**We do take a winter break from meeting. No meetings will occur in December, 2024 and January or August, 2025.
Defiance County, Ohio Genealogy
A blog maintained by the Defiance County Chapter of the Ohio Genealogical Society, with posts relevant to Defiance County history and genealogy.
Friday, November 15, 2024
DCGS Announcements
**We do take a winter break from meeting. No meetings will occur in December, 2024 and January or August, 2025.
Sunday, November 10, 2024
William T. Griner and Elizabeth Roe Griner, Citizens of Hicksville
The Story of Catherine Elizabeth (Roe) and William Theopolis Griner
Saturday, November 2, 2024
Fred Grossenbacher - G.A.R., Bishop Post
When Fred was discharged from the army, after two years, one month and twenty-one days of service, he was probably a very changed person when his parents next saw him. War had shown him many unpleasant things. He had voted for the first time as a Union soldier for Abraham Lincoln. After his marriage with Rose and the births of nine children, hardship came again when they lost five of their children in the space of five years. Rose, herself, died in 1903 at the age of 45, with two daughters, Emma and Estella, passing before her in 1902 and 1903.
Sunday, October 27, 2024
Farmer School Orchestra 1925
Saturday, October 19, 2024
The Tyler Hanging in Williams County
In this post about Hugh Manon, we learned that Hugh Manon, Jr. kept a timeline of events in his life based on the Tyler hanging, but what did he mean? The Bryan Press of April 13, 1848, helped solve this mystery through its page one story on the hanging of Tyler.
Mr. Tyler was described as a bad man with a "most forbidding countenance" who was traveling around Williams County pretending to be a fortune teller. With him, he had a "poor, half-witted fellow" named Heckathorn. The two were in the West Unity area in the summer of 1847, going house to house offering to tell the fortunes of those they met.
On one particular day, they stopped at the home of the Scamps where Mr. Scamp told them in no uncertain terms that Tyler's services "were never needed or wanted." Mr. Tyler took offense to the rebuff, probably delivered in a straightforward, gruff manner, and promised Mr. Scamp that he would regret that decision.
A little later, on a Sunday afternoon, Tyler came across a little Scamp boy, thought to be five or six years old, and he and Heckathorn lured him into the woods, probably with the promise of candy. The family noticed the boy missing, but unable to find him, they sounded the alarm to the neighbors and friends who searched for several days with no luck. The whole county became involved emotionally, at least, in this loss of a child.
Saturday, October 12, 2024
Old School Document from Tiffin Township
"There was shown the writer a few days ago - an interesting old document in the shape of a quarterly school report of District 2 in Tiffin township for the period ending on the 11th day of March 1848.
The report, made over 76 years ago, mentions the following scholars and their ages as having attended.
The names are in the report as given below: