Gilbert, Frank T.  "Historic Sketches of Walla Walla, Whitman, Columbia and
Garfield Counties, Washington Territory; and Umatilla County, Oregon."
Portland, OR: Print & Lithographing House of A.  G.  Walling, 1882.  p. a26.
 
CHRISTIAN MAIER

   was born in Hertzog Brunswick, Germany, February 22, 1835.  At fourteen
years of age his boyish enthusiasm to see the world, joined to a romantic
longing for adventurous travel in unknown countries, caused him to ship on an
outward bound vessel as a cabin boy.  As the shores of his native land receded
from view, he took his last look upon them, and in the years that have followed
has never returned to the home of his birth.  The vessel that took him from
Hamburg was wrecked on a lee shore on the coast of England, and but two survived
the disaster˜the cabin boy and the cook.  It was a wild beginning, but did not
cure him of a desire for adventure ; and he again shipped for foreign parts, and
followed the high seas for the seven succeeding years.  At twenty-two years of
age he concluded to abandon a roving ocean life, and landed in California in
1857, but reshipped for Oregon where he arrived the same year.  From 1857 until
1859, he worked for wages in Oregon, and then came to Walla Walla.  That fall he
purchased a 160 acre land claim in the neighborhood of his present home, and has
since been adding to it until he now owns 1160 acres, 880 of which are inclosed
and cultivated.  His homestead is upon Russell creek at the base of the Blue
mountains, six and a half miles southeast from Walla Walla.  A view of his place
accompanies this book, that will give the reader some idea of its picturesque
locality.  A new and elegant residence will soon be erected by him to take the
place of the old home sketched in the view.  September 22, 1864, Mr. Maier was
married to Miss Mary A.  Summers.  Mrs. Maier is a native of Sidney, Shelby Co.,
Ohio, where she was born August 28, 1834.  The names and dates of birth of their
children are as follows :˜Laura A., November 27, 1865 ; Henry C., February 21,
1868 ; Robert C., October 10, 1871 ; Mary J., October 23, 1873 ; James M., July
27, 1875 ; Margaret E., July 18, 1877 ; Charles W., February 20, 1880.  Mr.
Maier is one of the most influential among the German citizen of Washington
Territory, and possesses the faculty of so planning matters of a financial
nature that they always result in success.  This ability, joined to industry and
sobriety, has gained him a reasonable competence.

* * * *

Submitted to the WA.  Bios Project in February 2007 by Diana Smith.

Notice: These biographies were transcribed for the Washington Biographies
Project.  Unless otherwise stated, no further information is available on the
individual featured in the biographies.