admin JOHN TREFTS, whose lamented death occurred on the 5th of October, 1900, was for more than fifty years one of the foremost men in the iron industry of Buffalo.
He was the son of George and Katharine (Frizel) Trefts, and was born in Alsace, then a province of Prance. He came to this country with his parents about 181 9, the family settling first in Pittsburg, Pa. Later the father placed his family and goods on one of the “prairie schooners” and began the long journey to a farm in Southern Ohio. But he died on the way, and his son, John Trefts, turned the team eastward, and drove back to Pittsburg. There he gained his first knowledge of the iron industry, where he learned the trade of a moulder.
In 1845 Mr. Trefts came to Buffalo, where he became a foreman in the Buffalo Steam Engine Works. He remained with this concern and its successors nearly twenty years, becoming a stockholder of the company and a leading factor in the business. After the panic of 1857 the firm was reorganized under the style of George W. Tifft, Sons & Co.
In 1859 Mr. Trefts became interested in the oil business in Pennsylvania, both as an operator and a manufacturer of mechanical appliances for use in oil production. He made the castings for the engine used to pump the Drake well the first one sunk in the oil region, and in operating a well in which he was part owner he employed the first engine that ever drilled with a rope, as well as the first set of jars ever used in oil production. Mr. Trefts was successful in various ventures in the oil country, and had an important share in the pioneer oil development of Pennsylvania.
In 1864, with Chillion M. Farrar and Theodore C. Knight, Mr. Trefts established in Buffalo the firm of Farrar, Trefts & Knight. This was the beginning of the great iron industry of Farrar & Trefts, which name was assumed on the retirement of Mr. Knight from the concern in 1869. With this firm Mr. Trefts was identified up to his death.
Mr. Trefts was married first to Catherine Potter in 1848. She was a daughter of Martin Potter of Gowanda, N. Y., and came of the well-known Parkinson family of New England, being a descendant of Capt. Parkinson, who served in the Revolutionary War. Mrs. Trefts died in 1850 and Mr. Trefts married for his second wife Angeline Silver of Buffalo. George M. Trefts was the only child of the first marriage. A daughter, Evadne, now Mrs. Clarence E. Rood, was the child of the second union.
SOURCE: Memorial and Family History of Erie County New York; Volume I