Henry Ehrhardt

Henry Ehrhardt was born in Germany in October, 1835, his parents being John and Theresa Dorothy (Gehrholdt) Ehrhardt.  The mother was born November 4, 1800 and died on the same day in 1847.  The father died in June, 1887, in his seventy-seventh year.  Henry lived with his grandfather Ehrhardt, for whom he had been named, from the age of eight to fourteen.  The father and step-mother with five children came to America in 1850, landing at Baltimore on the 20th of August.  They went thence to Chariton County, Missouri, where three brothers of John Ehrhardt were already settled; and it took two months to get there by railroad and the canal boat on the Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri Rivers.  After two years the father came to Utah, and in 1853 to California, where he went to mining for a short time near Folsom, but with little success.  Henry Ehrhardt came to California also in 1853, direct from Missouri, with 400 head of cattle.  In passing along Blue River - all except six of the twenty men and two women were sick with mumps.  Mr. Ehrhardt, being one of the well ones, stood guard night and day for the cattle during four weeks.  After arriving here he mined about two months, in the spring of 1854, for $30 a month and expenses, in the employ of James M. Stephenson, for whom he worked in all nearly three years.  He then went to herding sheep at $40 a month for about eighteen months.  He had some knowledge of the business from boyhood, his grandfather having been engaged in sheep business in Hesse Cassel, where he lived.   In 1857 his brother John and he invested $1,750 in sheep, for which they found free range on Government and school lands.  After three years and ten months they sold out for $14,500 in cash.  In 1860 Henry Ehrhardt made his first investment in land, buying 320 acres; he has been buying land at intervals ever since, and now owns about 4,000 acres.  He raises wheat, barley, oats and alfalfa; keeps three to four hundred head of cattle and eighty to 100 cows for dairy purposes.  Mr. Ehrhardt has been School Trustee about twelve years; is a member of the "Christian" Church, and of the order of Chosen Friends.  He was married April 12, 1863 to Miss Elvesta George, a native of Iowa, and daughter of Andrew and Mary E. (Johnson) George, who came to California in 1852, settling first at Diamond Spring.  In 1854 Mr. George came to this township, and kept the Twelve-Mile House on the Lower Stockton road for a time.  I 1856 he bought a ranch three miles farther south, and built a tavern and other buildings, the place becoming known as Georgetown, from the name of its founder.  He died in 1869, aged forty-eight, and Mrs. George died in 1886, aged about fifty-six.  Georgetown is now Franklin.

 

Transcribed 9-1-04 Marilyn R. Pankey