Little Egypt Heritage Articles Stories of Southern Illinois © Bill Oliver 3 September 2006 Vol 5 Issue: #27 ISBN: pending Osiyo, Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen of Little Egypt What can you learn from a newspaper article?? [Reference: The Daily Sentinel-Tribune, Bowling Green, Ohio, Friday 7 August 1970, page F-8, column 4] People searching for relatives in Wood County, Ohio often ask me where this or that community located. One recently desired to know where German [town] was. I wrote back and said that I did not know. The name of Germantown is familiar to me. Probably because so many of that ethnic group migrated to areas where I have lived, or where some of my ancestors have stayed awhile. Although she always claimed that she was an OLIVER, Grandma Oliver was of German heritage -- paternally and maternally. Probably few realize that from before the Revolutionary War, the Ulster Irish and German immigrants settled in different communities in Maryland and Southern Pennsylvania. They began to leap frog down the Cumberland Valley toward North and South Carolina before that war. After the Revolutionary War they began to press into Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee. So, back to the original question – about a community called German, Wood county, Ohio. When I answer the question, I have to say that there never was a village or town in Wood county surveyed under that name. Yet that name became attached to Gwynndale as follows. J. J. Gwynn almost built a three story house two miles south of Tontogany. Mr Gwynn, who was from England or Ireland in 1837, did build a three story house, though it was never completely finished. He also attempted to build a corduroy road from Gwynndale to Otsego; that venture failed also. The story goes that failing these two projects he fled, leaving the forrest, the land, and the house to whomever was game enough to next inhabitant it. Dr. Nieblung, the soi disant planter, bought the house and a tract of land in 1845. He tore down the house, using the top as a hen house. The rest he cut in two and sold to Dr. Waitz, who in 1876 occupied it as a dwelling. Dr. Nieblung had followers who came to settle in his “colony” known as Western Germany. They included Ernest Miehe, Guido Marx [later a mayor of Toledo], E.W.E. Koch, Albert and Robert Just, C. Marksheifle, Conrad Bobel and a group of “merry men” or musicians. Though the doctor was wealthy, he somehow lost his fortune, and he developed ague and an aversion to mosquitoes. He left the settlement for St. Louis, Missouri, where he established himself as a physician. His daughter stayed in Plain township becoming the wife of Orrin Tyler. Beers in his History of Wood County relates that there were many stories about the Doctor and his “colonists”. That probably the musicians thought that they could amuse the cows with music. It is reported that the results destroyed the domestic character of the cows and converted them into a herd acting as wild as buffalo. Speaking about music, Tuesday, last, Barb and I attended the final Summer Concert of our Maumee City “Band” on the lawn of the Library [which was the site of the massacre of Kentucky Colonel Dudley’s troops in the Battle of Fort Meigs, War of 1812]. There are huge oak trees on this campus that look old enough to have seen that battle nearly two hundred years ago. The band has an announcer who plays the French Horn, who always pits two March conductors against each other. One, John Phillip Sousa and the other, Karl King. In 1924 John Phillip Sousa wrote the Black Horse Troop [march] for the horse-mounted troops of the Cleveland Natonal Guard. It is a strutting, chatty tune in 6/8 time. And, yes, even in that tempo it is classified as a march. It seems that in 1898, he came to Cleveland to lead this troop to the train station for embarkment to Cuba. When Dad was transferred to Washington, D.C., we all stayed in the Headquarters Marine Barracks, at Eighth and I Streets, where we heard Sousa marches in the morning, Sousa marches at noon, and Sousa marches in the evening. Always sharp, those Marine Band members in their uniforms. Though John Phillip Sousa is popularly called the “March King”, that term was first applied to Karl L. King, another composer of marches. This composer from Ohio wrote marches of many kinds and was the Band Master for the Barnum and Bailey Circus Band. So, what did I learn from a single newspaper article? I learned about a community named Western Germany. The newspaper article called it German; Beers [in The Historical Record of Wood County, Ohio, 1897, Volume 1, page 411, column 1] called it Western Germany. I was reminded of the German heritage in my family and migration patterns of many Irish and German people early in this county. I learned of the location and the circumstances in establishing an area of Wood County. The fate of two of its founders was explained and several early residents were identified. In addition, I learned of a local amusing story involving music, musicians, and live stock, which led me into thinking about the music of two march composers and how one of them affected my family. Not bad for an article of less than 600 words. This week we said our good-byes to a childhood friend of our deceased daughter. She also left a family, with a husband and children. Her parents and us weren’t looking forward to having this as a common bond between us. However, we did say our good wishes for her new journey into the unknown. I’m sure the Great Spirit has brought them together and they are sitting on some cloud watching all of us. Her father said to me that he knew our girls were once again playing together. And, I said that our Sarah was probably still introducing Linda as her “purple” friend. e-la-Di-e-das-Di ha-wi nv-wa-do-hi-ya nv-wa-to-hi-ya-da. (May you walk in peace and harmony) and Wado, Bill -=- PostScript: