The Dutch/Deutsch Connection

Posted on by under Collections, Postcards

It is not uncommon for the Sherman Room to get donations from people in and around Richland County. It is a rare treat, however, to be given items from people outside the state of Ohio and even more so from outside the United States. Last month, we received a small donation of two postcards that had traveled to us all the way from The Netherlands. These postcards, postmarked 1912 and 1914, were sent by John E. Drechsel to his brother Friedrich back in Bavaria. How the cards found their way to The Netherlands in the intervening years is a mystery we are not prepared to solve but their full circle journey back to Mansfield offers us a window into the life of John E. Drechsel, his family, and the German immigrant experience in Ohio.

The year 1848 marked a significant moment in the history of both Mansfield and the German population of Ohio. It was in this year that “a railroad line connecting Mansfield with the lake shore at Sandusky began operation.”1 This rail line brought new industry and job opportunities to Mansfield which made the city an ideal destination for immigrants from around the globe. It is claimed the first wave of such immigrants came from Germany, “followed by Irish, eastern Europeans, Italians,” and African Americans from the American south.2 Indeed, multiple historians cite the European revolutions of 1848 as a strong motivating factor behind the influx of German immigrants to the United States, dubbing these political refugees the “forty-eighters.”3 According to the 1850 census, 145,992 Ohio citizens were born outside of the United States, with about 75% of that population hailing from German lands.4 As Andrew R. L. Clayton notes, “Germans were the dominant ethnic group [in Ohio] in 1850 and again in 1950;” and Timothy Brian McKee maintains it is without question that the “largest number of foreign speaking Mansfielders were born in Germany, Austria, and Hungary.”5 In addition to the promising jobs in Mansfield and greater Ohio, many Germans immigrating to the United States in the 1840s fled the economic and agricultural turmoil of the region. According to one immigrant writing in 1846, “the situation in Germany has been very distressing because all bread and other provisions are so very high. This year will be the very worst of all, for the grain harvest has turned out badly, and the potato crop will be almost a complete failure. This disease of the potato plant prevails not only in Germany, but is spreading all over Europe.”6 Instead of waiting out the storm in hopes of a better harvest and economic stability, many turned their attention to the possibilities in the United States “where there was a government that provided more aide than the one they currently lived under.”7 As one immigrant put it in 1854, two years after arriving in America, “I’d rather have one American citizenship than 25 in Blaubruren [Germany], because in America you can amount to something, but over there it’s the opposite.”8 As of 2023, it is estimated roughly 25% of Ohio’s population can trace their roots back to Germany.9

The majority of German immigrants came from the southwestern Palatinate region, “a Bavarian exclave west of the Rhine, bordering on France.”10 John Drechsel and his family were among the many who left Bavaria over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in search of a new home in Ohio. When the Drechsel family – John, his wife Johanna, and their daughters Ida and Minna (Minnie) – came to America in 1882, they were part of the nearly 1.5 million Germans who made the journey in the 1880s.11 In fact, according to Walter D. Kamphoefner, 1882 was the record year for German immigration to the United States when close to a quarter million people arrived from Germany.12 Of course, a decent portion of Ohio’s first settlers were descendants of the thousands of German immigrants who had settled in southeastern Pennsylvania and the lower Delaware Valley between 1683 and 1835.13 In a way, the German influence in Ohio does not stand out as particularly unique because. over the centuries, it simply became the norm.14

A map of Germany showing the multiple regions and border changes to the country throughout the nineteenth century. See: Stephen Tonge, “The Unification of German 1864-1871,” A Web of English History, January 12, 2016, https://www.historyhome.co.uk/europe/unific.htm.

While some historians like Andrew R. L. Clayton argue that “unlike many immigrants, German speakers did not want to live in isolation,” others suggest that the German immigrant population (at least in Mansfield) preferred to live within walking distance of their jobs so they didn’t have to ride the streetcars “or mix with the [English]-speaking Mansfielders any more than necessary.”15 In either case, there was some notable acceptance – or tolerance – of the German presence in Mansfield. In 1859, St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, alternatively called the Evangelical Lutheran or High German Reformed Church, was built. The News Journal noted in a 1958 retrospective that “because so many of the [church] parishioners spoke German, it was felt advisable to have both German and English speaking congregations.”16 Less than two decades later in 1872, publication began for the Mansfield Courier, the city’s first and only German-language newspaper that ceased publication sometime in the early twentieth century.17 German immigrants were noted as the most likely group to vote Republican and, according to one account, this led Rutherford B. Hayes to become a regular visitor to one of Cincinnati’s leading beer gardens during his 1876 presidential campaign.18 So important was the German vote, candidates as early as James K. Polk in 1844 distributed their campaign materials in both English and German.19 Even during the Civil War, when immigration rates saw a sharp decline, some German immigrants in Cincinnati (who were in no danger of being drafted if they were not naturalized citizens) took up arms for the Ninth Ohio Volunteer Regiment, one of Ohio’s best known military units of the time.20 Carl Witke notes, “Of the nine thousand men who entered the army from Cuyahoga County, the Germans contributed over twenty-five percent. In a number of Ohio companies and in several regiments, all commands were originally given in German.”21 According to Marlise Schoeny, a history curator at the Ohio History Connection, “a lot of pride was retained when a family made this big journey [to the United States] and many did not want to sacrifice their German identity, and rather believed that they could carry a plural identity.”22 The German population was so prominent in Ohio that, for a brief time in several cities, some neighborhood schools had first grade classes taught completely in German and “native Americans unfamiliar with the language were expected to acquire it.”23

By the 1890s, German culture was so pervasive in Mansfield that German-American residents began hosting informal German Day celebrations. German Day, according to The Weekly News, was a day devoted “to a celebration both in remembrance of the Fatherland and the country of their adoption.”24 The paper goes on to note, “Mansfield has hundreds of citizens of German birth who are among the solid business men and the best families of the city. Couldn’t a German day be made a great occasion in Mansfield?”25 In 1900, it was reported organizers were considering cancelling that year’s German Day picnic because “in former years some individuals, possibly neither born in German nor of German parentage or connection have looked upon ‘German day’ as an occasion for jubilee and a rip roaring time – and then attribute their own excesses to the day and to the Germans, thereby in measure bringing reproach and criticism upon those not deserving it.”26 The community ultimately decided to proceed with their festivities as normal, but the fun was dampened slightly by a downpour of rain.27

Still, the idea that German Day had been embraced as a holiday of excess consumption by those with no discernible links to that country suggests that German immigrants to Mansfield were not limited to existing along the fringes of society. Equally interesting is the German enthusiasm for the Fourth of July. As Carl Witke notes, there was a time in Ohio’s history when German communities made more of the holiday than native-born Americans. For the immigrant population, Witke argues, “Independence Day was more than an occasion to satisfy their gregarious instincts – it was a day to commemorate because it marked the establishment of the liberty and equality which had brought them to America.”28

The exact circumstances that brough John Drechsel and his family to America are not known but they are surely more complicated than simply seeking out a new job under a new government. John was born in Bayern [Bavaria], Germany around 1852 to John Drechsel and Elizabeth Angel.29 Census records indicate that John married Johanna/Hannah/Anna Ludwig in Germany in about 1876.30 Their first child, Ida, was born in 1878, followed by Minnie in 1880.31 The Mansfield News claims John “came to America at an early age,” but every census record reports he arrived in the United States in 1882 – when he was thirty years old.32 Finding documentation of his passage in 1882 has proven trickier than we would like. Johanna, Ida, and Minnie appear on the passenger list for the Donau which arrived in New York from Bremen, Germany on July 8, 1882.33 The closest records that have been found for John are an entry for an “Erdm. Drechsel,” a thirty-year-old weaver from Bavaria on the passenger list for the Hohenstauffen that arrived in New York on April 6, 1882, or a record for “Johann Drechsel,” a thirty-year-old smith from Germany on the passenger list for the Rotterdam that arrived in New York on July 25, 1881.34 Even if passenger records for John’s transatlantic trip cannot be located, we know he was in Mansfield by 1883 where he appears in the city directory working as a laborer living at 175 N East Diamond.35 In 1886, he was working as a laborer for the Pittsburg, Ft Wayne & Chicago Railway and had moved to 49 N. Sugar.36 He moved once again in 1894, this time to 96 Fourth Avenue.37 These three homes fall within the vicinity but not the defined boundaries of “The Syndicate,” which Timothy Brian McKee identifies as the prominent immigrant neighborhood in Mansfield.38

From McKee’s original blog post: The area highlighted to the right on this 1896 map of Mansfield is the formally designated neighborhood known as the Syndicate Addition, though the informally immigrant neighborhood referred to as “The Syndicate” included adjoining streets as well. Several factory districts are highlighted as well. For more, see: Timothy Brian McKee, “Mansfield’s Immigrants & The Syndicate: 1890-1925,” Richland County History, https://richlandcountyhistory.com/2020/08/07/mansfields-immigrants-the-syndicate-1890-1925/.

While the Drechsel name is a rarity in the city directories, suggesting John and his family did not follow direct blood lines to Mansfield, the directories for the last few years of the nineteenth century illustrate just how difficult it can be to research a surname like Drechsel. In 1895, John and his daughters, Ida and Minnie, are all listed under “Drichsel.” All three were living at 96 Fourth Avenue, with John working at Aultman & Taylor Company and Minnie working for the cigar manufacturer Adam Mitz.39 This directory is also the first time we John’s wife listed. In countless directory entries and census records, Johanna/Hannah/Anna is listed as Jennie, which some genealogists confirm is a common nickname for the German Johanna/Hanna/Anna.40 The Drichsel misspelling occurred again in 1897 but other easy misspellings could be “Dressler,” “Dreschel,” Drexler,” or “Drexel.”

In fact, a petition for naturalization from Richland County, Ohio, dated August 4, 1883, attributed to “John Erdman Drexel,” suggests John arrived in the United States in April 1882 and applied for naturalization pretty quickly afterward.41 At this point, John would have been in the United States for sixteen months which is about forty-four months shy of the five years of residency required by the 1802 naturalization law.42 Presumably, this was just John’s declaration of intent and formal renouncement of his allegiance to the Emperor of Germany.

The 1900 census – the earliest census we can access for the Drechsels in America – indicates that John was a naturalized citizen.43 Based on an 1855 act stating, “any woman who is now or may hereafter be married to a citizen of the United States, and who might herself be lawfully naturalized, shall be deemed a citizen,” it can be assumed that Johanna and the couple’s children were granted derivative citizenship from John’s application.44

On April 13, 1884, John and Johanna welcomed their only child born in the United States, John Henry Drechsel.45 The Drechsel family (in any spelling form) is strangely missing from the Mansfield directory of that year, but life for the family seems to have been stable for the remainder of the century. They continued to live at 96 Fourth Avenue and the elder John took a job with the Coss Manufacturing Company, making carriage hardware and forgings.46 Ida was the first to leave home when she married Frank Hardman on November 1, 1898.47 Frank found work as a molder and the newlyweds took up residence not far from the Drechsels at 92 Fourth Avenue.48 Minnie was predictable the next child to leave the nest when she married Charles L. Haas, a worker at the North American Watch Company, in June 1902.49 By the turn of the twentieth century, John’s name appears in boldface in the city directory, which typically indicates someone is self-employed or a prominent businessperson in the community – in 1901, he is simply listed as a watchman but by 1906, he had established himself as a shoemaker specializing in “shoe repairing neatly and promptly done.”50 John also spent a short time as a fireman before settling into his long-term career as a janitor at the Emergency Hospital.51

Minnie Drechsel’s marriage license lists her mother’s name as Hannah Ludwig and, interestingly, the pastor listed is William N. Dresel – one would be forgiven if they thought the two had the same surname on a quick glance.

In September 1902, the younger John, a stove mounter living at home with his parents, fell ill with an unidentified ailment.52 He was once again taken ill at home in the winter of 1905, but this time he was diagnosed with pneumonia.53 It is possible that this particular bout of pneumonia had lasting effects for John Henry who later developed pulmonary tuberculosis and passed away in his parents’ home on September 21, 1910, when he was “26 years, 5 months and 7 days old.”54 His funeral was held at St. John’s Evangelical Church, the second noted German church in Mansfield and the first German Protestant Evangelical Church in the city, on September 23, 1910.55 Thus, the first Drechsel born in America was the first to die in America.

At this point, Ida and her husband had moved to Akron where Frank was working as a molder for a furnace company.56 They had welcomed a son, Harry Raymond Hardman, on September 21, 1899. Interestingly, it is on Harry’s birth record that we learn Ida’s middle name was Bertha.57

Minnie and her husband, Charles, were still living in Mansfield, raising their young daughter Edna Irene just a few blocks from the Drechsel family home. The pair had still been living with John and Johanna (and the younger John Henry) at their Fourth Avenue home when Edna was born in 1904.58 In late April 1906, as announced by The Mansfield News, they moved to 130 Newman Street.59 Minnie and Edna took some time after John Henry’s funeral to presumably visit Ida and Frank (and other friends) in Akron.60

While the elder John was likely helping to care for his sick son in those final years of his young life, he secured the role of Assessor for Precinct No. 2 of the Third Ward. In his capacity as assessor, John was responsible for taking a tally of valuable (taxable) property in his precinct. In his first year on the job, in 1908, he reported a total of $52,910 in taxable property to Auditor Weldner. This property included 84 horses, 36 cattle, 53 pianos/organs, and 2 dogs. Apparently only two dogs that year fell within the category of “taxable property,” as The Mansfield News notes, “There are 100 dogs in the precinct.”61John held his assessor position until his son’s death in 1910. He reported made $62.00 for his reporting services that year.62

John wrote the first of the two postcards we have in our collection on June 9, 1912, with the intent to at least share his new address with his brother. At some point in 1911 or early 1912, John and Johanna left their Fourth Avenue home and moved closer to Minnie, Charles, and Edna on Newman Street.63 He seems to suggest Johanna was not doing well which may have prompted their move. Indeed, Johanna passed away between the writing of the two postcards, succumbing to what The Mansfield News labels “dropsy” at three o’clock in the morning on July 24, 1913.64 She was sixty-seven years old at the time of her death and still had four siblings (three sisters and a brother) living in Germany. Her funeral was held on July 26, 1913, at St. John’s Evangelical Church where services for her son had been held just three years before.65

John, who was sixty-one years old when Johanna died, wasted little time in securing a new bride. By the time he sent the second postcard to Friedrich, he was engaged to thirty-seven-year-old Emma Warner of Bucyrus, Ohio. The two were married on August 1, 1914, at St. John’s Evangelical Church and moved into their new home at 121 1/2 Fourth Street (not the same as Fourth Avenue where John had lived for seventeen years).66

Even though he had been in the United States for over forty years by the time he married Emma, a rough translation of the 1914 postcard shoes John informing his brother that Washington is the capital of North America.67 This card, we believe, was primarily used by John to show off Mansfield’s new post office (pictured on the front of the card) which officially opened for business on June 15, 1914 – the exact date this card is postmarked, making it one of the first pieces of mail processed at the new facility.68 Walter D. Kamphoefner notes that by the time John and his family were first contemplating the long journey to America, “male illiteracy . . . was down below the four percent level,” which means a majority of male German immigrants and a slightly lower proportion of female immigrants had some ability to read and write.69 But many of the extant letters these individuals sent back home, just like John’s postcards, are difficult to accurately translate because of the proliferation of spelling errors and odd phrasing.70

After undergoing a couple of unspecified operations in 1910 and 1913, respectively, John appears to have slowed down a bit, continuing to work as a hospital janitor (the 1920 census lists him as a janitor for an electric company).71 Emma suffered through a bout of the grip in 1916 and she was “quoted” by The Mansfield News in 1924, singing the praises of the stomach tonic Pepgen. Supposedly both she and John had been struggling with stomach troubles “for over a year;” John gained twenty-five pounds after regularly using the drug while Emma “was able to eat without having any attack of gas and bloating.”72 Emma had been putting her faith in this miracle tonic for a few months before John was brave enough to try it.73

Manufactured in Dayton, Pepgen was advertised as “a delightful appetizer” and “mild laxative” recommended for men, women, and children.74 According to the owner of a vintage Pepgen bottle, “the patent medicine [with 12-18% alcohol by volume] slipped under the law enforcement radar for at least a few years” during the Prohibition Era.75 The drug manufacturer relied heavily on consumer testimonials, like that of Emma and John Drechsel, to sell their product, which The Dayton News found a little suspicious in 1920: “Of course, the owner of the News is not lacking in modern medical knowledge . . . Nor, do we believe, does he give any weight to the ‘Thrilling Experiences’ detailed in two columns of alleged testimonials for Pepgen even though they do ‘all come from people in Dayton’.”76 With their stomach ailments under control, John spent a short time in his old trade as a shoemaker before presumably retiring.77 By 1929, John and Emma had moved to Springfield, Ohio, where they were living in the Ohio Odd Fellows’ Home.78 The 1930 census shows the pair living with Emma’s brother John J. Warner and his wife Caroline in Cleveland.79 Only a few months after the census was taken, John Drechsel passed away in this final home in Cleveland on July 13, 1930. He was seventy-eight years old at the time. His funeral was held at the Wappner funeral home on July 15, 1930, and he was buried in Mansfield Cemetery not far from Johanna and John Henry.80

Familiengeschichtsforschung

If you are among the 45 million U.S. citizens with German heritage,81 you may find these resources useful in locating your German ancestors or learning more about your German family:

Family Search German Genealogy: An incredible starting point for any genealogist working on their German lineage. Designed much like a typical Wikipedia page, this site gives an introduction to the country itself with a map of its numerous regions (this was particularly helpful with John Drechsel’s postcards that are address to Bayern which is the German name for what we know as Bavaria). On the “Getting Started” page, there are video tutorials about everything from church records to naming customs and working with DNA results. There is also a record finder breakdown that tells you what types of records you should look at to locate the information you need (for example, church records and civil registration records can help you identify a woman’s maiden name). The site also has a breakdown menu on the right side that links to detailed pages for each record type with further links to any available records of each type online.

German Roots: This overview site offers links to a handful of websites where you can begin your genealogy research. These links include specific information about Pennsylvania German settlers, general genealogy books for conducting German research, and a few German immigrant stories. Not all of the links may still be active, but we recommend beginning with Joe Beine’s “Basic Research Outline for German Genealogy” to get oriented with the best place to start.

Family Search, which can be used for free at the library or at home, offers access to several collections of German records. Go to Search – Records and then enter Germany into the “Search by Place” box. Then, you can search all of Family Search’s indexed German collections for your ancestor’s name.

Ancestry, which can be used for free at any library location, gives you the ability to look at some records from outside the United States. For John Drechsel, we would need to know the specific area within Bavaria that he lived in to better narrow down our search.

The Society for German Genealogy in Eastern Europe has produced this Guide to German Spellings of Given Names (last updated in 2022) which can be helpful in identifying other possible spellings to search for or even potential nicknames your ancestor may have used.

We have a few helpful guidebooks in the Sherman Room that contain useful (though possibly older) information point to what records may be accessible from the United States. These include:

Finally, for a historical overview of German immigration to the United States and specific details pertaining to Ohio, we utilized the following:

  1. “Mansfield/Richland County Public Library Collection,” Cleveland Memory.org, 2002-2024, https://www.clevelandmemory.org/mansfield/index.html. ↩︎
  2. Ibid. ↩︎
  3. Andrew R. L. Clayton, Ohio: The History of a People (Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University Press, 2002), 144; Carl Witke, “Ohio’s Germans, 1840-1875,” The Ohio Historical Quarterly Vol. 66, No. 4 (October 1957): 348. ↩︎
  4. G. H. Wilhelm, The Origin and Distribution of Settlement Groups: Ohio, 1850 (Athens, OH: Cutler Printing, 1982). Timothy G. Anderson and Brian Schoen, eds., Settling Ohio: First Peoples and Beyond (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2023): 113. ↩︎
  5. Clayton, 143; Timothy Brian McKee, “Mansfield’s Immigrants & The Syndicate: 1890-1925,” Richland County History, https://richlandcountyhistory.com/2020/08/07/mansfields-immigrants-the-syndicate-1890-1925/. ↩︎
  6. Quoted in Walter D. Kamphoefner, Germans in America: A Concise History (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2021), 26. ↩︎
  7. Carolyn Wehmeyer, “The Great German Immigration,” Elsberry Historical, 2024, https://elsberryhistorical.org/items/show/148. ↩︎
  8. Quoted in Kamphoefner, 34. ↩︎
  9. Pia Benthin, “Ohio Seems to be the Germany of the United States,” The Post, January 23, 2023, https://www.thepostathens.com/article/2023/01/german-life-in-ohio-oktoberfest#google_vignette. ↩︎
  10. Kamphoefner, 30. ↩︎
  11. “German Immigration,” Encyclopedia.com, https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/german-immigration. ↩︎
  12. Kamphoefner, 28. ↩︎
  13. William T. Parsons, The Pennsylvania Dutch: A Persistent Minority (Boston, MA: Twayne Publishers, 1976): 19. ↩︎
  14. Clayton, 143. ↩︎
  15. Clayton, 143; McKee, “Mansfield’s Immigrants & The Syndicate.” ↩︎
  16. “Area Counts 9,821 in Lutheran Churches,” News-Journal, July 13, 1958, 1. Another German church, St. John’s Evangelical Church, was formed and built sometime between 1845 and 1871. See: Jayson Schlechty, “St. John’s United Church of Christ,” The Sherman Room at MRCPL, January 22, 2021, https://theshermanroom.wordpress.com/2021/01/22/st-johns-united-church-of-christ/.  ↩︎
  17. McKee, “Mansfield’s Immigrants & The Syndicate.” ↩︎
  18. Witke, “Ohio’s Germans, 1840-1875,” 341. ↩︎
  19. McKee, “Mansfield’s Immigrants & The Syndicate.” ↩︎
  20. Kamphoefner, 59. ↩︎
  21. Witke, “Ohio’s Germans, 1840-1875,” 344. ↩︎
  22. Benthin, “Ohio Seems to be the Germany of the United States.” ↩︎
  23. Witke, “Ohio’s Germans, 1840-1875,” 348. Mansfield’s open embrace of the German immigrant population seems most evident by the fact that, under the leadership of Mildred Sandoe in the 1930s, the Mansfield Public Library was building a German-language collection of books to not only serve their community of readers but be shared with other libraries in the region as an early Interlibrary Loan program. See: “In Hall of Fame,” Mansfield News-Journal, August 7, 1935, 1 & 3. Jayne W. McQuade even suggests it was library policy by 1929 to add a few German titles to the library’s collection every year. See: Jayne W. McQuade, “A History of the Mansfield, Ohio Public Library,” Master’s Thesis (Kent State University, 1969): 26. ↩︎
  24. The Weekly News, October 8, 1891, 4. ↩︎
  25. Ibid. ↩︎
  26. “No German Picnic,” The Weekly News, July 17, 1900, 4. ↩︎
  27. “German Day Reunion and Picnic,” The Weekly News, September 4, 1900, 6. ↩︎
  28. Witke, “Ohio’s Germans, 1840-1875,” 343. ↩︎
  29. “John E. Drechsel Succumbs at Home,” The Mansfield News, July 14, 1930, six. “Ohio, County Marriages, 1789-2016”, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:ZZBJ-GWW2: Sat Mar 09 07:49:57 UTC 2024), Entry for John Drechsel and Emma Warner, 15 Aug 1914. ↩︎
  30. Year: 1900; Census Place: Mansfield Ward 6, Richland, Ohio; Roll: 1316; Page: 6; Enumeration District: 0123; “Ohio Deaths, 1908-1953”, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X88N-TYW: Tue Mar 05 03:45:20 UTC 2024), Entry for John Henry Drechsel and John Edward Drechsel, 21 Sep 1910. “Ohio, County Marriages, 1789-2016”, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:ZZB6-JMMM: Wed Mar 06 14:24:28 UTC 2024), Entry for Charles L. Haas and Minnie A. Drechsel, 4 Jun 1902. ↩︎
  31. Ira A. Glazier and P. Wiilliam Filby, eds., Germans to America: Lists of Passengers Arriving at U.S. Ports, Vol. 43, May 1882-August 1882 (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources Inc., 1995): 284. Year: 1900; Census Place: Mansfield Ward 6, Richland, Ohio; Roll: 1316; Page: 6; Enumeration District: 0123. ↩︎
  32. “John E. Drechsel Succumbs at Home,” The Mansfield News, July 14, 1930, six. ↩︎
  33. Glazier and Filby, Germans to America, Vol. 43, 284. This list has Ida mistakenly listed as the younger sister. ↩︎
  34. At least one record identifies John’s middle name as Erdman but others, like their son’s death certificate, suggest his middle name is Edward. There is no evidence to suggest Erdman was anglicized to Edward upon John’s immigration and subsequent naturalization in America. “Johann Erdman ‘John’ Drechsel,” Find A Grave, January 15, 2012, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/83487083/johann-erdman-drechsel?_gl=1*187m9ol*_gcl_au*MTQ3NjYzNDY1NC4xNzEzMTk3MTY3*_ga*ODAxMjQ1NDY0LjE3MDUzNDQ4Mzc.*_ga_4QT8FMEX30*N2M1Nzc1MzctNDg3OS00NjQ1LTljYzEtMWU5ZDBhMWE3NmFiLjExNC4xLjE3MTc0MzQxMzAuMjYuMC4w. “Ohio Deaths, 1908-1953”, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X88N-TYW: Tue Mar 05 03:45:20 UTC 2024), Entry for John Henry Drechsel and John Edward Drechsel, 21 Sep 1910. Ira A. Glazier and P. William Filby, eds., Germans to America: Lists of Passengers Arriving at U.S. Ports, Vol. 42, March 1882-May 1882 (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources Inc., 1995): 54; Ira A. Glazier and P. William Filby, eds., Germans to America: Lists of Passengers Arriving at U.S. Ports, Vol. 39, June 1881-August 1881 (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources Inc., 1994): 352. ↩︎
  35. The Herald’s Directory to Mansfield, Ohio, 1883-1884 (Mansfield, OH: Geo. U. Harn & Bro., Publishers, 1883): 67. ↩︎
  36. Mansfield Directory, 1886-87 (Mansfield, OH: Geo. U. Harn & Bro., 1886): 78. ↩︎
  37. Mansfield City Directory, 1894 (Akron, OH: The Burch Directory Co., 1893): 133. ↩︎
  38. McKee, “Mansfield’s Immigrants & The Syndicate.” ↩︎
  39. Mansfield Official City Directory, 1895-1896 (Akron, OH: The Burch Directory Co., 1895): 136. ↩︎
  40. “Jennie,” Behind the Name, https://www.behindthename.com/name/jennie/related. ↩︎
  41. “Ohio, County Naturalization Records, 1800-1977, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QGN6-KXY6: Sat Feb 24 05:35:32 UTC 2024), Entry for John Erdman Drexel, 1883. There is no “John E. Drexel” listed in the city directory for 1882, 1883, or 1884, nor does a search on Ancestry and Family Search return any other results for John E. Drexel in Richland County in the 1880s. ↩︎
  42. See Naturalization Law of 1802, ch. 28, § 1, 2 Stat. 153, 153–54. ↩︎
  43. Year: 1900; Census Place: Mansfield Ward 6, Richland, Ohio; Roll: 1316; Page: 6; Enumeration District: 0123. ↩︎
  44. Marian L. Smith, “Women and Naturalization, ca. 1802-1940,” Genealogy Notes Vol. 30, No. 2 (Summer 1998), https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1998/summer/women-and-naturalization-1.html. ↩︎
  45. “Ohio Deaths, 1908-1953”, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X88N-TYW: Tue Mar 05 03:45:20 UTC 2024), Entry for John Henry Drechsel and John Edward Drechsel, 21 Sep 1910. ↩︎
  46. Mansfield Official City Directory, 1899 (Akron, OH: The Burch Directory Co., 1898): 136. ↩︎
  47. “Ohio, County Marriages, 1789-2016”, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XZYC-M5H: Thu Mar 07 11:07:37 UTC 2024), Entry for Frank Hardman and Ida Drechsel, 01 Nov 1898. ↩︎
  48. Mansfield Official City Directory, 1901 (Akron, OH: The Burch Directory Co., 1900): 163. ↩︎
  49. “Ohio, County Marriages, 1789-2016”, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:ZZB6-JMMM: Wed Mar 06 14:24:28 UTC 2024), Entry for Charles L. Haas and Minnie A. Drechsel, 4 Jun 1902. Mansfield Official City Directory, 1902-3-4 (Mansfield, OH: A. A. Hartzell & Co., 1902): 178. ↩︎
  50. Mansfield Official City Directory, 1901 (Akron, OH: The Burch Directory Co., 1900): 134; Mansfield Official City Directory, 1906 (Akron, OH: The Burch Directory Co., 1906): 152. ↩︎
  51. Mansfield Official City Directory, 1902-3-4 (Mansfield, OH: A. A. Hartzell & Co., 1902): 145; Mansfield Official City Directory (Akron, OH: The Burch Directory, Co., 1909): 159. ↩︎
  52. “Public Health,” The Mansfield News, September 5, 1902, 6. ↩︎
  53. “Public Health,” The Mansfield News, December 11, 1905, 2. ↩︎
  54. “Obituary: Drechsel,” The Mansfield News, September 22, 1910, 3. ↩︎
  55. Jayson Schlechty, “St. John’s United Church of Christ,” The Sherman Room at MRCPL, January 22, 2021, https://theshermanroom.wordpress.com/2021/01/22/st-johns-united-church-of-christ/; “Obituary: Drechsel,” The Mansfield News, September 22, 1910, 3. ↩︎
  56. Akron Official City Directory, 1910 (Akron, OH: The Burch Directory Co., 1910): 589. ↩︎
  57. “Ohio, County Births, 1841-2003”, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VNQ7-D6V: Mon Mar 11 02:10:49 UTC 2024), Entry for Harry Raymond Hardman and Franklin Pierce Hardman, 1899. ↩︎
  58. “Ohio, County Marriages, 1789-2016”, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XDK2-5LM: Sat Mar 09 08:52:31 UTC 2024), Entry for Albert B. Erdenberger and Edna Irene Haas, 1926; Mansfield Official City Directory, 1904 (Akron, OH: The Burch Directory Co., 1904): 173. ↩︎
  59. “Movings,” The Mansfield News, April 23, 1906, 10. ↩︎
  60. “Social Circles,” The Mansfield News, November 25, 1910, 7. ↩︎
  61. “Assessors’ Returns,” The Mansfield News, May 26, 1908, 6. ↩︎
  62. “Bills of Expense for the County,” The Mansfield News, June 17, 1910, 9. ↩︎
  63. Main Street After Night – Mansfield, O, postcard, June 9, 1912, PC 231, Mansfield Lexington Ashland – Postcards Collection, Sherman Room, Mansfield/Richland County Public Library, Mansfield, Ohio. ↩︎
  64. “Obituary: Drechsel,” The Mansfield News, July 24, 1913, 4. ↩︎
  65. Ibid. ↩︎
  66. “Married at St. John’s Church,” The Mansfield News, August 15, 1914, 8. Note that in this newspaper clipping John’s surname is spelled “Draechsel.” Ancestry.com. Ohio, U.S., County Marriage Records, 1774-1993 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016. ↩︎
  67. Post Office, Mansfield, Ohio, June 15, 1914, PC 232, Mansfield Lexington Ashland – Postcards Collection, Sherman Room, Mansfield/Richland County Public Library, Mansfield, Ohio. ↩︎
  68. Jayson Schlechty, “Mansfield Federal Building: Good Things Come to Those Who Wait,” The Sherman Room at MRCPL, July 2, 2020, https://theshermanroom.wordpress.com/tag/post-office/. ↩︎
  69. Kamphoefner, 64. ↩︎
  70. Ibid. ↩︎
  71. “Local Gleanings,” The Mansfield News, October 15, 1910, 2; “City News Notes,” The Mansfield News, October 14, 1913, 10; Year: 1920; Census Place: Mansfield Ward 3, Richland, Ohio; Roll: T625_1430; Page: 10B; Enumeration District: 205. In this census record, John is listed as “Johny,” an easy mistake to make with “John E.” ↩︎
  72. “City News Notes,” The Mansfield News, January 22, 1916, 9; “Husband and Wife Have Same Interesting Experience,” The Mansfield News, July 9, 2024, 5. ↩︎
  73. Ibid. ↩︎
  74. Information taken from Pepgen box images available on an auction listing at worthpoint.com. See: “Unopened Pepgen American Drug Co Old Apothecary Bottle,” WorthPoint, https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/unopened-pepgen-american-drug-co-old-apothecary. ↩︎
  75. AgitpropShoppe, Listing for “Antique Pepgen Stomach Tonic Patent Medicine Bottle Dayton Ohio Prohibition,” Etsy, February 20, 2023, https://www.etsy.com/listing/1407580972/antique-pepgen-stomach-tonic-patent?show_sold_out_detail=1&ref=nla_listing_details. ↩︎
  76. “’Patents’ and Presidents,” The Journal of the American Medical Association Volume 75, No. 2 (September 18, 1920): 829. ↩︎
  77. Mansfield Official City Directory, 1924-25 (Akron, OH: The Burch Directory Company, 1924): 179. ↩︎
  78. Williams’ Springfield Directory for 1929 (Cincinnati, OH: The Williams Directory Company, 1929): 194. ↩︎
  79. Year: 1930; Census Place: Cleveland, Cuyahoga, Ohio; Page: 19A; Enumeration District: 0143; FHL microfilm: 2341502. ↩︎
  80. “John E. Drechsel Succumbs at Home,” The Mansfield News, July 14, 1930. 6; “Mansfield Cemetery Memorials for ‘Drechsel’,” Find A Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/1977519/memorial-search?firstname=&middlename=&lastname=drechsel&cemeteryName=Mansfield+Cemetery&birthyear=&birthyearfilter=&deathyear=&deathyearfilter=&memorialid=&mcid=&linkedToName=&datefilter=&orderby=r&plot=&page=1#sr-83487083. ↩︎
  81. Paul Jacobs, Alli Coritz, and Rachel Marks, “Over Half of White Population Reported Being English, German or Irish,” United States Census Bureau, October 10, 2023, https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/10/2020-census-dhc-a-white-population.html. ↩︎

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