Researched and compiled by Benjamin Hirt

benhirt@gmail.com

The vast majority of what we know and celebrate about our family history centers on legendary Swiss adventurer, gold-digger and patriarch Casper Hirt, his spouse Verena “Fanny” Vogt and the children born to them.[1] My goal here is to add more detail to the saga of their son Frederick Franklin “Frank” Hirt’s line by presenting an in-depth look at the fascinating background story of his wife Teckla Louise “Lucy”, and in particular, of her mother Catherine (Wolf) Gross.[2] We will see who they were, where they were from, and how and why they ended up in Ohio.

Catherine Gross (née Wolf), mother of Teckla Louise Hirt (née Gross), mother-in-law of Frederick Franklin Hirt and my great-great-great grandmother, was born at two in the morning on December 12, 1833 in Hattmatt, Alsace, France. She then spent the next twenty years of life in her native village.

French census records from 1851 show that at that time, she lived with her parents Michael Wolf, Sr. and Marguerite Sorg Wolf, younger siblings and eldest brother Michel Wolf, Jr. and sister-in-law Catherine Krieger and their children. There was also a fifteen-year-old female servant living on the family farm.^[3] Her brother Michel was the landowner at 17 Saverne Road in Hattmatt, Alsace.^[4] Between 1851 and 1856, census records indicate that the name of the road was changed to Steinbourg Road and the number was more recently changed to its current address of 7 Steinbourg Road.[5] The buildings of the farm, including a main home, cellar, hayloft, stable and barn formed an enclosed square around a courtyard with a manure pile at its center. The higher the pile, the higher the family’s status according to Hattmatt lore. There was also a vegetable garden and orchard behind the property. The property has changed somewhat, and on a portion of the original back garden now sits an additional home, but the original homestead still exists today and is classified in an historical publication.^[6] According to the 1823 marriage contract between Michel Wolf and wife Marguerite Sorg and the 1836 census, the property had previously belonged to Michel Wolf, Sr. whose wife, children and parents (Jean and Anne Catherine (Schaeffer) Wolf) lived with him.^[7] No census records exist prior to 1836, but Jean Wolf’s father was born in neighboring Imbsheim, not Hattmatt. Viewed from the road, one can see one end of the living quarters to the left and the side of the hayloft and cellar to the right with a pedestrian door next to the main home and a large door for entry of livestock and wagon to its right. The front lower portion of the external cellar wall contains two small windows for unloading carts of beets from the road. The upper level door to the hayloft is also visible from the road.

Wolf family farm in Hattmatt, 7 rue Steinbourg. Photo taken July 2019.

Image showing the former house number 17 faded above the current number 7 rue de Steinbourg. The red sandstone was a common building material in the region.

Catherine’s father Michael Wolf, Sr. in addition to being a farmer, was the deputy mayor of Hattmatt under mayor George Balzli and the family home was just steps from town hall. Michael Wolf, Sr. owned the home prior to the marriage of his eldest son, and continued to reside in this home with wife Marguerite Wolf (née Sorg) per the marriage contract between their oldest son and his wife who inherited the property. It was tradition to sign over the farm to one’s oldest son once he got married even though the parents were usually still alive. Michel Wolf, Sr.’s children still living at home at the time, Catherine, Jacques, Marc and Marie were also given the right to remain in the home as long as they were unmarried. The same right was accorded to the parents and siblings of Michel Wolf, Sr. when he and Marguerite were married in 1823 and inherited the home according to their marriage contract.

Marriage contract between Michel Wolf, Jr. and wife Catherine Krieger, 1846. Besides property and land, the contract explicitly states the husband’s right to benefit from the nuptial bed. That had clearly already been established since the couple was married several months after the birth of their first son, Michel Wolf III. Document compliments of Archives Départementales du Bas-Rhin.

Marriage contract between Michel Wolf, Sr. and wife Marguerite Sorg, 1823. Among other things, it indicates that the couple inherited “a pair of oxen and all the farming equipment.” Marguerite probably never read this since her wedding certificate states that she was unable to write.^[8] (This wedding certificate says that they inherited farm #16, not 17, but their first son Michel was born in house number 17 according to his birth certificate, the 1841 census lists them at #17, and the 1856 census lists the Martzolfs (the purchasers of the farm when they left for America) as the owners of farm #17 as well.) Document compliments of Archives Départementales du Bas-Rhin.

Image of a pair of oxen and hay wagon with unidentified farmers in Hattmatt circa 1960. Taken about one hundred years after the Wolfs left for Ohio, this traditional oxen team was probably very similar to the one described in the wedding contract cited above. In this picture, the original Wolf farm is located halfway between the wagon and the church, and is barely visible on the right side of the road. Photo obtained from Lisa Drüssel, native of Hattmatt.

 

The second son of Michel Wolf, Sr., Jean Wolf, does not appear in the aforementioned contracts or census records after 1841 since he did not live in the home; he emigrated to New Orleans as a shoemaker sometime thereafter. His older brother Michel Wolf, Jr. was his power of attorney. The third son, George Wolf, also absent from census records after 1841, was born in Hattmatt, but resided in Printzheim for a short time according to the following document. While he appears to have been present at the writing of this transport document, neither he nor Jean traveled with the rest of the family to America. While I am unable to find any further traces of Jean, George did, however, eventually reside in Riley Township, Sandusky County, Ohio from the age of forty until his death as his obituary attests. He lived where the Antesberger family resides today, at 2621 State Route 412. The farm is at the bend in State Route 412, just one road from County Road 226 where I grew up. I myself worked in the fields surrounding this farm as a young teenager where I planted and harvested tomatoes for the Antesberger family! Prior to living in Riley Township, however, the 1860 census indicates that George lived in Rice Township at that time and worked as a twenty-nine year old servant for an elderly, neighbor couple named John Smith from Baden and wife Catherine (Kaiser) Smith from Alsace.[9]

Left: George Wolf. Right: Sons Edward, Mose/Moses, George Wolf himself, son-in-law Wes Beck (of Erlin) and daughter Emma Rosina (Wolf) Beck. Pictures taken at the family farm in Riley Township in the early 1900s and are courtesy of Edward’s granddaughter, Margaret Wolf of Fremont.

Recap:

Parents: Michel Wolf, Sr. + Marguerite Sorg

Children: Michel (Michael) Wolf, Jr. / Jean (John) / George / Catherine / Jacques (Jacob) / Marc (Markus) / Marie (Maria)

Document showing Jean Wolf living in New Orleans shortly prior to Wolf family emigration and George Wolf living in Printzheim, Alsace. Document compliments of Archives Départementales du Bas-Rhin.

In the census of 1856, there is no longer a record of this family in Hattmatt. This is because immigration records from 1853 show that the family immigrated to Ohio (sans Marguerite who died in Hattmatt on October 4, 1852).^[10] Likewise, the Archives Départementales du Bas-Rhin show that Michel Wolf, Jr. liquidated and sold his family’s belongings, farm fields and vineyards, including what he inherited from his late mother, and also sold the family farm to Michel Martzolff and Salomé Kolb on September 16, 1853, several months before sailing to the United States. The buyers had also previously resided in Printzheim per their 1850 wedding record, but more notably, at the time of the purchase of the Wolf home, the Martzolffs lived at 94 petite rue du moulin (windmill alley) in Hattmatt. This is a relevant detail because the Martzolffs shared a home with the Mahler family whose son Johann Mahler accompanied the Wolfs on their journey to the America. The 1851 census also points out that another of the Wolfs’ companions on their journey, George Klein, lived a few houses down at 99 petite rue du moulin. What is interesting about this additional fact is that George Klein was a shoemaker by trade, just like Jean Wolf who was already in New Orleans. While George Klein went on to become a shoe salesman in Saint Louis, Missouri—which was known at the time as the capital of shoemaking in America— and later gained local fame as owner of the Boston Shoe Store and then George Klein and Sons, both stores in Valenciennes, Indiana, we can only speculate as to his contact with fellow shoe salesman Jean Wolf. Did they work together for a time in America? Did Jean Wolf help George Klein get settled in the business? Unfortunately, we cannot answer these questions. I would simply add that two shoemakers from the same close-knit village must have been in touch, especially since George travelled all the way to America with Jean Wolf’s father.

For more, see: Haubenestel, Jean. L’Oncle d’Amérique, Sur les traces des émigrés de la region de Saverne. Bar le Duc, 1999, pp. 83-85. See also: The Vincennes Commercial, Vincennes, Indiana, 29 March 1911. See also: The Vincennes Sun, Vincennes, Indiana, 25 Oct. 1970, p. 5 for a picture of George Klein and a short biography. This biography lists his arrival in America as 1852 and Haubenestel repeats this date in his work, but George Klein himself signed the date October 1853 as his immigration on his naturalization document in 1896. The immigration manifest clearly lists George Klein with the Wolfs in November 1853 and George’s age on the manifest matches his date of birth. He is also listed right after the Wolfs and Hattmatt neighbors Johann Mahler and Jacob Witter and there were no other George Kleins his age in Hattmatt in the 1851 census.

Finally, a third and final non-Wolf member of the emigration party, Jacques (Jacob) Witter lived at 18 rue de Saverne with his family and was the immediate neighbor to the Wolfs. Besides being the neighbor kid, a certain twenty-four-year-old Mark Wolf signed as a witness on the boy’s birth certificate on 15 September, 1831, so the families must have been close. Jacob Witter’s father had also been the Garde Champêtre, or rural police officer of Hattmatt and was undoubtedly a well-known member of the community as its sole official policing agent.

Document indicating sale of home and farm to Michel Martzolff on 16 September 1853. Document compliments of Archives Départementales du Bas-Rhin.

The eleven members of the Wolf family–between the ages of 54 and just under a year old–and their young neighbors Johann Mahler (18 years old), George Klein (19) and Jacob Witter (22) immigrated to Ohio, arriving in New York from Le Havre, France on November 21, 1853 on a ship named Advance. There were 738 passengers in total and each and every one was listed as a farmer, even though we know that at least one of them, George Klein, had learned the trade of shoemaking. On the trip there were 714 adult passengers and 24 infants. One elderly man died on the journey and one other person was lost overboard. The Wolf family and their companions (as did the Hirt, Vogt and Gross families) went through immigration in New York prior to both the Castle Garden and Ellis Island immigration centers since the latter didn’t open until 1892 and the former opened in 1855.

(I cannot be absolutely certain that the three non-Wolf emigrants (Johann Mahler, George Klein and Jacob Witter) remained with the Wolfs all the way to Ohio, but as we will see later, the Wolfs first stopped in Marion, Ohio to see Hattmatt family and friends already in Ohio (Wilds, Balzlis and Kriegers) before settling in Fremont and all three individuals were also attached as family or friends to the aforementioned Alsatian settlers in Marion, Ohio: Johann and George were both related to the Wilds and Jacob had a Wolf sign as a witness on his birth certificate. Jacob Witter had also lived with his family in the home in Hattmatt where the Andrew Wild family had lived before immigrating to Ohio in 1840. These individuals were certainly all connected not just as neighbors, but by family ties. Not to mention none of them spoke English and they were all unfamiliar with the country.)

Navire quittant le port du Havre (Ship leaving the port of Havre), daguerreotype by Louis-Cyrus Macaire, 1851.^[11] While I have not found an image of the Wolfs’ ship, this was a common ship (steam and sails) for the period and the picture was taken only two years before the Wolfs’ departure.

Passenger list including Michel Wolf, Sr. and his unmarried/dependent children and Michel Wolf, Jr., and his wife and children. At the bottom are listed Jacques Witter, George Klein and Johann Mahler, also from Hattmatt. Notice that Michel Wolf, Sr.’s sons Jean and George are not listed. Photo compliments of Myheritage website.

 

Less than four years after arriving in Ohio, at the age of 23, Catherine Wolf married her neighbor John Gross (Johann Groß) from Vörstetten, Germany, on April 19, 1857. The wedding was officiated by Pastor Henry Lang at Saint John’s Lutheran Church in Fremont. Teckla Gross was born 9 years later, on September 25, 1866.

Gross-Wolf wedding certificate (with spelling errors). Photo compliments of Myheritage website.

Johann Groß birth certificate, 21 March 1833. Notice the addition of his immigration to America in 1853.

The Wolf/Gross family settlements were located in Rice Township in Sandusky County.^[12] However they changed slightly between the time they arrived in the township in 1853 and 1874 as shown in the following cadastral maps, the first one from 1860 and the second from 1874. The original Wolf property was a narrow strip of twenty acres of land sandwiched between the John Gross property to the west and the Frederick Smith property (the son of George Wolf’s employer) to the east. Yet strangely, the map shows that there was no home on the property. Where did the Wolfs live if not in their own primitive cabin in the Black Swamp to keep out the cold in the winter, the mosquitoes in the summer, and local, menacing wild animals such as bears, wolves and raccoons all year long? I believe that the most logical answer is that they first lived with the Jacob Stull family whose property was located immediately south of the Gross and Wolf land. The Stulls were also natives of Hattmatt who settled in the township prior to the Wolfs. (Please click on the above link to discover their amazing story. Through correspondance with the Wolf family, they are almost certainly the reason the Wolfs ended up settling in Fremont!) This theory is further substantiated by the fact that the Wolfs eventually bought the J. Stull homestead and were listed as its owners according to the 1874 map. Jacob had died a year earlier on February 4, 1873 when he was fifty-eight years old. His wife Katie from Baden had preceded him in death in 1866. Then, since Catherine Wolf married her neighbor John Gross only a few years after settling on their new land, she would have gone to live in her husband’s cabin. The original Gross family cabin quickly disappeared and was replaced, however. In the 1874 map, we can see that the original cabin built by John Gross was already gone, and he had built his second, presumably less primitive home on the opposite side of the creek and the original home is not pictured. That no remnants of the original cabin remain is understandable since the valuable timber was probably repurposed to build the nicer dwellings in the years that followed, examples of which can be seen in the drawings below. To my knowledge, sadly, none of the buildings pictured in the 1874 map, including the Stull/Wolf and Gross properties, remain today either. However, the family’s presence in the area can be still viewed in nearby Greenwood Cemetery in Rice Township. Catherine and John, along with some of Catherine’s siblings and father Michael Wolf are buried there. John Gross’ parents Johann Gross and Catharina (Leimenstoll) Gross are there as well.^[13]

 

The above map and close-up of a section of said map of Rice Township in 1874 show the fusion of the John Gross farm and the former Wolf plot. It may quite probably have been given over to John Gross in part or as a whole as Catherine’s dowry. Yet one cannot miss the continued proximity of Michel Wolf, Marc (Markus) Wolf, John Gross, and Frederick Smith’s properties along the Little Mud Creek. The new, L-shaped Wolf property is comprised of the former Jacob Stull and H. Myers’ properties. As we will see later, Jacob Stull had a fascinating pioneer story as well, and more relevantly here, was surely a lifelong friend, being a native of Hattmatt himself, born in house number 63 to Michael Stull and Eva Schmidt on March 7, 1814. While the Stull children inherited the family farm upon their father’s death according to his last will and testament, it appears Michael Wolf purchased the property from his friend’s children shortly after his death and then continued to reside there. The Wolf and Gross families are also present here in the 1880 census.

Last will and testament of Jacob Stull (Stoll). Compliments of ancestry.com. (In Jacob Stull’s will we see that he was married to Mary (Peter) Stull. This was his second wife. He married her almost a year to the day after his first wife’s death and then died himself nearly six years later. All of his children are from his marriage to his first wife, Katie from Baden, Germany. For more, see footnote 41.)

Another point of interest in this visual historical record are the drawings included in each plot. The Wolfs and Grosses and many of their neighbors had a home, represented by a small black square and an orchard, represented by a box full of small tree-like squiggles.[14] Given that the local church was built on their property, we can also assume that the Wolf and Gross families continued to be very devout Protestants and actively involved in the church.

Picture of Frederick Smith’s property in Rice Township in 1874, the home of the son of George Wolf’s employer (John Smith).[15] Given the property sketch on the cadastral map, we can assume that the John Gross and Catherine (Wolf) Gross property across the road was quite similar to that of the Smith’s and the Michael and Markus Wolf properties appear to be similar as well, although perhaps they were not so grandiose so as to be included in the visual record that includes these drawings.

In the section of the 1860 cadastral map of Rice Township above, the circle on the far left indicates the Gross/Wolf properties. The six other circles on the right indicate the property owners whose farms are represented in the drawings below. While we have no pictures or drawings of the Wolf or Gross farms, based on the level of similarity between all of the following farm drawings and their proximity, it is nearly certain that their farms would have very much resembled these. In fact, according to the US Selected Federal Census Non-Population Schedule, Productions of Agriculture from June 14, 1860, Michael Wolf, John Gross, Jacob Stull and most other farm families in Rice Township owned many of the same livestock both in type and number and produced many of the same crops. For example, Jacob Stull produced 500 bushels of Indian corn, just as much as Frederic Smith whose home is pictured. Michael Wolf and John Gross each had two milch [sic] cows each, as well as two oxen. In fact, while John Gross also had two horses, Michael Wolf had none, unlike the majority of his neighbors, indicating that he either plowed his fields with oxen, more like his father and grandfather back in Alsace had done, or perhaps also borrowed the use of Jacob Stull’s horses. After all, Mr. Stull (and Michael Stull nearby) had five and six horses respectively, more than most of their neighbors (2-4 on average). Michael Wolf also had six each of other cattle and sheep and seven swine. John Gross had four other cattle, a dozen sheep and twenty-three hogs. John Gross grew 107 bushels of wheat and 200 bushels of Indian corn and similarly, Michael wolf grew 95 bushels of wheat and 120 bushels of Indian corn. Michael Wolf also produced 15 pounds of wool and Mr. Gross twice that amount. The Gross family raised 200 bushels of Irish potatoes and the Wolf family 75. The Gross family also raised two bushels of peas/beans, two tons of hay and 150 lbs of butter. The Wolfs raised three pounds of sweet potatoes, fifty bushels of barley, twenty tons of hay, 57 bushels of clover seed, two bushels of grass seed and 400 pounds of butter! Both families also had slaughtered meat as part of the value of their farms. While not mentioned in the list, they surely raised chickens and had a personal vegetable garden. They did not, however, grow oats like many of their neighbors. Perhaps Indian corn had already replaced the traditional oats on their farms.

This move from producing oats to corn reminds me of an anecdote my father John Hirt shared with me about his great grandmother Overmeyer of Rice Township. He told me that when he was a teenager, he would go to her house after school. She was losing her mind and would always ask him the same thing: “did you get the oats planted?” even though they raised very few oats and mostly field corn instead. He enjoyed her company nonetheless and she would also always make him real macaroni and cheese and he would eat it with a three-tined fork that her own grandfather had made and given to her in Germany. Great-great grandma Overmeyer spoke broken English and spoke “Old German.” 

Families in Rice Township also surely spent a great deal of time near the river where small steamers pulled schooners through the waterways.[16] To pass the time, children were often found running alongside hoops they guided with a little stick, climbing the branches of the apple trees, playing with the family dog, chasing the chickens, fishing or going for a ride in a canoe, chasing after the noisy frogs that would still have been prevalent in the now much tamer swamp, or watching the Canada geese, swans and ducks fly overhead when they weren’t helping with the housekeeping or tending to the livestock or other farm chores. Of course, they also had a one-room schoolhouse located on their road, just north of their farms, so the Wolf and Gross children would have spent time learning to read and write as well. In fact, I have some of my family’s heirloom schoolbooks from Rice Township indicating that they learned about the world through both English and standard German in the late 1800s. Many of the books are McGuffey’s Readers for young people. While the schoolbooks are in English, my great-great grandmother Amelia Lamalie’s Catechism book is in German. She signed it “My first Sunday Schoolbook when I went to the M. E. Church in Rice Twp., at the age of 6 years. 1886. Amelia Lamalie Overmyer.” The book, entitled “ABC = Buch und Lese=Uebungen für Schule und Haus,” was published in Cincinnati. The other schoolbooks also belonged to the Overmyers and Lamalies. Aaron Overmier [sic], my great-great grandfather, and his siblings Peter and Mary signed one McGuffey Reader and dated it 1874. However, much to my surprise, this same book also bears the handwritten name of Louisa Gross, indicating that it belonged to both my paternal grandfather Lyle Hirt’s paternal grandmother (Teckla Louisa Gross) and my paternal grandmother Gladine (Erb) Hirt’s maternal grandfather (Aaron Overmyer)! Many members of these families are also buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Rice Township.

Prior to immigrating to Ohio, the Wolf family had lived in Alsace, in the village of Hattmatt and previously in neighboring Imbsheim, for at least six generations, dating back to the latter half of the 1600s.

At the time of Catherine’s birth, Hattmatt was part of France and as such, her civil birth certificate is in French. Indeed, under the Consulat government of France since 1803, French was the official language of civil documents. (Wittmann & Schaffner, 65) Religious documents, however are generally in German. Further this, her parents’ birth records are dated using the French Republican calendar but are written in German. The names on birth, death and marriage certificates starting in the early 1800s are written with French spellings, but signatures on these documents are clearly Germanic. Catherine’s grandparents’ wedding certificates and all prior documents are handwritten in German, but her parents’ wedding record is in French using a standard, printed form.

The Wolf family and community spoke Alsatian (a variation of High German) in spite of the fact that the region was part of France. In fact, according to the authors of Alsace, une langue qu’on assassine, 75% of mayors in Alsace had no mastery of French, even in 1826, and it wasn’t until between 1835 and 1859 that formal education in standard German was replaced with French. (Wittmann & Schaffner, 67) Written documents not in French are in standard German, however since there was not a formal written form of Alsatian. Nonetheless, Catherine, or at least her male siblings were most certainly required to learn French in school (the local school teacher was French-speaking, a neighbor, and a family friend).[17] Today, French is the dominant language in Alsace, and while some people still understand and speak Alsatian, especially the older generation in smaller villages–including Hattmatt and Imbsheim–these languages are disappearing, much like Alsatian and German have nearly disappeared from Ohio.

Catherine Wolf’s civil birth certificate in French. Document compliments of Archives Départementales du Bas-Rhin.

Catherine’s baptismal record in German. Photo obtained from the physical, paper records in the church in the French village of Imbsheim, near Hattmatt.

Birth certificate of Michael Wolf, Sr. Copy obtained from Hattmatt town hall (transcription and translation below).

Heute den elften floreal im siebenten Jahr der einen und unzertrennbaren französichen Republik nachmittags um drei Uhr erscheint vor mir Michael Balzli Municipal= Agent der Gemein Hattmatt, in dem Gemeinehauß zu Hattmatt der Bürger Johannes Wolf, Feldarbeiter zu Hattmatt wohnhaft, welcher von den Bürgern Georg Balzli Feldarbeiter zu Hattmatt wohnhaft, vierundvierzig Jahre alt, und Michael Balzli, Ackermann zu Hattmatt wohnhaft, achtunddreizig Jahre alt, begleitet wird, derselbige erklärt mir in Gegenwart brauchbarer (?) Zeugen, daß… Catharina Schäfer, seine rechtmäßige Ehefrau, gestern also den zehnten floreal nachmittags um eins Uhr in seinem Wohnhause allhier in Hattmatt mit einem Knäblein niedergekommen sei, welches er mir vorgewiesen und ihm den Vornahmen Michael gegeben hat. Auf diese Zeugnisse hin, welche die Bürger Georg Balzli und Michael Balzli als mit der Warheit und der Vorweisung des Kindes übereinstimmend bescheinigt haben, habe ich Kraft der mir übertragenen Gewalt gegenwärtigen Akt aufgesetzt, den die Bürger Johannes Wolf, Vater des Kindes, und die Beiden Zeugen Georg Balzli und Michael Balzli mit mir unterschrieben haben. Geschehen in dem Gemeinehauße zu Hattmatt an dem Tage, Monat und Jahr, wie oben gemeldet worden.

Johannes Wolf                                                         Georg Balzli

                                                  Michael Balzli

                                                                                               Balzli, Agent

 

Today, the eleventh floreal in the seventh year of the one and inseparable French Republic at three o’clock in the afternoon, appears before me Michael Balzli Municipal = agent of the village of Hattmatt, in the parish hall of Hattmatt, the citizen Johannes, Wolf field worker and resident of Hattmatt, accompanied by citizens Georg Balzli field worker and resident of Hattmatt, forty-four years old, and Michael Balzli, field worker and resident of Hattmatt, eighty-eight years old. This same man explained to me in the presence of witnesses that Catharina Schäfer, his rightful wife, yesterday, the tenth floreal at one o’clock in the afternoon, at his home in Hattmatt, had a boy, which he presented to me and gave him the name Michael. In response to these testimonies, which the citizens Georg Balzli and Michael Balzli have attested as concurring with the truth, along with the presentation of the child, I have written the present act by the power and virtue given to me, with citizens Johannes Wolf, father of the child, and the two witnesses Georg Balzli and Michael Balzli who signed with me. Signed in Hattmatt, on the day, month and year, as noted above.

Johannes Wolf                                                         Georg Balzli

                                                  Michael Balzli

                                                                                               Balzli, Agent

Marriage certificate of Michael Wolf and Marguerite Sorg. Notice that among the witnesses were George Balzli, Sr. and Jr., both listed as friends. Jean Sengel, the village school teacher is listed as both friend and neighbor and his signature (“Jean” instead of “Johann”) indicates that he spoke French. (See note for the state of education at the time)[18] Document compliments of Archives Départementales du Bas-Rhin.

Using the Archives Départementales du Bas-Rhin (Departmental Archives of the Lower Rhine), I was able to recreate the attached portion of our family tree using civil registries and church records. Civil registries only became mandatory around 1793 with the advent of the French Republic after the French Revolution. Nonetheless, I was able to obtain protestant records for baptisms, some of the marriages and burials between 1758 and 1793 in Hattmatt and as far back as 1715 in nearby Imbsheim where some of Catherine’s paternal family was also born. The oldest document I obtained indicates Catherine’s great-great grandparents’ wedding in 1715, meaning that they were born in the late 1600s. The marriage record also lists the respective fathers of said grandparents, meaning that they would have been born circa 1675. (See family tree below).

Family Tree (All names from the 7^th-11^th generations are new to our family’s history records.)

1^st Benjamin Aaron Hirt (Born 1977-)

2^nd John Aaron Hirt (1953-)

3^rd Lyle Edward Hirt (1929-2013)

4^th Clarence Lewis Hirt (1892-1968)

5^th Frederick Franklin Hirt (1862-1945) + Teckla Louise Hirt (née Gross) (1866-1944)

6^th Johann George Gross (1833-1917) + Catherine Gross (née Wolf) (1833-1895)

7^th Michel Wolf + Marguerite Wolf (née Sorg)

All of the following were born in Hattmatt unless otherwise indicated.

7^th Michel Wolf (1799-1860) (died in Ohio)

8^th Jean (Johannes) Wolf (1772-28 Oct. 1843) + Anna Catharina Schaeffer (1773-25 Oct. 1845)

7^th Marguerite Wolf (née Sorg) (1803-Oct. 1852)

8^th Johann Michael Sorg (1773-) + Eve Sorg (née Sury/Suri/Surÿ) (1781-1834)

8^th Jean (Johannes) Wolf

9^th Jean Michel Wolf + Anne Catherine (Anna Catharina) Jordi

8^th Anne Catherine (Anna Catharina) Wolf (née Schaeffer)

9^th Michael Schaeffer + Anna Maria Baltzli (1749-1784)

8^th Michel Sorg

9^th Jâques (Jacob) Sorg + Anne-Marie (Anna Maria) Jordi

8^th Eve (Eva) Sorg (née Sury)

9^th Jâques Sury (circa 1755) + Marguerite (Margaretha) Sury (née Drüssel)

9^th Jean Michel Wolf (1730-1804, from Imbsheim)

10^th Niklaus Wolf + Anna Maria Wolf (née Lohmuller) (both from Imbsheim)

9^th Anna Catharina Wolf (née Jordi)

10^th Jacob Jordi (circa 1710)

9^th Jâques Sury

10^th Jâques Sury (circa 1730) + ?

10^th Niklaus Wolf (from Imbsheim, circa 1695)

11^th Clauß Wolf (circa 1675) + ? (from Imbsheim)

10^th Anna Maria Wolf (née Lohmuller) (from Imbsheim circa 1695)

11^th Hans Jacob Lohmuller (from Imbsheim circa 1675)

Yet our genealogical exploration does not stop here. According to the study Inventaire général des monuments et des richesses artistiques de la France, the village of Hattmatt, [having sorely struggled during the Thirty Years War…was emptied of its inhabitants in 1639, then repopulated by sought-after Swiss immigrants in 1667].^[19] Fortunately for us, in 1930, historian Walter Bodmer published a list of these immigrants to the former Hanau-Lichtenberg region, which includes what are now Hattmatt and Imbsheim.^[20] In his list of which I have included the relevant names below, we can see many Swiss family names that match those of our ancestors.

Hanz Jordi from Bern arrived in Prinzheim, Alsace in 1693 (3 miles from Hattmatt);

Adam Surry (Suri) from Bern came to Obersoultzbach, Alsace in 1726 (7 miles from Hattmatt);

Hans Sorg from Bern arrived in Oberbetschdorf, Alsace in 1676;

Anna Sorg from Zurich also moved to Oberbetschdorf in 1682 (29 miles from Hattmatt);

Hans Wolf arrived from somewhere in Switzerland in Obermodern, Alsace (11 miles from Hattmatt) in 1670;

Anais Wolf arrived from Bern in Wœrth, Alsace in 1671 (22 miles from Hattmatt);

Jörg Jordi from Bern arrived in Kühlendorf in 1691 (28 miles from Hattmatt);

Further, Georg and Ulrich Jordi also arrived in Kühlendorf and were the first couple to appear in the marriage register of Betschdorf (29 miles from Hattmatt) in 1691.^[21] Georg Jordi was also from Bern and arrived in Kühlendorf in 1680.

While it is impossible to say with certainty that these aforementioned individuals born in the 1600s are immediate family, given the fact that a) Hattmatt was mostly devoid of citizens upon the arrival of these Swiss immigrants, b) so many of them immigrated to cities so close to Hattmatt, and c) many of them share names with our family members, it is reasonable to assume that many of these immigrants, predominantly from Bern, Switzerland, are also our ancestors.

Museum print representing the extermination of rural inhabitants of Alsace in the seventeenth century (by Jacques Callot, 1633, Musée Carnavalet, Paris):

The inscription reads:

Ceux que Mars entretient de ses actes mechans

Accomodent ainsi les pauvres gens des champs

Ils les font prisonniers ils bruslent leurs villages,

Et sur le bestial mesme exercent des rouages,

Sans que la peur des Loix non plus que le devoir,

Ny les pleurs et les cris les puissent esmouvoir.

Those with whom Mars, the god of war, speaks about his vicious deeds

Treat in this manner the poor folks living among the fields

They imprison them and burn their homes,

And even beat the livestock,

Without any fear of laws or duty,

And neither screams nor crying are able to move them.[22]

Picture of town of Hattmatt with its Lutheran church.

Benjamin Hirt in front of church. Sign points right to neighboring

towns of Imbsheim and Bouxwiller. See storks nesting on roof.

June, 2018

Eglise protestante luthérienne de Hattmatt, built 1787. See stork and babies nesting at corner of bell tower.

Inside the bell tower. This is not the original bell, but a replacement after the war.

Inside the church are both a catholic altar at the back and a protestant altar in front. This church is a simultaneum wherein both faiths have been celebrated since a decree by Louis XIV.

Some other interesting facts about the Wolf family’s move:

So why did the Wolfs and their neighbors emigrate? While there was a flood of immigration from the Rhine River region in the first half of the 19^th century, the reasons were more complex than simply wanting to participate in a trend, especially since it meant numerous challenges and engendered a multitude of fears as one left one’s home behind for the uncertainty of a foreign land. The Wolf family appears to have possessed a decent amount of wealth given that they were landowners, owned a home and farm buildings in the center of town, and employed a maid; nonetheless, they were certainly not rich. Hattmatt was a small village where people had traditionally raised their livestock together on communal pastures where the flocks and herds were led about by shepherds and goatherds employed by the community.[23] Agriculture was more about providing for the family’s basic needs than about turning large profits. The notions of mass production and industrialization had not arrived in Hattmatt and earnings were limited.

Additionally, much ink has already been spilled on the challenges and crises of the time that led to mass emigration, including the growth of the population that the land could no longer support. Then there were those individuals who emigrated to avoid being drafted into the military in a region that was constantly torn back and forth between Prussia and the French monarchy, between the French Republic, the French Empire and Germany! Certainly the fact that between 1848 and 1852 there were three different French governments, including the end of the July Monarchy (King Louis-Philippe the 1^st), the 2^nd Republic (with a defacto president and then an elected one) and the 2^nd Empire (Emperor Napoléon III), the latter of which began by the coup d’état by then President Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte on December 2, 1851, must have made many people feel uneasy about the state of affairs in France at that time. In fact, it was at this time that Victor Hugo was exiled and wrote his famous Les Misérables! There was also the arrival of trains that facilitated the movement of goods and peoples and that fueled a mass exodus of rural inhabitants, sometimes toward the growing but still insufficient industries of cities, and very often abroad. The terrible potato famine of the 1840s, so well known to have led to famine and starvation in Ireland, affected continental Europe as well and the Rhine River valley in particular. We must also not forget the mass numbers of immigrants already in America writing back to their home communities to share the news of adventures and often of their newfound sense of freedom, opportunity and prosperity. In Alsace, there was also much advertisement by companies that organized group emigrations from the town of departure to New York or other U.S. port cities via Le Havre. French businessman Henri Castro created one of these companies and certainly contributed to the popularity and prominence of Alsatian emigration to America through the establishment of the famous Castroville Colony in Texas in the 1840s with its over two thousand immigrants from Alsace. Finally, the many ships arriving from America with cotton for the French and Alsatian textile industries meant cargo-less ships that needed to head back to the United States and who offered inexpensive fares for human freight.

Over and over again, the Wolfs watched their neighbors leave Hattmatt for America. As we will see in detail shortly, they had family, friends and neighbors leave in the 1820s, 30s and 40s before they themselves with even more of their neighbors left in 1853. But to clarify what life was like in Hattmatt, for at least some of those neighbors who chose or felt forced to leave, notice the struggle present in the following account. Here, Dora (Klein) Henderson, daughter of Jacques Klein–who was the younger brother of shoemaker George Klein who accompanied the Wolfs to America–shares her family’s story. Her father, who immigrated to Vincennes, Indiana in 1867, was born on July 30, 1849 to a farming family in Hattmatt:[24]

My father Jacques Klein was born 29 July 1849 in Alsace-Lorraine. He remembered how difficult life was at that time for his family…He would talk about how his family lived at the foot of a mountain. They farmed the slopes of the mountain as high as they could.

He said they cultivated a kind of grass high up on the mountain. This was what they used to feed the cow they owned. They would cut the grass with a sickle, would tie it up in bundles and would bring it down for the cow.

This cow was very important for them. They used all the milk the cow gave and didn’t waste a drop. Often all they had for supper was a little bread their mother had made. They’d poor the milk in a big bowl and the whole family would gather around the table to dip their piece of bread in the bowl. I believe they had skimmed the cream off the milk to make butter, so the skimmed milk was left over for supper.

Another evening meal was just steamed potatoes with the skin on. They would eat the potatoes with skin on and nothing else, not even butter.

The parents were really pious and discipline was strict at home. Before each meal, each person would say a prayer to thank the Lord for their meal. The father would say the first prayer, then the oldest of the children, then each of the children in order of their age until the youngest.

Sunday church service would last three hours. The church wasn’t heated. He could remember sitting in the church and shaking he was so cold. The service was mostly readings from the Bible by the pastor. There was no organ, but they would sing hymns led by the pastor. My father had a powerful voice and sang pretty well. Apparently he was more educated than my mother.

They grew a kind of flax for linen that my mother would spin. She wove the thread to make the family’s clothing. My father said they were really scratchy. They also grew a kind of grain they needed to hull. When the crop was ready for harvest, they would cut it with a scythe and rake, would bring it back to the barn and the boys would stomp all over it. My father would help the neighbors who would do this for several weeks…he had earned about 17 cents and had been very proud to return home one night and toss the money on the table, saying: “I can earn money to help my family too”.

He would say how they kept everything they could that was burnable to stay warm in the winter. They kept the long cornstalks, as well as the corncobs. Everybody had grapevines and they would keep the shoots they trimmed off to burn in the winter. I remember him showing us how they would nicely tie all the shoots together.

He had heard about America. He would read everything he could find about America. He knew it was a free country. Long before he was seventeen, he had decided to leave to get out of his military service…He left from Le Havre. On the boat, he volunteered to take care of the herd on board…He arrived September 3, 1867, didn’t have a penny to his name and couldn’t speak English…[25]

This personal account describes the life of a young man from Hattmatt born just four years before the Wolfs emigrated and whose family knew the Wolfs. While we know the Wolfs weren’t as poor as Jacob Klein since they were able to purchase a farm shortly after arriving in Sandusky County, life for residents in Hattmatt was no cakewalk and farm labor was hard and not very profitable. So while some had more than others, this small, protestant farming community was close-knit, lived lives that were far from luxurious and that were centered on protestant piety and subsistence agriculture. As part of this, feeding and milking the family cow, working in the fields and in the vineyards, helping neighbors harvest their crops and simple meals of milk and potatoes were surely all common scenes in Hattmatt at the time. The life led by the Wolf family in Hattmatt was surely very similar to the one described by Dora Henderson and without a doubt did not offer the kind of life that Jacob Klein (and certainly many others including the Wolfs) dreamed of.

But why did the Wolfs emigrate when and where they did? Let’s consider these facts: firstly, Catherine Wolf’s mother Marguerite died in October 1852, seven months after her sister-in-law Catherine (Krieger) Wolf’s own mother died. All of the Michel Wolf family parents and grandparents had also passed away before 1853, so most of the older, immediate family was gone. Add to that the fact that there was wave after wave of immigration to America from the village and surrounding area, so a goodbye to family, friends and neighbors was not necessarily a farewell forever, anyway![26] Secondly, Catherine Wolf’s brother Jean was already in America and Catherine Krieger’s sister Marguerite (Krieger) Balzli was already living in Marion County, Ohio with her family. Thirdly, the nearest train station to Hattmatt was located in Steinbourg, Alsace, only 2.5 miles from the Wolf home on Saverne-Steinbourg Road and had opened in 1850.[27] (Upon my second visit to the area in July 2019, I rode my bike from Saverne to Hattmatt and passed through Steinbourg. It was a very short bike ride indeed, over narrow country roads and trails along idyllic wheat fields interspersed with red poppies. Some of the terrain was hilly, but much of it reminded me of rural Ohio. See picture below taken between Steinbourg and Hattmatt.)

And while it is possible the Wolfs, like so many other European settlers arriving in New York, traveled the Erie Canal to Buffalo and then took a steamer on lake Erie to get to Ohio (much like Lewis Hirt’s inlaws the Werths did) and then a schooner to make their way through the waterways leading into Rice Township, the Wolfs also arrived in Ohio in November 1853, where a new line of passenger train service through Fremont had just begun on 7 February 1853.^[28] Whatever the case may be, in addition to the fact that the older generations had died and there were initial family contacts in the New World, certainly trains and possibly the thriving travel industry along the Erie Canal and Lake Erie greatly simplified the Wolfs’ move to Rice Township, Sandusky County, Ohio. Deaths, adventurous friends and family members already in America, and efficient systems of transportation may very well have dictated the schedule for the Wolfs’ move to Ohio and their decision to settle where they did.

It would also appear, however, that the land the Wolf family purchased was fairly wild and may have been available because it had not yet been developed. Rice Township, after all, was only founded in 1840 at the same time as neighboring Ottawa County. Historian Basil Meek notes for example that, speaking of Catherine Wolf’s husband John Gross who arrived the same year as the Wolfs, “He cleared this land and resided in a log house for a long period, but now has fine, substantial buildings. He married Katherine Wolf, who was brought from Germany while young, the Wolf family settling in Rice Township across the road from the Gross family.”^[29] (It should be noted that Alsace belonged to Germany instead of France at the time of publication of Meek’s book, hence the note of Catherine Wolf being born in Germany instead of France.) Like the man she married, Catherine Wolf, along with her father and siblings, were among the early pioneers of the area who took advantage of and developed newly available land in Ohio. As Basil Meek’s historical records reveal, early residents of Rice Township, and Catherine Wolf included, first lived in log cabins they build themselves after clearing the densely wooded, mosquito-infested albeit fertile lands of the Black Swamp.

But where did they find the courage to uproot and leave for Ohio in particular? It would appear that their cousins the Balzlis and neighbors the Wilds preceded them in immigrating to newly opened lands in Ohio. According to the 1836 French census,^[30] the Wilds were their immediate neighbors in Hattmatt.[31] What’s more, a cousin and fellow laborer George Balzli—whose father was a signing witness to some of Michel Wolf, Sr.’s children’s births as was Michel Wolf, Sr. to George’s children—left for Ohio before them and ended up settling in Richland Township, Marion County, Ohio. Two of the Wild brothers (Henry and Jacob) left with their wives and children first in 1832 on a ship named Horizon. They were later joined by their younger brother Andrew Wild, his wife and children, and the George Balzli family (George Balzli, Sr. and Jr.).[32] It is important to note also that George Balzli, Jr. was married to Catherine Krieger’s sister Marguerite. According to the wedding certificate of George Balzli and Marguerite (Krieger) Balzli in 1828, the Wolfs and Balzlis were cousins. Andrew Wild and the George Balzlis and their families all travelled on a ship named François Honoré in 1840.^[33] They would never lose touch. In fact, the Wolf family actually stayed in Morrow County, Ohio (which abuts Richland Township, Marion County) for a brief time upon arriving in America before heading northward to settle in Sandusky County the following year in 1854. Not only is there documentation to support this, but it would be quite natural for them to make the area one of their first stops to see their friends and family and because they arrived in Ohio at the start of winter.[34] While we don’t have any letters to attest to this, certainly letters written home touting the fertility of the land enticed an ever-growing number of Alsatians, including the Wolfs. The township, after all, was named “rich-land” by local farming residents when it was organized in 1824.[35]

Moreover, according to census data from 1860 for Richland Township, Marion County, Ohio, Jacob (Jacques) Wolf, Catherine’s little brother had not continued on to Sandusky County, but stayed behind in Marion County. He was a day laborer on the farm of Jacob Pfirsch/Pfrich the third, a native of Dossenheim-sur-Zinsel in Alsace, near Hattmatt, born in 1827.[36] What’s more, Jacob Pfirsch the third married George Baltzli and Marguerite (Krieger) Baltzli’s oldest daughter Marguerite in Ohio. This was the same daughter at whose birth Michel Wolf, Sr. and Jacob Wild were signing witnesses back in Hattmatt in 1829.[37] Jacob Pfirsch the 2^nd, born in 1798 (just one year older than Michael Wolf, Sr.) was married to Margaretha Kuntz and they also lived in Richland Township. Furthermore, Jacob Pfirsch the third’s mother was also of the Krieger family and was named Catherine! The Pfirsch families and Jacob Wolf lived very near the Jacob Wild and George Balzli farms. Jacob Wolf would eventually marry one of George Balzli’s younger daughters named Catherine on March 6, 1862 about a year after his father’s death in Rice Township in Sandusky County.^[38] His father and his Alsatian friends and family may even have arranged for Jacob to stay and work in Marion County before the Wolfs even left for America. Jacob Wolf and wife Catherine (Baltzli) Wolf later moved to Mercer County, Ohio on the Indiana border after being married. It is there that he started his own farm and family.[39] Like his father and other siblings who settled in Sandusky, he may have moved on to be able to acquire new, unsettled lands in Ohio. To summarize then, these families hailed from numerous neighboring villages in Alsace and remained very interconnected by friendship and marriage, even after arriving in Ohio. The immense network of family, friends and neighbors who had already traveled abroad surely facilitated and fueled the emigration of the rest of Catherine Wolf’s family.

At this point, however, two questions beg to be asked. Firstly, why didn’t the whole Wolf family head to Mercer County if there was land there, and second, why would they leave their fellow Hattmattois family and friends to head North to yet another unknown land. As it turns out, to say that the Wolfs’ move to Sandusky County marked the end to their contact with their native Alsace would be a mistake. While they did mix with other German-dialect speakers from Germany and Switzerland, they were also drawn to other Alsatians in Rice Township. On the following plat map below from 1870 for example, I have highlighted the families who hailed from Alsace according to the 1880 census. As we can see, there were many Alsatians in the township and they chose to settle in very close proximity to each other.[40] In fact, not only was he from Alsace, but “J. Stull” pictured, was from Hattmatt!:

Jacob Stull, Sr., was born in Hatmat (sic), Alsace (France), and came with his parents to America when 14 years old, locating in Waynesburg, Penn. Eight years later he, with his parents, brothers, sisters, and others migrated by wagon to Rice township, Sandusky Co., Ohio, a distance of several hundred miles.[41]

Since Jacob Stull/Stoll was born in Hattmatt in 1814, this record indicates that this family arrived in the New World about 1828, before the Wolfs, Baltzlis, Wilds and Pfirsches! As far as I can tell, 1828 is the last year that a Stull/Stoll child was born in Hattmatt. Her name was Marie Stoll and she was born on January 3 1828, which means that she must have been an infant when the Stull family crossed the Atlantic. Jacob and Marie also had a brother named George born in Hattmatt on February 11, 1820. What’s more, the Stulls were not the only residents of Hattmatt already settled and living in Rice Township. As we will soon see in documentation provided by descendants of the Stull family, Michael Smith (Schmidt) was also born in Hattmatt and traveled with the Stulls to settle in Rice Township:

Michael Smith, a native of France, came to America and settled in Pennsylvania in 1826, at the age of twenty years. After remaining several years he married Margaret Powell, who was also a native of France, having been born. there in 1815. They came to Sandusky county and made permanent settlement in Rice.

http://www.heritagepursuit.com/Sandusky/SanduskyRice.htm

The Stull and Smith families’ trip to America reveals that emigration must have been a hot topic in Hattmatt and the immediately surrounding villages for decades before the Wolfs actually made the move themselves. In addition to being from the same village, witnesses on Jacob Stull’s birth certificate were Michel Drüssel (born in 1773) and Jacques Drüssel (born circa 1764); while I have not determined the exact connection here, Catherine Wolf’s maternal great grandmother was Marguerite Drüssel and was born around 1760.[42] Perhaps even more importantly, Jacob Stull’s paternal grandmother Maria Stull was born Maria Sorg from Hattmatt. This is significant because Catherine Wolf’s own mother was a Sorg  from Hattmatt. In fact, Maria (Sorg) Stull was Catherine Wolf’s great-grandfather’s sister. Indeed, with a common ancestor (Jacob Sorg, 1721-1771), the Stulls and Wolfs were family dating back to the 1700s. The welcome by the Stulls, long established in Sandusky County before the Wolfs’ arrival, must have felt very much like a homecoming and family reunion!

I would even say that the Stulls and Smiths must have written to the Wolfs to encourage them to come settle with them. After all, as we learn in A Brief History of the Stull family of Fremont, Sandusky County, Ohio, written by the late William Walter Stull, a document shared with me by descendent Cycle Stull, letters were an important factor in the decisions made by the Stulls and Smiths of Hattmatt to immigrate and travel to the various places they did. For example, we read in W. W. Stull’s family history that the very reason the Stulls and Smiths settled in Ohio was due to the receipt of a letter from a Mr. Powlin/Paulin inviting them to do so, preparing a cabin for them to live in and assisting them in purchasing land in Rice Township:

« A Mr. Paulin or Powlen, invited them to come where he lived. As an inducement to have them come he offered to have a house ready for them and to assist them in the purchase of some land, that was both good and cheap. They read and re-read the contents of this letter several times and after due consideration, decided to accept the invitation….Finally, after traveling a distance of about two hundred and fifty miles or more from where they started, they came to a place which they thought corresponded with a pencil sketch they had received from their friend, who had invited them to come to this section of OHIO. Here was the creek they had just crossed, then came the winding lane which turned off to the right. Then at the end of this winding lane, some distance from this trail, stood a log house, on a little knoll close to the banks of the creek and it was empty. SURE ENOUGH… this was really the RIGHT PLACE. This house was in readiness for the occupancy or the Stull family as promised by their friend a Mr. Paulin or Powlen. He also assisted them in buying fifty acres of this unimproved government land, which then became the property and home of the Stull Family. » 

Even before that invitation, the Stulls and Smiths had travelled to Baltimore from Hattmatt, Alsace via Strasbourg only after receiving an invitation from another former resident of Hattmatt, a Mr. Stutzbach. Upon arriving in Baltimore after a tumultuous trip across the Atlantic where they all though they would meet their maker, and then a temporary, albeit frightening confinement to their ship after docking in Baltimore, we read:

« …they and a former neighbor of theirs were allowed to meet each other and their hearts almost leaped for joy of seeing each other again. This man, whom they met, was a Mr. Stutzbach, a former resident of Hotmot and with whom they had been in correspondence since their departure from their Fatherland, and who was largely responsible for their coming to America and to Baltimore. He had everything in readiness for the Stulls to occupy one house and the Smiths another, in the suburbs of the city and they remained there for about four years. »

The fact, as we saw earlier, that the Wolfs ended up living in the Stull home in Rice Township, and as neighbors to the Smiths, was surely no coincidence and instead was part of the long-standing traditions surrounding Alsatian settlement, recruitment of other new settlers, solidarity and continuity of Alsatian family and community traditions in Ohio. 

As for the several properties within this area whose family names are not from Alsace, it should be noted that George Gross and Frederick Smith were both married to Alsatians. What’s more, the Wolf, Gross, Stull and Lambert families all intermarried in Rice Township over a short period of time. A few other protestant families from Alsace were Morand and Catherine Brunner, John Waggoner, Nicholas and Catherine Mathia, George and Salomé Hilt and George Miegel (name changed to Michael in Ohio). These families also settled in or near Rice Township.[43]

But what about the language differences between the Wolfs from Alsace, the Grosses from Vörstetten in the Baden region of Germany and the Hirts from Stilli in Canton Aargau, Switzerland? How did these families from three different countries travel so far and then come together so well? The following quote from the Alsatian novel Les tilleuls de Lautenbach, mémoires d’Alsace does a great job of summing up the language similarities of the Rhine region that may have helped bring these families together in Ohio. At one point in the story, a nine-year old boy finds himself doubly alone. First because his mother has just died but also because he feels compelled to leave his remaining family and German-occupied homeland of Alsace to continue his French studies in Paris. Speeding toward Paris by train and feeling sad and isolated, he notices a Swiss-German couple sitting across from him:

A présent, il est tout attendri de l’entendre parler Schwitzerditsch : ça ressemble tellement à l’alsacien que ça retrempe l’âme de l’exilé.^[44]

Now, he is moved when he hears them speaking Swiss-German: it resembles Alsatian so remarkably that it gives strength to the poor boy’s soul.

While in the above quote we see the remarkable similarity between Alsatian and Swiss German, in this next quote, Simone Morgenthaler, who grew up in the Lower Rhine region of Alsace in the village of Haegen, eight miles from Hattmatt, explains the closeness of Alsatian and the form of German spoken in Baden in her book D’grien Schatt, l’ombre verte (The Green Shade/Shadow). In her book, she presents her personal and historical connection to the much-loved, multi-centenarial tree in her courtyard that witnessed so much of the history of Alsace. Needing the advice of a skilled arborist upon the death of her beloved tree, she calls upon a friend in Baden, Germany and notes:   

Je parle en alsacien avec le pépiniériste. Il me répond en badois. Nos langues sont sœurs. Elles le sont depuis des siècles. Le Rhin n’a jamais été une frontière pour les mots….Ma langue maternelle, c’est l’allemand dialectal alsacien, nommé Elsasserditsch. Elle est l’expression orale millénaire. Elle est un parler alémanique différent de l’allemand. D’ailleurs un Allemand a du mal à la comprendre –sauf celui du Pays de Bade- tandis qu’un Alsacien comprend la langue allemande.

I speak in Alsatian with the landscaper. He responds in Badisch German. Our languages are sisters and have been so for centuries. The Rhine river has never been a border for words….My maternal languge is Alsatian dialectal German, called Elsasserditsch. It has been a form of oral expression for millennia. It is an Alemanic language that is different from German. Moreover, Germans have a hard time understanding it –except for those from the region of Bade –whereas an Alsatian understands the German language.

So here we see just how much Alsatian, Badisch and Swiss German resemble each other and several practical and emotional connections of people from these regions. In fact, the languages/dialects most commonly spoken in the Rhine region, including the Baden region of Germany, Alsace and most of Switzerland all belong to a language group called Alemannic German.[45] Certainly, then, linguistic connections and the ability to understand each other played an important role in uniting our ancestors. This would be true not only for the relationship between the Alsatian Catherine Wolf and her husband John Gross from Baden, but also between the Swiss-German Frederick Franklin Hirt who would later wed their daughter, Teckla Gross. Thanks to the similarities between their languages, they most certainly found comfort and community in one another in the midst of their self-imposed exile from their respective homelands. Speaking Alemannic German was a highly defining characteristic of these immigrants. My own father John Hirt noticed this when studying German in high school in the late 1960s. When trying to use his standard high school German with his great-grandmother from Vörstetten (Gundelfingen) area of Baden, she pointed out that she spoke old German, not that German they learned in school![46] However, since there was no standard written version of Alemannic, official state and church documents in Ohio and in Europe were written in the High German standard language, hence the standard German on tombstones, birth, marriage and death certificates, etc.[47] While this standardization is understandable from a practical perspective, it also overshadows an important component of the linguistic, social and cultural history of our family and region. Fortunately, several documented remnants of the natively spoken variant of German in our family exist. Firstly, there is the spoken testimony of my great-grandmother Ada Amelia (Overmyer) Erb. Her parents were Aaron Overmyer (of the David Overmyer family) and Amelia (Lamalie) Overmyer) and they were born in Rice Township as pictured on the map below. In an audio recording from June 1989, Ada Erb recalled that her grandmother was from Baden and that it was pronounced “Bàden” (with the “a” pronounced with rounded lips as in the word “low,” rather than “Baden” (pronounced with a more open mouth as in the word “bah”) as in standard German. This is true both in the version of German used in Baden and in Alsace.

1874 cadastral map showing my great grandmother Ada Rozella (Overmyer) Erb’s families (the Overmyers (paternal) and the Lamalies (maternal)) and their proximity to the Alsatians of Rice Township.

A second record of this dialect is visible in the written inventory of the last will and testament of Michael Wolf III in Rice Township on file at the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library. In the inventory, Michael lists “wead” and “oads” instead of “wheat” and “oats.” As we will see in the Alsatian translation below, “day” in standard German is written and pronounced “Tag” whereas in Alsatian it is pronounced “Daa” showing the swapping of the “t” and “d” sounds between the languages. This written record of the spoken language from 1909 shows that the Wolfs spoke a version of Alemannic German and that accent was transposed onto their use of the English language. We also see his Alsatian accent in his writing of the word “cultivator” that he spelled “coldifador.”

To end this discussion of the role of language in our family history, I would like to share an example. Below is a sample of what Alsatian Alemmanic German looks/sounds like when written out phonetically. I asked Jeanne Harter, a friend and resident of Imbsheim (and quite probably a distant cousin!), to write this paragraph as if she were Catherine Wolf presenting herself. The second translation is in standard German for comparison and the final one is in English.

Guete Daa! Ich heiss Catherina (Wolf) Gross. Ich bin franzesch gebore in Hattmatt im Elsass. Mit mimm Babbe, minne Bruder, Schwester, Nöwö, Niässla bin ich im Dezember 1853 uff Amerika uss’gewandert. M’r sin mit Zug un Schiff gereis’t fer dert anne’zekomme. Noo hann m’r uns uff’e wild’s Land installiert, im comté von Sandusky e’m norde von Ohio.

Ich hab a paar Johr speeter, am 19 april 1857, g’hierot mit dem Mann wie grad vis à vis von uns gewohnt het. Speeter sin m’r amerikanisch naturalisert wore. Unseri Dochter, Teckla Louise isch 1866 gebore, un ich hab an ihre Hochzitt mit Frederick Franklin Hirt teilgenomme. Sinni Eltere sin Schwitzer-Ditsch gewann. Ich bin 1895 g’storwe, numme zwei Johr noch de Geburt von ihrem vierte Kind, miner Enkelsohn Clarence Lewis Hirt im September 1893.

Guten Tag! Ich heiße Catherina (Wolf) Gross. Ich wurde in Hattmatt im Elsass als Französin geboren. Mit meinem Vater, meinen Brüdern, Schwestern, Neffen und Nichten wanderte ich im Dezember 1853 in die Vereinigten Staaten aus. Wir nahmen Züge und ein Boot, um dorthin zu gelangen. Als wir ankamen, ließen wir uns in der Wildnis im Sandusky County nördlich von Ohio nieder. Unser Land befand sich direkt vor dem Mann, den ich ein paar Jahre später, am 19. April 1857, heiraten würde. Dann waren wir eingebürgerte Amerikaner! Ich hatte 1866 meine Tochter Teckla Louise und sie heiratete 1884 mit Frederick Franklin Hirt, dessen Eltern schweizerdeutsch waren. Ich starb 1895, nur zwei Jahre nach der Geburt ihres vierten Kindes, meines Enkels Clarence Lewis Hirt, im September 1893.

Hello! My name is Catherine (Wolf) Gross. I was born in Hattmatt in Alsace. With my father, my brothers, sisters, nephews and nieces, I immigrated to the United States in December 1853. We took trains and a boat to get there. When we arrived, we settled on wilderness land in Sandusky County, in Northern Ohio. Our land was right across from the man I would marry a few years later, on April 19, 1857. Then we became naturalized Americans! I had my daughter Teckla Louise in 1866 and attended her marriage in 1884 to Frederick Franklin Hirt, whose parents were Swiss-German. I died in 1895, just two years after the birth of their fourth child, my grandson, Clarence Lewis Hirt in September 1893.

Without going into great detail, I will simply say that there are some key differences between Alsatian and German that cause standard German speakers to have a difficult time understanding Alsatians. For example, in the sample above one can see the compound past in Alsatian (i.e. Ich bin g’storwe and sie sin gewann) rather than the commonly used preterit in German (i.e. Ich starb and sie waren) to say I died and they were respectively. Some vocabulary is different as well, particularly words referring to family members, such as father (Als.: Babbe vs. Ger.: Vater), nephews (Als.: Nöwö vs. Ger.: Neffen) and nieces (Als.: Niässle vs. Ger.: Nichten). Often certain vowels and consonants are also dropped in Alsatian (meinem and meinen in German are mimm and minne in Alsatian) and the “n” at the end of a verb or noun is almost always dropped in Alsatian. As previous explained above, “t” sounds in standard German are often “d” sounds in Alsatian as in “Daa” for the standard German “Tag” (day) and “Dochter” for the standard “Tochter” (daughter). For more, please see the footnotes previously listed.

As mentioned in the biographical clip above, Catherine Wolf met her husband shortly after arriving in Fremont. Her future husband John Gross arrived in Fremont on 15 March 1853, just eight months before she and her family arrived in Ohio. His family was from just on the other side of the Rhine, from Vörstetten, Baden, Germany. He later sent for his parents Johann Georg Groß and Katharina (Leimenstoll) Groß and siblings Hugo and Rosina back in Vörstetten who arrived in 1855 on the ship Confederation. His parents spent their final years in Rice Township as well. The Wolf and Gross families were all naturalized American citizens and their original naturalization certificates are on file at the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library.

Map indicating areas of settlement of the different members affiliated with the Wolf family from Hattmatt.

Map of Western Europe indicating origins of the Wolf, Gross and Hirt families.

Residence of Katharina (Leimenstoll) Gross’ parents (Andreas Leimenstoll, Magisters and Katharina Schumacher): Freiburger Straße 5, Vörstetten, Germany.^[48]

Michel Wolf, Jr.’s naturalization certificate, 1861. Notice the English and French spellings of Michel’s name as written by the clerk and signed by Michel. This French signature is also further proof of his French education back in Hattmatt.

Tombstone of Michael Wolf, Jr. and wife Catherine (Krieger) Wolf in German. Photos taken July, 2018.

Tombstone of Catherine (Wolf) Gross. The upper portion with her name has eroded, but one can still make out her husband’s name along with her birth and death dates at the bottom. “MUTTER” or “mother” in German is written on top of the stone. Photo July, 2018.

Tombstones of Catherine (Wolf) Gross’ husband, Johann Georg Gross, Jr. with birth and death dates, top and father-in-law Johann Georg Gross, Sr., bottom.

While I have not been able to find any pictures of Catherine (Wolf) Gross or John Gross, I did find a few pictures of other close family members. The first picture below is of Catherine’s little sister, (Anna) Maria (Wolf) Vogt. Maria is pictured with her husband Abraham Vogt, Fanny Vogt’s little brother.[49] The couple and their children lived on a farm in Riley Township next to that of Casper and Fanny (Vogt) Hirt. In the second picture, with a group of men, John Louis Wolf, the son of Michel Wolf, Jr. and Catherine (Krieger) Wolf is pictured in the back row, far right.[50] This is Catherine (Wolf) Gross’ nephew.

This third picture, from Clyde Public Library’s digital archive, is much more recent and is of one of Catherine (Wolf) Gross’ children, John Henry Gross.[51] He is Teckla’s brother and lived with Frank and Teckla Hirt in Riley for a time.[52] Also pictured is a document from when he and Frank were executors of John Gross’ estate when he died in 1917.

The picture above of John Henry also reminds me of how I grew up: on a one-lane road in the country, surrounded by flat farming fields, barn cats and dogs on our family farm!

This last picture below was found on the findagrave.com website.[53] The picture appears to show Louisa (Lucy) Wolf, née Kline (1853-1921) and husband John (Jean) Wolf (1849-1918). The latter, pictured younger above, was the son of Michel Wolf, Jr. and was four years old when he moved to Ohio from Hattmatt with the rest of his family. Lucy Wolf was the daughter of Captain Andrew Johnson Kline of Baden. He fought in the Mexican War and then in Company H of the 72^nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry alongside Private Markus Wolf (John’s uncle) during the Civil War.[54]

  Vìlmòl Merci! / Danke! / Thank You!

I would like to thank Marilène Sutter and husband Mayor Alain Sutter of Hattmatt for their wonderful hospitality, historical knowledge and assistance in exploring the village of Hattmatt and neighboring Bouxwiller. Thank you also, Marilène, for your immense assistance in filling in the gaps of my transcription of Michael’s birth certificate in Spitzschrift! Thanks are also in order to Marie Jeanne Harter, Betty Kapp and Georgette Weber of Imbsheim for their hospitality, linguistic prowess, genealogical passion and expertise, guided visits of Imbsheim and the Bastberg, and help learning the Alsatian language. Without you and your friendship, much of this historical quest would not have been possible.

Thank you to Mayor Lars Brügner of Vörstetten and to Pastor Haßler of the Evangelische Kirche of Vörstetten for sharing your town and church during my short visit.

Thank you to the Archives Départamentales du Bas-Rhin for opening your doors to this amateur researcher and for allowing me to spend hours combing through your non-digitized collections of marriage contracts, travel, immigration and sales documents without which this family’s history would have been limited to names and dates, rather than the substantial details that have resuscitated their beautiful story and immigrant journey.

On this side of the Atlantic, I would like to thank the staff of the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library, the first presidential library in the United States and certainly the most important one to the Hirt family history. I would also like to thank Jean (Wolf) Hirt of Tiffin. She is the granddaughter of Moses Wolf, whose father was George Wolf of Hattmatt, Alsace. She also married into the Lewis Hirt family through her husband Doug Hirt. Moses and Lewis were neighbors in Riley Township as seen in the 1900 US Federal Census. Thanks to Jean’s genealogical knowledge, I was able to place the last pieces of our Ohio family’s story together and find another connection between the Wolf and Hirt family saga (Thank you to Swiss historian Max Baumann from Stilli for helping me make that connection!). Finally, I would like to thank my family for instilling in me the importance of family, farming and the long, beautiful history of the Hirt family. As our Hirt family song proclaims, it is truly a name that is here to stay…

For more information, documentation or photographs, please contact Benjamin Hirt at benhirt@gmail.com.

[1] For in-depth information about Casper Hirt, see: Baumann, Max. “Ich Lebe einfach, aber froh” Erfolge und Misserfolge von Schweizer Auggewanderten in Amerika (Baden: hier + jetzt, 2013)

[2] This story also affects the Vogt family since Fanny’s brother Abraham Vogt also married a Wolf: Catherine Wolf’s younger sister (Anna) Maria Wolf, 1843-1925.

[3] http://archives.bas-rhin.fr/detail-document/REC-POP-C184-R2475#visio/page:REC-POP-C184-R2475-24429

[4] http://archives.bas-rhin.fr/

[5] I learned of this change from local resident and wife of the mayor: Marilène Sutter. Her story is supported by the picture below showing the faded former and clear current house numbers.

[6] Bas-Rhin, canton Saverne : texte et illustration / Secrétariat d’État à la culture, Inventaire général des monuments et des richesses artistiques de la France, Commission régionale d’Alsace (Paris : Impr. nationale, 1977) 169.

Also, there is now another home built on a portion of what was the original orchard and garden.

[7] http://archives.bas-rhin.fr/

[8] http://archives.bas-rhin.fr/detail-document/ETAT-CIVIL-C184-P1-R122539#visio/page:ETAT-CIVIL-C184-P1-R122539-608189

[9] George Wolf’s youngest son Edward Wolf (1870-1937) married his second wife Lillian (Behrend) Antesberger in 1914. Lillian was married to John C. Antesberger, a brewer by trade, until his death, and then married Edward three years later. It appears this is how the Antesberger family ended up with George Wolf’s family farm. One of the children from Lillian’s first marriage must have inherited the property. Lillian outlived both of her husbands, dying in 1962.

John Smith was actually a surviving officer of the Napoleonic Wars and the famous march to Russia. He and his wife were parents to Frederick Smith, born in Baden in 1829 and married to Elizabeth (Kaiser) Smith, born in Lorraine, France in 1830. They were neighbors to the Wolf family and lived on their family farm in Rice Township until 1877 when they moved to Sandusky Township. See source documents:

http://www.ohiogenealogyexpress.com/sandusky/sanduskyco_bios_1896/sanduskyco_bios_1896_s.htm

Commemorative Biographical Record of the counties of SANDUSKY & OTTAWA, OHIO – Publ. J. B. Beers & Co. 1896 – Page 173.

John Smith, who was “one of the earliest German settlers of [Rice] township, came to America and settled here in 1833.” He was one of the first German settlers in the area. Previously, most European settlers to date had been French. “About 1835 the first German families moved into the woods in the western portion, and by untiring industry soon had fertile fields in a state of profitable cultivation. Here a large tract of “wild land” offered an opening to the emigrants who were seeking western homes.” Source:

Meek, Basil. Twentieth Century History of Sandusky County, Ohio, and Representative Citizens (Chicago: Richmond-Arnold, 1909) 332.

[10]http://archives.bas-rhin.fr/detail-document/ETAT-CIVIL-C184-P1-R122678#visio/page:ETAT-CIVIL-C184-P1-R122678-608777

[11] https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb40325891z

[12] Map of Sandusky County, Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2012592238/

[13] http://ricetownship.com/cemeteries/greenwood-cemetery/

[14] http://www.ancestry-maps.com/page-legend.asp?fbclid=IwAR3g6MQT-gcFjv5-afDvrri-NOvVe0ZGYIr3ixogTeP-egr_Iy_OgpQinII

[15] Everts, Steward and Company, Atlas Sandusky County Ohio, 1874 (Property of RB Hayes Library.

[16] Proof of the crops they grew can be seen in the testaments on file at the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library in Fremont.

[17] According to historian Max Baumann, Maria (Wolf) Vogt was unable to write and signed her name with an “X”. She was ten years old when she immigrated to Ohio. It would appear then that she did not receive any formal education in Hattmatt as a child. As I show below in Michel and Marguerite Wolfs’ wedding certificate, Maria’s mother was also unable to write. According to another anecdote from a family from Hattmatt who immigrated to Indiana in 1867, the father Jacques Klein born in 1849 in Hattmatt had indeed received some education. See: Haubenestel, Jean. L’Oncle d’Amérique, Sur les traces des émigtés de la region de Saverne. Bar le Duc, 1999, pp. 83-85.

[18] The first link is for primary school teacher Jean Sengel’s marriage to Hattmatt resident Anne Marie Kolb. They married in Heiligenstein in 1823, after meeting in Hattmatt. http://archives.bas-rhin.fr/detail-document/ETAT-CIVIL-C188-P1-R134326#visio/page:ETAT-CIVIL-C188-P1-R134326-619565

Jean’s signature is significantly different from that of his two brothers, one of whom was a hemp farmer. Surely his role as educator and participation in a French education system played a role in this. Jean Sengel taught in Hattmatt from 1822-1828 before teaching in Heiligenstein from 1828-37 and then returned to his native Brumath where he taught 110 pupils at the all-girls school. “On le retrouve ensuite à Brumath. Il est instituteur de l’école des filles de Brumath et a 110 élèves. Source: A.B.R.: 2G66B/339 Archives de la paroisse protestante de Brumath”. He, his wife and children eventually returned to Hattmatt where they lived out their final days. See the following link for details.

https://gw.geneanet.org/jbarthel?n=sengel&oc=&p=johann

By the 1836 census, there was a different teacher in Hattmatt named Jean Dietsch, who was born in Gertwiller in 1802 but married in Hattmatt in 1830. One of the witnesses on his wedding certificate was friend and primary school teacher in neighboring Imbsheim, Jean-Pierre Brumm. See record below.

http://archives.bas-rhin.fr/detail-document/ETAT-CIVIL-C184-P1-R122546#visio/page:ETAT-CIVIL-C184-P1-R122546-608342

When Jean Dietsch’s son was born in 1835, another primary school teacher from Imbsheim, named Philippe Jacques Wengin, was one of the signing witnesses:

http://archives.bas-rhin.fr/detail-document/ETAT-CIVIL-C184-P1-R122440#visio/page:ETAT-CIVIL-C184-P1-R122440-608438

The 1841 and 1851 censuses both show Jacques Henry Person as the primary school teacher of Hattmatt. He was born in neighboring Dossenheim and one witness to his marriage in 1843 was his cousin, also a primary school teacher from Dossenheim named Jean Adam Zwilling. See record below.

http://archives.bas-rhin.fr/detail-document/ETAT-CIVIL-C184-P1-R122559#visio/page:ETAT-CIVIL-C184-P1-R122559-608599

This is important information since it provides direct insight into a system of continuous and extensive primary education even in these rural villages between at least 1822 and 1851. The Wolf children (or at least the boys) almost certainly attended classes in Hattmatt and perhaps Jean Dietsch, but certainly Jacques Henry Person taught them. Moreover, the Guizot Law of June 28, 1833 required “moral and religion instruction, reading, writing, elements of the French language, mathematics and the legal system of weights and measures.” Even indigent children could not be turned away from the classroom to receive an education according to the law.

http://www.crdp-strasbourg.fr/data/histoire/ecole-alsace/textes.php?parent=9

[19] Bas-Rhin, canton Saverne. 168. (My translation)

[20] Bodmer, Walter. Sammlung der studien zur rechtsgeschichte und den institutionen des Elsass. Die Schweizer einwanderung in die Grafschaft Haunau-Lichtenberg im siebzehnten Jahrhundert. Klaus Kochensperger, Vellmar.115 pages. [Collection of studies on the legal history and the institutions of Alsace. The Swiss immigration to the county Haunau-Lichtenberg in the seventeenth century. Klaus Kochensperger, Vellmar.]

[21] Bodmer. P. 45.

[22] My translation from Old French.

[23] Commune de Bouxwiller. Bouxwiller, Imbsheim, Riedheim / Griesbach-le-Bastberg, Autour du Bastberg. Strasbourg: Carré Blanc Editions, 2007.

[24] Jacques Klein’s parents were George Klein and Marguerite Wild. See birth record: http://archives.bas-rhin.fr/detail-document/ETAT-CIVIL-C184-P1-R122454#visio/page:ETAT-CIVIL-C184-P1-R122454-608709

[25] Haubenestel, Jean. L’Oncle d’Amérique, Sur les traces des émigtés de la region de Saverne. Bar le Duc, 1999. (My translation).

[26] The following describes the status of immigration in the Havre in 1832, the year several of the Wilds, Baltzlis and Pfirschs immigrated to Ohio:

[1832: the prefect of the Lower Seine river reports to the Interior Minister the “alarming situation” caused by the arrival of emigrants coming from Germany and several regions of France, and who wait at the Havre for the opportunity to embark on a ship for America. “There is a frequently renewed number of these unfortunate people of around almost always about 1200 or 1300. The city of Havre does its best to push these people as far as possible outside of the city walls. The countryside is hardly more hospitable as they are confined to several villages where their presence is regarded as a nest of sickness by the local residents. They are often ill with Cholera. City authorities have limited the number of beds offered by local cabaret owners based on the size of their locales: yet these precautions and similar others are far from sufficient to guarantee public health. Nothing, however, can compare to the distress of these families. Most of them have used up the little money they had, and had intended to use to pay their ticket abroad, even before arriving at the boarding dock.]. (My translation) Source: Haubenestel, Jean. L’Oncle d’Amérique. Strasbourg, 1999.

[27] The train station in Hattmatt had not yet opened when the Wolfs left. Today, one can still see the train station that was built some years later, but it is no longer active.

[28] “Toledo, Norwalk & Cleveland Rail Road.” Fremont Journal, 19 March 1853: 3 (but the advertisement appeared in many editions of the year’s newspaper.).

[29] Meek, Basil. Twentieth Century History of Sandusky County, Ohio, and Representative Citizens (Chicago: Richmond-Arnold, 1909) 834.

[30] http://archives.bas-rhin.fr/detail-document/REC-POP-C184-R2472#visio/page:REC-POP-C184-R2472-24401

[31] They may even have been related since Andrew and Jacob Wild’s mother was a Schaeffer (just like Michel Wolf, Sr.’s mother).

[32] Jacques Wild was born 15 Nov. 1787, Heinrich “Henry” Wild was born 29 Sept. 1794 and Andreas Wild was born 27 Nov. 1804. See “Germans to Marion County, Ohio and Their Ancestors” by Allen L. Potts, Heritage Books, Inc.

[33] https://alsatiansettlersofshelbyandauglaizeohio.wordpress.com/wilt-wild-families/

[34] See obituary for Anna Maria (Wolf) Vogt on file at the RB Hayes Presidential Library for first evidence. A second record of the Wolf family’s transit through Marion upon first arriving in Ohio can be found here:

History of Jay County, Indiana: Including Its World War Record and Incorporating the Montgomery History, Volume 2 Milton T. Jay, January 1, 1922. Historical Publishing Company, p. 397.

Of course, it is possible the Wolfs visited and purchased their virgin land in Sandusky County upon arrival but had to wait until the spring thaw and more clement weather to tame the wilderness and swamp and build their cabin on their new acreage in Rice Township. Either way, they spent time with family and friends in Marion that winter before permanently settling up north.

[35] https://archive.org/stream/historyofmarionc00legg?ref=ol#page/948/mode/2up

There are also eleven other Ohio Townships and a whole county named “Richland.”

[36] The Pfrisch family from Dossenheim-sur-Zinsel also immigrated to America, settling in Ohio, in 1832 at the same time as the Wilds and Baltzlis.

[37] http://archives.bas-rhin.fr/detail-document/ETAT-CIVIL-C184-P1-R122434#visio/page:ETAT-CIVIL-C184-P1-R122434-608305

[38] www.heritagepursuit.com/Wolf.htm

[39] History of Jay County, Indiana.

[40] Many other Alsatians came to Northwestern Ohio as well. For example, I have helped Fremont native Ken Dumminger locate his family from Schleithal in the Canton of Lautherbourg in Alsace. The 20^th Century History of Sandusky County and Representative Citizens lists John Waggoner, Joseph Dolweck, Joseph Brunner and several others as coming from Alsace. It also lists George Hilt and Catherine Salomé Laewenstien (Livingstone) who were from Nehwiller-près-Woerth in the Lower Rhine. I was able to confirm their marriage record in the archives in Strasbourg. Anecdotally, I have heard of other families as well, but this is beyond the scope of this project. Let it suffice to say that there were many Alsatians and Alemannic German speakers in Sandusky County and surrounding area beyond the immediate community I have researched.

[41] Bowland, James Mitchell. Pioneer Recollections of the Early 30’s and 40’s in Sandusky County, Ohio, pp. 411-412 (Accessed on Google Books). For his birth record in Hattmatt, see: http://archives.bas-rhin.fr/detail-document/ETAT-CIVIL-C184-P1-R122419#visio/page:ETAT-CIVIL-C184-P1-R122419-608022. Jacob Stull’s parents were Michel Stull, born circa 1783 and Eve Schmidt according to Jacob’s birth certificate. The work by Bowland also indicates the Kisers were from Alsace. See pages 262-262.

[42] Michel Drüssel was born “Johann Michel Drüssel, 5 August 1773 in Hattmatt. He was married to Salomé Wild. Michel was a blacksmith as indicated on the birth certificate of his daughter (Marguerithe, born 6 July, 1812) and when he signs as a witness on the birth certificate of Jacob Stull (8 March 1814). Find links for both records below. Michael and Salomé’s son Jacob Drüssel was later married to Margaretha (Wolf) Drüssel. He settled in Bellville, IL and died there on 19 November 1872.

http://archives.bas-rhin.fr/detail-document/ETAT-CIVIL-C184-P1-R122417#visio/page:ETAT-CIVIL-C184-P1-R122417-607981

http://archives.bas-rhin.fr/detail-document/ETAT-CIVIL-C184-P1-R122419#visio/page:ETAT-CIVIL-C184-P1-R122419-608022

For more information on the Drüssels (and Kleins) of Hattmatt who settled in Vincennes, Indiana and Bellville/O’Fallon, Illinois near Saint Louis, Missouri, see Jean Haubenestel, L’Oncle d’Amérique, Sur les traces des émigrés de la region de Saverne, pp. 83-86.

[43] I compiled this information by searching for the term “Alsace” in the digitized version of Basil Meek’s aforementioned book. Many other Alsatian pioneers are mentioned in the book as well, but it appears that the Catholic Alsatians settled elsewhere in Sandusky County. Some of these families include the Gabels, Webers, Meyers, Hochendels and Dolwecks.

[44] Egen, Jean. Les tilleuls de Lautenbach. Paris: Stock, 1979. 85

[45] For more information on linguistic connections, see the following link with variants of Alemannic German: https://als.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Houptsyte_(Elsassisch)

[46] I am refering here to Amelia Overmeyer, née Lamalie (1877-1967) of Fremont, the grandmother-in-law of Lyle Hirt (listed in family tree). Many members of the Lamalie family are buried in the Greenwood Cemetery in Rice Township, the same cemetery as many of the Wolfs and Grosses. Several of John G. Gross and Catherine (Wolf) Gross’ children also married men of the Overmeyer family (Josiah and Emma (Gross) Overmeyer and Conrad and Rose (Gross) Overmeyer); these families were very intertwined.

[47] One reads “MUTTER” for “mother” in German on the top of Catherine (Wolf) Gross’ tombstone even though she probably would have pronounced the word somewhere between “Mieder” and “Mieter” in her Alsatian dialect. For more, see: Daul, Léon & Keck, Bénédicte. Guide de Conversation, l’Alsacien pour les nuls. Paris: First, 2016. See also: Adolf, Paul. Dictionnaire comparatif multilingue, français, allemand, alsacien, anglais. Strasbourg: Midgard, 2006.

[48] Groß, Manfred. Vergangenes Vörstetten. (Vörstetten: 2016) 104-105.

[49] Baumann, Max. “Ich Lebe einfach, aber froh” Erfolge und Misserfolge von Schweizer Auggewanderten in Amerika (Baden: hier + jetzt, 2013) 112. According to Max Baumann, Maria Wolf was raised for a time by Rice Twp. neighbor Fred Kiser before working as a housekeeper for her brother Markus in Fremont and then finally marrying A. Vogt and settling in Riley Twp.

[50] Back row left to right: Peter Zilles (1848-1947), John Wesley Smith (1852-1835), John Louis Wolf (1849-1918). Front row left to right: Henry Rodenhausen (1857-1836), Michael Franklin Smith (1868-1947), Adam A. Gressman (1858-1927). The source where this picture was found indicates that these men were all brothers-in-law. https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-4-196180941-2-220/myheritage-photos-docs?s=477592241

[51] https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll19/id/1021/. Accessed on March 9, 2020.

[52] Meek, Basil. Twentieth Century History of Sandusky County, Ohio, and Representative Citizens (Chicago: Richmond-Arnold, 1909) 834.

[53] https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/28499196/louisa-lucy-wolf. Accessed March 8, 2020.

[54] Meek, Basil. Twentieth Century History of Sandusky County, Ohio, and Representative Citizens (Chicago: Richmond-Arnold, 1909) 493-494.

https://www.rbhayes.org/sandusky-county-ohio-civil-war-soldiers/72/wolf-marcus/