John Jacob Schmidt

John Jacob Schmidt is the Bavarian farmer who carried the Schmidt line to Ohio — and, through his daughter Eva, a direct ancestor on Chuck’s maternal Schlicher–Wildermuth line: John Jacob → Eva (Schmidt) Schlicher → Flora Schlicher Wildermuth → Earl Adam Wildermuth → Robert Earl Wildermuth → Terrie → Chuck.

From Bavaria to a farm near Lowell

He was born in June 1817 in Bavaria (the exact day is not recorded) and married Eva Barbara Bourtine. To that marriage were born eight children — four boys and four girls — and in naming the sons John kept the old German custom of giving each boy the name John (Johann) with a different middle name. The family emigrated from Bavaria in the late 1840s: the older children were born in Bavaria, the youngest three in Washington County, Ohio. John became a respected farmer near Lowell, Washington County, Ohio, in the German farming community along the Muskingum above Marietta.

His eight children:

• Johann Andrew Schmidt (b. 1835, Bavaria)
• Eva Schmidt (b. 29 December 1837, Bavaria; d. 24 October 1915) — married Theobald David Schlicher on 20 January 1861 at Marietta; Chuck’s direct ancestor
• John George Schmidt (b. 1841, Bavaria)
• Prist Schmidt (b. 1843, Bavaria)
• Catherine Schmidt (b. 1847, Bavaria)
• John Laurence Schmidt (b. 1849, Washington County, Ohio)
• John Jacob Schmidt Jr. (b. 1853, Washington County, Ohio)
• Adeline Schmidt (b. 1855, Washington County, Ohio)

Death, 1899

His wife Eva Barbara preceded him in death by one year; after she died, John moved in with his son-in-law and daughter, Theobald and Eva (Schmidt) Schlicher, on Greene Street in Marietta. He died there on 25 January 1899, age 81, of “diseases incident to that advanced period of his life” — asthma and old age. His obituary ran in the 26 January 1899 Daily Register of Marietta (on microfilm in the Marietta College Library genealogy section), naming him “a well known and highly respected German resident” and a prominent farmer in the German community; it recorded that he left two sons and two daughters — the daughters being Mrs. Schlicher and Mrs. Lena Schaefer of Marietta — and that his sons then resided in the West.

Source: family-history sheet and transcribed obituary in Chuck’s keeping (“John Jacob Schmidt” and “Obituary — Johann Jacob Schmidt,” citing the Daily Register, Marietta, 26 January 1899, Marietta College Library genealogy section). Corroborated by the Eesley/Wildermuth GEDCOM tree.