ELIAS OEFINGER

     Elias Oefinger, a tuning pipe manufacturer of Meriden, conducting business at No. 82 Britannia street, was born in Germany, October 16, 1857, his parents being John and Anna Oefinger, but the latter died during the infancy of their son Elias. The father passed away in the old country.

     Elias Oefinger attended the public schools and at an early age began work in a harmonica factory, gaining expert knowledge of the business. In 1876, when a youth of nineteen years, he bade adieu to friends and native land and sailed for the new world, establishing his home at Sherburn Falls [Shelburne Falls?], Massachusetts, while subsequently he removed to North Adams, Massachusetts, working in factories in those two places. In 1883 he arrived in Meriden and entered the employ of the Miller Brothers Cutlery Company, with which he was connected until 1889. He and his brother John then established a manufactory for tuning pipes, beginning in a small shop on Hicks street with no employes, doing all of the work themselves. Not long afterward his brother was killed on the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad and Elias Oefinger has since been sole proprietor of the business. He now has the oldest tuning pipe manufacturing plant in the United States. His factory contains about three thousand square feet of floor space and he has eight employes engaged in the making of tuning pipes for every kind of stringed instrument, also for school use and for the human voice. The entire output of his factory is sold to one concern in Brooklyn and the pipes are manufactured under his own patents.

     On the 16th of June, 1883, at Millers Falls, Massachusetts, Mr. Oefinger was joined in wedlock to Miss Mary Stark, by whom he has thirteen living children, as follows: John, of Meriden; Mrs. Mary Rahally, who also resides in Meriden; Louis, who lives in Meriden and married Miss Sarah Flanagan, by whom he has two children, John and Ellen; Annie, a resident of Meriden; Minnie, the wife of Fred Andrews, of Meriden, by whom she has three children -- Florence, Raymond and Edna; Fred, of Port Chester, Connecticut [New York?]; Ida and Louise, who are living in Meriden; George, who is now a member of the United States army; and Harold, Herbert, Lydia and Mildred, all of Meriden. One son, Elias, died in 1900, when three years of age.

  Mr. and Mrs. Oefinger are members of the First Congregational church of Meriden and Mr. Oefinger is connected with the Workmen's Sick and the Death Benefit Society, also with the Turners and with the Lyra Singing Society. He is very fond of music and greatly enjoys his association with the organizations which promote musical taste and culture. In politics he is a republican but has never been an office seeker, preferring to concentrate his energies and attention upon his business affairs. He has made steady progress since coming to the new world and in its business conditions found opportunities which were superior to those that he could obtain in his native country. In the utilization of these opportunities he has steadily progressed and is now at the head of a growing and profitable business.
 

 (Photo attached.)