JOHN EHRHARDT 

John Ehrhardt was born in Germany October 8, 1837, his parents being John and Theresa Dorothy (Gehrholdt) Ehrhardt. The mother died in 1847, aged forty-seven; the father survived her forty years. The subject of this sketch received about five years’ schooling, and then became a helper to his father in his occupation of shepherd. The father, stepmother, and five children came to America in 1850, landing in Baltimore, Maryland, August 20. Thence they proceeded to Missouri by railroad for about two hours from Baltimore to the canal, then by the canal to Pittsburg, by the Ohio to Cairo, by the Mississippi to the mouth of the Missouri, and by the Missouri toward their destination in Charlton County, Missouri, where three brothers of the elder Ehrhardt were already settled. It took about two months to make the trip, owing chiefly to low water in the Ohio and Missouri. Arrived at the farm of one of his uncles, who owned about a section of land, John went to work as a shepherd. In 1852 his father and he were hired to drive 7,000 sheep across the plains. They wintered near Salt Lake, and the herd was reduced to 2,400 when they reached Placerville, California. They arrived on the Cosumnes, within the borders of this county, June 20, 1853, fourteen months after they had set out from Missouri. The subject of this sketch soon afterward went to work as a shepherd for Long Bros., in Vaca Valley, Solano County, at $50 a month, remaining two years, and then for Mr. Rucker about fifteen months. In 1855, in partnership with his brother Henry, he bought $1,750 worth of sheep. After ten months they were sold at Colusa at $14 a head, and the proceeds invested in another lot, which they sold three years later for $14,500. In 1860, being in poor health, Mr. Ehrhardt went East, being absent from March to September on the coast for about three years. In 1863 he bought 1,240 acres on the Mokelumne for $4,000. There he raised cattle and horses and hay for feed, and for a time did a dairy business, milking eighty to 100 cows. In 1871 he drove some cattle to Modoc, where he bought a ranch, which he kept ten years. In 1876, finding his ranch on the Mokelumne too much subject to overflow he sold it for $10,000; and in May 1876 he bought his present location, two miles north of Franklin, 803 acres, where he has since made his home. He has settled down to raising wheat mostly, but has not entirely abandoned his life-long interest in the gentle sheep, of which he keeps about 200. He also raises some horses for his own needs, and a few to sell. He tried cattle-raising, but did not find it profitable. He, however, owns a ranch of 440 acres in Modoc, bought in 1887, which is devoted to cattle-raising, under the care of his eldest son. In 1865 Mr. Ehrhardt was married to Miss Caroline Hollman (see below). They are the parents of six sons and one daughter: George Edward, born February 5, 1867; Frederick William, July 25, 1869; Henry Lester, July 25, 1872; William Gardner, January 18, 1876; John Amos, February 23, 1880; Elvesta, November 19, 1882; Newton Julian, October 9, 1885. Besides the usual district-school education, George E. took an academic course in Sacramento, and Frederick W. spent three terms at Washington College, in Irving, Alameda County.

Mrs. Caroline (Hollman) Ehrhardt, wife of John Ehrhardt (see above), was born in Chili July 28, 1847. Her father, William Hollman, a native of the State of New York, a millright and miller by trade, had gone to Chili to do some work in his line, and was there married to Miss Ellen Mar McAra, born in Scotland in 1826, daughter of Thomas and Jeanett (Jackson) McAra, who afterward emigrated to Chili. Mr. McAra was an architect, and was killed by a fall from a building. In 1849 Mr. Hollman left Chili for California with his wife and family, including the aged grandmother, Mrs. McAra, but died soon after his arrival in San Francisco, leaving four children: Frederick William, born March 12, 1843, was drowned in the overflow of the Mokelumne in 1862; John, born in 1845, now rents 350 acres of the Fay ranch, near the Ehrhardt place. He married Miss Emma Chapman. They are the parents of four daughters and one son; Robert, born in 1877; Caroline, now Mrs. John Ehrhardt; Theresa, born in July 1848, now Mrs. George W. Fountain, living below Courtland. They are the parents of two daughters and one son. For Mrs. Ellen Mar Hollman, by her second marriage Mrs. Marcus Lowell, see sketch of Amos M. Lowell. In her childhood Mrs. Ehrhardt, with her brothers and sister, attended the first Sunday-school in San Francisco, founded by Rev. William Taylor, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in 1850. Her grandmother, Mrs. McAra, is thought to have been the first white grandmother in San Francisco; she certainly was the first who went to Sunday-school. The Hollman family has been settled since about 1827 near Peekskill, New York, the present representatives of the homestead being Gardner, Hannah and Caroline, all well advanced in years and unmarried. The house is a historic landmark, having been the resting place of Major André for one night on his way to Albany after his capture. Mrs. Ehrhardt, on a visit there in 1888, accompanied by her third son, Henry L., slept soundly in the historic chamber, but was much more interested in revisiting the scenes of her father’s boyhood. Her grandfather, Frederick William Hollman, a native of Berlin, Germany, was at one time owner of the Croton Mills, which were removed in the construction of the Croton Aqueduct, and it was he who purchased the present homestead of the family. There are two other sisters: Louisa and Mary; Louisa was never married, and makes her home with her married sister. Mary Hollman is the wife of William O’Donnell, a music-dealer in New York City. They are the parents of four children: William, Marcus, Gardner and Annie. The two oldest are writers on the metropolitan press; Annie is the wife of Walter Hamilton, a business man of that city, and Gardner is still engaged in perfecting his education.