The Hyphen Family Lineage

Note: George Bayha and family

My research into George has been fairly minimal, as this was a branch of the family into which my great-aunt Jane Anne Thomas had poured some of the largest efforts. This was her mother's family - George being the grandfather of Mary Alice (Bayha) Thomas, my great-grandmother - and both she and her mother were quite close to several of their Bayha relatives. Their research and preservation efforts were aided greatly by Franklin Harry Bayha, a first cousin of Jane Anne's who also had a strong interest in genealogy and family origins; Franklin had even made at least one trip to Germany to try and learn more of his great-grandfather's origins. Included in my notes is the text of the biographical article from Wells County, Indiana Family History 1837-1992, written by Jane Anne for that publication. A great deal of what effort I've contributed has been mostly to validate what Jane Anne and Franklin Harry had collected and written, in addition to trying to establish George's further ancestry.

I will note that George occupies a few unique posts in my ancestry; for starters, he and his wife Agnes Hablitzel are my only paternal third-great-grandparents who were immigrants, while all the others were born in America (as were most of their parents and many of their grandparents). Additionally, as a tailor he is the earliest known ancestor of mine (either paternal or maternal) who was not a farmer by trade, and his skill as an artisan along with what survives of his writings (some essays and poems) and his emphasis on education for his children (notably his daughters) suggest he was most likely among the most educated and progressive of my earlier ancestry.

One thing that has not been fully established is George's full name. A christening record from a church in Ober Esslingen in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, gives his name as Johann Georg Bayha, with no additional initial or name. Many of the other vital records and sources call him Johann (or Johan) Georg, John George, or just George, and occasionally the initial "L" appears after George. His gravestone names him "George L. Bayha," and it should be noted that his eldest son was given the name Georg Ludwig at birth (later called George Lewis, and nicknamed "Lew"). This suggests to me that his full name was Johann Georg Ludwig Bayha, and a few sources indicate that he was named for his father (including the aforementioned christening record).

Few details have been found thus far on George's parents and their ancestry, with the only real confirmed sources so far being the christening record (noted above) and some of George's writings. I believe this christening record applies to our George because of the date - family writings and records give his birthdate as 10 Mar 1807, and the christening record was dated 11 Mar 1807 - and the location, which was known to the family to be his place of birth. This record names his parents Johann George Bayha and Anna Barbara Breining (or Breuning), which gives us his parents' names if this is the correct record. There were at least four distinctly separate men I can potentially identify as George's father, all born at about the same time (1770-1780) in the region around Stuttgart in Baden-Württemberg, so there seem to be multiple candidates for his father, requiring further work to narrow this down to a single man. I will note that this same pair (Johann Georg and Anna Barbara) are named as the parents on several other christening records from that same region, from years ranging from 1797 through 1811, which may give some manner to confirm George's parentage through his potential siblings.

Both Jane Anne and Franklin Harry write that George's immigration to America occurred when he was a young man in his mid-twenties, with the year typically given as 1832, and that his first years were spent in the Wheeling, Ohio Cty, West Virginia area. Their writings also indicate that George went there because he had relatives in the area; Jane Anne's files included several biographical articles from regional histories published in the mid-to-late 19th century, with their subjects being various men bearing the Bayha surname. Whether these are siblings of George's or more distant relations isn't yet known, but this is likely to be the avenue that helps prove out George's parentage.

After spending some time establishing himself, George moved to Pittsburgh, Allegheny Cty, Pennsylvania, in order to marry Agnes Hablitzel, a young woman whom (according to family writings and oral history) he had met on the voyage to America. The two of them would then begin the slow migration from Pennsylvania, through Ohio, and then choosing to settle in Bluffton, Wells Cty, Indiana in the town's earliest days. George set up shop there as a tailor, the first in the region, and made Bluffton his permanent home.

According to the records and sources available, including a transcription and translation of George's family Bible (provided by Franklin Harry to Jane Anne many years ago), George and his wife had fourteen children. This includes four sons who died in infancy - three stillborn and unnamed, and Jacob, who died at four weeks of age - and a daughter, Mary Elizabeth, who was born in Ohio and died in Bluffton at the age of thirteen. Of his remaining nine children who lived to adulthood, two daughters and one son are known to have never married:

- Lydia was one of the first teachers in the graded schools in Bluffton, then left to work in New York, California, and Kansas as a family governess or school teacher, before she returned to Bluffton in the last year of her life.

- George Washington was remembered as a very shy and quiet man, and worked initially as a caretaker for Fairview Cemetery in Bluffton, then later as a custodian for a local Methodist church and the public library; he lived with his younger sister in the family home in his later years.

- Eliza Jane, nicknamed "Lyde," followed her father's trade and worked as a seamstress for many years of her life, in addition to assisting her friend and neighbor Ben Ashbaucher in his photography business; she remained in the family home in Bluffton until her death, and had for many years a friend named Nora Mapes living with her there.

Another of George's daughters, Anna Helen (nicknamed "Ella") did not marry until she was nearly forty (to a much older man widowed from his first wife), and had no children, either.

Another son, John Frederick, moved to the Kansas City area in his adult years and according to what notes I have from Jane Anne, never married and had no children. Her files on the Bayha family, though, contained an envelope labeled "Kansas City Relatives" and containing photographs of several people, including one woman noted as "John Bayha's wife." Whether she was married to John Frederick, or whether there were other branches of the Bayha family who'd settled in that area (and perhaps being what brought John Frederick there in the first place) is uncertain to me at this time.

That tally (ten of fourteen of his children without progeny) meant that only four of his children would go on to give him grandchildren - eighteen surviving grandchildren in all, with ten of them born before George's death in late 1881.

- George Lewis, the firstborn of the family, would leave Indiana as a young man and travel to Wheeling, likely witnessing some of the early events of the Civil War and then enlisting in the Pennsylvania Artillery to fight for the Union. After the war, he would settle in the Monongahela, Washington Cty, Pennsylvania area and raise three daughter and one son while working as a photographer and news dealer.

- Mary Margaret would marry John Wesley Tribolet, a well-known Bluffton businessman dealing in textiles and real estate, and would have six children. Her husband and one unmarried daughter were killed in a head-on train collision in 1910, one of the worst transportation disasters of the time, while the oldest son Harry would commit suicide as an unmarried young man due to a diagnosis of throat cancer.

- Emma would marry Jacob Oman, a farmer who would make homesteading attempts in Nebraska before returning to Bluffton for some years. Emma bore three children, and died at the relatively young age of thirty-seven; afterwards, Jacob would follow his father to the Dakotas to farm, bringing his youngest son with him.

- Franklin, the youngest child of the family, did not marry until ten years after his father's death; he worked as a cigar maker, and later as a cabinet mater, raising five children (including my great-grandmother).

With only two of his four sons having children, George had only three grandsons who bore his surname - George Lewis Bayha Jr. (son of eldest child George Lewis Sr.), Charles Frederick Bayha and Ralph Harold Bayha (sons of youngest child Franklin). George Lewis Jr. had only one child, a daughter, and Ralph did not marry or have any children. Charles Frederick had four children, two of them sons (one of them the aforementioned Franklin Harry). Those two sons of Charles' would each have three sons of their own, and these six men are the only second-great-grandchildren of George's (out of nearly seventy known in that generation) to still bear his Bayha surname.

[Article "Johann George Bayha Family" from Wells County, Indiana Family History 1837-1992, p253.]

Johann George Bayha's wife, Agnes, and six children arrived by covered wagon at Bluffton in 1852. He bought three lots from the Studebaker addition on Feb. 7, 1854 for $40.00. He paid $.25 a week on the mortgage. He sold the lots to the west, cut his timber and built his house in 1853. It still stands on the corner of Miller and Morgan.

George, Jr. was born in Wurtenberg, Germany in 1807. He came to America in 1832, arrived in New York, and went directly to Wheeling where he had relatives. He applied as soon as possible for naturalization papers, determined to become a good citizen. He married Agnes Hoblitizel, also from Wurtenberg, in 1832, at Pittsburgh, where their first child was born.

They returned to Wheeling, then began a slow journey across Ohio. George was tailoring from one town to another. When they arrived in Bluffton, they knew they wanted to settle and raise their family. Four more children were born in Bluffton.

George, first tailor in Bluffton, started his own shop above where the Leader store stood on the N.W. corner of Wabash and Main. George was a quiet unassuming man, broad minded, well educated, intent on educating both boys and girls in his famiy. He wrote and spoke German and English, but allowed only English to be spoken in their home. He kept a journal on his travels which gave great insight into the family.

George was a draftsman and carpenter besides being a tailor. A hand carved high chair he made for his children and some tools he made are still family possessions.

Agnes was a quiet, shy woman, kept to herself, but was a good homemaker who taught her children manners.

The children were Lou, father of five, a Civil War veteran who fought all four days in the Gettysburg battles; Elizabeth died young; Lydia, an educator; Mary, wife of John Tribolet, mother of five; John moved to Kansas; Emma, wife of Jacob Omen [sic], mother of three; Ellen, wife of Dan Tremaine; Eliza Jane (Lude) [sic] first tailoress in Bluffton; Frank, cigar maker and father of Mary Bayha Thomas.

Lou was a paper boy in Bluffton, then after the Civil War settled in Monongahela, Pennsylvania, a successful business man and photographer.

Lydia, a tailoress, chose instead to become an educator in Bluffton schools then California, and last in Kansas. She paid for music lessons for Mary Thomas and always encouraged her academically. Lydia was a stern, austere woman, but kind.

Lyde, small, energetic, vivacious, well read, well traveled [sic] was a favorite of Mother's. She never married. She was employed as a tailoress by W.D. Mason until her death in 1926. My mother, Mary Thomas, ran errands for her from age five upwards and learned many skills from her. She was an amateur photographer, worked with and learned from her friend and neighbor Ben Ashbaucher. Her home was always open to those in need and she was surrounded by friends and relatives all her life.

[Obituary for George L. Bayha, paper unknown but presumed to be a Bluffton publication; clipping from the files of Jane Anne Thomas.]

George Bayha, an old pioneer citizen of this place, died last Sabbath and was buried on Monday. He had been afflicted for some time past and his death was daily expected. He was over seventy years of age, a quiet, peacable and respected citizen. A large concourse of friends followed him to his final resting place.

George L. Bayha was born March 10th, 1807, and died September 11th 1881, aged 74 years 6 months and 29 days. He moved from Ohio to this place in 1851, and has been a resident of Bluffton for 30 years. He made many friends and was of a very sociable turn, especially with those of his own nativity - Germans. He was very industrious and economical in his habits, and reared a family of nine children who inherit those excellent traits of character. His faithful wife survives him, and is left in comfortable circumstances with loving children to comfort her in her old age. Thus has passed away a peaceable respected citizen to that bourne from which no traveler returns. The funeral services took place on the 12th inst. at the residence of the deceased, Rev. Witthoff officiating. A large concourse of friends followed the remains to Fair View Cemetary [sic] where they were interred.

[Editing note - The obituary in question is a clipped photocopy from the files of Jane Anne Thomas, and I suspect that the two paragraphs may actually have been two separate printings, either from different issues or different publications.]