There is a Waldschmidt Hall in Portland's University ; Here is the story of this building.
Waldschmidt Hall
Waldschmidt Hall, the oldest building on campus (1891), was declared a
National Historic Site in 1977. In 1991, a two-year renovation project was
begun to resore the building to its original splendor.
Waldschmidt Hall was built in 1891 by the Methodist Church as the first
building of a new Portland University. After suffering severe financial
setbacks, Portland University closed after the 1899-1900 academic year.
Prior to 1992, the building was named West Hall. It was rededicated in 1992
and renamed after former University president, the Most Rev. Paul
Waldschmidt, C.S.C.
Waldschmidt Hall is the main administrative building and houses the offices
of Development, Admissions, Financial Aid, Public Relations, Registrar,
Residence Life, Student Accounts, Treasurer, and Executive Officers. It also
houses the School of Business Administration as well as some classrooms.
For more informations, check The University of Portland Building Directory
Read this story about the Waldschmidt family, from Susan L. Kruse :
According to a booklet prepared for a 1915 memorial to Pastor John
Waldschmidt (1714 - 1786), he grew up in Dillenburg, County of Nassau,
Germany. His parents were John Henry Waldschmidt and Christina Appolonia
Weller, daughter of Pastor John Weller of the County of Wittgenstein, just
north of Dillenburg. Other Waldschmidt families lived in nearby Waldeck
and Bad Wildungen but I have been able to trace the relationship between
them and our Dillenburg Waldschmidts.
Johannes attended the University of Herborn and studied for the ministry.
Protestantism was less than two hundred years old, and Lutheranism still
was the mainstream protestant religion. Several other dogmas were
developing, and in his student years, Johannes became interested in them.
In Pennsylvania in the mid-eighteenth century, too few ministers serviced
the non-Catholic German communities. A Reverend Schlatter, sent by
Synods of Holland, travelled back to Germany in the early l750's to recruit
German protestant ministers for the Pennsylvanians. The recruits arrived
in on the ship Two Brothers in July l752. Johannes Waldschmidt was one of
them.
Like the later Methodist circuit riders, most of those in the Reformed
Church ministry hadn't the luxury of having one central congregation.
Instead, they regularly travelled to several settlements. The Reverend
Henry Harbaugh researched church records of some of the early ministers of
the Reformed Church and wrote in l857 about John Waldschmidt,
His ministry [in the Heidelberg Church] ceased in l770 when they complained
to Cotus that he was a little inactive and neglectful of them . . . The
long time during which this man of God labored successfully in the same
charge, it seems to us, presents an argument in favor of his efficiency
that far outweighs this incidental complaint. Still there was at one time
also some dissatisfaction expressed by some in his own charge . . in the
year l760, it is said: "In regard to the Rev. Mr. Waldschmidt, it appears
that his congregations are satisfied with his preaching; only they desire
that he might be more diligent in family visitations and more prudent in
his general conduct." Tradition remembers him as a remarkably
good-natured, mild, and easy man. With all his goodness and devotion to
the church - - of which there is not doubt - - he may have needed, at
times, the impulse of a special stimulus to keep him moving with freshness,
ministerial dignity, and pastoral earnestness.
After the Reverend Waldschmidt's death in l786, one of his children wrote
in the church book,
God the Almighty took our dear father out of the world to Himself into a
blissful eternity on the l4th day of September l786 between nine and ten
o'clock in the forenoon. On the l5th, in the afternoon, at two o'clock, we
committed his remains to the grave. The Rev. Mr. Boos preached his funeral
sermon, from Psalm lxxiii, 23, 24. God grant that we may all come to where
he is! Amen.
The tombstone was erected October 6, l778; costs 7 pounds and two shillings.
The tombstone created an incident in the Waldschmidt history which was
recorded in the church books and, according to the Rev. Harbaugh, "was
traditionally remembered in the neighborhood." From the Rev. Harbaugh's
records,
On a Sunday, June 2, l793, while a large congregation was assembled in the
church, listening to the Word of God, and when the winds were quiet, the
tombstone of the Rev. Mr. Waldschmidt suddenly broke off at the top of the
ground, and fell flat upon the tomb. "Many saw it," says the Record, "and
all heard if fall." The wonder in connection with this event, was vastly
increased, in the minds of the people, by the fact that Mrs. Waldschmidt,
who was demented, long before, and had not spoken a word for years, began
to speak again with others, on that same day.
A photo of the tombstone reveals a large crack midway. It has been set in
cement and bound together with an iron frame.
The inventory of Pastor Waldschmidt's estate upon his death included farm
tools and equipment, spinning wheels, and l75 books in Hebrew, Greek,
Latin, German and Low-dutch.
Fourteen years before Pastor Waldschmidt arrived in Pennsylvania,
Christian and Susannah Gertrude Schreiner Groab (Grube) arrived from Kusel,
Germany. Their daughter, Maria Elisabetha, was five years old, and her two
brothers Johann Caspar and Ludwig Peter, near her age. The Grubes
resided in Lancaster County, PA, and from the church records of Pastor
Waldschmidt, we know they were among his parish.
Grube/Schreiner descendent Prudence Groff Michael quotes from a l965
letter from Howard Grube,
. . the old Grube home, that dates back about 200 years, is still standing
but will soon be torn down to make way for a new highway. In the fine home
of an 87 year old Grube descendent we visited, there are some fine
specimens of Grandfather clocks, made by Martin Schreiner, in some of the
most beautiful cabinet work I have ever seen - fine inlay wood work. He
has four of them. He said that Schreiner was the first to make die cast
gears for the clocks.
Michaels also quotes from the will of Caspar Grube, brother of our
ancester Maria Elisabetha Grube Waldschmidt,
I give unto my four sons, Christian, George, Casper and Peter my house
clock, and my executors shall put up the said clock at auction between my
said four sons, and the highest bidder among them shall have it, and the
money raised by the sale thereof shall be equally divided among my said
four sons.
The Schreiners were well known clockmakers, and because of the Schreiner
clocks in the Grube family, and because there simply were not many
Schreiners around in the mid l700's, it has been assumed by researchers
that our Susannah Gertrude Schreiner was related to the clock-making
family. A correspondent wrote that a Schreiner Grandfather clock sells in
the l980's for well over ten thousand dollars.
Less that two years after Pastor Waldschmidt arrived in Pennsylvania in
l752, he and Maria Elisabeth Grube were married. Within five years of
their marriage, Christian Grube died and his property passed to Elisabeth
and her brother, Caspar.
The birth of the Reverend and Maria Elisabetha's first child is recorded
in Swamp Church records as March 23, l755 at l0 p.m. He was Johannes
Christianus Waldschmidt whose home in Ohio is now preserved by the Ohio
Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Two years before Pastor Waldschmidt arrived in Philadelphia, on August ll,
l750, two brothers arrived on the ship Patience. According to Harold
Miller of Milford, Ohio, who has researched the Bollender family
extensively,
Peter Poland and Stephen Poland made their marks (an unusual H shaped one)
and the clerk wrote their names. We think that Peter and Stephen Poland
may well have been Peter and Stephen Bollender . . . Polje, poljana . . are
slavic for plain, that is, level land, and that derived from poljana are
the following German names meaning Polander, that is, Pole: Pollander,
Pollender, Bohlander, Bolender, Bolend.
The Bollenders resided in Heidelberg, PA , and the baptisms of some of
their children are in Pastor Waldschmidt's records. The Reverend
Waldschmidt's records refer to Peter's wife as "Fronica" in one entry, but
court records refer to Peter's widow as "Maria Barbara." Peter Bollender
was a "yeoman," or farmer. He died relatively young, and a Henry Achey was
appointed guardian of the minor children. Achey was replaced several years
later by Charles Shenkle. Two of the Bollender children later married
Shenkles.
Peter and Barbara's youngest daughter, Catharina, and John and Maria
Elisabetha Waldschmidt's oldest son, Johannes Christianus, were married in
l780. At that time, Christian, as he was called, was a private in the
Revolutionary War serving under Captain DeTurck.
By l785, Christian and Catharine, along with Catharine's sisters and their
husbands, had settled in an area of the present Rebersburg in Centre
County, PA. A few years later, Stephen Bollender, Catharine's brother
joined them in this area called the Brush Valley. Since the oldest son
usually inheirited the family properties, and since the Waldschmidts had
considerable holdings in southeastern Pennsylvania, and probably the
Bollenders, too, what was the motivation for them to move one hundred miles
to the northwest? Christian's younger brother, John, stayed in the Swamp
Church area where he died in l829. Their mother, Maria Elisabetha, died
there in l803.
About ten years after moving to the Brush Valley, Christian and Catherine
moved further west to what is now Hamilton County, Ohio and Americanized
their name to Waldsmith. At this time the Northwest Territory was sparcely
populated. By l800 an estimated 50,000 people lived in the entire
Northwest Territory while 600,000 lived in the state of Pennsylvania.
Hugh English, a descendent of Polly Waldsmith, wrote,
Thomas Fitzwater who, with his father, William Fitzwater, accompanied
Christian Waldschmidt to Ohio, writes,
"C. Waldschmidt, our family and four other families started to this state
[Ohio] on or near May l, l796 via the Juniata River."
They procured flatboats at Redstone. At Pittsburgh they saw General
Wayne's army. Two days after leaving Pittsburgh C. Waldschmidt found an
old fife on a sand bar, the brass ends of which were black and corroded and
it was full of sand. They reckoned it to have been in the river since
Braddock's defeat, nearly forty years earlier. It was kept for years.
They travelled by day only, tying up at night. At the mouth of the
Bracken River, two families left and went into Kentucky. After seven weeks
on the river they landed at Columbia, at the mouth of the Miami. Not far
above the mouth of the Miami the Waldschmidt boat ran aground. Four men
and a boy tried all afternoon and night, unsuccessfully to float it. Next
morning another boat came up and in two or three hours they were afloat.
C. Waldschmidt was so pleased to be afloat again that he offered them l0
gallons of whiskey for their services. However, they had only a three
gallon keg which he filled for them.
Christian bought land from John Symmes between the two Miami Rivers and
various sources confirm he built a paper mill, cooperage, distillery,
woolen mill, dying house, and blacksmith shop. A newspaper article reads,
Manufacture of Paper
Rags Wanted
C. Waldsmith
Having commenced the building of a Paper Mill on the Little Miami,
respectfully informs the public that store goods will be given for any
quantity of clean linen and cotton rags at 3 cents a pound. Rags also will
be received in payment of book accounts. Those who wish to make special
contracts for the delivery of rags please to apply immediately. January
l8l0
In l804 Christian built a large home of fieldstone which is still standing
and preserved by the Ohio Society of the Daughters of the American
Revolution.
When she was about forty-eight Catharine Bollender Waldsmith died, and a
year later, Christian married Polly Custer Kern. They had one child,
Sarah, before Christian died in the l8l4 influenza epidemic.
Peter, son of Christian and Catharine, who was about two when the family
moved to central Pennsylvania and a young teenager when they voyaged by
boat down the Ohio to Hamilton County, OH, married Hannah Long in his early
twenties. He apparently worked in his father's business. The Cincinnati
Liberty Bell included the following item in the September l3, l809 issue.
Fulling Business
The subscriber has lately repaired the fulling mill in the best manner and
hopes to be able to render better satisfaction than formerly. He has
employed a man from Lexington who understands the fulling of cloth well and
will give due attendance to all who favor them with their custom.
Peter Waldsmith
Where money is scarce wheat will be received in payment when cloth is
dressed and delivered.
A clay-like substance called fuller's earth was used as a filtering agent
and catalyst to clean and shape newly woven fabric. The word "fulling"
comes from making the fabric fuller by moistening, cleaning, and heating
it.
When Christian Waldsmith died in l8l4, he left no will and had only a few
heirs: Peter, Barbara, William (who was about nineteen), and Catherine
Elizabeth the oldest daughter. ( One source names son John as having died
in l8l4 with three surviving children and Catherine, born in l806 as having
married a Daniel Horne and living until l874.) Then of course Christian's
widow, his second wife Polly, survived him as well as his young daughter by
her, Sarah. Perhaps for a few years, they tried to continue the businesses
as a family. But in l8l7, Peter and Hannah sold their share to Catharine
Elizabeth and Mathias Kugler for $6,000. Peter and Hannah also signed the
papers relinquishing William's interest although he had died in l8l6.
After selling the business, Peter and Hannah moved to Sycamore Township
where they farmed and where many of their children were born.
Their oldest child was Jane, and just before her seventeenth birthday, she
married a Yankee, Abner Young, the descendent of early seventeenth century
immigrants.
Story from slkruse@garlic.com (Susan L. Kruse)
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 17:08:49 -0800
Johannes Waldschmidt (Dillenburg) before he left for USA
Graf von Wuerttemberg (born 1226,)
A Waldschmidt who got baptised at the age of 375 years
Ms Waldschmidt got married on May 29, 1665 in Frankfurt
Henry Waldschmidt born 18 mai 1818 in Bayern
Arrival in Philadelphia of John Waldschmidt (born in Dillenburg) coming from Amsterdam
Josef
Waldschmidt, (aged 42) left Liverpool on May 21, 1908
and arrived at Quebec on May 31 on the "Dominion" with many
children.
URL :http://www.math.jussieu.fr/~miw/wald.html
e-mail :
miw@math.jussieu.fr
last update :June, 2001