Industrial Chicago Excerpt

There is a book at: http://www.archive.org/stream/industrialchicag04good/industrialchicag04good_djvu.txt

The book is called "Industrial Chicago" The Goodspeed Publishing Company   Copyright 1894 by W. B. CONKEY COMPANY

This is an excerpt from the book. It discusses Peter Bohart and Nancy Clegg and contains much information about the early family:

James Camburn Bohart. Could the influence of the German element of Chicago's population upon her marvelous growth and prosperity be correctly set forth it would cause astonishment. There can be no doubt that it has been as potent as that of any other nationality other than the purely Anglo-American. In every walk of life, industrial, manufacturing, commercial, professional and official, the German and his son and grandson have been conspicuous by their works and the influence they have exerted on the processes of enlightenment and development in all parts of the city.

The sturdy, industrious, thrifty German character insures good citizenship, for it is undeniable that, within legitimate limits, that man best serves his country who best cares for himself and insures his own prosperity. One of the leading German-American citizens of Chicago is the gentleman whose name appears above. Mr. Bohart was born in Clark County, Ind., December 12, 1848, a son of Peter and Nancy (Clegg) Bohart. His father was born in Germany in 1800, and at six years of age came with his parents to the United States and located in Maryland. There he lived until he had attained his majority, then came West and settled in Clark County, Ind., where he was one of the pioneers. He was a cooper by trade, and his first success in the Indiana wilderness was gained by manufacturing barrels and hauling them to Jeffersonville and selling them.

In time he was enabled to invest in land, and, becoming a farmer and land owner, gained a position among the wealthiest farmers and land owners in that part of the county. Before his death, which occurred in 1861, he gave to each of his thirteen children fifty acres of Clark County land, and still owned the large farm upon which he had lived for forty years, and upon which he died. He cleared hundreds of acres of that wild region and made them to bloom like the rose. He left a reputation untarnished by any unworthy act, and a good name that has been his children's dearest heritage.

The Cleggs are an old American family, as the antiquity of American families is estimated, and it has had numerous representatives in places of honor and responsibility, and many of the name are among our leading business men north, south, east and west. Nancy Clegg, Mr. Bohart's mother, was born in Ohio in 1808, and died in Missouri when in her seventy-third year. She was a woman of many virtues, a devoted wife, an affectionate mother, who made the world better for her having lived in it.

Mr. and Mrs. Bohart were lifelong members of the Presbyterian Church, and worked zealously to implant it amid the primitive condition of the new country, in which the years of their prime were passed.

James C. Bohart, the twelfth in sequence of birth of the thirteen children of this worthy couple, was brought up as a farmer's boy, and was blessed with only the limited educational advantages afforded by the midwinter terms of the district school near his home. In the spring of 1864, three years after his father's death, when he was sixteen years old, he went to Nodaway County, Mo., there to begin active life on his oyvn responsibility as a stockraiser and dealer.

This plan was not relinquished permanently, but its execution was deferred for a time, in consequence of his enlistment, in August of that year, in Company -I, Forty-eighth Missouri Volunteer Infantry. No man could live long in that border country, with its population partly Unionist and partly secession in adherence, without declaring himself. He must be one thing or another for the Union or against it. This Hoosier youth did not pause at all to consider as to which cause he would espouse.

He was one of the youngest soldiers in the war one of those boy-heroes, whose history, could it be written as it deserves to be would make a more interesting, a more inspiring book than many of the thousands of books on the war that have been scattered over the country since the days of 1861 and 1865. He served until the end of the struggle, but he forbears to furnish any details concerning his experience, as he followed the old flag over those southern hills and prairies; though it is doubtful if any offer of money would tempt him, if it could be done, to blot from his mind the memory of those troublous and adventurous months.

After the war he again took up his old plan of engaging in the live stock business, and returning to Nodaway County. Since 1875 he has purchased, in Nodaway County, 920 acres of land, divided into two farms, each supplied with every convenience for housing, feeding, and caring for stock. He has fed as many as 3,000 head of cattle on these farms in a single year (1892), and the people of that part of the country testify that he has been an important factor in the development of the agricultural interests of the county, by providing an always reliable market for large quantities of corn.

There are, on these two farms, two large fish ponds, one of which was constructed at a cost of $3,500, and is 600 feet long, 200 feet wide and 30 feet deep, and the other pond is also very fine, but not so large. These ponds have been stocked for Mr. Bohart by the United States Fish Commission, and are the largest and finest in that part of the country.

Mr. Bohart lived in Missouri until 1875, when he took up his residence in Chicago, where the great success of his life has been made. He was married in 1866, soon after his permanent establishment in Nodaway County, to Miss Cinda J. McRoberts, who has borne him six children. Of these, three Dr. William H., James Edwin and Richard Clegg Bohart survive. Mary Ellen died in 1873 at the age of two and a half years, Eliza J. and John C. Bohart, Jr., died in 1893, the first mentioned in February, the last in December.

Immediately after coming to Chicago, Mr. Bohart established the nucleus of the present large enterprise of the J. C. Bohart Commission Company, live stock commission merchants. The business was carried on from 1875 to 1894, a period of nineteen years, under the name and sole management of J. C. Bohart, whose aim has always been and will continue to be to conduct a strictly legitimate live stock commission business. During the nearly two decades mentioned his operations at the yards were more extensive than those of any other man in his line in the city.

The J. C. Bohart Commission Company was incorporated under the laws of Illinois in May, 1894, with a capital stock of $60,000, of which Mr. Bohart holds one-half. Its officers are J. C. Bohart, president and general manager; Porter A. Thompson, vice-president; John J. McRoberts, second vice-president; Field Bohart, treasurer, and George Bohart, secretary. Its offices are at 23 Exchange building, Union Stock Yards. It solicits the consignment of stock direct, and advises patrons by telegraph as to action taken, guaranteeing good pens and ready assistance in the disposal of stock, and promising the most prompt attention to all business entrusted to it. The enterprise, already important, is growing rapidly, and bids fair to rank with the most extensive of its kind. It is an example of what may be accomplished in this country by the well-directed effort and conservative management of an energetic and far-seeing business man, giving to it his best thought and labor.

Mr. Bohart is in all things a public-spirited and helpful citizen, who has the advancement of Chicago at heart, and is ever ready to assist its useful interests. In politics he is an enthusiastic Republican and his influence in local and State politics has been most significant for many years. He preserves war memories and retains war associations by membership in Lincoln Post, No. 91, G. A. R., of which he is, perhaps, the youngest member.

Mr. and Mrs. Bohart are communicants of the Methodist Episcopal Church, ever alive to its growth and prosperity and liberal in their aid of all its material interests.

NOTE: The J.C. Bohart Commission Company was located in St. Joseph, Missouri.

NOTE: This excerpt says that Peter Bohart was born in 1800. We know from other sources that the exact date was May 10, 1800. The excerpt above also says he came to America when he was 6 years old. If this is correct, this places their immigration between May 10, 1806 and May 9, 1807.

NOTE: According to this excerpt, the family lived in Indiana till about 1864 and Peter Bohart died two years before they moved, in 1862. Yet there is a headstone for Peter Bohart in Missouri, 600 miles away from his supposed place of death. It seemed unlikely that the family would dig up his body after two years, put a decaying corpse into a horse-drawn carriage and travel 600 miles to Missouri, so I found this very mysterious until I asked David Bohart about it. This was his reply:

From: David Bohart

To: Maura Bohart

Date: Saturday, April 17, 2010, 12:25 PM Peter did die and is buried next to his two young sons [in Indiana]. I've been to the cemetary. It's a beautiful country setting, near Clegg Creek and just across the road from the (rebuilt) church for which Col Sanders paid the bill. You know he is the most recognized face in the world? Yep, and he's are 'cousin'. But I digress. Nancy had always planned to bring her husbands body to MO, but logistics being as they were, never fulfilled her wishes, so he has two tombstones. The one in IND is much the smaller.