William Henry Prestele

[2] In 1867, at the age of 29, William was hired to make a series of nurserymen's plates by Illinois nursery owner Franklin Kelsey Phoenix.

No plates from this project are known to have survived, but a write-up in the August 1869 edition of Gardener's Monthly and Horticultural Advertiser praised them in robust terms: "We have now before us a fruit piece... prepared by W. H. Prestele.

[2] When this relationship ended in 1871, William briefly went into business with L. B. Littlefield, publishing fruit and flower plates.

In 1875, he moved his family to Iowa, not far from the Amana community where he was raised, and married his second wife, Susanna Gefaller.

On August 1, 1887, he was appointed as the first artist on the staff of the recently formed Pomological Division of the United States Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C.