Picked Up the Trail of George!

Imagine my surprise when I was contacted by Joseph Winterhalter II, great great grandson of George Orth! Joe has provided a well-researched account (and photos!) of descendants of George Orth and Anna Maria Wilhelm, many of whom still live in the Pittsburgh area.

George Orth born: 1838, Retschwiller, Alsace; died 1880, Pittsburgh, PA

George's wife: Anna Maria Wilhelm Orth
and grand daughter, Ruth Margaret Merkel

George's wife: Anna Maria Wilhem Orth
b: 1847 Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany
d: 1931 Pittsburgh, PA

Interesting to both of us is the fact that George's descendants have known nothing about George's brother Jacob (my great grandfather) and his family, nor has my family known anything about George and his descendants. This is despite the fact that they and their immediate families lived around the corner from each other on the South Side of Pittsburgh for— three decades!!  Jacob's family lived at 2306 Carson Street for over 35 years. George's family lived at 2323 Sarah Street for even longer.

What family feud, unforgivable act, or deep betrayal could have taken place to make this happen?

One possibility: George Orth and Anna Maria Wilhelm were married 14, Jun 1868, at St. Michael's Church in Pittsburgh, PA.  The parish was founded in 1848 as the first Roman Catholic parish in Pittsburgh south of the Mon River. The current structure was finished in 1861. (Note: The Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh closed St. Michael's in 1992.)  Recall that George and Jacob were raised as Lutherans, their father had been a Lutheran minister, and three years before George was married, Jacob was married by a fiery and conservative Lutheran pastor. Could George's turn to Catholicism have been the reason for the ruptured relationship?

St. Michael's Church, South Side, Pittsburgh

Jacob chases gold

"Jacob went west during the Pike's Peak gold excitement in 1859, remained there for about four or five years and then returned to Pittsburgh." Source: the 1908 Boucher account, which undoubtedly derives from an interview with Jacob's son, Frank Jacob Orth, about whom the Boucher account focuses. Given the other errors in the account, it's clear that the author's recounting of information provided by Frank, based on his father's memory of events in the past is a far from perfect record. It's worth emphasizing, however, that without this account recorded by Boucher, the mysteries of the Orth family's early years in America would be much harder to solve.

We know that Jacob was married in Pittsburgh on 4 May 1865 just short of age 29.  If the Boucher account is correct, then Jacob left in search of gold in 1859 at age 23 and returns in 1863 or 1864 at the age of 27 or 28. The Pike's Peak Gold Rush began in July 1858 in what was then part of the western Kansas Territory. It culminated by Feb 1861 about the time of the establishment of the Colorado Territory. It would seem that Jacob entered the Gold Rush 1-2 years from its start and returned to Pittsburgh 1-2 years after what was considered to be the boom. I know of no information about Jacob's success in finding gold, but we can probably assume that he was not wildly successful, given he returns to Pittsburgh to his vocation of glass-blower.

Thinking about those dates with respect to the American Civil War (1861-1865), it raises some interesting questions and complications. If Jacob Orth left for Pike's Peak in 1859, presumably he was in the mountains panning for gold before Abraham Lincoln was elected president in November 1860, and the outbreak of war in April 1861.  Only two months prior to the start of the Civil War, Colorado was pronounced as a territory. Slavery was illegal in Colorado Territory, it was largely pro-Union and its soldiers fought on the Union side. While geographically isolated from the major battle areas in the East, apparently there were numerous small-scale military actions in the Western territories.

This was an incredibly dangerous time, especially for males, with 8% of all the (white) males in the entire country losing their lives between 1860-1865. Give that the Pike's Peak Gold Rush was mostly over by the start of the war in 1861, we can speculate that Jacob either continued to search for gold (it is only in hindsight that we know that the rush was over) and/or that he delayed his travel back to Pittsburgh given the war-torn state of the country.  Whatever his decisions, he clearly did not enlist as a soldier. Who knows if he witnessed any military action. Apparently the Colorado soldiers were engaged in some battles against Confederates (mostly in New Mexico, Oklahoma and Kansas) but were frequently engaged in battles against Indians in Colorado.  Whether in or out of the military, it must have been a very wild time.