Christian Waldschmidt Homestead Museum
Introduction
Text-to-speech Audio
Images
The historical homestead
Backstory and Context
Text-to-speech Audio
Originally from Pennsylvania, Waldschmidt moved, along with a group that he organized, to Ohio due to reports of golden opportunity in the West. When the group arrived, they immediately began settling, even damming the Little Miami River so that they could set up a number of mill businesses. He was a powerful player in the nineteenth century Cincinnati German community and funded many community businesses, notably among them the state’s first paper mill. The severe shortage of paper had become a serious problem in the town. He also funded a blacksmith and sawmill shop.
Waldschmidt was also involved with shipping goods via the river trade down to New Orleans. His historical significance stands as a reminder of the now less-visible German immigrant population that once was a dominant force in Cincinnati culture. Ethnic Germans, coming from Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Virginia, were among the early settlers of the area. There was another wave of German, as well as Irish, immigrants in the mid-nineteenth century that served to alleviate a labor shortage at the time.
The site also includes the Memorial Barn, which houses historical farm tools and a reconstruction of a Conestoga wagon. The home was settled as part of Ohio’s New Germany Community, now Camp Dennison.