Johann Christian Wildermuth

Johann Christian Wildermuth was born 10 October 1794 in Großaspach, in the Backnang district of Württemberg — the village his father Adam Wildermuth had moved to from Rielingshausen and where he himself died in 1800. Johann Christian was a shoemaker in Großaspach by trade, the same craft his son Johann Michael would carry across the Atlantic to Marietta in 1847.

The marriage record in Robert Earl’s “Little Histories” is unusual: he married Maria Margaretha Schmidgall of Röhrach on 25 April 1842 in the town of Ristenau, and died less than six months later on 7 October 1842, age forty-eight. Johann Michael was already twelve years old when the 1842 marriage took place — meaning Johann Christian was almost certainly married once before to Johann Michael’s birth mother, whose name is not recovered in the family record. The GEDCOM places at least eight children in his family @F121@, several of whom did not survive infancy.

Three years after Johann Christian’s death, his teenage son Johann Michael — both parents now gone — would join the Roessar family of Baden on the long Atlantic crossing to New York.

Sources: Robert Earl Wildermuth’s “Little Histories” — Johann Christian Wildermuth sketch; GEDCOM — Dale Eesley / FamilySearch, sync 1 June 2026.