Noble County, Ohio - Biographical sketches (1 of 2 so headed), 1887

Biographical sketches

J. C. Wernbcke, son of Diedrich Henry and Frederica Charlotta Lizabeta (Galbernagle) Wernecke, was born in Vorden by Osnabruck, kingdom of Hanover, Germany, December 6, 1818, and was educated in the common schools (Volkschule). At the age of fourteen his ambition was to become a professional teacher, and to obtain the means necessary to prosecute his studies he taught the small scholars, ranging in their ages ffom six to ten years. He was thus enabled to obtain private instruction in music and other branches not taught in the common schools at that time. At the age of eighteen he passed a successful examination and was licensed to teach. Shortly after, a teacher in the seminary received an injury to one of his eyes, and had to give up his place. Mr. Wernecke was invited to fill the vacant chair. Upon inquiry he found that he must take charge of nearly 150 pupils. This was aresponsibility he did not like to assume, and as many of his friends were preparing to emigrate to America^ he decided to cast his lot with theirs and try what fortunes or misfortunes the New World had in store for him. He accordingly left Germany in May, 1837, and reached New York in July. In August of the same year he went to Savannah, Ga. A short time after his arrival at Savannah he was prostrated by fever, from which he did not recover until the following March. In May of 1838 he returned to New York, remaining a few days in the city. He took a trip up the Hudson to Rondout. At Rosendale he got employment in a cement quarry, where he remained till the spring of 1839, when the company employing him suspended, and he was thrown out of employment. By the advice of a friend in Baltimore, Md., he left New York and went to that city. From Baltimore, in company with Judge John Davenport, he came to Barnes ville, Ohio. Finding no employment here, he visited J. F. Bidenhorn at Malaga, Monroe County, Ohio. He had known Mr. Bidenhorn in Germany. " At this time," says Mr. Wernecke, "I had barely fifty cents in the world." Here he attended an English school for a few months, then entered J. F. Bidenhorn's tobacco house. The next year he was so fortunate as to obtain a situation in a store as a clerk. He was taken in as a partner in 1847. In May of

1849 be married Mrs. Sarah Neptune, daughter of Albert and Sarah Lambert. She died in 1858. Five children were born to them, two of whom died in infancy. The others are Herman A., who married Albertine Werlitz, and is in business with his father at Ilarriettsville ; Charles T. married Jane Finney, and resides in Montana, and William G. married Hester Dickison, and lives in Harriettsville.

In the fall of 1849 he formed a partnership with Theodore Beninghaus, and moved to Harriettsville, Noble County, Ohio, where he continues to reside with his youngest son. In 1858 Mr. Beninghaus died, after which he set up in business for himself.

In 1852 or 1853 Mr. Conrad Shankburg came from the city of New York to clerk for Mr. Wernecke. lie married Lydia Jane Neptune, the stejxlaughter of Mr. Wernecke, by whom he had three children : All)ert, Rupert and Frantz. In 1873 Mr. Shankburg took his two oldest sons to Gennany to be educated there. Albert is still at Heidelberg, studying medicine. Rupert came home in 1880. The two youngest sons* are now with their father. Mrs. Shankburg died in 1872. In 1880 Mr. Shankburg left Mr. Wernecke, with whom he had been in business for several years, and went to Marietta, Ohio, and engaged in the wholesale grocery trade, and later to Sioux City, Iowa, where he has a prosperous business.

Mr. Wernecke has 265 acres of fine agricultural and pasture lands near the town of Harriettsville. He has a large and convenient store room in town, filled with a fine assortment of merchandise, and in addition to his fine family residence owns several houses and lots. He has handled every year, since 1849, 250 hogsheads of tobacco, and has on hand now (April, 1887) some twenty thousand dollars' worth. In 1870 he laid out the addition to the town of Harriettsville, improving the town very much. He was postmaster from 1856 to 1886. He was an old-line Wliig until the organization of the Ilepul>- lican party, with which he affiliated, and with which he has acted ever since. He has long been connecte<l with the Lutheran church, and contributed largely in building the German Lutheran church near Harriettsville, of which he has been secretary and a member of the financial board of the society. He has been school director also, and treasurer of the township for a number of years. His life has been a busy and useful one; by industry and economy he has acquired much wealth. In his varied business transactions he has associated with men of all classes, yet no man is more highly esteemed for his integrity and correct business habits than he.

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est child of Johannes and Anna Maria Smithberger. He had three brothers: Nicholas, John and Peter, and three sisters: Elizabeth, Catharine and Margaret. His mother died when he was six years old. In 1840 his father emigrated to the United States. All the children, except Nicholas, came with him. They came to Pittsburgh about the 1st of August, William being at this time fourteen years of age. In the same year he was apprenticed by his father for a term of three years to James and John Smith, machinists, of Pittsburgh; after serving about nine months he learned that a machinist must have considerable capital to set up a shop of his own ; that there were other trades fully as lucrative and which required much less capital ; he therefore engaged with a cabinetmaker, who failed seven weeks after, his employ os^ losing their wages. In the meantime his father had charge of a flock of sheep belonging to a Mr. Spriggs, who had a slave plantation near Wheeling, W. Va. William visited his father, Avho advised him to go to Elk Township, Monroe County, Ohio, at which place his father owned eighty acres of land, which- he had entered some time before at the government land office. The following spring he came to Ohio, as did his father, brother John and a sister. William helped to fell the first tree and assisted in building a dwelling-house; "then came hard times," says Mr. Smithberger. "Brother John and I often carried a half bushel of corn to a mill located three miles from us, and ground it by hand. In our straitened circumstances corn bread was a luxury." During the first year on the farm, John married, and William, not hking the rough life afforded by the backwoods, begged his father to allow him to go back to Pittsburgh; permission being granted, he engaged in the city with Harmer Dennie, as gardener. One day, while walking along the street, he met his old boss of the machine-shop, to whom he had been apprenticed, and endeavored to pass him without attracting his notice ; but it seems the recognition was mutual, for coming up he accosted William, inquiring where he had been and what he was doing. William made a clean breast of it, recounted his wanderings and hardships, and finally consented, after many solicitations, to go back to the shop; here he remained till 1847. In the spring of 1847 he entered into partnership in the retail grocery trade with his brother-in-law, Jacob Rothfuchs, the firm being Rothfuchs & Smithberger, on the corner of Seventh and Smithfield streets, Pittsburgh, and continued in the business till 1853. In May, 1849, he married Terrece Fauth, by whom he has twelve children: William G., married Catharine Burkhart, is a farmer and resides in Elk Township, Noble County; Anthony, married Mary Ei)ler, lives in Monroe County, and is a farmer ; Terrece married Peter Zwick, a Monroe County farmer; Justina married Matthias Zilles, April 12, 1887, a merchant of Lebanon, Monroe County ; Thomas J. is in Dakota ; Tsadore married Terrece

Burkhart, is a farmer of Noble County; Adaline A., Martha M., Edward W., John S., Alexander I), and Gregory are still at home. In 1853, on account of failing health, Mr. Smithberger was advised to move on a farm; accordingly in 1853 he came to the farm uj)on which he has since resided, clearing the land and adding fine improvements as circumstances made it possible, until it is now one of the best improved farms in the township. He began packing tobacco in 1861, and has handleil about seventy-five hogsheads a year, and has now on hand some $5,000 worth. He has nearly six hundred acres of good agricultural lands, mostly in Noble County, on \vhich are three good dwelling-houses, besides barns, tobacco-houses and numerous other outbuildings necessary to carry on his business and in which to store his grain; he has been engaged in merchandising since 1874; he has a good store-room filled with a fine selection of goods.

active part in building the Catholic church near Harrietts vi lie, contributing liberally of his means to this purpose and in support of its society. In politics he is a Democrat. The esteem in which he is held by the people of Elk Township is evidenced by the numerous positions of trust they have conferred upon him, viz. : School director and member of the board of education since 1858, township trustee, twice clerk of the township, treasurer of the township for five years, assessor of personal property for two terms, and land appraiser of the township in 1870, and justice of the peace for thirty years.

His has been a busy and useful life. A poor boy, without money and without influential friends, by his energy, industry and i)erseverance he has overcome the many difficulties to prosperity, and attained not only w^ealth but the respect and confidence of his fellow-men, and now, seated under his own vine and figtree, he dispenses a free-handed hospitality to all.