Edward Ropp

Notes:

Family/Spouse: Mollie Allen. Mollie was born in 1878; died in 1936. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Christine Ropp was born in 1910; died in 1984.
2. Edward Ropp was born in 1913; died in 1967.

Family/Spouse: Adella Eggers. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Education: Perhaps A Few Years At Railroad School
• Occupation: Lumber And Flour Miller - He built a saw and flour mill in Elm Grove in 1857
• Religion: Amish (As A Child)
• Residence: Abt 1846, Kansas City, KS
• Residence: Abt 1850, Tazewell Co., IL
• Residence: 1884, Berkley, Carlisle Co., KY

Notes:

According to Ropp Ramblings, “Moses had an inquiring mind and loved to read, but his father wouldn’t let him read the few books found in the family home. So Moses read the Bible through several times in his younger years. His life was mostly taken up with work and the social, religious life of the Amish community.

“Oral tradition says Moses and Lydia Garber went away [in other words eloped] to get married. Later in life Moses disagreed with the rules and Bible interpretations of the Old Amish church (and no doubt with Bishop Andrew Ropp) so he and Lydia went elsewhere. The couple’s first years were spent in Kansas City, then a wild river town, where he worked at a saw mill that furnished lumber for a nearby Indian reservation.

“The Indians didn’t trust white men who cheated them, but were friendly to those who treated them well. “Aunt Lydia” soon won their confidence and when her daughter Rosina was a baby the Indian children wanted to play with the white papoose. Later the Indian boys would take her on horseback rides and Lydia was sometimes concerned that they might not bring her back, but they always did.”

Birth:
near Tavistock

Residence:
Built a house on Sinking Creek, near the north line of Sec. 20, still in the Railroad school district.

Buried:
Berkley Cemetery

Moses married Lydia Garber on 27 Dec 1846 in Tazewell Co., IL. Lydia (daughter of John Garber and Eva Caroline Paithe) was born on 14 Jul 1831 in Monroe Co., OH; died on 16 Jan 1909 in Berkley, Carlisle Co., KY; was buried in Berkley, Carlisle Co., KY. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Religion: Mennonite
• Residence: 1884, Berkley, Carlisle Co., KY

Notes:

Obituary:
Lydia Garber Ropp was born in Monroe County, OH, July 14, 1831, and passed away Jan. 16, 1909, aged 77 years, six months and two days.

She moved to Pekin, Ill., in her youth, at which place she was united in marriage to Moses Ropp, who preceded her to their Heavenly home Aug. 3, 1891.

To his happy union were born eight children, seven of whom are still living, namely: Rosina Heck, Berkley, KY; Lina Miars, Des Moines, Iowa; Edward Ropp, Berkley, Ky: Thomas Ropp, Washington, Ill.; Moses Ropp, Berkley, Ky.; Lydia Ropp, Pekin, Ill., and Pet Beadles, Berkley, Ky.

In 1884 they moved from Pekin, Ill., to Berkley, Ky., where she spent the remainder of her earthly life. In her girlhood she joined the Mennonite church and remained a faithful and devout member to the religion which she professed.

Her sickness and suffering was of short duration. She died as she had lived, in peace with God and men. Endowed with a strong, clear mind, a cheerful, loving disposition, a winning personality, she was honored and loved by all with whom she come in contact. No word of bitterness, no deed of unkindness, no act of unselfishness marred the beauty and harmony of her life.

A sweeter, purer, nobler life we have never known. So unstintedly did she contribute to the happiness of others that the Christly motto, I am among you as one that serveth, seemed to radiate from her presence.

The funeral services were conducted by the Rev. Ben T. Huey and the Methodist quartet sang the songs, “Asleep in Jesus,” “The Open Gate,” “The Christian’s Good Night,” and “Nearer My God to Thee,” in a most touching way, after which she was laid away in the Berkley cemetery to await the resurrection. A Friend.


“… Today seven years ago we came to Berkley, Ky. with our family. We left behind us a nice and comfortable home and good society. Our children bid farewell to the school and playmates. All seemed to be sad to leave the pleasant old home where we had lived for 29 years, where our children were born, where so many pleasant incidents were associated with so many efforts in life.

“When we landed here in the midst of a wilderness and world of timber, only enough cleared ground for a house yard and saw mill, it would be in the course of the human events only natural to shed a few tears on such an occasion; it was somewhat like a separation between home and the grave.

“But after seven years of work, worry, and toil, we look back and take a review and feel thankful for the blessings received. Our lives with the exception of one (Rosina's husband Harvey Heck) have been spared. We have had reasonable good health. The wilderness and timber has disappeared. We are now surrounded by wheat and corn fields. We have a good school, a church house, good society, and a nice home.

“We render thanks to the dispenser of all good and hope that each succeeding year may be equally pleasant.


From Walter Ropp’s family stories: “Lydia, the fourth daughter, married Moses Ropp. He was nearly six foot four and fat enough to weigh 160. Garbers were inclined to be rather short. She was very short. When he extended his arm she could stand under it. Before they went to Kentucky they lived one and three quarter miles south and east of the old school house where he built a saw and flour mill in 1857. This became a busy place. By 188? there were several worker's cottages there and the white house where he was "Der Uncle Moses" and she "De Aunt Liddie" to 114 nephews and nieces, nearly all of them at home in Tazewell County–and I'm not counting children that died–only men and women. There were 46 Ropps, 37 Garbers, 10 Kings, 10 Kennels, 6 Schrocks, and 5 Ringenbergers.

“The Tazewell County Court House has a display of photographs of old settlers and men of long ago that has no equal in the United States, the work of a photographer named Cole. When he made a picture of these men he enlarged it to size and kept them till he had nearly one thousand. About 1875 a teacher in the school decided that she wanted a picture of each member of the board, and one morning going to Pekin she came out to the road and asked for one. No, he (Moses) had never had anything like that in the house. Then, would he go to Coles–she made arrangements. He went and his picture is in the display. When the news got home the first thing that Aunt Liddy said was, "Now he had to go just when he didn't have his best suit on."

“When the exhaustion of good timber and the rolling process of milling came, about 1882, he had to either quit or go elsewhere so he bought some heavy timberland in western Kentucky in 1884. The seven little Ropps were Rosina, Lina, Ed, Tom, Mo, Lydia and Pete.”

Residence:
See obit

Buried:
Berkley Cemetery

Notes:

Date could be incorrect. If correct, Lydia was only 12 at time of marriage.

Other Events and Attributes:

• HEIG: Just Over Six Feet Tall; Lean And Muscular, Weighed About 165 Pounds In His Prime.
• Occupation: Farmer And Miller
• Religion: Amish Mennonite
• USR1: Old Age
• Residence: 1825-26, Altkirch, Haut-Rhin, Alsace, FR
• Immigration: 1826

Notes:

Obit: Herald of Truth, Vol V, No 11, November 1868

On the 14th of October, in McLean county, Illinois, of old age, Andrew Ropp, in the 92nd year of his age. His memory was good and he was rational to the last.

He has seven children living, all of whom were present except one, who was on a journey at the time. He had 82 children, grand-children and great grand-children, who are still living, and 20 which have died.

A large concourse of people were present at the funeral, and a discourse appropriate to the occasion was delivered by Pre Joseph Stuckey, from Rev 21. He was a member of the Amish Mennonite Church.
———————————
• Source: Amish Mennonites in Tazewell County, Illinois by Joseph Staker

"At the time of the marriage [Andreas' marriage to Elizabeth Eiman], Andreas's brother and sister were living at Jettingen. It is located about 10 miles southeast of Froeningen, midway on the 20-mile road between Altkirch and Basel, and less than 10 miles from the Swiss border community of Allschwil. Both Froeningen and Jettingen fall within the canton/department of Altkirch.
Elisabeth Eymann's first two children were born at Jettingen in 1807 and 1809. The birth entry of oldest child André (later bishop Andrew Ropp) describes father Andreas as André Ropp, a
29-year-old Anabaptist farmer and cultivator, married to 'Elisabetha Ayman.' Witnesses included 37-year-old Anabaptist farmer Jacob/Jacques Stauffer and his 21-year-old valet Joseph Burgermeister. Neither birth entry states that Andreas was actually a resident of Jettingen.

Their next three children were born at Falkwiller in 1810, 1812, and 1815.58 (The marriage entry of sister Catharine suggests that Andreas may have been living there as early as 1804). Christian Ropp wrote: “My father lived in Upper Alsace about six miles from Basel, two miles from Dammerkirch, and five miles from Belfort.” These were 'German miles': an hour's walk, or three English miles. The tiny village of Falkwiller is 5.8 miles north of Dannemarie, and the distances west to Belfort and southeast to Basel are approximately 15 and 18 miles. The largest employer in the area of Falkwiller was the Wasserhaus estate in adjacent Linden. 59 The Wasserhaus Château was destroyed after the French Revolution, and Linden no longer exists, but carp are still raised there in clay basins and man-made ponds created in the 16th century. Jean Burÿ [Buri], a witness on one Ropp family birth entry, was a laborer at Wasserhaus.
Andreas' ties to his uncle Joseph Ropp are apparent. Joseph was probably the reason that Andreas, his sister, and his brother are found in the Sundgau Region.

...Andreas may have been influenced just as much by his uncle Christian Rupp, who lived at a far greater distance. A number of coincidences link them:
Christian and Andreas were both very familiar with Amish Mennonite families on the opposite side of the Vosges Mountains in the tiny village of Hellocourt, Moselle (now Maizières-lès-Vic). It is likely Christian met them through his second wife, Magdalena Brechbühl; Brechbühls also married into the Vercler and Mosiman families.
Christian was a witness at the marriage of Peter Engel at Hellocourt in 1804. Peter was a son of elder Christian Engel, who Andreas later considered his 'cousin.'
Christian's children include Barbe, who married André Vercler; Joseph, who married Anne Mosimann; Jean, who married Marie Vercler; Elisabeth, who married Joseph Gerber and Joseph Augspurger; and Madeleine, who married Jean Salzman. Catherine Vercler, an older sister to the Verclers mentioned here, married Christian Bälzli/Belsely and lived at Azoudange; they were the parents of 'Red Joe' Belsley, who may have been the first Amish Mennonite to settle in Tazewell County (in a part that later became Woodford County). See the supplemental genealogy VERCLER.
Andreas Ropp's oldest son Andrew married Jacobina Vercler, from the next generation of this Hellocourt family.
And finally, two of Christian's great-grandchildren emigrated to McLean County, Ill., where they married two of Andreas Ropp's grandchildren (Marie A. Rupp and Peter S. Ropp, 1868; and Marie Anne Valerie Rupp and John S. Ropp, 1872). Andreas lived to see the first marriage."

Residence:
Farm Barthel Hutte

Buried:
Ropp Cemetery

Andréas married Elizabeth Eymann on 20 Mar 1806 in Lubine, Vosges, Bas-Rhin, FR. Elizabeth (daughter of Johannes Eymann and Anna Barbe Goldschmidt) was born in 1784 in Lubine, Vosges, Bas-Rhin, FR; died in 1834 in Butler Co., OH. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Birth:
Date from Neil Ann Levine

Other Events and Attributes:

• Religion: Amish Mennonite
• USR1: Asiatic Cholera
• Immigration: 28 Aug 1818, Philadelphia, PA
• Residence: Abt 1819, Mifflin Co., PA
• Residence: 1827/1835, OH
• Census: 1840, OH
• Residence: Abt 1841, Elm Grove Twp., Tazewell Co., IL

Notes:

Gerber/Garber = tanner.

All the graves of John and Eva’s children in Elm Grove Twp. Cemetery use the name spelled GERBER.

“Sometime near 1840, John Garber and wife, Eva Caroline Paithe, came from Butler Co., Ohio and moved into a log house on the John Young farm about 80 rods southeast of Andrew Ropp. He was a native of Switzerland, born in 1799. His passport gives his departure for Philadelphia as June 18, 1819. His wife was born in New York City in 1801 of Holland Mennonite parents who went to Mifflin Co., Pa where this marriage took place. Their married life was in Lancaster Co and few years in Ohio. A short time after his arrival he returned to Ohio on business and dies there of cholera. His widow remained on the Young farm supported by the children, who married in the families of the community. They numbered 11. Samuel's wife was Mary Litwiller, their home at Eniden. Emmanuel's wife was Fannie Switzer, they lived on the east eighty of the Sommer Seed Corn farm. Sybil married Peter Ringenberger and lived on the west eighty. Mary, wife of Samuel King, lived in the field a mile northeast of the school house. Lydia, wife of Uncle Mose Ropp. Dave, whose wife was Lena Kinsinger on Dillon Creek. Katie, wife of Jacob Kennel north of Morton; Nancy, wife of Peter Schrock; John and Noah, and Dannie who died in his teens following an accident at a horse power.

“About 1860, when Man Garber lived on the Sommer farm, Mr. Young had a field of corn down at the road. One morning Garber noticed him out looking around to see how it was coming up and turn suddenly and come over to where he as working. "Garber", he said, "your chickens are rooting up all my corn." All right, all right, shoot em, shoot em. After a while (Garber) heard a shot and over came Young, and Garbers had chicken for dinner. A year or so later Garber had rye on his, with Young's field in corn again. May and June were dry and warm and one day in came Mr. Young all excited, "Garber, your chinch bugs are coming across the road to my corn. All right, Mr. Young, shoot em, shoot em!

“Way long ago, the church corner was the Nieukirk corner, named after a very early settler with two sons, Tom and Mace, in the old brink house across from the church. This place was a station where horses were changed on the stage coaches before 1800.”

According to Grubb in “Mennonites of Butler County, Ohio” a second Amish settlement in Ohio began when Jacob Yoder moved to Wayne Co. in 1817 from Mifflin Co., PA. Since John and his family had lived in Mifflin Co. at one time there is the probability that he had connections in Wayne Co. (or even lived there briefly before moving to Butler Co. since one of his children was born in Wayne Co.). Therefore when he returned to Ohio on business and died there, he could be buried in either Butler or Wayne Co.

————
“When they left Ohio for Illinois in 1840, they sold their household goods and implements and with their eleven children started their journey down the Ohio River, up the Mississippi to St. Louis on a large steamboat. The last night before arriving at St. Louis no one could sleep. Every few minutes a sentinel would cry out, “Look out for pickpockets!”. From St. Louis, they boarded a smaller vessel and arrived at Wesley City.” Arrived with wife and 11 children in Tazewell Co., IL, via Wesley City, from Butler Co., OH.

"Moved to Ohio 1827, to Illinois 1840. Had eleven children, older born in Lancaster Co. Pa, the younger in Butler Co. Ohio. Eva, wife was born in New York City in 1801. They lived in Butler Co. a number of years before moving to IL. Their new home was a log house on the John Young farm. It now has the Bethel Mennonite Church located on the north corner. At the time it was the Nieukirk corner with a brick house that was the stopping place for stage coaches on the Peoria-Indianapolis road. Now Illinois Highway #9. Soon after their arrival John Garber went back to Ohio on business quite likely by stage and died there during an epidemic of Asiatic Cholera. This left his widow and her family in that house in Young's field for quite a number of years supported by her children Emmanuel the oldest, being around 21 and Nancy was the baby.

“In the peaceful little country of Switzerland, in the year 1788, 25th day of July, John Garber was born. When he reached early manhood, exciting news came to the village where he, his widowed mother and four sisters lived. The Americans were sending passports for young men to use, providing they agreed to work a certain length of time after arriving in America to pay for their passage--the time to be agreed upon by the two contracting parties. The government seal in the family tells us this was the method John Garber used to get to America.

“His passport was issued on March 19, 1813, and was good for five years. The passport was used April 7, 1818, and bears the seal of a Notary Public in the County of Bern, Switzerland. On May 26, 1818, he entered into contract with Joseph Rush, Captain of the ship Susquehanna, for his passage to America, at the cost of two hundred francs, amounting to about fifty American dollars, leaving his widowed mother and four sisters in Bern.

“Family tradition indicates that John Garber worked two years for a Pennsylvania planter to pay off his travel contract. As far as we know, John was the only one of his family to come to America. He later married Eva Caroline Paithe (b.1799).”

Birth:
Other dates found 1792, 1798 (near Steffisburg)

Immigration:
From Amsterdam on ship Susquehannah, John Rush, Captain

Residence:
Butler, Monroe, or Wayne Co.

Census:
Listed in the Rush Creek, Fairfield County census

Residence:
Walter Ropp history

Died:
Probably Butler or Wayne Co.

Buried:
B. Lorenz says in one place Elmgrove Twp. Cemetery, Tazewell Co., IL. But it is logical he was buried in either Butler or Wayne Co., OH, as cholera victims were generally buried immediately.

John married Eva Caroline Paithe on 30 Jun 1824 in Mifflin Co., PA. Eva (daughter of John (Emanuel?) Paithe (Paight?) and Barbie Bressman) was born on 20 Mar 1799 in PA; died on 26 Nov 1874 in Pekin, Tazewell Co., IL; was buried in Pekin, Tazewell Co., IL. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Education: Could Not Read Or Write, Signed With Her X
• Religion: Dillon Creek Amish Congregation
• Census: 1870, Elm Grove Twp., Tazewell Co., IL

Notes:

Her father was a native New Yorker, mother was from Holland. Walter Ropp’s notes say Eva was born of Mennonite parents from Holland, who went to Mifflin Co., PA.


“Barbara Lorenz says it has been handed down in her family that Eva Caroline’s father, John Paithe, was a Hessian soldier who stayed in the US after the Revolutionary War.”

“Eva Caroline Paithe, the girl who later became the wife of John Garber, was born on March 20, 1799, near New York City. Her mother was born in Holland, but her father was a native of New York state. When Eva Caroline was quite young, her parents moved to Pennsylvania. After her marriage to John Garber they resided in Mifflin County, PA. Eleven children were born to this union. In 1835, the parents with their seven children moved to Butler County, Ohio where they lived until 1840. Here four more children were born.

“In 1840 John and Eva sold their household goods and implements and with their eleven children started their journey down the Ohio River, and up the Mississippi to St. Louis on a large steamboat. The last night before arriving at St. Louis, no one could sleep. Every few minutes a sentinel would cry out, "Look out for pickpockets!" From St. Louis, they boarded a smaller vessel and arrived at Wesley City, Illinois, in Tazewell County. They made their home near Pekin.

“The following year, 1841 (probate says 1845), John Garber went back to Ohio to collect sale notes. He died there and was buried before the news reached his family. His wife, Eva, and her second son, Emanuel and his family, shared their home until her death in 1874.”

After John’s death, Eva lived with Emanuel until her own death.

Birth:
Charles W. Finch gives date 20 Mar 1794; Carr 1801

Census:
Listed as 70 years of age, born in PA, living in the household of Emanuel Gerber

Buried:
Railroad Cemetery

Notes:

Birth:
?

Died:
Now Kaysersberg-Vignoble.

Johannes + Barbe Hochstettler. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Died:
Pre du Chene

Johannes + Anna Barbe Goldschmidt. Anna (daughter of Joseph Goldschmidt and Bachman) was born in 1750; died on 29 Oct 1819 in Niedernai, Bas-Rhin, FR. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Died:
Riedhof (or Tauferhof) Obernai

Notes:

Wife’s name was Mary.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Residence: Abt 1800, Mifflin Co., PA

Notes:

John + Barbie Bressman. Barbie was born in 1750 in Holland. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes: