CHARLES A. DREISBACH

     Charles A. Dreisbach is the president and manager of the New Haven Sand Blast Company and has other important business interests which have established his position as that of one of the leading and representative business men of New Haven. He was born November 9, 1875, in Allentown, Pennsylvania, a son of John Dreisbach and a representative of one of the old and well known families of the Keystone state. The Dreisbachs are of German lineage but left that country during religious persecution there. They were of the Lutheran faith and. migrated to Holland, whence in the early part of the seventeenth century representatives of the name came to America, thus establishing the family on the soil of the new world. The family has always been characterized by religious fervor and loyalty in citizenship. On the records appear the names of many distinguished representatives of the ministry, together with those who have taken prominent part in public affairs, filling various positions of public honor and trust.
     The Rev. Samuel A. Bridges Stopp, historian of the family, says: "For more than a generation before the war of the Revolution the Dreisbach family, planted in eastern Pennsylvania, flourished and were active in every good word and work. With the heritage of sturdy bodies and sterling characters they at once took their places in the new community with grim determination to succeed at whatever cost or hazard. Not as fugitives from the old world but as pioneers bearing with them the best from their ancestral land, they came to the welcoming shores opened for colonization by William Penn, seeking citizenship, ready to meet each new emergency and grasp every fresh opportunity, with the fear of God in their hearts and faith in the best things actuating their lives. It will prove an interesting study to note a few elements of the Dreisbach character as they appeared in the lives of our ancestors in Colonial America. Notice the religious element as foremost and predominant. The shadow of persecution had often lain across their forefathers' way in Europe. The Dreisbachs were preeminently church builders. In the days of political unrest and manifestations of gross injustice on the part of England toward her colonial subjects the Dreisbachs loyally took the oath of allegiance to their adopted country and sought to be the best possible citizens. Casting in their lot with liberty-loving people they brought forth a race of patriots, soldiers, statesmen, nation builders. They served and sacrificed as men of ideals and purest patriotism, stalwart and unafraid. Recall only the distinguished services of that ardent patriot, Jost Dreisbach, colonel of militia, captain in Baron von Otterndorf's corps, friend of the immortal Washington. Think of his brother Simon in the provincial assembly from 1776 to 1780, subscribing as it were, from the Colony of Pennsylvania to the Declaration of Independence, under the influence and guidance of Benjamin Franklin. Jacob, Adam, Henry and Peter Dreisbach were only a few of the other descendants of the old stock who heard the drum beat and followed the flag of freedom to Princeton and Long Island and Valley Forge.
     "But equally strong with the religious and the patriotic elements in the Dreisbach makeup was the domestic strain. They were home lovers and home builders. Great tracts of land were cleared and farms cultivated; dwellings and mills as well as churches and forts were built; they were workers trained in the arts of farming and milling, yet ready to deliberate in the halls of legislation or shoulder the musket and lead the ranks forward to the fray. From the labor of the fields or the grinding of the mill or the peace of their fireside they must often rush forth, gun in hand, to protect their families from the attacks of Indians on the warpath or to find shelter for them in the forts stretching from the forks of the Delaware to the Wyoming valley. It was a heroic life these men must lead. They were naturally constructive, not destructive, builders rather than destroyers. How wisely and how well they builded we know today and we reverence their memory as we pray, 'God give us men, tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the clouds in public duty and in private thinking.'"
     It was from such an ancestry as this that Charles A. Dreisbach sprung. His father came to New Haven in 1877 and has since resided in this city, being still active at the age of sixty-nine years as proprietor of the New Haven Pattern & Model Works. He was for thirty years designer with the New Haven Clock Company and while there produced many of their present and past models. He is an expert in hand wood carving, his ability ranking him with the most efficient in that line. His political allegiance is given to the republican party and his religious faith is manifest by his membership in the Epworth church, in the work of which he has been most active and helpful. He also became a charter member of the Patriotic Order Sons of America and was one of the founders of the local order. He married Sarah Moyer, a native of Pennsylvania and a representative of one of its old families of German lineage, the ancestral line in America, however, dating buck through several generations. Mrs. Dreisbach is also living. She became the mother of five children: Laura, the wife of Louis Bradley, of New Haven; Edwin J., who is living in Whitneyville; Charles A., of this review; Maude E., the wife of William Lutz, a resident of New Haven; and William F., who is an architect of New Haven.
     Charles A. Dreisbach became a pupil in the public schools of New Haven and after finishing the grammar school course he spent two years in the New Haven night school to obtain a knowledge of mechanical drawing and kindred lines. At the age of seventeen years he started out to provide for his own support and was first employed for eight months with Sargeant & Company, while later he became connected with the MacLagon Foundry Company, there serving an apprenticeship at pattern making. He continued with the company after he had completed his apprenticeship until his connection therewith had covered fourteen years, a fact indicative of his faithful service and his capability. He next entered the foundry business on his own account and established what was then known as the C. A. Dreisbach Foundry & Machine Company, under which name he conducted business for three years. He then sold that business and organized the New Haven Sand Blast Company in 1910. This company is engaged in the manufacture and sale of sand-blast machinery, of which Mr. Dreisbach is also the patentee, and the output is sold throughout the United States and Canada and also to a large extent in Europe. Mr. Dreisbach is also proprietor of the Standard Equipment Company, manufacturing and selling machines for reclaiming metal from cinders, etc. He is likewise owner of the business conducted under the name of the New Haven Pattern & Model Works. His interests are thus extensive and important and constitute a substantial element in the industrial activity and development of this city. He also figures in financial circles as a director of the American Bank & Trust Company of Fairhaven.
     Mr. Dreisbach is well known in Masonic circles, holding membership in Hiram Lodge, No. 1, F. & A. M., and exemplifying in his life the beneficent spirit of the organization. He is a member of the city and town improvement committee and he gives his political allegiance to the republican party. He stands at all times for progress and improvement in community affairs and his aid has been an effective force in bringing about develop-ment along various lines. He is a member of the Calvary Baptist church and at all times his influence is on the side of material, intellectual, social, political and moral-progress.

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