ancestor-sketch
John Michael Wildermuth — Robert Earl Wildermuth's finished account
Robert Earl Wildermuth's completed prose account of his great-grandfather Johann (John) Michael Wildermuth (1830–1903), written after the fifteen-year letter campaign that produced the naturalization records, the obituary, the census transcriptions and the marriage records. It sets out the 1847 crossing with the Roessar family, the two Philadelphia court appearances of 1852 and 1853, the move to Ohio around 1858, the 1862 marriage to Catharina Boeshar, the thirty years of shoemaking at 134 Front Street, and the sudden death in February 1903. Two details in it are now known to be wrong — the parents' death dates — but on the naturalization it is the clearest statement in the file.
This is the piece all the letters were for. After fifteen years of writing to courthouses, town halls, cemeteries and parish offices, Robert Earl Wildermuth sat down and wrote his great-grandfather’s life as continuous prose.
The text
JOHN MICHAEL WILDERMUTH
JOHANN (JOHN) MICHAEL WILDERMUTH was born the 23rd of August 1830 in the town of Grossaspach in the German Duchy of Wuerttemberg. He was the son of Johann Christian and Maria Margaretha Schmidgall Wildermuth.
In 1847, travelling in the company of William and Frederika Roessar, he left Germany for America. This is the same year that his mother died; his father had preceded his mother in death some five years earlier. William Roessar was a shoemaker as was Johann Michael’s father.
The Roessar’s and Johann arrived at the Port of New York and then proceeded on to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where they resided for five years. On the first day of November 1852, Johann presented himself to the Clerk of the Court of Quarter Sessions of the Peace in Philadelphia County and renounced his allegiance to the Grand Duke of Wuerttemberg and stated his intention to become a United States citizen. Again on the first of November 185[3], having fulfilled the citizenship requirements of residing in one State for one year and the United States for five years, Johann appeared in court and petitioned to become a citizen of the United States. He took the oath of allegiance that same day and thus became JOHN Michael Wildermuth, AMERICAN.
Little can be found of John during the next ten years but on the 16th of June 1860, John appears in the Federal Census taken for that year in Washington County, Ohio. He is still a member of the William Roessar household which now included William, his wife Frederika and six children. The first four Roessar children were born in Pennsylvania but the fifth child Charles, two years old at the time, was born in Ohio — thus John and the Roessars must have come to Ohio in about 1858. In this census John gives as his occupation, shoemaker.
On September 3rd 1862, John made application to marry Miss Catherina Boeshar who also resided in Marietta, Washington County, Ohio and on the 7th day of September 1862, the Reverend A.H. joined these two in matrimony.
The next accounting of Mr. & Mrs. John Wildermuth is the 1870 Federal Census for Washington County and at that time they had been blessed with two children, John Charles aged 7 and my grandfather William Clifford Wildermuth aged 4. To this union was to come one more son, Edward born in 1873. For the next thirty years John worked as a shoemaker and had his own shop at 134 Front Street.
On Monday, 9 February 1903, it was announced in the Marietta Times newspaper that John Wildermuth had died very suddenly, at home, on Saturday the 7th of February, 1903. The cause of death was given as heart trouble and asthma. Johann (John) Michael Wildermuth is buried in the Oak Grove Cemetery, Marietta, Ohio. He was 72 years old at the time of his death.
What it settles
The naturalization. This is the clearest statement anywhere in the file, and it describes two court appearances a year apart — the declaration on 1 November 1852, then the petition and oath. (He types “1852” the second time as well, but “Again on the first of November” cannot mean the same day, and the surviving petition is dated 1 November 1853.) The index entry he had found in Orlando gives 11-01-1852 for the declaration; the paper in hand gives 1853 for the oath. He got there.
The shop. “For the next thirty years John worked as a shoemaker and had his own shop at 134 Front Street.” His 1978 letter had said only “lower Front Street.” Here is the number.
When they came to Ohio. Not from any record that says so, but from arithmetic on the Roessar children: four born in Pennsylvania, the fifth born in Ohio and two years old in 1860. About 1858 — eleven years in Pennsylvania, not the five he says earlier in the same paragraph.
What it gets wrong
Two things, both about the generation above, and both now corrected by the Großaspach Familienregister — which he obtained after writing this:
| This account | The parish register | |
|---|---|---|
| Mother’s death | 1847 | 30 December 1841 |
| Father’s death | c. 1842, before the mother | 7 October 1842, ten months after her |
He had the order reversed and the mother’s year six years late. The correction matters for the story: the emigrant was not a boy who left in the year his mother died. He had been an orphan for five years by the time he sailed.
Two pages, and a life
The account runs to two typed pages, the second carrying only its last line.
Written c. 1990, Casselberry, Florida. Companion records: the 1903 obituary, the 1862 marriage and 1870 census, the Philadelphia index entries, the cemetery register, and the letter campaign that produced them all.
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