This is the tombstone of Christian Hartzog, located in row 2 of Hileman/Smith/Hartzog/Alspaugh Cemetery, Willshire Township, Van Wert County, Ohio. The marker is inscribed:
Christian Hartzog
Died
Oct. 8, 1874
Aged
75 y, 10 m, 10 d
Christian’s date of birth was 28 November 1798, as calculated from his tombstone. According to census enumerations he was born in Pennsylvania.
Christian was most likely the husband of Katherine and father of Caroline Hardzog, whose tombstones were recently featured here on Karen’s Chatt. Katherine and Caroline are both buried at Zion Lutheran Cemetery, Schumm.
This biography of Christian’s son was in the Black Creek Township section of an old Mercer County history: Benj. F. Hartzog, a son of Christian and Catharine Lintemoot Hartzog, was born in Fairfield County, Ohio, in 1836. He was brought by his parents to this county in 1840… [1]
Christian “Hardsock” and his family were living in Black Creek, Mercer County, Ohio in 1840. Eleven were enumerated in the household. [2]
Christian’s first wife Katherine (Lintemoot) died in 1843, according to her tombstone. Christian married Elizabeth King on 29 October 1847 in Mercer County, Ohio. [3]
In 1850 Christian and Elizabeth “Hartsoy” were living in Dublin Township, Mercer County: Christian (49, born in Penn), Eliz (37, Oh), Amasa (18, Oh), Noah (15, Oh), Andrew (14, Oh), Elmira (12, Oh), Martha (7, Oh), Wm (3, Oh). [4] They were living just a few houses from my great-great-grandfather, Friedrich Schinnerer.
By 1860 the Hartzog family was living in Black Creek Township with their post office as Shanesville [aka Rockford]. The family consisted of Christian, Elizabeth, William, Zacharia and Harriett. [5]
In 1870 Christian, Elizabeth and Harriet were still living in Black Creek Township. [6]
I broke my first rule of tombstone photography when we stopped at this cemetery on the way home from Decatur last Friday afternoon. It was a little past 5:00 and the sun was very low in the sky. I got a decent photo of the Christian’s tombstone but it would have been better if I had been there a few hours earlier when the sun was shining directly on the face of the stone. There is also a reddish hue on photographs taken that time of day.
This cemetery is a couple miles east of Willshire on route 81 and about a mile straight south of Zion Schumm’s cemetery, at the end of a t-road. I have been by this rundown cemetery many times but had never stopped. We were having our January thaw in Ohio that day and the ground was soft and muddy. There was no driveway or place to park so Joe parked at the stop sign while I ran across the highway to the cemetery. Luckily there wasn’t much traffic there that day.
Hartsock Road is a little to the East of this cemetery.
Photos taken January 2013.
[1] R. Sutton & Co., History of Van Wert and Mercer Counties, Ohio (1882; reprint, Mt. Vernon, Indiana: Windmill Publication, Inc., 1991), 422.
[2] 1840 U.S. census, Mercer County, Ohio, Black Creek Township, p. 84, line 10, Christian Hartsock; digital image by subscription, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 13 January 2013); Family History Library Film No. 0020172, from National Archives Microfilm M704, roll 413.
[3] Transcribed Mercer County Marriage Records Book ABC: 276, Probate Records Department, Courthouse, Celina, Ohio.
[4] 1850 U.S. census, Mercer County, Ohio, Dublin Township, p. 276A, line 1, family #7, Christian Hartsoy; digital image by subscription, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 6 January 2013); from National Archives Microfilm M432, roll 710.
[5] 1860 U.S. census, Mercer County, Ohio, Black Creek Township, p. 322, line 10, dwelling 468, family 473, Christian Hartzog; digital image by subscription, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 6 January 2013); Family History Library Film No. 805009, from National Archives Microfilm M653, roll 1009.
[6] 1870 U.S. census, Mercer County, Ohio, Black Creek Township, p. 20B, line 31, dwelling 30, family 30, Christian Hardzog; digital image by subscription, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 13 January 2013); Family History Library Film No. 552742, from National Archives Microfilm M593, roll 1243.
Thank you, Gloria. Great to hear from you and wishing you a nice spring and summer as well.
Thank you Karen. It was great to see them in their younger years. I always find your articles so interesting.…
What a story! I knew Henry Kissinger was in the 84th but have not corresponded with anyone connected to him.…
My father , Raymond Eugene Fairchild was also in the 84th infantry 333rd division Was in the Bulge and afterwards…
Very interesting. Thank you for that information. You are certainly the expert on early local history. We very much enjoyed…