Catherine Gephart (1804 – 1876) married Daniel Shelly in 1823 and moved with him and their children to Cass County, Indiana in 1841. In researching Catherine’s family, I have discovered the immigrant ancestors and a pioneering spirit that travels through generations. Here is their story.
Catherine Gephart’s father, John George Gephart (1773 – 1854) and her paternal grandfather, John Heinrich “Henry” Gephart (1745 – 1815) were born in Pennsylvania and traveled with their families to Montgomery County, Ohio ca 1808. John Heinrich (Henry) fought in the Revolutionary War, and his son, John George Gephart fought in the War of 1812.
Johann George Phillip Gebhart, Sr. (1713 – 1792) (born in Germany – Our Immigrant Ancestor)
Johann Heinrich (Henry) Gebhart (1745 – 1815) (born in PA, died in OH – Pioneer Ancestor)
John George Gebhart (1773 – 1854) (born in PA, died in OH – Pioneer Ancestor)
Catherine Gebhart (1804 – 1876) (born in PA, moved to OH, married Daniel Shelly and moved to IN – Pioneer Ancestor)
Following are some details of the Gebhart/Gephart family:
Johann George Phillip Gebhart Sr. (1713 – 1792) married Anna Margaretha Massa (1710 – 1793) on Feb 4, 1738. They left Rhineland-Pfaltz in Western Germany (see map, below) in 1738 and traveled by ship (The Glasgow) to Philadelphia. They arrived on Sept 9, 1738. They were of the Lutheran faith, and joined many immigrants belonging to the main Lutheran and Reformed churches. Many came as “redemptioners” – immigrants who agreed to work in America for four to seven years in exchange for free passage across the Atlantic. By the 1790’s, over 100,000 German immigrants had found their way to the New World.
Johann George Phillip Sr. and Anna Margaretha Massa had 9 children, below, all born in Pennsylvania except perhaps their first child. Whether or not Johannes Gebhart was born in Germany, born on board the ship or born in Pennsylvania is not clear. Please note that all of the sons, except for the last one, had the first name “Johann”, so I will refer to them with their middle names, ongoing.
Johannes Gebhart (1738 – 1766) (born either in Germany or PA)
Anna Barbara Gebhart (1740 – 1825) m John Stein (1731 – 1810)
Anna Margaretha Gebhart (1742 – ?)
Johann George Philip Gebhart, Jr (1743 – 1815) **
Johann Heinrich (Henry) Gebhart (1745 – 1815) – our ancestor – married Mary Miller in 1768 (1750 – 1819) **
Johann Peter Gebhart (1746 – 1828) **
Maria Eva Gebhart (1747 – 1818)
Johann Philip Gebhart (1750 – 1816)
Valentine Gebhart (1751 – 1810) **
** George Philip Jr., Peter, Valentine, Henry and Philip all fought in the 3rd Battalion, Berks County Militia http://www.berks.pa-roots.com/Military/RevolutionaryWar/berksjn5.html In this record their surnames were spelled as either Gephart, Gebhart and Gephard.
Johann George Philip Sr and his wife Anna Margaretha both died in 1792 – 1793. There was a yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia in 1793 which killed 5000 people, and it is possible that they contracted this deadly disease.
From: https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/yellow-fever/
Yellow fever is a Flavivirus that spreads among humans via the bite of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Once introduced to a human host, the virus begins replicating in the lymph nodes. Initial symptoms include aches and pains, fever, nausea, and dizziness, lasting several days before receding. In serious cases, the symptoms return with renewed intensity as the disease spreads to the liver, inducing jaundice, delirium, and internal hemorrhaging. The victim begins bleeding from the ears and nose, retching up a blend of gastric contents and blood known as the “coffee grounds” or “black vomit.” In the terminal phase, the victim falls comatose as his organs and circulatory system begin to fail, usually expiring as the liver or kidneys finally give out, some 7-10 days after the relapse. Those who survived the ordeal acquired immunity to the disease, but any population composed largely of unseasoned newcomers provided a fertile environment for an outbreak.
After some three decades absent, yellow fever returned to Philadelphia with a vengeance in 1793, during the period that it served as the capital of both Pennsylvania and the United States. Beginning from a cluster of infections near the Delaware waterfront, the fever spread rapidly through the summer and autumn, fueling panic throughout the city. Those who could fled the city to destinations in healthier countryside, like Germantown and Gray’s Ferry, an exodus numbering in the thousands. Among those who remained, the fever claimed an estimated 5,000 lives. Other American cities embargoed the nation’s capital, fearful that traffic from Philadelphia could introduce the infection.
Johann Heinrich (Henry) Gebhart (1745 – 1815):
From “A Biography of John Heinrich (Henry) Gebhart” Ancestry Story by Linda Morris
Birth: 8 Jan 1745 in Tulpehocken Township, Lancaster County, PA
Death: 27 Sep 1815 in Montgomery County, OH
Johann Heinrich was the 5th child in the family. In 1768 he married Mary Miller (1750 – 1819).
Henry Gephart served in the Berks County Militia in Capt. Bretz’s 6th Battalion during the Revolutionary War and received his land grant in Ohio (*). At the end of the war, he and three of his brothers were among 21 families that settled Miamisburg, Ohio between 1805 – 1815.
(*) Military Land Grants: In 1770, Virginia had claimed part of the area that became Ohio. Virginia established the Military Reserve between the Scioto and Little Miami Rivers. These lands were available to veterans of the Virginia and Maryland Militias who had served during the American Revolution.
Henry, George Philip Jr., Peter and Valentine all received their land grants and settled in or around Miamisburg, but the brothers also built a tavern. It is listed on the National Registry of historical buildings.
Note: the Tavern, “Daniel Gephart Tavern” has been restored by the Miamisburg Historical Society. It is a museum, open to the public. Daniel Gephart (1791 – 1836) was the son of Valentine Gephart. Research from the Miamisburg Historical Society indicates that Daniel Gephart applied for the license and built the tavern, not his father and uncles.
http://www.miamisburg.org/daniel_gebhart_tavern_museum.htm
I found a historical map of Montgomery County, Ohio, dated in the 1800’s, that shows where the many Gephart families lived. https://www.loc.gov/resource/g4083m.la000656/?r=-0.292,0.357,1.391,0.722,0
Johann Heinrich (Henry) (1745 – 1815) and Mary Magdalena Miller (1750 – 1819) married in 1793 in Berks County, PA. They had nine children, all of whom were born in Pennsylvania over the course of 22 years. This family of eleven people traveled across Pennsylvania in 1805 with other relatives and families and settled in what is now Montgomery County. Henry was a farmer. At the time of their move, their oldest, Mary Margaretha, was 36 and married with children. Their youngest (John Henry Jr.) was 14 years old. It must have been quite an undertaking!
Their children are as follows:
Mary Margaretha (1769 – 1848) m. Jacob Weaver
Henry (1772 – 1825) m Mary Elizabeth Smith
John (1772 – 1817 ) m Margaret E Schmidt (hypothesis)
John George (1773 – 1854) m Elizabeth Kramer (1769 – 1865) Our ancestors
Catherine Magdalena (1779 – 1843) m John Schnepp
Sarah Maria (1783 – 1865) m Henry Apple
Phillip S. (1786 – 1864) m Susanna Rhodes
John Jacob (1789 – 1862) m Sarah McKesell
John Henry Jr. (1791 – 1873) m Sarah Wertz
The will of Johann Heinrich (Henry) was dated 27 Sep 1815 and recorded 9 Oct 1815, Book A, page 113, Montgomery County, OH. The will names wife Magdalene, sons Philip, Henry, John, George, Jacob and daughters Margaret Weaver, Magdalene Schnepp and Eve Apple. The Executors were sons Philip and Jacob.
One half of the first 100 marriages in Miamisburg, Ohio were Gepharts. Johann Heinrich Gebhart is listed in the files of the Daughters of the American Revolution as well as his brothers, John George, Peter and Valentine who all served together.
Our ancestors, John George Gephart (1773 – 1854) and Elizabeth Kramer (1769 – 1865) were married in Pennsylvania in 1793. They had eleven children, including Catherine Gephart (1804 – 1876) who married Daniel Shelly and moved to Cass County, IN. They moved with the rest of the family to the Miamisburg area, Montgomery County, OH around 1805. Catherine was their sixth child, and she and her brother George Washington Gephart were babies when the family moved.
Children born prior to 1806 moved from Pennsylvania to Ohio with their parents. Children born after 1806 were born in Ohio. The children of John George and Elizabeth Gephart are as follows:
Mary “Salome” (1795 – 1884) PA to OH m Thomas Kreitzer
Susanna (1796 – 1884) PA to OH m Jacob Weaver
Joseph (1798 – 1886) PA to OH m Sarah Ann Bowman
Magdalene (1800 – 1881) PA to OH m Phillip Weaver
Jacob (1802 – 1876) PA to OH m Eve ?
Catherine (1804 – 1876) PA to OH to IN m Daniel Shelly
George Washington (1804 – 1894) PA to OH m Margaret Elizabeth Weaver
David (1806 -1841) born in OH, m Margaret Pence
Julianna (1809 – 1847) born in OH, m Jacob Kimmel
Elizabeth Catherine (twin, 1811 – 1886) born in OH, m Jonathan Shell
Peter (twin, 1811 – 1899) born in OH, m Eleanor Bates
Catherine and Daniel Shelly married in 1823 in Montgomery County, OH and moved to Cass County, IN, in 1841. They had 12 children, and at the time of their relocation, had a family of 5 children, (three had died and were buried in Miamisburg). Catherine was pregnant with our ancestor, George Washington Shelly (1841 – 1914) and gave birth to him in the Indiana wilderness. She left her entire family behind in Ohio.
I do not have a photograph of Catherine or Daniel Shelly, but a relative of Catherine’s younger sister, Elizabeth Catherine (1811 – 1886) and her husband, Jonathan Shell, posted the photo of the couple on Ancestry.
For your reading pleasure, here is a short history of the Gephart Tavern, Miamisburg, OH
History of the Gephart Tavern from the Miamisburg Historical Society Website
Click to access Daniel%20Gebhart%20Tavern%20Story.pdf
“The first to arrive in what is now Miamisburg was Zachariah Hole, who came with his family from Virginia in 1797, and fearing trouble with the Indians, built a stockade on the east bank of the Miami River opposite the mouth of Bear Creek. To this stockade came squatters, surveyors and settlers who had received grants. They lived within the stockade until their own cabins were built and the settlement came to be known as “Hole’s Station”. The majority of these early settlers came from Pennsylvania, bringing with them their German Reformed and Lutheran faiths, their skills in carpentry and agriculture, their determined spirit and their ethics of hard work. Some of them have descendants still living in Miamisburg.
DANIEL GEBHART
In 1805 Valentine Gebhart came to Hole’s Station from Berks County, Pennsylvania with his wife and six children including three sons, Andrew, Philip and the youngest, Daniel. Valentine Gebhart died in 1810 leaving young Daniel with the responsibility of his mother. At the age of 19 years, in 1810, Daniel went to Dayton and applied for a license to build and operate a tavern. He also obtained his marriage license. He married Mary Eagle in 1811, and the couple had nine children. Daniel Gebhart died in 1836 at the age of 45.
PURPOSE OF THE TAVERN
Inns and taverns in colonial America were important social institutions. Inevitably, the tavern appeared early in the settlement of nearly every frontier community. Daniel Gebhart obviously believed that a tavern in the area would find patrons. In the frontier settlement that became Miamisburg, the Gebhart Tavern opened its doors in 1811, nearly a decade before the community was platted, churches organized or a schoolhouse built. Located within a stone’s throw of the Miami River it soon became a scene of good cheer. Especially during spring freshets, boatmen piloting flatboats down the Miami turned their boats near the tavern and took refuge there for the night; returning after dismantling their boats at New Orleans, they would visit the tavern. Joining them would be newcomers poling up the river. Settlers west of the river could ford it at low water and reach the tavern. From scattered farms to the east, farmers – often Germans – would come to Gebhart’s for schnapps. To the east of the tavern ran an old Indian trail from Cincinnati to Dayton. This, too, provided travelers looking for food and lodging. Travelers brought news from Cincinnati and Dayton and hand-carried letters to families living in the community. So popular was the tavern that the community around it became known as Gebhart’s. With the growth of Miamisburg after its platting in 1818 and the coming of the Miami Canal in 1829, the tavern continued to prosper despite coming into the hands of new proprietors. But various elements, among them the decline of the canal, forced the tavern to close its doors sometime in mid-century. Eventually the building was converted to a boarding house and later into a two-family dwelling, never again to recover its vitality.
BUILDING THE TAVERN
The Tavern is apparently one of only three known log structures built in the Ohio Territory in this period of time specifically for commercial purposes. A conveniently located log house was usually converted and enlarged for such activities. A number of features indicated that the tavern was probably not built with local Pennsylvania-German labor. Daniel Gebhart apparently brought in a construction crew originally from the east coast “Tidewater Country” of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia where Scandinavian techniques were practiced. The most pronounced evidence is the use of dovetail corner interlocking of the hand-hewed logs, rather than the “steeple cut” system used by the Germans. Excavation by an archaeologist team has produced a clay pipe bowl which is a type that such itinerant carpenters of Swedish background were known to use. The land in this area was originally part of the infamous Symmes Purchase. When land was sold it was with the requirement that within a year a habitable building must be built on the land. This further required that it be “plastered” on the inside and eventually covered with siding on the outside. We can tell from the window frames that the building was intended to be sided. We have evidence that the “dining” area occupying the north half of the first floor was plastered, apparently very early, using straw matting as a base – a system practiced in north central Europe but rarely in this country. A section of the original materials remains above the northwest exterior door.
The floors are framed using “summer” (or “somer” – a French word for weightbearing) beams spanning the width of the building, overcoming the limiting effect of the usual floor joist system that has bearing from outside wall to outside wall. This resulted in a structure almost twice as large as a typical log residence without interior bearing walls. The direction of the floor joists also permitted straight-run stairs at the side of the building rather than the usual residential winding stairs in a corner at the end of the structure. The “summer” beam supporting the attic floor joists is the largest member in the building, exceeding thirty feet in length.
There is full depth cellar under the entire building, not open to the public, which again is not common in such early structures in this area and proves the intention of full and intense use of the building – and the importance of the site. To lay up such an extensive ledge stone foundation was a major effort, not usually done unless the use was well justified. An opening in the east wall for a barrel chute indicates that this basement was the storage area of the tavern’s beer, schnapps and whiskey supply.
At the time of construction, the method of heating such a tavern would have been with fireplaces, since stoves were not available in this frontier area. When the framing of the floors was exposed, there was evidence of a chimney at each end of the building and fireplaces on both the first and second floors. The original stone was apparently removed and used in the foundations of the houses to the north. These chimneys were entirely inside the walls and intended for heating only, with cooking apparently being done in an outbuilding between the tavern and the river. These outbuildings were washed away in the floods. There is a stone-faced cellar which would have been the approximate size of a workable cooking kitchen.
WELLS
The circular well to the west of the building is a hand-dug, stone lined well more than forty-five feet deep, reaching below the river water level. It originally had a hand crank at the top to raise the buckets of water. The square well is a hand-dug, brick lined cistern, probably dug later, that was piped to receive the water from the buildings. It is referred to as a “beehive” cistern. It, too, had an elevated top holding a crank for carrying water. Both were found in excellent shape having been covered by a cement slab during the conversion of the building to a two-family dwelling.
SMOKEHOUSE
The smokehouse that is located west of the tavern was a gift from Mrs. Harriet Gebhart Hieronymus and her sons. It was originally located on the land-grant farm of Johannes Gebhart, great-great grandfather of Mrs. Hieronymus. Located at the junction of the St. Rts 71 and 725 in Miami Township, six generations of Gebharts called this farm “home”. The bricks of the smokehouse were fired on the farm property with the help of some Miami Indians who were still in the area. When the farm was sold to make room for the expansion of the Dayton Mall area, Harriet and sons donated the smokehouse to the City of Miamisburg. It was taken down, brick by brick, and moved to the site of the Gebhart Tavern. The smokehouse illustrates its value in preserving meats for long winter days. Hooks for hanging ham, bacon and shoulders can be seen in the smokehouse. The fire was made on a dirt floor. The holes in the back of the wall of the smokehouse made a draft to make the fire smoke well. The sausage stuffer and the original meat chopping block give evidence of long years of use in keeping the farm pantry full.
52 Ancestors in 52 weeks: Shelly and Horn 