Warren Hartle, who has been in the railway mail service for about three years, is a well known resident of Covington, Miami County, Ohio, and is the owner of 110 acres of valuable land in Newberry Township, seventy acres of which is located in Section 13, and forty acres in Section 14. He was born on this farm January 17, 1873, and is a son of Peter and Mary (Gilbert) Hartle, a grandson of Frederick Hartle, and a great-grandson of Jon Johannes Hartle.

John Hartle, the great-grandfather, was a native of Zweibrieken, Pfaltz, Germany, and was a soldier of the Revolutionary War. He lived at Albany, New York, at the time of the war but afterward went to Hagerstown, Maryland, where he married. He later moved to Blair County, Pennsylvania, when an old man and there passed away.

Frederick Hartle, grandfather of Warren, moved from Blair County, Pennsylvania, some time after his marriage, to Miami County, Ohio, where he entered 160 acres of land, of which the forty-acre tract in Section 14, owned by our subject, formed a part. All of this quarter section continues in the family name. Frederick bought additional land and became a large landowner. he died and was buried on the old farm in Newberry Township.

Peter Hartle was born in Blair County, Pennsylvania, and was but a small boy when his parents moved to Miami County, Ohio. Here he grew to maturity and learned the carpenter’s trade, which he followed many years. He enjoyed wide reputation as a carpenter, being unexcelled as a workman, and he erected many buildings, among them being the old county house and barn at Troy. He later took up farming in Newberry Township, putting up all the buildings on the farm, even to making of the doors and sashes. He died there in 1902, at the age of seventy-eight years, after a long and useful life. His wife survived him some two years. She was in maiden life Mary Gilbert, and was born and raised in Newberry Township, a part of Covington being situated on what was the aold Gilbert homestead. Her father, Thomas Gilbert, was a native of South Carolina, and from there enlisted for service in the War of 1812. He came north with his regiment and was finally discharged at Greeneville, Ohio. Being a poor boy, he decided to remain in the north and invest the pay he received for military service, in land; time proved the wisdom of his investments and he died leaving an estate estimated at $80,000. He was a very public-spirited man and was the founder of the Greenville Creek Christian Church, and always liveral in its support.

Warren Hartle was reared on the home farm and continued to live there some ten years after his marriage. In 1906 they moved to Covington, renting his farm property, and they have a fine home on Wall Street. Among his cherished possessions is a thirty-five dollar note issued by the Continential Congress to his great-grandfather, John Hartle, in payment for military service during the Revolution. In 1896 Mr. Hartle was married to Miss Margaret Young, a daughter of S. F. Young, of Darke County, Ohio, and they have two children -- Grace W. and Guy D. Religiously, they are members of the Christian Church.444

270When this succession of names and places was first brought to my attention, I remarked about the similarity with events in my own family tree. Frederick Hartle, son of my immigrant ancestor, Hans Georg Hertel, was a member of the Maryland Militia in the Revolutionary Way while he lived at Hagerstown, Maryland where he was married. After the war he moved to Bedford (now Blair) County, Pennsylvania, where he died in 1811. He had a son, Frederick, who moved to Miami County, Ohio, in 1829.

The similarity of names and events seemed so coincidental that I even doubted the existance of a John Johannes Hartle. Then I found him documented in the Index to Revolutionary War Service Records by Virgil D. White: “HARTLE, Johanus or as Johannes Hardle, srv in Col Wempell’s 2nd Bttn of NY Mil.” So he did exist! And he was a Revolutionary Soldier from New York!

In doing research at Hagerstown, Maryland, I was unable to find a shred of evidence that Johannes Hartle was ever there. He did not appear in the census of 1790 or 1800. He had no deed for land recorded. Tax records for that period are no existant for Maryland. The closest possibility for any marriage record that I have found was from parish registers of Frederick, Maryland. “1802...August 27 - in the house of Mr. Schaefer by license, Mr. John Hartle and Maria Morris in the presence of friends...”

There were several John Hartles among the descendants of Hans Georg Hertel, but I have not been able to document this John as being one of them unless he could have been Johan Georg, the son of Martin and Susanna Hartle, born 17 May 1783 and baptized at the Zion Reformed Church in Hagerstown the following 12th of August. I have never found any other documentation of him since his birth.

In turning to research in Pennsylvania I was unable to find any John or Johannes Hartle or similar entry in census records from 1790 through 1840 of Bedford County or any neighboring county. (Blair County was not formed until 1846.) He was not found in the tax records (which are extensive for Bedford County), deeds, wills or in the Orphan’s Court records. The earliest John Hartle found in Blair County (grandson of Hans Georg Hertel) was fifty years old in the 1850 census.

We then turned to Miami County, Ohio, to where Frederick, Warren’s grandfather, settled. Were there two Frederick hartles who went from Blair County, Pennsylvania, to Miami County, Ohio? There is no evidence of that.

In working back from Warren hartle, we find records for his father, Peter Hartle, who first married Hannah C. Gilbert 1 November 1849. Hannah died 31 March 1852 at 19 years of age, a few months after the birth of their first child, mary Ann. Peter married Mary C. Gilbert on 26 January 1854. Warren was Peter and Mary’s fourth child.

Peter and Warren were named in the will of Warren’s uncle, Samuel Hartle, who died 8 September 1888. Peter and Samuel, who had never married, were sons of the same Frederick and Catharine hartle who moved to Miami County in 1829. Since there apparently was only one Frederick Hartle that went to Miami County from Pennsylvania, who was his father?

Thus it appears that Warren Hartle of Miami County was the great-grandson of Frederick Hartle, who had served in the Maryland Militia, and not the great-grandson of Johannes Hartle, the Revolutionary Veteran from New York.

Now, if that is the case, who was Johannes Hartle, and how could Warren Hartle have known of him such that he would have mistakenly informed Mr. Harbaugh that Johannes was his great-grandfather? It is not likely that he got the name from military rosters while researching the Revolutionary War, as I did.

One possibility is that his grandfather, Frederick, may have been a close friend or even a more distant relative of Johannes Hartle, although certainly not his son. George Hartle was a resident of Bedford County, Pennsylvania as early as 1811 when he was the grantee on a deed for land. George Hartle and Frederick Hartle are both listed in the 1817 tax records for Woodberry Township, Bedford County.445 Therefore, they most certainly were acquainted with each other.

But where did George Hartle come from? In the 1880 census his son George lists both parents as having been born in Pennsylvania. Was he the son of the Johannes from Albany, New York, and born in Bedford County after Johannes went there? There is no evidence that he was related to Frederick.

Perhaps Johannes was a relative of Hans Georg Hertel for which reason he went to Hagerstown after the war and then followed the elder Frederick Hartle to Bedford County (or vice versa). We may never know, but we will continue to search for the answer.