From "HISTORY OF THE UPPER OHIO VALLEY,"  Vol. I, pages 408-409.
Brant & Fuller, 1890.


ANDREW REITZ

Andrew Reitz, one of the prominent young men in the manufacturing 
circles of Wheeling, occupies the position of secretary of the Spears 
Axle company  He was born at Wheeling, September 15, 1851, in the 
residence he now occupies.  His father, George Reitz, who was born in 
Germany, in January, 1803, immigrated to the United States in 1830.  
He first located at Buffalo, N. Y.,  and thence came to Wheeling.  
For over thirty years he was in the employ of A. J. Sweeney, and the 
different companies with which that gentleman was associated, and 
after closing that employment he retired from active life.  He 
resided in the city until his death in 1887.  He was married at 
Wheeling to Catherine Weil, a native of Alsace-Lorraine, who came to 
the United States when eleven years of age.  She is still living, and 
on February 12, 1889, was seventy years of age.  Eleven children were 
born to these parents, of whom nine survive. Andrew Reitz was reared 
in Wheeling and educated in the city schools until the age of fifteen 
years, when, on March 4, 1866, he began an apprenticeship as a 
carpenter, and worked at that trade about six months after completing 
his apprenticeship.  He then learned the pattern-making trade with A. 
J. Sweeney, and was so employed until 1875, when he went south with 
Capt. T. C. Sweeney, and was engaged in steamboating for two seasons.  
Then, returning to Wheeling, he again entered the works of A. J. 
Sweeney.  In March, 1886, he was appointed, by the Cleveland 
administration, local inspector of steam vessels for the district of 
Wheeling, a position he held until March 15, 1888, when he resigned 
to accept the secretaryship of the Spears Axle company, in which he 
is a stockholder. 


(Linda Fluharty)