Marietta city directories, 1873–1929 — the Wildermuths at their addresses

City directories are the closest thing genealogy has to a moving camera. Robert Earl Wildermuth worked through the Marietta volumes on file at the Marietta College Library and copied out every Wildermuth entry he could find. The result tracks four generations from address to address across fifty-six years — and it pins down two things the archive had only vaguely.

“This collection of directories is not complete in that years are missing.” — his own caveat

Johann Michael, shoemaker

Directory	Shop	Residence
1873–74	30 Front Street	Sixth Street, between Warren and Montgomery
1897–98	134 Front Street	708 Sixth Street
1899–1900	(shoemaker, no shop given)	611 Washington Street
1902–03	(shoemaker)	611 Washington Street

The shop moved. His finished narrative says he “had his own shop at 134 Front Street” for thirty years — but in 1873–74 the directory puts him at 30 Front Street. Two premises on the same street, a quarter-century apart. The 1978 letter’s vaguer “a shop on lower Front Street” covers both.

(This consolidated sheet, at full resolution, corrects the 1873–74 number from 50 to 30 — a misreading taken from an earlier 360 × 480 photograph.)

Here is that earlier photograph, kept because the correction is worth being able to check. It is a separate typed sheet carrying the 1873–74 entry alone, shot small and washed out, with a shadow across the page; the shop number in it can be read either way, which is how 30 became 50 in this archive for a while:

And the house on Washington Street now has a number. The 1903 obituary says only that he “died at his home on Washington Street.” The 1899–1900 and 1902–03 directories both give it: 611 Washington Street. He moved there from Sixth Street some time in the late 1890s, and that is the house he died in on 7 February 1903.

The 1902–03 sheet, now at full resolution, carries one line and nothing else — and Robert Earl marked it with a double asterisk. It is the last directory entry for his great-grandfather alive: shoemaker, 611 Washington Street, the house he would die in a few months later.

William Clifford — turner, then salesman

William Clifford is a Turner in 1897–98 and 1899–1900, living at 627 Seventh Street. Robert Earl explains the word:

“William Wildermuth, my grandfather, occupation was as a person who operated a wood lathe.”

A turner runs a lathe: the work spins and he holds a chisel against it, shaping whatever has to be round. In a chair factory that is most of the chair — legs, rungs, stretchers, spindles, back posts — turned to a template, several hundred a day. Skilled work with an apprenticeship behind it, and the origin of the surname Turner. Fuller account on his page.

The 1880 census found him in that factory at fourteen, and the directories still have him at the lathe twenty years later. Then machinist by 1914–15 — wood lathe to metal lathe is a short step — and by 1919–20 salesman at the Seyler Hardware Store, which is where a man who had spent thirty years making and using tools would naturally land. Turner, machinist, salesman.

Catherine’s widowhood, and the next two generations

The later sheet — his Document 34 — is annotated in a way no other document in the archive is: Robert Earl marks each person’s relationship to himself — great-grandmother, grandfather, grandmother, father, uncle, great-uncle. It reads like a man locating himself in a street map.

1914–15

• 717 East Greene Street — Catherine (Boeshar) Wildermuth, widow of John M., head of household (great-grandmother), with her son Edward F. Wildermuth, a butcher (great-uncle)
• 739 Greene Street — William Clifford Wildermuth, head of household, machinist (grandfather); Flora (Schlicher), housewife (grandmother); Charles D., eldest son, tool dresser (uncle); Emma, daughter, clerk at L. Gruber and Sons Co. (aunt)

Mother and son on the same street, eleven houses apart.

1919–20

• 710 Second Street — Edward F., laborer, with his wife Jane, and Catherine, retired — she had moved in with her son
• 739 East Greene Street — William Clifford, salesman at the Seyler Hardware Store; Flora, housewife; Earl Adam (father); George D. (uncle)

Flora died in November 1919, so this is very near the last record of her in a household.

1928–29

• 115 South Third Street — Edward F., driver for the Whipple Creamery Company; Jane; and Catherine, widow of John M., 88 years old at this time, retired — twenty-five years a widow, living with the same son
• 417½ Franklin Street — Earl Adam Wildermuth, head of household

That last address matters: Robert Earl was born at 123 Franklin Street in May 1924, and by the 1928–29 directory his father is at 417½ Franklin Street. Either the family moved a few doors along the same street, or one of the two numbers is wrong. The half in 417½ usually means an upstairs flat.

Four occupations for one man

Edward Frederick, the youngest son, is worth following on his own: mechanic (1897), chair factory (1899), butcher (1914), laborer (1919), creamery driver (1928–29). He also housed his mother for the last two decades of her life. He outlived his father by sixty-one years.

A note on these images

The 1897–98 sheet and the 1914–29 extracts are here at full resolution, and the latter corrected four readings taken from a first low-resolution photograph: 717 East Greene (not West), 739 Greene (not 719), 710 Second Street (not 719), and the span 1928–29 (not 1925–29). It also added William Clifford’s 1914 occupation — machinist — and Emma’s employer, L. Gruber and Sons Co.

All four directory years are now here at full resolution on a single consolidated sheet, plus separate sheets for 1897–98 and 1902–03. Between them the better scans have corrected the 1873–74 shop number from 50 to 30 Front Street and confirmed 134 Front, 708 Sixth, 627 Seventh and 611 Washington.

(Robert Earl kept more than one typescript of several of these extracts. The full-resolution 1902–03 sheet carries only the single directory line; a variant of the same page adds his note about the Marietta College Library holdings and John M.’s death in 1903.)

Source: Extracts from Marietta, Ohio city directories, taken by Robert Earl Wildermuth from volumes on file at the Marietta College Library; filed WILD-8. Companion: the 1860 and 1880 censuses.