Stark County, Ohio, 1839

The Inventory, Auction, and Discharge of the Valentine Ochs Estate

The Ochs Family of Rheinheim and Ohio

My wife Jean’s German-Catholic ancestors Valentine and Elisabeth Ochs immigrated to America in 1828 accompanied by seven children: Paul, John, Ann Maria, Elizabeth, Peter, Nicolas, and Alice. After arriving, the family lived in New York City for about a year,¹ then made their way to Paris Township in Northeast Ohio, about 12 miles east of Canton, the Stark County seat. Stark County, founded in 1808, consisted of 17 townships. “Perhaps four-fifths of the early population were of German descent,” a county history reported.² Coal and timber were abundant natural resources. Wheat, corn, oats, and other grains were grown on cleared land, and most farms kept sheep, cattle, hogs, and poultry. Fruit orchards and potato patches were also common. Most townships had at least one saw mill, grist mill, and distillery. A plot of each township was usually set aside for a schoolhouse and often for religious meetinghouses.

Stark County, Ohio in the 1830 U.S. Census

Paris Township had a population of 1,513 in 1830, about half of whom were age 15 or older. The 1830 census named only the head of household, with marks indicating the gender and approximate ages of others in the home. Head: Valentine Ochs (age 40-50) Males: One age 10-15 (John, the patriarch of Jean’s Illinois Ochs family); two age 5-10 (Peter and Nicolas). Females: One age 40-50 (Elisabeth); one age 10-15 (Ann Maria); one age 5-10 (Elizabeth); one under age 5 (Alice). Where is Paul, then about age 16? He is nearby, as we’ll see, perhaps hired out to another farmer, or working as an apprentice in the village.

Valentine and Elisabeth Ochs must have hoped, through diligence and determination, to achieve a minimal level of self-sufficiency as a foundation for their children to build upon. In August or September 1839, eleven years after their arrival, Valentine died. Approaching 200 years later, we have a clear picture of how the family was living and how their hopes had by then played out.

The Probate Record of Valentine Ochs

The Stark County Court Clerk’s ledger from 1838-1845 contains some 1,200 pages of detailed estates left by dozens of deceased county residents. Valentine’s probate record fills six pages of the ledger book with precise detail.

It reads, in part: “Know Ye, That Administration of all and singular the goods and chattels, sights and credits which were of Valentine Ox, deceased… is hereby committed unto John Ox, whose duty it shall be to have… all said goods and chattels inventoried and appraised by [three named neighbors], (after setting aside for the widow her wearing apparel, one bed and bedding, and all the wearing apparel of her deceased husband, and such other articles of property as are, or may be, by law exempt from execution, and such provisions or other property as the appraisers aforesaid shall think reasonable, for the support of herself and her children for one year).” Despite its apparent callousness, the parenthetical “setting aside for the widow” clause seems to have been standard legalese.

Where are the Ochs Siblings?

What is intriguing is that 23-year old John is administrator of his father’s estate, and not 27-year old Paul. Some sources hint that Paul was the child of a previous marriage and that his mother died before Valentine married Elisabeth. John may have been appointed because he was the oldest son of the recent widow or because he was the oldest still in the house, but we may never know for sure. The 1840 U.S. Census again only names the head of household with accompanying marks. John is now the head, with his wife Mary Ann (Weiler, newly wed in April), his widowed mother, and only three younger siblings living with him in Paris Township. Peter was likely apprenticed, and one of the girls (probably Elizabeth) must have already been married.

Paul married in June 1839, and in the 1840 Census he is living in Rose Township in neighboring Carroll County with his wife, Elizabeth (Reiner). Ann Maria married a man named Valentine Stich in nearby Louisville, Ohio, in October 1841, but for the moment no further trace of them has been found. Peter was living in a hotel and working as a wagon maker in the village of Paris in 1850. Nicholas, in 1840 perhaps fourteen years old, was shortly afterward apprenticed to a Canton brick maker; he later become an early resident and successful businessman and builder in Iowa City, Iowa. His 1905 obituary stated, “Nicholas Oakes was the youngest son of a family of seven children. [His] boyhood days [in Ohio] were devoted to learning the usual duties of farm life, but he attended the common schools of the district during the winter. His parents inculcated in him many of the worthy principles for which the German people have long been famed and honesty, energy, and enterprise are not the least of these.”³ Little to nothing is currently known about the adult lives Elizabeth and Alice.

Valentine’s Estate Inventory

Valentine’s probate is fascinating and instructive. The introductory administration paragraphs were dated September 9, 1839, and John Ochs was sworn in as executor on September 13. An October 28 appraisal follows. It lists 162 line items ranging from kitchen and eating utensils to the dining table and chairs, beds and bedding, animals, bridles and harnesses, farm and carpentry tools, even a looking glass and a clock. The items are appraised in value from 3¢ to $68.20. Some examples:

• 3¢ (1 horse collar, 1 harrow)
• 12 1/2¢ (1 cow bell, 1 drawing knife, 1 night pot, 1 mead tub, 1 pair hay ladders)
• 25¢ (1 grist stone, 4 horse shoes, 1 tin bucket, 8 bread baskets, 1 lantern, 1 German spinning wheel, 1 small ax, 1 milk strainer)
• 50¢ (1 looking glass, 1 butter churn, 2 pitch forks, 1 pair sheep shears)
• $1.25 (1 lot shoemaker tools, 6 hoes, 6 sickles, 1 shovel plow, a lot of pumpkins)
• $2.50 (9 geese, 3 each bed/bedding, 1 iron kettle, 1 spinning wheel [apparently fancier than the 25¢ German model above])
• $6 (1 clock)
• $4-$12 each (6 cows, 1 bull, 1 calf)
• $12 (11 head of sheep, 1 stove and pipe)
• $15.30 (85 bushels of potatoes)
• $26 (8 hogs)
• $50 (1 gray horse)
• $55 (1 wagon and trimmings)
• $68.20 (110 bushels of wheat. Also listed are bushels of corn, and stacks/sheaves of rye, oats, and hay)

The Set-asides and Auction

A list of items set aside for Valentine’s widow Elisabeth followed, also dated October 28, 1839, which seems to have included a fair amount of household furnishings and appliances (including the clock and looking glass), kitchen utensils, animals, and farming implements. Some fifty or more neighbors bid on the remainder of the estate on November 1. John Ochs purchased the gray horse, the bull, a wind mill, and a goodly number of tools. Paul Ochs bought some his father’s property, and “Widow Ox” bought three chairs. Neighbor Joseph Sealey paid $70 for the “horse wagon and trimmings.”

Discharge of the Valentine Ochs Estate

The next entry is nearly four years later, September 26, 1843. John had collected a large debt from one neighbor and paid off a number of small debts to other neighbors. The County Clerk entered the final tallies from the inventory, sale, and distribution of the balance in the estate. On November 13th, 1843, the probate of Valentine Ochs was officially closed. John and Mary Ann Ochs would soon end their time in Ohio as well.

What happened to Elisabeth?

It is unclear when Valentine’s widow Elisabeth died. It is possible she also had died by 1843. If she lived until 1850 she would have been 68 years-old. The various 1850 censuses indicate Elisabeth is not living with Paul, Peter, John, or Nicholas in their homes. Whether she had already died or was living with Ann Maria, Elizabeth, or Alice we can neither prove nor disprove. At least not yet.

Wagons West, 1844

John and Mary Ann welcomed their third child one month after the probate was closed, in December, 1843. The following spring they said goodbye to extended family and friends, and they loaded their children and worldly goods into a wagon bound for German Township in southeast Illinois, some 500 miles away, where Mary Ann’s older brother had settled a few years before. John and Mary Ann’s son Peter Theodore Ochs, born in Illinois in 1851, later said that his parents made the journey “by team.”¹ There they started a new life and subsequently left a legacy of thousands of descendants, some of whom still farm that very same land today.

¹ “David P. Ochs,” Portrait and Biographical Record of Effingham, Jasper, and Richland Counties, Illinois Containing Biographical sketches (1893), Lake City Publishing, Chicago

²Perrin, William Henry (ed.), History of Stark County, with an Outline Sketch of Ohio, (1881, Baskin and Battey, Chicago)

³ 1905 Iowa City newspaper clipping posted at Ancestry.com. Source details not provided.