Our Ohio Farming Heritage

Bolter Rill (a.k.a. Balthazar Rill) was the grandfather of Clara Rill. He was born 23 May 1836 and died 1 June 1913. He farmed in Ottowa County, Clay Township. In 1900, when he was farming, Ottowa County was first in the state in the growing of peaches and grapes for wine.

Clay Township, where Bolter and Catherine lived, had soil that was described as "...the base of the soil of this township is a hard clay, covered with black much very rich and productive. Wheat and corn were staple crops in that township and there were many apple orchards. It mentions that other fruits were raised, but since the township is located too far from the lake, it is more difficult to grow them. It is likely that Bolter and his family raised wheat, corn and other cereal crops. (Source: "U.S. County Land Ownership Atlases" on Ancestry.com)

Matilda and Gottfried Kinsel (Parents of Otto "Adam" Kinsel) also farmed in Ottowa County. In the 1880 census, Gottfried is listed as a "common laborer" and that leads me to believe he didn't own property. By 1900, he is listed as "Farmer" as well as a property owner in Benton Township.

In the US County Land Ownership Atlases cited above, Benton township is described as having "A large foreign element, especially of the German, are among the settlers. The influence of this element has been greatly felt in the work of developing the country, their strong constitutions and steady habits formed in the "Fatherland" fitting them specially for this kind of work."

Otto "Adam" Kinsel (17 Dec. 1857 to 22 Jun. 1896), Dora Treter Kinsel's husband, owned his own farm in Blue Creek Township, Paulding Co. Ohio:

It must have been a difficult place to farm. From what I've read, the land was "low, wet, swampy, timbered with oak, black ash, elm, and cottonwood". The early settlers had to drain the swamps in order to farm and that didn't happen really effectively until about 1880 when the county experienced a bit of a population boom. The drained swampland was very fertile and flat making it a good place for growing crops.

Matilda Elisabeth Draeger Kinsel

Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of Matilda, but I wanted to continue my occasional blog series featuring some of my ancestors and their stories and she is an interesting one to me.

Matilda Elisabeth Draeger was born in Germany 13 Oct 1839. As of right now, I don't know where she was born, who her parents are or much about her life until she married Johann Gottfried Kinsel in 1860 at age 21.

However, the internets have directed me to a book written by an englishman that was published in 1842 that describes "The Rural and Domestic Life of Germany". He paints a picture of small German villages being a lively and interesting place. He describes how many of the houses have arched dorways and several are painted with bright colors and vines trained up the sides. Women gather at centeral fountains to gather water and gossip.

He describes young German girls of the time like this "The children are odd little objects; thick, well fed and with plenty of hair, in German fashion; the little girls, in bodices which seemed ready to burst with plumpness with their hair in tails. The larger having their tails hanging down theeir backs and the smaller, having theirs brought from the sides of their heads in hanging bows to their ears over which they pass. Most of them were without shoes and stockings."

On 20 May 1872, Matilda and Gottfried and what appears to be their 6 (!) children and 448 other passsengers boarded the ship Celestial Empire in Bremen, Germany to join the first wave of German immigrants migrating to the American midwest- in their case, Ohio.

After about 8 weeks of travel, they arrived in New York on 15 July 1872. And according to the captian, the voyage was not easy. I found a description from the Captains log of this particular voyage (!) and he described it "... have had but 8 dry days during the entire passage; has had 1 birth and 14 deaths...".

Matilda and Gottfried settled in Benton, Ottawa County Ohio. She lived there until her death on 30 Dec. 1922. When I have more time, maybe I'll start a "part 2" to cover her life in the U.S.

Julia Dorthea Treter Kinsel

This is the beginning of an occasional series where I attempt to flesh out the lives of our ancestors. This will likely lean heavily toward the Kinsel side of things (sorry Mom) since the Mongomery line has lots of stories and work done.

Julia "Dora" Treter Kinsel was born in Yurneschavo, Cries Schroda Province, Posen, Germany. Here parents were Daniel and Julia Baumert Treter. She had 3 brothers and one sister-, Ferdinand, Edward, Ameal (possibly Emil) and Anna.

In 1964, when Dora was just 14, her family left from Hamburg, Germany on the ship Thuringia. She and her family settled in Caroll, Ohio. Her father is listed in both the passenger list and in the 1889 census as being a "farmer". During the 1800's, many German immigrants came to Ohio to take part in the American dream. Most of their neighbors in the 1880 census are all from Germany or Prussia, so it perhaps wasn't as much of a "culture-shock" as we might think to move from her home in Germany to Ohio.

Dora met Otto "Adam" Emil Kinsel, another German Immigrant, and they were married 11 Mar, 1883. They had 6 children- 5 boys Emil Otto, Edward August, Henry Willie, Alfred August and Otto Godfriedt. Their oldest was their only girl- Matilda Dorthea.

[caption id="attachment_376" align="aligncenter" width="573" caption="Dora and her sons in 1946."][/caption]

Adam died when Matilda was just 13 years old. According to his obituary, he was "attempting to raise a bent" (i learned that a "bent" is an individual assembled section of timber that makes up the framework of a barn) with his wife and two brothers. One of the posts slipped and he fell and got caught between the plank and a sill. His head was "mangled" and had a number of ribs broken.

I can only imagine what it must have been like for Dora- not only did she lose her husband, but her children weren't old enough to really help out with the farm - their only means of income. The 1900 census shows that they had a hird laborer working for them on the farm. That must have been a big help.

Dora died 2 September, 1950 at the age of 89.