The Bretz Register

In 1797, Col. Ebenezer Zane completed a new road, Zane’s Trace, from Wheeling, W. Va. To Maysville, Ky. (Zane, Ebenezer (1747-1812), U.S. pioneer; made first lasting settlement on Ohio River (now Wheeling, W. Va.), and helped found Zanesville.) A large number of German settlers are reported to have traversed it in 1800 and closely following years. Zane laid out a section of land for a town in Fairfield Co. Ohio, and in honor of Lancaster, Pennsylvania arrivals, he named it New Lancaster. It became the county seat. Some time between 1800 and 1809, John and his family joined this exodus to a new forefront of settlement, close upon the withdrawal of the Indian inhabitants.

There were two wagon roads leading westward from Philadelphia across Pennsylvania in 1800, one to Pittsburgh by way of Bedford and Fort Legonier, the other branching off at Bedford and reaching Wheeling on the Ohio by way of Fort Cumberland on the Potomac and Brownstone (Redstone Old Fort).  The route to Bedford on the headwaters of the Juniata River was through Shippensburg and Strassburg.  Freight and passenger traffic moved in the canoe shaped and canvas covered Conestoga wagons which loaded, grossed seven tons. The journey from Lancaster, Pennsylvania to New Lancaster, Ohio was 400 to 450 miles long.

Life in Fairfield County in the early 1800’s was primitive. Houses were cabins, made of logs of course, roofed with split sticks (shakes). Fireplaces were built of mud and sticks, houses often had no floors except hard packed earth. Many were built without an ounce of iron in the construction. Windows were made of oiled paper, doors were fastened with wooden latches, the string always hanging outside.  Cooking was done in pots hung in the fireplaces, suspended from an iron or wooden hook. Bedsteads were built by boring two inch holes in a log in the wall for insertion of the two end pieces of the bed.  These were supported by legs out in the room, and connected by the side rail. Cooking utensils consisted of a round pot, one or two frying pans and a 10 to 12 gallon kettle. A wooden bucket, a few pieces of tinware, bone handled steel knives and forks, pewter spoons, gourds for drinking cups; these constituted the kitchen and table utensils of the average family.

The menu consisted of corn pone, dodger, ash cake, johnny cake and meat. Corn was prepared by being pounded in a hole burned in the end of a hardwood log; finer for flour, coarser for hominy. Salt sold for 5 dollars a bushel.  Clothing consisted of homespun, dyed black, brown or drab. Every home had it’s loom and spinning wheel. Buckskin figured in the men’s garb.

Panthers killed some people around Lancaster in those days. There were many wolves.  Squirrels were a great pest of the corn crop. There were wild hogs on the hills south of Lancaster for years.

There were dozens of stills in Fairfield Co. before it was five years old. Everybody drank; it was respectable, even fashionable. Excess in liquor in Lancaster, however, had its penalty. A public whipping or a sentence to dig out one stump from the streets of the town followed every public drunk.

The population of Fairfield Co., by 1820, was 1358. There appears to be no record of the sale of any of New Lancaster’s town lots to any Bretz during the opening of the town site in 1800, 1801 and 1802. John’s farm lay approximately in the southeast quarter of section 11 of Berne Twp., about 8 miles southeast of town. This is according to C. D. Hoffman, grandson of Catherine Stoneburner, whose father was Valentine, one of the sons of John. The Lancaster topographic map, however, shows the cemetery, which John donated from his farm, as lying in the north central part of section 14, just across the line from section 11.

C. D. Hoffman of Fairfield Co. Board of Education wrote (to J.H.B.) In 1913 as follows:

I am thoroughly conversant with the location of the John Bretz settlement. He, John, lies buried in the old Lutheran Reformed Cemetery over in Berne Twp. Which was taken out of the southeast quarter of section 11. The old church, which was of logs and was built jointly by the Lutherans and the Reformed people, stood in the corner of the cemetery and was torn down in 1877 and a new structure built near, probably about 300 feet west of the old church and outside the cemetery. The logs of the old church were sold and moved to Colfax, about seven miles north, and erected into a dwelling which is still standing. I have in my possession a pewter baptismal cup which John Bretz presented to the church when it was built and which was given back to grandmother (Catherine) when the new church was built. I also possess some chinaware which grandmother said her mother had brought with her from Pennsylvania and had got when she and great-grandfather (Valentine) Bretz were married.

I am not quite certain of the date of John Bretz’s coming to Ohio though I have often heard grandmother say when I was a boy. I think it was in 1808 or 1809.

Mrs. J. D. Robinson, Morral, Marion Co. Ohio (a grand-daughter of Andrew D., son of Samuel, son of Valentine, son of John) wrote (to J.H.B.) in 1913 as follows:

My grandfather, Andrew Bretz, told me that the Bretzes came to Fairfield Co. in 1806 when his father, Samuel, was six years old. His grandparents (Valentine and Elizabeth) were very strict Lutherans and then some of the children in their adult years left the church in which they had been confirmed, grandmother Elizabeth walked the floor and wrung her hands. She was of French descent, being Elizabeth DeFay or DeFauw.

Search: Books Popular Music Classical Music Video	Enter keywords...