FAMILIES D-H: HANSEL ~ Frederick Hansel

"Frederick Hansel Appointed to County Committee

The first fair in Butler County was held October 26 & 27, 1831 and the agricultural society operated as a voluntary organization until the Ohio legislature enacted a law, in 1850, that regulated county agricultural societies. On November 25, 1850, a public meeting was held in the Butler County court house and the committee, to which Mr. Hansel was appointed, was created to reorganize the county agricultural society, in accordance with the state law."

FREDERICK HANSEL

"George R. Hansel (1854-____)

Of the men who represent the farming and stock raising interests of Butler county, one who is eminently worthy of mention in a work pertaining to the careers of honorable citizens of the Miami Valley is George R. Hansel.

This progressive agriculturist of Milford township has passed his entire life in this part of Ohio, where he has built up and steadily maintained a reputation for stability, integrity and good citizenship. He was born March 30, 1854, at Darrtown, Ohio, a son of Frederick Hansel. The latter was born in Franklin county, Ind., a son of Christopher Hansel, a native of Holland, who in 1811 settled in Franklin County and secured wild land, on which he made a clearing and established a home. Eventually he succeeded in clearing 160 acres, and this property is still in the family name, five generations of the Hansels having resided thereon. Christopher Hansel passed his life as a farmer on this place, and at his death left five children : David Christopher, John, Frederick, Frank and Susan Rosanna.

Frederick Hansel received only a limited schooling and as a young man left Indiana and came to Butler county, Ohio, where he met and married Marietta Cone, of New York state, who had come with her parents as a girl down the Ohio river in a flatboat. The Cones secured land in Butler county and here passed the rest of their lives in tilling the soil. Their children were: Isaac, Lafayette, Sylvester, Asa, Esther and Marietta.

After their marriage Frederick Hansel and his wife located in Reily township and lived on different farms until they secured their property north of Darrtown, in 1847. This consisted of 150 acres and it constituted the home place, until Mr. Hansel purchased the farm where his son George R. now lives, in section 21, a tract of 154 acres. Mr. Hansel died on this property in 1899, at the age of eighty-three years, while his wife passed away in 1899, aged seventy-five. In early life a Whig, he later joined the Republican party, and he and Mrs. Hansel were faithful members of the Methodist Episcopal church.

They were the parents of six children:

> Esther J., deceased, who was the wife of Robert E. Scott, of Hamilton, and had three children, Russell, Charles and Bertha ;

> Elizabeth, who married George Kramer, of Oxford;

> Adeline, who married Oren E. Young, of Greenville and had two children, Bessie and Laura ;

> Ursula, who died in 1873, married A. R. Young, of Illinois ;

> George R., of this notice ;

> William C., a millwright of Hamilton, who married May Keck, and has three children, Florence, Frederick and Howard.

George R. Hansel was educated in the common schools and at Earlham college, which he attended in 1871 and 1872. Subsequently he went to Lebanon college in 1873, and then returned to the home farm, where he assisted his father until his marriage, March 2, 1881, to Nellie Nichol, of Hanover township, daughter of Joseph W. and Henrietta Nichol, natives of Pennsylvania, and granddaughter of Thomas Nichol, a native of Scotland, who was an early settler of Hanover township.

Thomas Nichol married Isabelle McCook, and they became the parents of four children : John, who married Martha Love and had two children, Mary Ann and Elizabeth; Margaret; John and Joseph W.

Joseph W. Nichol was born in Hanover township, where he secured 200 acres of land, to which he later added by purchase. He was always a farmer and became a well-known citizen of his community, where he took a good deal of interest in politics and was known as a staunch Republican. He and his wife were members of the Methodist Episcopal church at Darrtown, in the faith of which they died respectively in 1895 at the age of seventy-three years, and February 21, 1904, at the age of seventy-five. They had six children, as follows:

John Wells, a farmer of the Darrtown community, who married Maria Clements ;

Nellie, who became Mrs. Hansel ;

Sarah, who married Lewis Herron, a farmer of the Oxford community ;

Mary Louise, who married George Coulter, of Hamilton ;

Elizabeth, deceased, who was the first wife of George Coulter; and

George, who married Elizabeth Snyder and is engaged in farming on the old Nichol place.

Mrs. Hansel was educated in the Women's college, at Oxford. She and her husband are the parents of two children:

> Mary W., who died September 20, 1918, as the wife of Frank McVicker of Milford township ; and

> Charles N., who married Essie Shears, farms the old home place and is the father of one son, George W., born March 27, 1919. Charles N. Hansel is a Marion at Oxford and belongs to the Knights of Pythias at Darrtown.

George R. Hansel has resided on the old home place all of his life and has always applied himself to the vocations of farming and stock raising, in which he has achieved success. He is accounted one of the good and useful citizens of his community and has served his locality creditably and conscientiously in several public offices, to which he was elected as a Republican. He and the members of his family belong to the Methodist Episcopal church at Darrtown."

SOURCE: MIami Valley Memoirs - When the site opens, scroll to the bottom and click the page numerals: To access the above record, see page 290.

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The source of this image is the George Crout collection.

Sketch of first Butler County (Ohio) fair.