Historic Profile - Louis Appel

TAX ASSESSOR (PROPERTY APPRAISER) LOUIS APPEL

2004 promises to be an interesting political year for Levy County. For historic political interest, each month for eight months, we will present a brief profile of one of Levy County`s political officers who held office during the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s.

When Louis Appel returned from the Civil War, he was missing his right leg. Appel, a Levy County resident, volunteered in the Fall of 1861 to serve in Company "I," 1st Florida Cavalry, Confederate Army, under the command of Captain N.S. Cobb of Bronson.

Appel`s company joined up with the Tennessee Army and on 04 December 1864, in a skirmish with the enemy encamped a short distance from Murfreesboro, Tennessee,
he was shot in the right leg below the knee. His leg was amputated immediately and Appel was carried to Camp Chase in Columbus Ohio and imprisoned until the end of the war.

Appel was born 14 April 1832 in Bromberg, Prussia and became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1858. His name first appears among the records of Levy County in 1859. On 04 January 1889, Appel married Mahala E. Overstreet in Levy County and the couple had two sons, Louis, Jr. and Ruben James. Mahala died 14 April 1907.

Appel served as Levy County`s Tax Assessor from 1881 until 1887. His records and books were kept in a fine hand and were readily approved by the Board of County Commissioners and the State Comptroller. Appel resigned his post to care for his ill wife.

In later years Appel suffered from the loss of use of his right hand and arm caused by paralysis generally known as writers paralysis. He died in 1912 and it is unknown where he and his wife are buried.