Lake County Ohio GenWeb

Martin Wirt

The following article is from the Painesville Telegraph, 18 April 1861 page 3 and transcribed here by Cynthia Turk. It was reprinted in the September 1985 "LakeLines," the newsletter of the Lake County Genealogical Society. There is no byline but it appears to be part of the series by Spencer Phelps.

Sketches of the Pioneers -- No. 14.

MARTIN WIRT.

Martin Wirt was born in Germany, but when our authority does not state, and emigrated into this country at the very youthful age of seven years. He was a poor boy, and came over to this country at a time when the custom (unjust and oppressive as it was) prevailed of selling out the passengers from a land of tyranny to one which he doubtless supposed was to be an asylum for those seeking Freedom, for a term of years, to pay the passage. Wirt landed, we are not informed when, at the city of Philadelphia, and was sold to a gentleman for nine years, during which time he was to serve him as a compensation for the passage money. But at the end of seven years service, the purchaser died, and Wirt was released. This took place, we are told, about or a little before the opening of the Revolutionary War-so that at that time young Wirt must have been from 14 to 15 years old.

Very soon after the commencement of the war he enlisted as a teamster in the Army. Wirt was at the battle of Brandywine, which was the only one he witnessed during the war. After its close he located on the Schuylkill River at Reading, Berks Co., Pa. How long he remained here we are not informed, but having become acquainted with Catherine Homan, and soon after marrying her, he moved over the Al-legheny Mountains, and settled on the Monongahela River, 22 miles above Pittsburg, [sic] at a place called Horseshoe Bottom, in Followfield township. Here Wirt lived 28 years, and here all his family of chil-dren were born. *Whether there were girls in the family we are not informed, but of sons there were

Jacob, Samuel, and Noah (whose sketches will appear hereafter).

At length in 1818 Martin Wirt started from Horse-shoe Bottom in company with his sons Jacob and Samuel, who had, as we have just related, been in the State some three years, in search of a home. They came on to Chagrin, and purchased the farm owned by David Abbott, including the Mills. (The farm was called for years, and we think it is still, the "Wirt Farm." D.T. Boynton now owns the farm and it is one of the most valuable in the County. The Mills are owned by Samuel Miller, Esq.) Wirt moved his family on in 1809, we think in the Spring.

We have been able to gather up but little or nothing in respect to the characteristics of Martin Wirt. We learn simply that he was a man of quiet, unob-trusive mien, and upright in all his dealings with his fellow men. He departed this life in July, 1815, and was buried in the old-and we think original-bury-ing ground on the spur of the hill to the North and contiguous thereto of the residence of Sam. Miller, Esq. Where he rests an observer may stand and look away to Erie's blue waters or out upon the rich productive bottoms which constituted his early home.

*We have learned since the above was written that Wirt had four daughters.