Jacob Kautz

Mary Ann (Walker) Kautz

Their Story

 

 

Jacob Kautz was born in Ohio, in (1810-1890 ) no parents of record found.  There seemed to be several Kautz families in that area, and the older persons born in Germany. He married Mary Ann (Walker)[May 18,1817-July 19,1898] of Indiana in 1835, her parents listed as Stephen Sisan Walker, and Hannah Shaw, no dates for the parents.

     In the census of 1850 the family lived in Ohio County ,Rising Sun, Indiana ,at this time they had a family of 7 children.  Laura-13,Emily-11,George-9,Hannah-7,Margaret-5,Martha-3 and Hugh-1.

      *taken from Bertha Booth Interviews

“The Kautz family of Caldwell Co. Missouri- Narrator: Worth Kautz of Wichita, Kansas

 

     The Jacob Kautz family came to Caldwell Co. Mo in 1859 from Illinois to which they had come from Indiana.  They settled in what was known as Grand River Twsp., now New York Twsp in the Pleasant Ridge district.  The came in a slow ox-wagon.  The settlers who came here in the fifties had a much harder time than those who came in the sixties, for every year of pioneering advanced conditions of living in a new country.  There were three sons; George, Ross and Worth; six daughters Laura (Dodge) ,Emily (Lemon) Hannah (Lambert), Margaret (Noel), Annetta (Houghton) and Mollie (Spivey).  When they came here they all lived in a covered wagon until the house was finished; and since there was not yet sleeping room inside for the boys, they slept that winter out doors in the covered wagon.  In those days of 1859-60, the Kautz house has been mentioned by old-timers as one of two houses to be seen for 12 miles south of Hamilton.  

     When the Civil War was about to break out and it became likely that the oldest boy George would be expected to go to war, he went back to Illinois to enlist with boys whom he had known before they move to Missouri.  Those first few years were hard ones.  They had to find the right crops for the new soil and they had to subdue the soil.  They had to provide for the family needs and they had very little money to spend.  They rarely ate store victuals for most of their food came off the place.  They had little white bread mostly corn-bread.  Worth was the youngest son and he went with his mother on her trips to gather berries(gooseberries, strawberries, blackberries, and elderberries.);to gather herbs for medicine since doctors were costly and far away.  He used to hunt bee trees for by the old law of the land the finder of a bee tree had the honey, no matter where the tree was.  He and his father and brothers shot or trapped wild game and kept them for winter meat.  He told of hunting deer with Al Pemberton of the neighborhood.  The Kautz and Houghton family intermarried.  Anetta Kautz married Ira Houghton, Mary Houghton married George Kautz and Sophia Houghton married Ross Kautz. *

 

     In the census of 1880 all of the children were gone from home and only Jacob and Mary Ann remained on the farm in New York Township.

     Jacob died on April 16,1890 and is buried in Kingston Cemetery, Caldwell Co. Missouri.

     Mary Ann (Walker) Kautz died on July 19,1898 and is buried with her husband in Kingston Cemetery, Caldwell Co. Missouri.

   Only one of the Children are buried in Kingston, with parents and that is Hannah (Kautz) Lambert, who died in 1910.