[Last updated: 23 March 2021]

Johan Friederich Stembel (Grandfather)

Frederick Stembel (Father)

John Stembel

JOHN STEMBEL (1787 - 1861)

John Stembel was born March 15, 1787,⁽¹⁾ in Middletown, Maryland, and was baptized at the Zion Lutheran Church on May 28. John was the seventh child born to Frederick and Esther Stembel.

John was raised in a large family, with four older sisters (though two may have died by the time he was born) and two older brothers. Another brother and sister were born soon after. In addition, when John was about 13 his oldest sister's infant daughter was taken in and raised as part of the family.

John's father was 38 when John was born. They lived in town, unlike the majority of population at the time. By this time Frederick was well established in the church and community, and was beginning to prosper. He could afford a good education for his children, or at least his sons. John probably enjoyed a relatively comfortable childhood and no doubt received some education at a private school or local tutor. John was certainly exposed to the many activities his father and older brothers were involved in, including civic affairs. We know that by 1809 he was part owner of a mill with his older brother, Henry⁽²⁾. I assume John's father supplied some of the backing for this venture.

On May 9, 1809, John married Eleanor Swearingen⁽³⁾, daughter of Joseph Van Swearingen, who was soon to become General Swearingen of the Ninth Maryland Militia in the War of 1812⁽⁴⁾.

Entry in John Stembel's family Bible, presumably written by John or Eleanor

John and Eleanor's first child, a son they named Frederick, was born in Middletown on January 29, 1810. Sadly Frederick died the next day. Six months after Frederick's death, the 1810 census enumerated John and Eleanor in Middletown. They were a household of two, along with one slave, which seems strange for a young couple recently married, living in town. One might assume their slave was acquired to work in John's mill.

Sometime between the 1810 census in August and the birth of their second child in early 1811, John and Eleanor moved to Washington, DC, about 50 miles southeast of Middletown. We don't know why they moved. Chances are John's move to the District was a move to the town of Georgetown. Washington and Georgetown were separate towns in the District of Columbia, but Georgetown was an established commercial center, while Washington was a new town across Rock Creek being carved out of marsh and fields to house the fledgling federal government. In 1810 Washington was a rather squalid place with relatively few permanent residents.

It was there that John and Eleanor's second child, a daughter named Isabella, was born on February 28, 1811. Eighteen months later, Isabella died. Two weeks after Isabella's death, Eleanor gave birth again, to a daughter they named Ruth Esther. Ruth was born on September 7, 1812, in Washington⁽⁵⁾. Ruth was their first child who lived to adulthood. Sometime after Ruth's birth John and Eleanor moved back to Middletown, for that's where they were living when Eleanor give birth to their fourth child, Theophilus, in December 1813. Theophilus was their second child who lived to adulthood.

Why did John and his wife move to Georgetown when his wife was pregnant? I assume he had a job waiting. It may have been a short term job, for they only stayed for two years, leaving just as the War of 1812 was getting started. Six years later John's brother, Henry, moved his family to Georgetown where they stayed for eight years before moving on to Ohio.

In October 1815 Eleanor gave birth to another son, but he only lived 22 months, but two months after his death, Eleanor gave birth again, to another son, but he only lived four months. By the summer of 1818, Eleanor had given birth to six children, but only two were still living. That must have been deeply distressing.

In 1818 a local newspaper, announcing the death of John's sixth child, Joseph Swearingen Frederick Stembel, described John as a "merchant of this town." Besides the death of his child (the fourth to die before the age of two), it appears that John's commercial endeavors died also, for in 1819 he was deeply in debt and being sued by his debtors. Looking for a way out, John appealed to the state of Maryland for relief from his debt. Here is what the Maryland Gazette reported on the day his debt-relief bill was presented for vote before the Maryland Senate: "The bill for the relief of John Stemble, of Frederick County, an insolvent debtor, was read [before the Senate] the second, and by special order the third time, and will not pass. Mr. [Roger Brooke] Taney was excused from voting, being engaged as counsel against said Stemble."⁽⁶⁾ Roger Brooke Taney, the Senator excused, was a well-known successful lawyer in nearby Frederick. As such he was undoubtedly influential. He may have been excused from voting but no doubt had influence on the those who did vote. It should be noted that Roger Brooke Taney went on to become a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, appointed by President Andrew Jackson. He was the author of the notorious Dred Scott decision in 1857.

It is hard to know what to make of John's financial woes. His father, Frederick, was wealthy, and could have covered John's debts, in the form of a loan. Maybe his father had done that before and decided this time John had to take more responsibility for his actions. However, the fact that John appealed to the state for debt-relief might indicate that the state was somehow partly responsible for his debt. In any case it appears John wasn't successful getting the relief he needed. I don't know how John fared financially after that. It appears that by this time John was living in the country, for they had three of their children baptized on the same day in 1823. If they lived in town they probably would have had them baptized soon after each of their births. Also, in the 1830 census, John was recorded living outside of town. Why? Was John drawn to agriculture, not commerce?

In 1825 Elenor's father died and she inherited some land, and probably money as well (her father was well off).

Sometime between 1830⁽⁷⁾ and 1832⁽⁸⁾, John packed the family's belongings into covered wagons and moved from their home in Maryland to Urbana, Ohio. Older family members tell me that John was accompanied by some slaves owned by the Stembels in Maryland. The slaves, of course, were free once they set foot in Ohio. It's unfortunate that we have no way of knowing if this tradition is true, and if so, how many slaves accompanied John's family to Ohio, for there are a couple of mysterious graves associated with John's family that might be the resting places of former Stembel slaves. In a 1988 letter to this writer, a great-grandson of John's wrote that John, and his siblings, moved from Maryland because they did not approve of slavery.

In Urbana, John operated a store for a short time, but a year later he purchased two hundred acres of land in Harrison Township (Champaign County), four miles southwest of the town of West Liberty. This land had never been cultivated, so John had the unenviable task of clearing the land before it could be farmed.

The fact that John would give up his store to become a farmer carries more significance than one might think. Unlike the majority of Americans at the time, John spent his childhood in a town rather than on a farm. His father at various times was described as a blacksmith, a store owner, a tannery owner, and a tavern owner. John's older brother, Hanry, was a hatter and a postmaster. Another brother, Frederick, operated a tannery. One of John's first ventures was part ownership of a mill. The only evidence that John had any previous experience farming was the possibility that he lived outside of town on a farm after 1820.

As a child, John attended the Lutheran church in Middletown. Once he moved to his new farm, however, there was no Lutheran church nearby, so John opened his home and barn for church services until a church could be built.⁽⁹⁾ At some point in their life, however, John and his family began attending the nearby Wesley Chapel church. Wesley Chapel was organized in 1845 as a Methodist Episcopal church. At the time the Methodist Episcopal Church was the largest and most widespread denomination in the United States. The present structure was built in 1848.⁽¹⁰⁾ This church was located very close to John's farm. I don't know if he was one of it's 20 organizers, or whether he began attending the church later because it was convenient. In any case, by the 1850s, the Stembels were members of Wesley Chapel. According to a biographical sketch published in a county history, John was also a member of the Masonic order and was an ardent Democrat.

John lived the remainder of his life on his Champaign County farm. He died in 1861 at the age of 74. After John's death, Eleanor lived with her son Joseph. According to Dr. William McLean (an early Stembel family researcher), Eleanor had been kicked by a cow as an adult. The kick broke her hip, and it didn't heal right. As a result she had a lot of trouble getting around in her later years. She died 13 years after John died, at the age of 85. Both Eleanor and John are buried in the Wesley Chapel Cemetery.

Below is a 1874 land ownership map showing the land owned by four of John and Eleanor's children 13 years after John's death. I believe the land owned by Oliver Stembel, Mary Hebberd, and Mariah Stembel, was inherited from their father's estate, and let's us know where John's farm was most likely located. We know that Joseph bought his own farm a short distance west of his father's farm, so his land wasn't part of John's farm.

In John's father's Will, Frederick recorded how much money he had advanced each child and noted that their inheritance would be reduced by that amount (but if the advance exceeded their inheritance, the excess would be forgiven). Frederick had advanced John $7,060, far more than any other of his siblings. I believe Frederick believed that amount would almost certainly exceed John's share of his estate. Not wanting John to be left with nothing, he specified that John was to get a special legacy of $400. It should be noted that in the 1850 census, the value of John's farm was $6,000, a sizeable sum at the time. John had become a successful farmer despite earlier indications that John might have poor judgement when it came to money.

John and Eleanor had twelve children altogether. Tragically, six died in infancy. Of the six who survived to adulthood, however, one lived to be 75 years old, another lived to be 88, and a third died at the age of 91.

Here is a brief description of John and Eleanor's twelve children. Their birth and death dates are from John and Eleanor's family Bible.

A. Frederick Stembel.(1810-1810) Frederick was born January 29, 1810, in Middletown (or possibly Washington, D.C.). He died the following day.

B. Isabella Stembel (1811-1812). Isabella was born February 28, 1811, in Middletown or Washington, D.C. She died August 25, 1812, probably in Washington, D.C. Eleanor was almost nine months pregnant when Isabella died.

C. Ruth Esther Stembel (1812-1851). Ruth was born September 7, 1812, in Washington, D.C. Ruth never married. She lived with her parents until her death in 1851 of typhoid fever.

D. Theophilus Stembel (1813-1902). Theophilus is the subject of a later chapter.

Mary owned about 90 acres of farmland that she apparently inherited from her father, but the 1874 land ownership map does not show a house on either of them, so they probably lived in town.

Mary died in 1888, at the age of 58. Moses died four years later. The Hebbard family Bible was last in the possession of Mary Stembel Davis, daughter of Mary's nephew, Marcellus Stembel (see the section on Oliver Frederick).

H. Margaret Isabella Stembel (1821-1824). Margaret was born November 11, 1821. She died July 20, 1824. She was two-and-a-half years old at the time of her death.

I. Elizabeth Miranda Stembel (1823-1824). Elizabeth was born February 20, 1823. She died September 12, 1824, two months after her sister Margaret died.

J. Oliver Frederick Stembel (1825-1887). Oliver is the subject of a later chapter.

K. Mariah Josephine Stembel (1827-1902). Mariah was born in Middletown, but moved to Ohio with her family when she was young.

Mariah was John's youngest daughter. She never married, but according to family tradition, was engaged to be married to a William Cook. When the Civil War broke out, William enlisted. Sometime during the war, William was killed. Mariah was heartbroken and never recovered from his death.

When I first heard this story I was skeptical, for Mariah was 33 years old when the Civil War broke out. But when I examined the 1860 census page that recorded Mariah's family, I found listed nearby was a "Wm. Cook, age 21." William Cook, was a farm laborer who was boarding with, and possibly working for, Mariah's brother, Oliver. Oliver's farm was listed next to her father's farm. Somewhat to my amusement, I noticed that Mariah's recorded age in the 1860 census was 23, just two years older than William (but 10 years less than her real age!). Mariah's grand-niece, Mary Stembel Davis, confirmed Mariah's engagement to William Cook in a letter.⁽¹¹⁾ Mary wrote that Mariah kept a daguerreotype of William Cooke all her life. She gave it to Mary Davis's father before her death, and it was now in Mary's possession.

In 1882, Mariah's nephew, "Lafe" Stembel, was about to embark on a trip west. Mariah gave Lafe a nice leatherbound Bible to take with him. Her inscription inside on the flyleaf was dated March 30, 1882.

A 1874 land ownership map shows that Mariah owned 30 acres of land on part of her family's old farm which she probably inherited at her father's death. The map shows a house on the property, so that was probably where she lived, on Couchman Road 3 miles from West Liberty.

Mariah died in 1902 at the age of 75.

L. Joseph Van Swearingen Stembel (1828-1920). Joseph is the subject of a later chapter.