Harshbarger line: Conrad Mentzer 1799-1880

First, let me give much credit where much credit is due:  Much of the material in this blog post was located by a distant cousin to my husband, Anne M Caston.  I had bits and pieces, (most of the census records) but she has found much more.  Anne, I certainly appreciate you and would love to meet you some time!

Second, let me say that census takers, church pastors, and transcribers, among others, have made it immensely difficult to trace this man.  I don't know of many other people, in our families, who have had their surnames spelled in so many different ways.  except for possibly his wife's surname.  It's no wonder that it has taken more than one person to figure this much out.  I hope someone, sometime, will see this post and be willing to join us in our search. 

And third, it helps not at all that there was another Conrad Mentzer born in 1799, who is mostly documented in Washington County, Maryland.  That Conrad is not ours and he is not very closely related to this Conrad Mentzer.

And as always, despite fairly good records and documentation, there is still much we don't know about Conrad, such as the minor detail of the identity of his mother, and what he was doing in 1820, and of course the always present question of "Why?"  In this case, my big "Why" is "Why did you move to Stark County, Ohio, and why move when you did?" 

So let's start with what we know.  Conrad Mentzer was born March 25, 1799 and baptized June 16, 1799 at the Emanuel Lutheran Church, Brickerville, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  His parents were John and Margreth (Margaret) Mentzer, and he was one of eleven children born to the couple. Our first record of him as an adult is on August 29, 1819 in the same church, when he married Elizabeth Tullepan/Dulibon and various other spellings.  The next record is the 1820 census in Elizabeth Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where he is listed as being a while male, aged 16-25, living with a white female aged 16-25, and one female unger age 10. This would be their first daughter, Leah, who was born November 6, 1819.  The young couple certainly had very little time to spend together before their family started arriving.  In the 1820 census, Conrad is listed as being in "manufacture" rather than agriculture or commerce.  I'd love to know what he was doing! 

There is a reference to a Conrad Mentzer who owned land in Clay Township in Lancaster County Pennsylvania in 1828 but I am not sure that this is our Conrad.  John Mentzer had died in 1821 so it's possible that Conrad was able to purchase land there.  Clay Township was not formed until 1853 and is right next door to Elizabeth Township, so possibly this is our guy.  He was listed in 1830 as living in Elizabeth township.  By this time, he was in the male 30-39 column, Elizabeth was in the 30-39 age column, and there were one male aged 5-9 (Joel), 2 females under 5 (Susan and Catherine), one female aged 5-9 (Caroline), and one female aged 10-14 (Leah).  If the couple had additional children, he or she was born and died between the census years.

Interestingly, the name above Conrad's name in the 1830 census is that of Margaret Mentzer, who is between the ages of 60 and 70, and who had two males living with her, aged 15-20 and one female aged 20-30.  This was likely the mysterious Margreth/Margaret, mother of Conrad.  I don't yet have a death date for Margaret, but one wonders if she had died, or gone to live with one of the older children, soon after this. 

We don't know exactly when the Mentzer family moved to Stark County, Ohio but Conrad purchased land there, with a recorded date of May 17, 1831.  He paid $400 for 80 acres of land, which showed the price of inflation in just a few short years.  Earlier, land in this area was going for $1.50 an acre.  He may have been there that year and cleared land or/and planted crops, with or without his family.  Elizabeth had her hands full, whenever she arrived, and we can bet that daughters Leah and Caroline helped watch the younger children when they weren't helping Elizabeth with chores. 

The 1840 census shows "Coaured Mincer" living in Franklin Township, Summit County.  By now, the children were older, but all except Leah still at home.  It appears that Franklin Township, Summit County, may have been very close to Elizabeth Township, Stark County.  If Conrad sold his land in Elizabeth township, we've not yet found record of it.  It's possible that  township boundaries were still not settled, or that the census taker simply got it wrong.  Of special note is that there was no mention of Elizabeth.  Divorce records should be checked as a precaution, which I haven't done yet, but it's probably a safe assumption that she had died, after less than 20 years of marriage. 

By 1850 Conrad was back in Jackson Township, Stark County, with wife Elizabeth.  Except, it was a different Elizabeth.  In 1843 he married Elizabeth Balmore Treesh or Trisch, and they were married until Conrad's death in 1880.  This Elizabeth, then, was Catherine Mentzer Harshbarger's stepmother for much longer than her mother had been able to mother her. We have record of Conrad on the agricultural schedule for 1850.  He is reported as having 30 acres of improved land and 25 acres of unimproved land, valued at $1500.  His farm implements were valued at $30, so probably not much more than a plow.  He had three horses, three milch cows, one other cattle, six sheep, and three swine.  In the preceding year, he had produced 100 bushels of wheat, 50 bushels of Indian corn, and 25 bushels of oats.

We haven't found him in the 1860 census yet, but in 1870 he was in Jackson Township, Stark County, and is still listed as a farmer.  However, there is no value listed for his farm, but it seems that he still onwed land because there is a later record of a land transfer (after his death) from Conrad to Henry Caston, a son in law.  In 1880, he is listed on the census as a retired farmer, and it's noted that his wife couldn't read or write, so by implication he could do so  That is the last record of Conrad until his death on December 16, 1880. There was no probate until 1883, as far as I can tell, and I am not sure where the death date comes from.  Elizabeth apparently lived longer, but I am not sure of her death date.  There was another Elizabeth Mentzer (maiden name Essig) who died in Masillon, Stark County in 1896, and it's possible that the 1896 death death for Eliabeth Balmore Trisch Mentzer is earlier. 

Things about Conrad I wish I knew:

Name of his mother
Date of first wife's death or divorce
Church attended in Stark County
Death date, or where this date came from
Burial location
Was he a happy person?

The line of descent is:

Conrad Mentzer-Elizabeth Tullepan
Catherine Mentzer-Lewis Harshbarger
Emmanuel Harshbarger-Clara Harter
Grover Harshbarger-Goldie Withers
Cleveland Harshbarger-Mary Margaret Beeks
Their descendants