PHILIP FAHLING, an enterprising and successful general agriculturist, and son of the first German settler of Chester Township, Ottawa County, Mich., was born March 2, 1853, on the farm where he now resides, and is the only son of Philip and Elizabeth Fahling, both natives of Germany. The parents were married in the Old Country, but soon after emigrating to America located in Ohio, where they remained three years. From the Buckeye State journeying to the farther West with oxen, they came to Michigan, fording and swimming rivers on the way. Arriving in the Wolverine State in 1844, they two years later, in 1846, entered from the Government the farm of one hundred and sixty acres upon which they now live. The land was then heavily timbered, but, persistently worked upon, has been brought under a high state of cultivation, and to the original acres have since been added others, until the homestead now contains two hundred and eighty acres of valuable land, improved with buildings of a superior character, commodious, of modern architecture and finely arranged. When the parents located in Michigan the father had $300 and the wife $140, money which they had made in Ohio. The father, working on a farm for $10 per month, had saved it all, and now, with Conrad Kritzer, made the first settlement in Chester Township. The first white child born in the township was the eldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Philip Fahling, Margaret, now Mrs. Klink, of Alpine Township, Kent County.

When the Fahlings located in Chester Township they were obliged to do all their trading in Grand Rapids, and as they had no horses the grist was brought upon their backs all the way home, there being no roads over which their oxen might have hauled the stuff. Their nearest neighbor was John Coffee, five miles south from their place. Desiring to fill their beds with straw, they were obliged to transport the same a long distance on their backs. The first shanty was erected by Mr. Fahling.  Mr. Kritzer assisted in putting up, as did also Adam Lachman, a young man who had accompanied them from Ohio. It was built in three days, no nails being used in the construction, with the exception of a few in the door. Mr. Fahling and Mr. Kritzer with their families lived together three months, and then Mr. Kritzer built a similar house for his family. These early pioneers, enduring sacrifices and great privations, toiled unceasingly that their children might in the days to come reap the benefit. The father through incessant toil contracted consumption, and at the early age of forty-five years passed away, in 1860, leaving a widow and five children to mourn his loss. Two little ones had preceded him to the better land. Margaret, Mrs. Klink, is the eldest-born; Elizabeth is the wife of Chris Peters, of Casnovia Township, Muskegon County; Philip is our subject; Christiana, deceased, was the wife of Fred Rister, of Chester Township; and Mary, deceased, was the wife of John Mortz, of Big Rapids. The mother, married in 1862 to Henry Ritz, resides in Sparta Township, Kent County, and by her second husband has one son, John, a citizen of Sparta Township.

Our subject was educated in the free and Lutheran schools of his home neighborhood, both his parents being of the Lutheran denomination. Reared to farming life and work, he was but eight years of age at the time of his father’s death, and continued to live with his mother and stepfather until mature age, upon his twenty-first birthday purchasing one hundred and four acres of the old homestead on which he was reared.

Upon December 31, 1881, at the age of twenty-eight years, Philip Fahling married Christina Rister, a native of New York and a daughter of Jacob Rister, who in the early days came to Michigan and here prosperously engaged in farming. Unto our subject and his estimable wife have been born three children: Mary, Philip, Jr., and Charley. Mr. and Mrs. Fahling are both valued members of the Lutheran Church and are active aids in good work. Politically, our subject, as was his father before him, is a strong Democrat and an ardent advocate of "the Party of the People." Financially blessed with an abundance of this world’s goods, Mr. Fahling is ranked among the energetic and ambitious agriculturists of Ottawa County, and is recognized as a leading man of public spirit, ever ready to do his full share in all matters of mutual welfare and enterprise.

NOTE: See family information below

Family Information per Teresa Wagner:  2nd Paragraph - Christiana, deceased, was the wife of Fred Reister (not Rister), of Chester Township.
4th Paragraph:  Rister should be Reister.  When the family first arrived in Niagara County, NY, their name was spelled Reuster.

Portrait & Biographical Record of Muskegon & Ottawa Counties, Michigan 1893, Chicago: Biographical Publishing Company, 1893, Pgs 206, 207