Weser Death Notices

I've just add the following death records to the Picasa picture site:

• Nancy J. Wigal Weser - died 1896 - Roman's wife
• Roman Weser - died 1899
• Daniel Weser - died 1902 - Matthew and Rebecca's son
• George Alexander Weser - died 1901 - Roman and Nancy's son
• Rebecca Wigal Weser - died 1912 - Matthew's wife
• Teresa Weser Stehle - died 1941 - Roman and Nancy's daughter, Reinhard's wife
• Mary A. Weser - died 1943 - Roman and Nancy's daughter

Click the link on the title of this post to see the notices. If they do not download in a resolution suitable to viewing, let me know.

Stehle Addition, Fairview Heights 1896-1914

I went to the records office at the Washington County courthouse to see if Reinhard had sold any of the lots on the hill subsequent to all those adds he ran in the Marietta Daily Leader in 1896. I was there for two hours.

On 01 APR 1885, Reinhard purchased land up here on the top of Harmar Hill – 98 and 26/100 acres in three parcels – for $4500 from Douglas and Sara Putnam . (Washington County, Ohio Deed Book Vol. 97, Page 202) Douglas Putnam got the land from his father, one of Marietta’s pioneer settlers, David Putnam Sr., on 21 DEC 1877. The Putnams got the land from the Ohio Company.

Max Saik, Reinhard's grandson/Nancy Stehle Saik's son, said in his interview with his nephew Richard Saik that Reinhard had earned the money to buy the land on Harmar Hill from selling honey. That would have had to have been a massive amount of honey! I think he had some other source of income.

Reinhard had 25 and 48/100 acres of his original purchase platted as the Stehle Addition. (Plat Book 3, Page 57) The plat map, dated 08 APR 1896, is available at the Washington County courthouse. The streets have changed since the time the plat was made. The original Fairview Avenue shown on the plat map has long been abandoned. Its former location can be still be seen as a flat area in the woods down over the front of the hill to the east of the Fairview Lane houses at the crest of the hill. The street currently named Fairview Lane appears on the plat map as an unnamed alley between Fairview Avenue and Summit Street. The northern ends of both Summit and Beaver Streets exist today. The rest of these two streets as well as all of North and South Streets were never developed and were totally abandoned when Marietta bought the Stehle Addition as a public park – Lookout Park – in the 1960s. The entrance to the park is where the former North Street intersected Lancaster Street.

I found many deeds from real estate sales – mostly from the Stehle Addition on Fairview Heights with a few other sales in Marietta and Warren Townships. Between 1896 and 1904, 23 Stehle Addition lots were sold to 13 different buyers for a total of $9086.00 dollars. Saida Palmer was the first buyer and she bought the most land in the addtion – 8 lots for $3500 on 01 JUL 1896. John Stehle got one lot for $1 on 01 JAN 1900. Other single lots sold for between $250 and $700 depending upon the lot’s size and location. All deeds list both Reinhard and Teresa (Weser) Stehle as the owners.

The other 4 deeds (from 1900, 1904, & 1912) are for land not included in the Stehle Addition. Those sales brought in a total of $6800 – with one purchase in 1912 bringing in $6000 of that total. There were also 3 listings for rights of way that brought in a total of $13.00. Two were for the Central District and Printing Telegraph Company of Pennsylvania (1905, 1906) and the other was for the Buckeye Pipeline Company (1909).

Total Real Estate Transactions: 1896-1912: $15,899

On 10 JAN 1914, about a month after Reinhard died, his will was probated and Teresa was given title to the land (Washington County, Ohio Deed Book. Vol. 147, Page 144). The will is recorded in the Will Record Book Volume 15, Page 132. I have not looked it up at this point.

Chart of deeds: Date, Buyer, Washington County Deed Book Vol. & Page, Location/Description, Price

• 3 JUL 1896, Saida M. Palmer, 119-602, Lots 128-129-130-131-132-133-134-135-136 – Stehle Add., $3500
• 28 AUG 1899, J. F. Wehr Jr., 131-576, Lots 143, 145, 147 – Stehle Add., $900
• 27 JAN 1900, John R. Stehle, 131-279, Lot 140 – Stehle Add., $1
• 25 AUG 1900, Edward A. Pfeiffer, 132-143 – Sec 35 Twnshp. 2 Range 8, 1½ acres, $300
• 15 AUG 1901, Wm. H. Leeper, 136-502, Lot 137 – Stehle Add., $600
• 3 JUL 1901, H. N. Curtis, 136-587, Lot 155 – Stehle Add., $500
• 11 OCT 1901, Mary O. Newbeck, 138-272, Lot 138 – Stehle Add., $700
• 18 FEB 1902, Anna M. Wallace, 138-545, Lot 139 – Stehle Add., $350
• 19 JUL 1902, C. W. Race, 140-453, Lot 208 – Stehle Add., $250
• 15 OCT 1902, Virginia Schafer, 142-367, Lots 144 & 146 – Stehle Add., $600
• 9 MAY 1903, Dennis J. Crowley, 144-205, Lot 142 – Stehle Add., $375
• 18 APR 1904, W. T. Buell, 148-85, Lot 154 – Stehle Add., $550
• 28 APR 1904, James E. Dewess, 148-169, Lot 209 – Stehle Add., $260
• 12 JUL 1904, Lucy M. Cole, 148-567, Lot 169 – Stehle Add. $500
• 13 JUL 1904, Fremont D. Coffman, 150-176, Sec 35 Twnshp 2 Range 8 – 160 acres - 30 feet wide, $100
• 7 SEP 1905, C.D. & P.T.Co. PA, 153-349, Right of Way – Harmar Twnshp., $2
• 5 DEC 1906, C.D. & P.T.Co. PA, 157-500, Right of Way – Marietta Twnshp.,$1
• 10 NOV 1909, Buckeye Pipeline, 168-83, Right of Way – Muskingum Twnshp., $10
• 26 MAR 1912, Wm. A. Reed, 171-301, Sec 5 Twnshp. 2 Range 9 – Lot 178 Warren and Sec 35 Twnshp. Sec 2 Range 8 Lot 66 – Marietta Twhnshp., $6000
• 2 AUG 1912, John S. Craig, 172-36, Lot 28 – Springdale Add., $400
• 10 JAN 1914, Teresa Stehle, 147-144, All personal property and the homestead lots 150-152-154 – Stehle Add., $0

Marietta Daily Leader News Articles 1896-1901

Our local newspaper, The Marietta Times, accounted last week that the Library of Congress had added an early Marietta newspaper (Marietta Daily Leader) to its Chronicling America website. I've been looking for mentions of Stehle's in the years that have already been posted there (1896-1901) and will look again later when they add more years. LOC plans to add 1902-1905.

There were 132 matches for "Stehle." I've added images for ones that match our family to Picassa. That's the link to which the title of this article is connected.

Some of the things that appeared included:

• Ads for Fairview Heights Stehle Addition lots
• A notice that Theresa was to have a inquest on her sanity. Anyone know anything about this???
• Frank Stehle in the High School Cadets, off for a year of law school at OSU, and starting buisiness
• Some of Reinhard's woes like a barn that burned, a suit he lost for having the addition platted, and a suit he won brought by the agent listed in the adds
• Joe Stehle in business and ill with the grip
• John Stehle getting his marriage license, losing his only son, building a house, and Maggie having a birthday party for Ruth.
• Ginny having parties

Sue Luxa's Mermories of Reinhard

Reinhard Stehle By Sue Luxa, April 10, 2007

Reinhard Stehle > Nancy J. (Nan) Stehle Saik > Matthew J. (Max) Saik > Sue Saik Luxa

His photograph, sepia-toned and frayed, resides in my room of memories. He is handsome with a snow-white beard, a hat perched properly on top of his head with rimless glasses that looked into the present, but saw the past. His three-piece suit is buttoned, and I imagine a watch fob dangling from his pants' waist. Strangely, there appears to be a cast on his left hand. Was it a farming accident? Had he fallen unexpectedly? Why had he allowed the photographer to take his picture with his casted hand so prominently displayed? As in most old pictures, he never smiles, and I wonder what stories he could tell me.

He was my father's favorite grandparent, Reinhard Stehle, a good German whose ancestors had plied their trade as shoemakers in the Black Forest. What convinced him to decide to immigrate to America? Was there a depression? Was it a sense of adventure? Was it his unwillingness to serve in the German military? Had a relative ventured overseas and beckoned and beguiled him with America's possibilities?

My father told stories about the old house in Marietta, Ohio, that he would visit in the summers. He told of jumping off the hayloft into softness below, holding his grandfather's hand as they trekked down Harmer Hill to town. I imagine Dad with his shank of unruly hair, huge brown eyes and suspendered pants looking up adoringly at a man who must have seemed bigger than life.

The story is told that he fell through a trapdoor in the hayloft and was injured.

Today, he probably would have survived. It must have been undiagnosed internal injuries that led to his death. He lingered for several days before he died. It must have been sad news to a little boy who had loved and played with him so long ago.

As a child I returned to the very same house a generation later. My maiden Aunt Ginnie lived in the house now with its musty, mildewed odor; it's large front room. To a child, it seemed dark with its shades partially drawn against the sun's rays. It was where adults talked endlessly about family and farm. It was a house that had an attic up the stairs, a dreamscape of old letters, picturesque stamps, funny-looking clothes ... a child's delight.

It was an ancestral home, a log cabin in its beginnings with the trappings of civilization slowly added, with a trellised front porch and rocking chairs, flowers blooming in the yard and the view of the Muskingum River flowing down and over the hill. It had been home to my ancestors, some of whom I had never met, but I knew for sure it was my beginning, as surely as the river flowed below.