and her time is occupied as a lecturer in that behalf before women’s clubs and high schools.
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