One of the most prominent citizens
of Pine Bluff is Sebastian Geisreiter, who is also one of the most
extensive landholders and successful planters of Jefferson County. The
following sketch of his useful life is taken from Hempstead's History of
Arkansas:
Sebastian Geisreiter
Captain Sebastian Geisreiter as a citizen commands the unqualified
confidence and regard of the people of the county that has been his home
for more than two-score years. His career has been marked by many and
varied experiences and incidents and he is a man of broad intellectual
ken and of that strong individuality that qualifies one for the stern
duties and responsibilities of a workaday world.
He is a native of the kingdom of Bavaria, Germany, where he was born on
May 30, 1840, and his rudimentary education was secured in his
fatherland, where he was reared to the age of fourteen years. He is a
son of Jacob and Elizabeth (Von Schmuck) Geisreiter, both of whom were
born and reared in Bavaria, where they continued to maintain their abode
until 1854, when they immigrated to America and located in the city of
New York. The father devoted the major portion of his active career in
America to the vocation of cabinet maker, and he passed the closing year
of his life in Iowa. His wife died in 1844. The father was of sterling
character, earnest, and industrious, a man of scholarly attainments,
having a collegiate education, and to him was never denied the fullest
measure of popular esteem.
As already stated, Sebastian Geisreiter was reared to the age of 14
years in his native land and he then accompanied his parents on their
emigration to the United States. He initiated his business career as
clerk in a cigar store in New York city, later he was solicitor for a
large furniture establishment in the national metropolis, and finally he
assumed the position of bookkeeper for a business concern in the city of
Brooklyn. When he was seventeen years of age he set forth to seek his
fortunes in the West, and as his health was in such condition that
physicians advised him to seek outdoor employment, he turned his
attention to agricultural pursuits, in the state of Iowa. Though his
early educational advantages had been meager, he had distinctive
appreciation of the practical value of thorough mental discipline, and
his ambition had been such as to lead him to devote as much time as
possible to well directed reading and study, through which he finally
proved himself eligible for matriculation in Washington College, at
Washington, Iowa, where he applied himself with all of diligence, with
the result that, after attending this and instead of turning his
attention to the podagogie profession Mr. Geisreiter enlisted in the
SEcond Minnesota Cavalry, with which he served in the campaigns against
the Sioux Indians in the Northwest. In 1864, he was a member of the
military force sent out as escort for an immigrant train that was
crossing the plain to Montana, where the gold excitement was then at its
height. He had shown marked ability as a disciplinarian andtactician,
and he served as sergeant of cavalry on this expedition, and in the same
year was ordered to the city of St. Louis by the secretary of war, was
commissioned first lieutenant in the volunteer infantry and was
transferred to the Department of the South, where he continued in active
service for some time after the surrender of Generals Lee and Johnston
and the practical cessation of hostilities. In 1866, he again passed
examination before a board of regular army. The volunteer forces having
been mustered out, he was retained by special order from the secretary
of war to serve on detached service and ordered to Fort Smith, Arkansas,
where he remained until the autumn of that year, when he was transferred
to Little Rock, where he reported to General E.O.C. Ord and was assigned
to inspection duty throughout eastern Arkansas. The military post at
Pine Bluff was at that time, the most important in the district, and
here Mr. Geisreiter passed the major portion of his time until he
resigned from the army, at the close of the year 1868. In the following
year, he established his permanent home in Pine Bluff, which has
continued to be his place of residence during the long intervening
years. Upon retiring to civilian life he engaged in the insurance
business. His genial personality and sterling integrity soon gained to
him the uniform confidence and esteem of the people of the community,
and after a period of five years he amplified the scope of his business
enterprise by engaging in the handling of real estate. In this line he
built up a successful business, in which he continued until 1878, when
he found that his large interests in connection with the agricultural
industry demanded his entire time and attention. He had accumulated in
the meanwhile a large and valuable landed estate and he has long been
numbered among the progressive, successful and representative planters
of Jefferson county. His finely improved plantation comprises 2,000
acres and is most attractively located in Jefferson and Lincoln
counties, and in addition to this fine property in the city of Pine
Bluff, where he still resides, the while while gives his supervision to
his extensive and substantial interests.
In politics Mr. Geisreiter as aligned as a staunch supporter of the best
man from his point of view. As a loyal and public-spirited citizen he
has been actively identified with those enterprises and undertakings
that have tended to further the civic advancement and prosperity of his
home city and country. None is held in higher regard in the community.
He has served as a member of the Board of Public Affairs of Pine Bluff
(1902 - 1906) and his labors in this office have not been in the least
of perfunctory order. He is an appreciative member of the Masonic
fraternity, in which he has attained to the thirty-third degree
(honorary) of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, and he is also
affiliated with the Knights of Pythias, in which he served as captain in
uniform rank divisions, of which he was an honorary member.
In November 1877, Mr. Geisreiter was united in marriage to Miss Mary
Olive Merrill, who was born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and who was a
daughter of the late Joseph Merrill, one of the most distinguished and
honored citizens of the state and one of whom a memoir is entered on
other pages of this volume. Mrs. Geisreiter did not long survive her
marriage, as she was summoned to the life eternal in June 1878. In the
year 1889 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Geisreiter to Miss Linda D.
Chinn, daughter of the late Dr. Raleigh Chinn, of Mason county,
Kentucky, in which state she was born and reared. She is a woman of
gracious personality and marked culture, having received excellent
education advantages, including a course in the Millersburg Academy at
Millersburg, Kentucky. They have one child, Mary Merrill, born October
1890 at home.
