Martin K Fretz

from Meyer book of 1896 (page 480-481)...

He was variously occupied as farmer, weaver, miller and merchant. He at first lived on a farm in Montgomery county, and afterwards purchased 60 acres of the old Fretz homestead and some adjoining lands in Bedminster, where he built in 1838 a stone dwelling house, and subsequently a barn, tenant house and other buildings. The farm is now owned and occupied by Reuben Miller.

He and wife early in life were members of the Old Mennonite church at Deep Run. About 1847 a division took place in that congregation, and a new meetinghouse was built a few hundred yards from the old one. At the time of the division he was a trustee of the old church, but cast his lot with the new church, and was subsequently chosen one of its first ministers.

In 1853 he purchased a mill property in Sussex county, N. J., and moved thereon with his family in the Spring of 1854. Children: Mary, Magdalena, Catharine, Leah, Elizabeth, John, Anna, Theodore, Abraham, Martha, Edwin, Albert.

He married his second wife, widow Margaret E. Hill (nee Wintamute), Feb. 14, 1857. She was born April 30, 1817. Soon after marriage in the Spring of 1857, having rented the mill property, he moved to his wife's farm in Warren county, N. J., where he engaged in farming until the Spring of 1862. Having disposed of his mill property he removed to Newton, Sussex county, where he had built a house and engaged in the commission business. About 1866 he removed to Stillwater, same county, where he purchased a home and engaged in the merchandise business. In the Spring of 1882 he again removed on the farm in Warren county, where he died July 13, 1882.

Some years prior to his death he was ordained a ruling elder in the Presbyterian church of Stillwater. Amid all the trials and turmoils of his long and eventful life he maintained a strict integrity and died highly respected by the community in which he lived, and was honored in the church.