John Erb
Inducted In
1972
The town of Preston, originally called Cambridge Mills, was founded in 1806 by John Erb. In that year he built a sawmill on the river and in 1807 constructed a gristmill. These two enterprises formed a nucleus around which a small community rapidly developed.
Erb was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, the third son of Christian Erb whose ancestors had immigrated from Switzerland to the American colonies early in the eighteenth century and settled in Pennsylvania among the numerous Mennonite communities there.
The mills established by Erb hold the record for the longest period of continuous business, as of 1972, in Waterloo County.