♂John Hartman

John Hartman (c. 1813 – 1896) was a German-born blacksmith, and later a grocer, at Mount Carmel in Wabash County, Illinois, where he lived from the 1840s until his death. He was the great-great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his daughter Mary Hartman (1850–1920), her son Sereno Watson Schneck (1875–1953) and his daughter Mary Esther Schneck (1900–1968).

Origins and marriage

He was born about 1813 in the Grand Duchy of Hesse^W, then commonly called Hesse-Darmstadt: the census of 1860 gives his birthplace as “Hessen D.S.”, and the index of his daughter Lydia’s death record of 1934 gives her father’s birthplace as Hesse Darmstadt. A family lineage chart compiled in 1994 gives his birth as 10 June 1813 at “Boverhausen”, Darmstadt; the town’s name may be a misreading, and no record confirms either the date or the town.

His parents are not known. The same chart leaves his father’s given name blank and says only that he died at Allegheny City^W, Pennsylvania; no record confirms it.

When he came to America is not recorded. On 22 February 1840 he married Mary Beal (1824–1890); her obituary of 1890 gives the date, and says that she had come to America in 1839 and became a resident of Mount Carmel on 27 April 1844. The index of the 1850 census gives their eldest daughter, Caroline, a birthplace in Pennsylvania about 1844. The family record names eight children, born between 1844 and 1860.

Mount Carmel

The censuses of 1850 and 1860 list him at Mount Carmel as a blacksmith. The 1860 census, taken on 27 June, values his real estate at $3,500 and his personal estate at $2,000, and lists with him his wife and five children, all born in Wabash County. By 1880 he had become a grocer: the census of 1 June 1880 lists him, aged 66, with his wife, their daughter Elisa, aged 20, and a thirteen-year-old girl, Ollie Smith, described as his niece. A county history of 1883 records that a daughter, called Vina there, had married a saddler named Smith in 1868 and died on 13 October of that year, leaving an infant daughter, Laura Vina Smith; the records do not show whether Ollie was that granddaughter.

His wife died in 1890 and was buried in Rose Hill Cemetery at Mount Carmel. He died in 1896. A Find a Grave index entry places his grave at Rose Hill Cemetery, and the 1994 chart gives his death as 20 October 1896 at Mount Carmel; the year and the day rest on those compilations.

Notes

The index of the 1850 census gives his birth year as 1820; his ages in 1860 (47) and 1880 (66) point to 1813 or 1814. One of the eight children, Josephine, said to have been born in 1852, has been found in no record: the 1860 census, taken when she would have been about eight, does not list her, and a search of the FamilySearch indexes for her in Wabash County and across Illinois found nothing.