April 2021 archive

Apr 30

Friends Churches in Northern Mercer County

One of my sources for last week’s blog post about the old Pleasant Hill Friends Church in Dublin Township was a compilation of Friends churches in the Mercer-Van Wert County area by Gregory P. Hinshaw. His “Brief History of the Churches of Van Wert Quarterly Meeting of Friends (Quakers)” gives some very good information about these early local churches.

I was surprised to learn that there were five Friends Churches within a few miles of us. Two of the churches are still standing in their original locations, two have been moved to other locations, and one church has been taken down.

Apr 27

Tombstone Tuesday-Solomon Hartzog

This is the tombstone of Solomon Hartzog, located in row 8 of Zion Lutheran Cemetery, Schumm, Van Wert County, Ohio. The marker is inscribed:
Solomon Hartzog
Died
Nov. 7, 1848
aged 39 years
and 11 months

Apr 23

Pleasant Hill Friends Church, Dublin Township

I think it is interesting to learn where old churches and schools used to be located. Some of those old frame structures were later moved to other locations. I have been tracking down the history of once such local church.

Pleasant Hill Friends Church (Quaker) once stood close to where we live and the structure was moved into Rockford in the early 1900s.

I first learned about this church in Annettia (Brubaker) Smith’s 1933 obituary:

Apr 20

Tombstone Tuesday-Broken Flower Bud

A broken flower bud was most often carved on the tombstone of an infant or a young child and symbolizes that their life was cut short. They died too young. Their life ended too soon.

Apr 16

Parents for Maria Seckel

I broke through a brick wall this past week and did the Genealogy Happy Dance. I haven’t done that dance for some time and it was pretty exciting.

All this, thanks to Cousin Ken, my 4th cousin on the Schumm branch of my family. Ken contacted me recently and told me that he was looking at images of the church records from Ruppertshofen, where the Schumms attended church before immigrating in 1833.