Technology Tuesday

"Where are you finding all this stuff?"
So where is all this information coming from?  There are a lot of great sources to use online (and better still, they're free).Here's a couple the more recent sources.

• Google's search engine is sometimes the best starting point. Try googling "Henry Gehner, Sr." and you'll get his headstone from findagrave.com, his biography in the 1911 History of Macoupin County, Illinois in Google Books, and hopefully soon this blog. Putting in Fred Gehner gave hiss patents (in the previous post), and a lot more.
• A big component of what Google has for genealogists is hidden over in Google Books.  Most things published in the US before 1923 are in the public domain now, and Google has been scanning many of the collections of the Big Ten and other university libraries.  Great stuff there. Their scanners are much better than any consumer-grade scanner I've ever seen- their scan of the picture of Henry Sr and Caroline (Weisbrodt) Gehner in the 1911 History of Macoupin County is almost better quality than the copy in the book at the farm in Illinois.
• Familysearch.org is the non-profit established by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to be the online presence for their family research efforts. There is a HUGE amount of new stuff coming in the future years, as they digitize more and more of their records with their recent  agreement with Ancestry.com to digitize some billion records over the next five years.  They have many of the records already, but it meant having to order microfilms and spend your day at a film reader scrolling through the film. This is just the beginning.  If you haven't ever seen it, the online tour of Granite Mountain (the film vault in Utah) of their collection is amazing.
• The Family History's microfolm collection includes the baptism, marriage and death records for the Lutheran church in Borgholzhausen for 1644-1921.  If you want to spend days staring at Germanic script, generations of Gehners and Schweppes are probably all there to be found. 
• Taufen-baptisms
• Hieraten- marriages
• Tote- deaths

Over there! The Gehner boys in WWI

In honor of the Gehner who enlisted and died in the war to end all wars.

Information here is based on what I've found in passing; actual military service records may be a challenge to ever find details about, given the 1973 fire at the NPRC (National Personnel Records Center) in St. Louis damaged or destroyed 80% of the Army personnel records for 1912-1960

Martin Henry Gehner

Son of William Gehner
(Grandson of Henry Gehner, Sr.)
Battery F, 327th Field Artillery, 
84th Division- the Lincoln Division

The first time I saw Martin's headstone I wondered about his story- did he die in battle, was he wounded?  What happened to him?

What do we know about his unit- the 327th Field Artillery?

History of the 327th

The 327th Field Artillery was one of three artillery companies (325-327) which were associated to the 84th Infantry Division, which was made up of National Guard troops from Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky- hence the division name of "the Lincoln division" and the division's shoulder patch.   A history of the companion 325th Artillery indicates the 84th left their cantonment camp in Kentucky (Camp Zachary Taylor) in mid-August 1918 for transport to Europe. They were apparently sent to Le Mans, France where they were used as replacement troops in other units.

The Mt Olive Herald  reprinted an article from the State Register of the 23rd. "Carlinville- Major John Homer of the heavy field artillery of the regular army, now in France, writes home to his parents here, praising greatly his Macoupin County men recently put in his command.
"The men are from Mt. Olive and Benld and he says are the most wildly reckless fighters he has ever seen.... Their eagerness to get down to hard work was in evidence from the first and that they have made good is a pleasure to their friends at home. The boys from Mt. Olive, Benld and Staunton certainly have their folks at home back of them, heart and pocket book. Every family in Mt. Olive is said to have a Liberty bond. In Staunton tar and feathers is applied to every disloyal citizen." (Mt Olive Herald 28 September 1918, page 1)

Sidenote- the anti-German sentiments during the war (along with anti-labor sentiments) combined in this highly German coal mining area to make for some ugly times.  There is at least one documented case of tarring and feathering at Staunton, and there are unmentioned incidents in Mount Olive and Hillsboro in a pamphlet published by the National Civil Liberties Bureau in July 1918, scanned and available on Google Books.

Back to Martin

The November 9th, 1918 edition of the Mount Olive Herald had a front page article titled "Killed In Battle".  Unfortunately, the first two sentences of the article aren't legible due to the poor quality of the microfilm (it's right on the fold of the newspaper).  The legible part below the fold shows "fighting in France October 3rd.  His parents received a letter this week stating the facts. He is the first Mt. Olive boy to die on the field of battle.
"Word was also received that Martin Gehner, son of Wm. Gehner, has died in France of Pneumonia."

Several other Mt Olive boys were reported wounded in the same article.

Long story short; Martin's involvement in fighting on the Western Front was short at best.We may never know the full story of his time in Europe since his unit was used as replacement troops (not as a cohesive unit) but the timing of the Lincoln Division's arrival in France and the letter from the major from Carlinville at least some combat action is possible.

References:

• Martin's headstone image by Rick Doty, Macoupin County Genealogy Society.  Accessed 11/6/2013
• Microfilms of the Mt. Olive Herald at the Mt Olive City Library.
• 84th Division discussion on Ancestry.com discussion forums
• 84th Division history (84th Division Alumni Association) Accessed 11/8/2013.

Farmland Friday

Arkebauer Co-Founders of Mt. Olive?

Instead of watching the Cardinals lose the last game of the World Series, I spent Wednesday night reading the latest batch of Mt. Olive Herald newspapers sent by my mother-in-law. I noticed an ad for a contest to design the logo for Mt. Olive's 150th celebration in 2015.  That got me to thinking- as Mt Olive celebrates its history, they're going to celebrate John C Niemann as the town's founding father.  It may be time for the descendents of Meint Arkebauer (including those Gehners descended through his son-in-law Henry Gehner, Jr) to get him his proper recognition in creating Mt. Olive along with John Niemann.

Whose land is it anyway?

The original town of Mt. Olive as shown on the 1875 Atlas of Macoupin County (page 39 for Staunton Township) was two blocks either side of Main Street and by 1875 3 blocks either side of Poplar Street.  Most histories will credit John C. Niemann as the founder of Mt. Olive.

True, John Niemann was probably the first German here (his 1879 bio puts it as the only German between Edwardsville and Carlinville). It is also probably true that he had a big role in creating the town with the Niemann store.

But when you look at the township plat for the area around Mt. Olive in 1875, something strange pops out:

Mount Olive's Main Street is on the section line; the north of the street was from one owner and south of Main Street is another in another section of land.  Meint Arkebauer and a cousin of his (Gerd Gerdes Arkebauer) own the northwest part of section 11. The map in this case may distort the relative size of the town lots, but it would appear that at least the southwest part of the original town of Mt. Olive is Arkebauer land.  Above the town, there is a 20 acre plot of land labeled G.G.A.- is this another piece of Gerd's farm in 1875?

Side note: the Cross and "Cem" in section 2 on the H. Prange land?  That's what will become the Mount Olive City Cemetery with Immanuel Cemetery to the north of it and the Union Miner's Cemetery next to it.  The second burial in what will become the city cemetery is Meint's uncle Gerd G Arkebauer in July 1854.

When you take Meint's land and plot it's rough location on Google Earth (white outline), you'll see how Mt Olive has grown into part of it, and how G. G Arkebauer's 80 acres (in blue) next to Meint's land has pretty much been taken over by the city.

While John Niemann is honored for his work (and rightly should be, since much of northeast Mt Olive is on his original land and he is the first German settler in this region, bringing others to the area including another man from his hometown of Borgholzhausen-- Johann Heinrich Gehner), the Arkebauers are right there too in the founding of Mt Olive- both on the ground as farmers and land owners and IN the ground at the cemetery.

John Niemann's 1879 biography
John Niemann's baptism in Borgholzhausen in 1817