A Rural Farming Community
My wife Jean’s mother Ruth is one of eleven Ochs siblings that grew up in Stringtown, a farming community in southeast Illinois about 10 miles northeast of Olney, the county seat and former stage stop (later railway town) along the route from Cincinnati to St. Louis. Ruth’s German-born 2nd great-grandparents Johannes (John) and Maria Anna (Mary Ann) Ochs arrived in Stringtown in 1844. They and other pioneer families worked the soil and built the community that endures today.
Family Reunion
Almost every year since 1937, John and Mary Ann’s descendants have organized an Ochs reunion. Though some of these gatherings have occurred in nearby towns or farming communities, the majority have taken place at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Stringtown.
Jean and I attended the 2022 reunion, where we met and socialized with her aunts, uncles, cousins, and extended relations. We toured the historic church, prayerfully walked atop the mortal remains of six generations of Jean’s family, and visited two nearby farms that remain in Ruth’s immediate family.
Government Land Sales
Following the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress sought ways to fund the new federal government. It was finally agreed that the 13 original states would cede western holdings, four additional states would be created (Vermont, Maine, Kentucky, Tennessee), and the Northwest Territory would be surveyed for the benefit of the U.S. government. Portions were set aside as bounty land for Revolutionary War veterans, with the remainder to be sold to raise revenue. These lands became the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
Public Land Survey “Township and Range” System
The future states were surveyed and platted using the Public Land Survey System, which separated the land into Ranges of Townships consisting of 36 one square mile (640 acre) Sections, which could be further divided into as many as 16 forty-acre plots. Government Land Offices (GLOs) were created to keep the plat books and to administer and record sales of the land. One of these GLOs was in Palestine, Illinois, adjacent to the Indiana border about and 30 miles northeast of Stringtown. In 1830, 21-year old Abraham Lincoln visited Palestine on his way to Decatur and destiny.1
German Township
John, Mary Ann, and their three young children settled in Township 4N of Range 14W, then or later called “German Township.” Townships were usually named for early settlements or settlers. The earliest land patents I found for German Township are from 1831. Land documents show that Mary Ann Ochs’ older brother Ignatius Weiler bought land in Stringtown in 1839. Mary Ann, John, their three children (and other family members including John’s widowed mother?) arrived in Stringtown in 1844, where they lived, farmed, and had four more children before John went to the Palestine GLO to purchase a 40-acre plot of land of their own in 1853. It is probable they already owned land (purchased from original settlers), worked the land of other farmers, or both. In any event, John and Mary Ann’s oldest sons were now 14 and 11, and ready to take on greater responsibilities.
A 1901 county atlas bears the names of the then-landowners in the 36 Sections of German Township. Schneiders, Zubers, Kochers, Ginders, and others have become part of the Ochs family line over the years. “Ochs” farmland is scattered across the 1901 map (detail below). St. Joseph Church, the site of our 2022 reunion and the new cemetery (1900 to present), was and is (barely legible) on the northwest corner of Section 9. The farm Ruth and her siblings grew up on is at the southwest corner of Section 8, in 1901 owned by Ruth’s great-grandmother Catharine (Dehlinger) Ochs, widow of great-grandfather Henry Ochs, son of John and Mary Ann. It is currently owned and maintained by Ruth’s brother Fred and his sons. The old St. Joseph cemetery (1841-1900) lies just up the road in Section 7 on John Ginder land. The large parcel in the northwest corner of Section 4 was owned by Simon and Elizabeth (Ochs) Schneider, daughter of John and Mary Ann. Ruth’s sister Ethel Schneider and her son continue live and work there today. The country store and “Stringtown P.O.” (both now closed, Section 32/33) was run for many years by Dory and Dolly (Ochs) Koelker, granddaughter of Henry Ochs.
German Township has changed very little in 180 years. Ochs descendants wrote and disseminated a family history and genealogy in 1938, updated the text in 1952 and 1978, and added to the narrative in 2013.2 It would also be interesting to locate, trace, and map the Ochs land sales and purchases over the years, and to ascertain which farms and properties remain in the extended families to this day.
1 Advisory Council on Historic Preservation https://www.achp.gov/preserve-america/community/palestine-illinois accessed February 2024
2 “Family Tree of the Ochs Family,” Dr. A.D. Schneider and Simon Ochs (1938, 1952), “Descendants of Anthony and Clara Ochs Family,” Catherine “Dolly” (Ochs) Koelker, Norma Kocher, Kathy Ochs, Anna (Ochs) Reinhart, Carol Reinhart (1978), “Life in Stringtown,” John and Susan Ochs, Norma Kocher (2013)
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