By Kevin Williams
Trenton, Ohio is a small town in southwest Ohio. It’s basically a “bedroom” community with people using it as basically a base community to commute to their jobs elsewhere. I know Trenton better than most, I spent 10 years there as a newspaper editor covering everything from craft shows to council meetings. In retrospect I am amazed I was able to fill a weekly newspaper week after week with stuff from that small town.
When I first arrived in the early 90s I had just launched The Amish Cook column and my studies of everything Plain. I wouldn't discover until years later that, in fact, this small town had a past that was very much intertwined with the Amish. Trenton was a sleepy one stoplight down back in the early 90s (I think it has 5 or 6 today). And today the Miller Brewing Company sits south of town churning out batches of brew. It is just south of the Miller plant that the heart of the once thriving Amish settlement sits, preserved at the Chrisholm Historic Farmstead. But there are other traces of the area's Amish past nearby.
There is an “Eicher building” in downtown (a common Amish last name) Trenton and a Mennonite church which still worships today and is a remnant of the Amish population which once thrived south of town. In fact, when I was editor of the paper in the 1990s there were still old-timers around who remembered the church’s (common among Plain churches) of seating men on what side of the church and women on the other.
Local historian Doris Page wrote a superb booklet about the area’s Amish community. What makes this little booklet quite amazing if you think about it is that it was written back in the pre-internet age. So Page meticulously crafted a narrative of the settlement pulling from obscure historical sources.
Trenton for all its overshadowing by larger neighbors like Dayton, Cincinnati, Hamilton and Middletown has some fascinating historical tidbits. Charles Richter, inventor of the Richter scale, was from here. As was the founder of 4-H., A.B. Graham. Hollywood star Doris Day also spent summers here years ago. I think she had a relative in town or something that she would come to visit.
Join me this Saturday at the annual Chrisholm Reunion at 11 a.m.. I'll be giving a talk about my Amish experiences and about the Chrisholm community. The address there is 2070 Woodsdale Rd. Reservations required, the cost of the talk is $10 for non-Chrisholm members. Email me at [email protected] if you plan to attend!
Carolyn
Wish I was closer Keven I would certainly be there to hear your talk.
Kevin
Would love to have met you, Carolyn, perhaps someday I'll give a talk again out your way!
William Stone
Hi Kevin,
An old friend of mine, we met through our mothers working together back in the early 1980s, lived in the big old two story house next to one of the Augsperger family cemeteries there in Trenton on Sycomore Rd. I believe it was a cemetery that was established after the first Amish cemetery there on Woodsdale Rd, they must be related although I'm not exactly sure how as I just recently started researching it. Anyway, back in the early 80s, probably '80 or '81 my friend and I both had dirt bikes, we were in about 6th grade at the time. I used to bring my dirt bike over to my friends house from sometimes from Middletown and we'd ride all weekend. One of the places we used to ride down and sometimes race each other was down that long grass lane leading to the cemetery, we had no idea who's cemetery or what family established it but we'd go in and sit down in there and talk about this or that and even back then it was terribly dilapidated and run down. I remember many of the stones were missing and/or broken with only a very few left that were basically intact. What I'm also interested in is the origin of my friends old family home there, I remember he told me back in those days that it was built in the 1850s so I'm curious if it had any ties to the the Amish or Mennonites back in those days or not. It definitely has my curiosity going, I spent many days and nights there as a kid.
Kevin Williams
Hi, I am very familiar with the area you are speaking, but still have a little trouble picturing exactly where...do you mean where Radabaugh Road meets Sycamore? There is a big old two-story house there?
William Stone
Yes,
You turn right onto Sycamore Rd. from Radabaugh Rd. and it's the big two story farm house on the right about 1/4 mile down the road, a big white barn out front. I'd give the address but not sure if I should here. Anyway, I've been researching quite a bit lately and the cemetery I'm referring to is back behind that house about 100 yards or so and to the left. The grassy lane to access it from Sycamore is about 100 yards or so past their property. The Trenton Historic Museum FB page, the person I had messaged, told me that that house was originally an 80 acre working farm owned by Moses Augspurger but I'm having trouble finding info about him. They told me that it was in the Augspurger family for at least 100 years. Another website I visited, it was a book written in 1916 about the history of the Amish Mennonites in that area stated that Samuel Augspurger, son of Christian Augspurger, owned much of that land so I seem to be getting conflicting information or information that I can't connect. The original Amish pioneers, Christian and his wife are buried in that cemetery.
Kevin Williams
That is all very interesting and I think I have some resources that might shed some more light....and I'll be able to drive by it tomorrow so I can get a better visual. I'll let you know soon what I find out!
William Stone
Thank you!
I need to make a correction. Christian Augspurger and his wife and others are buried in the Chrisholm Farm cemetery, Rev. Nicholas Augspurger and his wife are buried in the Augspurger cemetery off of Sycamore Rd. According to the Trenton Historical Museum page Moses Augspurger owned the farm house on Sycamore and they said it was in the Augspurger family for at least 100 years but Samuel Augspurger owned much of the land in that area also but I still haven't been able to connect the relationship between Samuel and Moses. I'm wondering if they were cousins.
William Stone
Also, that grassy lane that's tree lined that's about 100 or so yards past the farm house used to be accessible by a car, I'm just not sure if there's any way to turn around once you get there, it's about an eighth of a mile down. If you Google Map Augspurger Cemetery in Trenton and go to the aerial view it'll give you a better view of where exactly it's located compared to the farm house beside it.