History 14

150th Anniversary—1988

John George Schumm Family History

History 14

Very primitive conditions then existed in Ohio and Indiana. There were no telephones, no railroads, no villages conveniently located, no general stores where everything and anything could be purchased at a moment's notice, and but the poorest excuses for roads. Conveniences were noticeable by their painful absence. They had no cook stove, these first settlers. They cooked their meals at the large fireplace built into one end of the log house, and at the same time they warmed the house with the fire. Their furniture was of the rudest, hewn from the rough timber and roughly fashioned. A table, a few chairs, a home-made bedstead or two, a cupboard - these comprised about all the furniture they had. One of the pieces of their few possessions which they highly prized was an old trunk of cedar wood, made in Germany in 1814, and brought to America. The trunk is still serviceable. It has the date 1814 on the cover, has two hand-wrought iron hinges, and a large hand-wrought iron lock.

The settlers' nearest trading place or town was far off, and this one was visited very seldom. They obtained their first supplies from Piqua, one of the

Homestead of George Ludwig Schumm

And present home where Lois Schumm resides

Old homestead of Johann Jacob Schumm