As explained in a post from last winter I originally believed that Noah Einsel had inherited the house from his parents - thus the "Einsel" label on the house and blog. I was wrong - Noah Einsel did inherit a house from his parents, but he paid $5,280.00 for this stone house and the surrounding 80 acres.
Noah and Mary Einsel were both in their early thirties when they bought this house. They celebrated their 12th anniversary three days after closing on the property. Their family in 1864 numbered six - eldest child Alonzo was eleven years old, Clara was ten, Delora was seven, and Fannie was seventeen months.
The 1870 census shows Noah and Mary living in this house with their four children. Noah's occupation in that census is recorded as 'farmer', but county histories from later that decade reveal that Noah also maintained an active stone quarry on the property.
I do not know exactly when the Einsel family moved out of our house, but the 1880 census shows the Einsels living in the county seat, about 10 miles northwest of here. The county history published in 1884 (luckily county histories were popular in the late 1800's) reveals that by that time Noah was employed as a partner in a local mill.
I'm not sure who (if anyone) was living in the stone house in 1880. One possibility is Noah and Mary Einsel's daughter, Clara, who had been married in 1875 to Frank P. Klahr. Frank and Clara Klahr with their young daughter Leora were enumerated in this township for the 1880 census. It seems possible to me that Noah and Mary would let their daughter and son-in-law live in the house while Frank built his practice as a physician.
But regardless of who was living here, Noah Einsel did not keep the house long after moving to the county seat. On April 1, 1882 Noah and Mary sold the house and 100 acres to John Henry Smith for $10,000. The Einsel-to-Smith sale price stands out to me. Noah Einsel paid $5,280 for the house and 80 acres of land in 1864. To me, the addition of 20 acres of land seems insufficient to explain the fact that Noah Einsel sold the house in 1882 for almost twice what he had paid for it 18 years before. It's possible that the price of farmland in this area skyrocketed after the Civil War. However, I know that at one time there were numerous barns and other outbuildings on this property, and it is possible that some of these were built during the Einsel years. And I strongly suspect that the frame (kitchen) addition to the house was built during the Einsel years. No matter what their nature, it seems apparent that Noah Einsel made improvements to the property during his 18 years of ownership.
Thus the story of the family who gave this blog its name. They lived in the house almost as long as the home's first owners, the Rhineharts, but like the Rhineharts they left this home while still middle aged, living out the remainder of their adult lives in another home. This was a trend that would continue for the stone house until the arrival of the Frankenfields in 1901.
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