Two censuses — the Roessar household in 1860, the Wildermuth household in 1880

Twenty years apart, and they bracket the whole change in Johann Michael Wildermuth’s life: a lodger in another family’s house at twenty-nine, a householder with three sons at forty-nine.

1860 — the Roessar household, Third Ward

Free Inhabitants, 3rd Ward, Marietta City, enumerated 16 June 1860 by L. L. Laflin, Asst. Marshal. Dwelling house 679; family 680.

Name	Age	Occupation	Value	Place of origin
William Rossar	38	Shoe Maker	$300	Baden
Frederika	36	Wife		Wuerttemberg
William	10	Son		Pennsylvania
Frederika	8	Daughter		Pennsylvania
Lizzie C.	6	Daughter		Pennsylvania
Anna	4	Daughter		Pennsylvania
Charles H.	2	Son		Ohio
Henry	1/12	Son		Ohio
John M. Wildermuth	29	Shoe Maker		Wuerttemberg

This is the first record of him in Ohio — thirteen years after landing at New York, still in the household he crossed with, still unmarried, still at the same trade as the man who took him in. The baby Henry is one month old, and the household’s whole property is valued at three hundred dollars.

The four Pennsylvania-born children and then Charles, born in Ohio and two years old, are what let Robert Earl date the move: the whole group came to Ohio around 1857–58.

(The age of 29 fits: born 23 August 1830, he was 29 that June. The surname is spelled Rossar on this sheet and Roessar on others.)

Robert Earl’s note, December 1988

“It is interesting to note that Frederika gives her place of origin as the Duchy of Wuerttemberg while her husband is from the Duchy of Baden. Since John M. Wildermuth was only 17 years of age when he arrived in the United States and he was also from Wuerttemberg, I feel that he and Frederika are related. Not proven at this date.”

The reasoning is sound and the archive can now test it. The Großaspach Familienregister confirms Johann Michael had a sister, Anna Maria, born 8 June 1828, marked nach Amerika — so an emigrant Wildermuth sister does exist. But Frederika is 36 in June 1860, which puts her birth around 1823–24, while Anna Maria would have been exactly 32 that month. Four years is a lot even for a census age, and the given names do not match. The relationship stays unproven, and Frederika probably is not Anna Maria — though a cousin from the same corner of Württemberg would fit everything on the page.

The same note also states that John’s father died in 1842, five years before he left for America — which the parish register confirms exactly (7 October 1842) — and that “his mother died the month after he arrived in America,” i.e. in 1847. That second half is wrong: the register puts her death on 30 December 1841, ten months before her husband. He carried the same error into the narrative he wrote later. The father’s date he had right from the start.

(He adds that 1847 was the year of the Irish potato famine’s worst effects across Europe, and wonders whether that was a factor in the group’s departure. Reasonable, and unprovable from these records.)

1880 — Sixth Street, Second Ward

Schedule 1 — Inhabitants in the 2nd Ward, Marietta. Location: Sixth Street.

Name			Age	Status	Occupation	Origin
Wildermuth, J. M.	W	M	49	Married	Works in shoe shop	Wuertemberg, Germany
Catherine	W	F	39	Married	Keeping House	Bavaria, Germany
Chas. Jr.*	W	M	16	Single	Works in Chair Fact.	Ohio
William C.	W	M	14	Single	Works in Chair Fact.	Ohio
Edward	W	M	7	Single	(blank)	Ohio

The two older boys are in a factory at sixteen and fourteen. Only Edward, at seven, has nothing in the occupation column. That is the household’s economics in one column — a shoemaker who worked in someone else’s shop, and two sons put onto chair frames before either finished growing.

(Robert Earl transcribed this census twice. The cleaner sheet, reproduced here, leaves Edward’s occupation blank; an earlier draft wrote “In School,” presumably from the census’s separate school-attendance column. Neither is the original schedule.)

The one in the middle, William C., fourteen years old at a chair factory, is William Clifford Wildermuth — and Robert Earl’s note under the table settles a question the archive had wobbled on:

“Given name is John Charles Wildermuth but throughout life went by name Charlie.”

and on his other draft of the same page:

“John’s wife is Catherine Boeshar. … William C. Wildermuth is my grandfather.”

Stated plainly, in his own research file. The 1990 Heritage later referred to “John Wildermuth” as his grandfather, which is where the confusion came from; here, working from the census, he has it right.

A note on these images

Both sheets are now here at full resolution, and between them they corrected six readings taken from the first low-resolution photographs: John M.’s age in 1860 (29, not 26), the Rossar property value ($300, not $500), the family visitation number (680, not 980), the note’s date (December 1988, not 1980), the nickname (Charlie, not Charles), and Edward’s occupation in 1880 (blank, not “In School”). The full sheet also adds the race, sex and marital-status columns.

Sources: 1860 and 1880 federal censuses for Washington County, Ohio, transcribed by Robert Earl Wildermuth with research notes dated December 1988; filed WILD-8. Companion: the Marietta city directories.