Timeline

~~ TIMELINE ~~
Compiled by K. R. Overholt Critchfield, © 9-1-1999

~~ Timeline Updated & Renovated 12-12-05 ~~

NATIONAL AND ECONOMIC EVENTS
OVERHOLT FAMILY EVENTS

~~ Background ~~
The 16th & 17th Centuries

1517	-The Reformation begins when Martin Luther nails his 95 Theses on a church door in Wittenberg, Germany
1519	-Ulrich Zwingli begins preaching biblical sermons at the Great Minster Church in Zurich, Switzerland
1525	-The Anabaptist movement begins in Zurich, Switzerland, with the first adult baptisms, the main issue being the church and its relation to civil governments; persecutions followed, and over the course of the Reformation, between four and five thousand Anabaptists are executed by fire, water, and sword
c1537	-Jakob Oberholtzer is born in Canton Zurich, the first Oberholtzer that appears in Swiss records; Jakob marries Annli Cuntz and has many children and grandchildren
1595	-Marti Oberholtzer (grandson of Jakob) is born
1607	-The English colony of Virginia is founded at Jamestown by John Smith
1610	-Galileo Galilei reveals stellar observations made for the first time with a telescope
1618-1648	-The Thirty Years' War is prosecuted in Germany, rising from a quarrel between Roman Catholic and Protestant princes over who should become the next Holy Roman Emperor; warfare leaves cities ruined and millions dead
1618-1639	-Marti Oberholtzer fathers nine children (wife Margaretha Schellenberger); an Anabaptist preacher, he is drowned by Zwinglians
1620	-Pilgrim Fathers reach Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and found New Plymouth
1650-1663	-Swiss exit permits show Marti's sons -- Hans Jacob, Marx and Samuel -- are among a family group who leave Switzerland for the German Palatinate as tenant farmers; records identify them as "Taufers"
1664	-Marcus Oberholtzer (1664-1726) is born in Germany
1665	-Sir Isaac Newton discovers laws of gravitation, but does not publish his discoveries until 1686
1681	-William Penn (1644-1718) receives charter for the region he names Pennsylvania
1683	-Land agents for William Penn are advertising and selling large blocks of land in Pennsylvania

The 18th Century

1700	-New England’s population is approx.100,000
1702	-Anne is Queen of England
1702-13	-Queen Anne’s War
1706	-Twenty-six Overholt ancestors (male & female) have migrated to America
1707	-The Act of Union by England’s Queen Anne creates Great Britain
1709	-Martin Oberholtzer (1709-1744) is born in Germany and brought by his family to America that same year with the Jacob Wismer (1684-1787) movement
1711-13	-Tuscarora War (North Carolina)
1714	-George I is King of England
1715	-Yamasee War (South Carolina)
1720	-England controls most of eastern coastline
1732	-Georgia is chartered
1730-55	-German immigration from the Rhineland, usually landing in Philadelphia
1735-60s	-The First Great Awakening in America
1739-48	-King George’s War
1739	-Henry Oberholtzer/Overhold (1739-1813) is born the second of 5 children of Martin and Agnes Kolb Oberholtzer
1746	-Marcus Oberholtzer (1701-1765), son of Marcus, is a signer of the deed for the Old Mennonite Church at Deep Run, Buck’s County, Pennsylvania
1754	-Albany Congress -French and Indian War begins
1760	-American phase of war ends -George III becomes King of England
1763	-Treaty of Paris -Pontiac’s uprising -Proclamation of 1763
1764	-Sugar Act
1765	-Stamp Act -Sons of Liberty formed
1766	-Repeal of Stamp Act -Declaratory Act
1767	-Townshend Acts
1770	-Repeal of Townshend duties except tea tax -Boston Massacre
1772	-Boston Committee of Correspondence formed
1773	-Tea Act -Boston Tea Party
1774	-Coercive Acts -First Continental Congress
1775	-Battles of Lexington and Concord -Second Continental Congress -George Washington takes command of the Continental Army
c1775	-About 16 Overholts are listed on the muster rolls of Buck’s County, Pennsylvania
1776	-Thomas Paine, Common Sense -British evacuate Boston -Declaration of Independence -New York campaign
1777	-British take Philadelphia -Burgoyne surrenders at Saratoga
1778	-French alliance -British evacuate Philadelphia
1779	-Sullivan expedition against Iroquois villages
1780	-British take Charleston
1781	-Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown
1782	-Peace negotiations begin
1783	-Treaty of Paris
1784	-Abraham Overholt (1784-1870) is born in Buck’s County, Pennsylvania, the 10th of 12 children born to Henry & Anna Beitler Oberholtzer
1789	-George Washington is elected 1st President
1794	-The Whiskey Rebellion, Western Pennsylvania
1796	-John Adams is elected 2nd President

The 19th Century

1800	-Thomas Jefferson is elected 3rd President -Henry Oberholtzer/Overhold (1739-1813) sells his Buck’s County homestead & moves his extended family to Westmoreland County -The Second Great Awakening begins
1801	-Revival draws 10,000-25,000 people toCane Ridge, Kentucky
1801-05	-Tripoli War
1803	-Louisiana Purchase
1804-06	-Lewis and Clark Expedition
1804	-Aaron Burr kills Alexander Hamilton in a duel on July 11, at Weehawken, New Jersey
1807	-Embargo Act -Fulton’s steamboat, Clermont
1808	-James Madison is elected 4th President
1810	-Abraham Overholt (1784-1870) begins distilling whiskey as a commercial product at West Overton, Pennsylvania
1812-15	-War of 1812
1813	-Boston Manufacturing Company founded
1814	-Treaty of Ghent
1814-15	-Hartford Convention
1815	-Battle of New Orleans
1816	-James Monroe is elected 5th President -Second Bank of the United States Chartered
1818	-National Road reaches Wheeling, Virginia
1819-23	-Financial panic; depression
1820	-Missouri Compromise
1820s	-New England textile mills expand
1823	-Monroe Doctrine
1824	-John Quincy Adams is elected 6th President
1825	-Erie Canal completed
1828	-Andrew Jackson is elected 7th President
1830	-Baltimore & Ohio Railroad begins operation
1831	-McCormick invents the reaper
1834	-Mill women strike at Lowell, Massachusetts -The Overholt boys cease hauling grain to be milled when a brick flour mill is built at West Overton; mill operates for the next 25 years
1836	-Martin Van Buren is elected 8th President
1839-43	-Depression
1840	-William H. Harrison is elected 9th President
1841	-John Tyler is 10th President
1844	-Baltimore-Washington telegraph line -James K. Polk is elected 11th President
1846	-War with Mexico
1848	-Zachary Taylor is elected 12th President
1849	-California gold rush
1850	-Millard Fillmore is 13th President
c1850	-Abraham Overholt brings sons Henry Stauffer Overholt & Jacob Stauffer Overholt into his whiskey business at West Overton
1852	-Franklin Pierce is elected 14th President
1853	-British study of American manufacturing -Depression
1854	-Railroad reaches the Mississippi River
1856	-James Buchanan is elected 15th President -Jacob Stauffer Overholt (1814-1859), son of Abraham Overholt, and his cousin Henry O. Overholt build a distillery at Broad Ford, Pennsylvania; they produce “Monogahela Whiskey” until Jacob’s death in 1859
1859	-John Brown raids Harper’s Ferry, VA -Abraham Overholt buys Jacob’s 2/3 interest in the Broad Ford distillery & with partner Henry O. Overholt builds the six-story brick mill/distillery building at West Overton, PA, operating as “A. Overholt & Co.” with a daily capacity of 200 bushels of grain & 860 gallons of whiskey -Oil discovered at Titusville in northwest Pennsylvania -Abraham Overholt Tinstman (1834-1915), a grandson of Abraham Overholt, buys 600 acres of coal land near Broad Ford with his partner Joseph Rist
1860	-Abraham Lincoln is elected 16th President -South Carolina secedes from the Union -President Lincoln’s favorite whiskey is known to be Overholt Whiskey -“A. Overholt & Co. Whiskey” is the product produced by the West Overton & Broad Ford distilleries
1861-65	-American Civil War
1863	-Emancipation Proclamation -Battle of Gettysburg, PA
1863	-Abraham Overholt composes his Last Will & Testament in West Overton, PA -At age 14, Henry Clay Frick clerks at his Uncle Christian S. Overholt’s store in West Overton
1864	-Abraham Overholt makes his grandson Abraham Overholt Tinstman (A. O. Tinstman) a partner in his firm “A. Overholt & Co.”
1865	-Lee surrenders at Appomattox -At age 16, Henry Clay Frick moves to Mt. Pleasant to clerk for his uncle Martin Overholt; for the next three years, he lives & works there, attends college sporadically, & attends the Baptist Church -President Lincoln is assassinated -Andrew Johnson is 17th President -President Johnson begins Reconstruction
1866-67	-Jacob Stauffer Overholt’s distillery at Broad Ford is torn down and replaced with a new facility owned by Abraham Overholt and his partner/nephew Henry O. Overholt
1867	-U.S. purchase of Alaska
1868	-Ulysses S. Grant is elected 18th President -Abraham Overholt Tinstman (in partnership with Col. A. S. M. Morgan) opens the Morgan mines and engages exclusively in making coke -Abraham Overholt loans his grandson Abraham Overholt Tinstman (A. O. Tinstman) $20,000 to invest in the lucrative Morgan Mines in Broad Ford Run Valley -Henry O. Overholt leaves “A. Overholt & Co.” and Abraham Overholt Tinstman buys his interest in the firm -In Mt. Pleasant, Henry Clay Frick is suddenly fired; upon returning to West Overton, his grandfather, Abraham Overholt, takes him to the Broad Ford distillery, where his cousin Abraham Overholt Tinstman hires him as anoffice boy at $25 per month -Christian Overholt secures a position for his nephew, Henry Clay Frick, at Pittsburgh’s Macrum and Carlisle, where he, at 19, clerks in the linen & lace department for $6/week; after borrowing $50 (from a relative), he buys a new suit of clothes & attends the first Presbyterian Church built by Asa P. Childs -Shortly after starting a new job at another Pittsburgh establishment, Henry Clay Frick contracts typhoid fever & returns to West Overton to receive care, administered by his mother, grandmother & sister; afterwards, he works at the West Overton distillery as a salesman & helps the bookkeeper, working 3 months without pay -Abraham Overholt Tinstman hires Henry Clay Frick at the Broad Ford distillery “to take care of the office” at a salary of $1,000 per year (i.e., roughly $83 per month)
1869	-First transcontinental railroad is Union Pacific
1870	-The Mellon Bank is founded in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, by retired judge Thomas Mellon (who has acquired his fortune in investments solidified by requiring judgments on mortgages & personal security loans, using "debt without writ" documents which allowed an attorney or court officer to confess judgment & seize the debtor's property without the fuss of a trial) -Abraham Overholt (1784-1870) dies the morning of January 15, on his West Overton farm, leaving an estate of about $350,000 to his heirs -Henry Stauffer Overholt ((1810-1870), eldest of Abraham Overholt's children & joint owner with him of the West Overton distillery, mill & farm, retires & dissolves the brief partnership between himself & his father's executors (his brothers Christian Stauffer Overholt & Martin Stauffer Overholt, and cousin Jacob Overholt Tinstman) -Henry Stauffer Overholt dies June 18, 1870 -Abraham Overholt Tinstman organizes & builds the Mt. Pleasant & Broad Ford Railroad connecting with the Pittsburgh & Connellsville Railroad at Broad Ford; he continues as president until selling the entire road to the B & O Railroad in 1876
1871	-Abraham Overholt Tinstman forms another coke company, associated with Joseph Rist & Henry Clay Frick, under the firm name of Frick & Company; they build 200 coke ovens; later the site is known as the “Novelty” and the “Henry Clay Works” -Henry Clay Frick goes to Pittsburgh, where unannounced, he asks to see Thomas Mellon at his Mellon Bank; seemingly on the basis of Mellon’s youthful friendship with Elizabeth Overholt (Frick’s mother), the Overholt family name & reputation, and Frick’s business accumen, he comes away with $10,000 at 10% interest for six months -- to build 50 coke ovens; later he obtains another $10,000 before the first loan is paid off
1873	-Comstock Lode, silver discovery in Navada -In May, panic strikes the bourse in Vienna & it spreads through the exchanges in Europe (which were overloaded with stocks & bonds in American ventures, mostly railroads); reckless investment in America ends & Europe plunges into recession; by September the financial crisis impacts America with panic at the N.Y. Stock Exchange, then bank failures
1873-78	-Depression
1873	-Abraham Overholt Tinstman suffers a total loss in the financial panic of 1873
1874	-By spring, the aftermath of the financial panic reaches Broad Ford, where Henry Clay Frick is selling coke well below the cost of producing it; rival coke operators & even Frick’s partners sell out at depressed prices; farmers trade land for cash in almost any amount; Frick covers his operating deficit by peddling his notes & using his mother’s inheritance to option land -Acting alone & on his own initiative, Henry Clay Frick tracks down the stockholders of his cousin Abraham Overholt Tinstman’s Broad Ford railroad, obtains their signatures on options, then offers the B & O Railroad a deal they cannot refuse -- the Broad Ford railroad at cost ($200,000), earning himself a $50,000 commission in the bargain -Abraham Overholt Tinstman & his partner Morgan seek to consolidate their lucrative Morgan mines with Frick & Company; Frick offers $550,000 against the $650,000 asking price & the deal does not go through -In December, the widow of Abraham Overholt (Maria Stauffer Overholt, 83) dies at West Overton; she is the mother of 8, the grandmother of 48 (including Henry Clay Frick) & the great-grandmother of 25
1875	-Abraham Overholt Tinstman purchases the 2/3 interest of the deceased Abraham Overholt in the firm of “A. Overholt & Co.,” including the right to use the name as a brand & trade mark -By February, Henry Clay Frick is critically ill in another round of inflammatory rheumatism; his relatives move him from his Broad Ford shack to a room in Abraham Overholt’s Homestead house, where he is washed & dressed daily like an infant; a full year passes before he returns to health -By October, Henry Clay Frick has the deed to the Morgan Mines executed & delivered to the partners A. O. Tinstman & Morgan -- leaving open for them the possibility of recovery by stipulating that if within 2 years, Tinstman repays the notes (amounting to $60,000) together with any interest on the $10,000 note, the “deed of conveyance should become null and void” -Secured by the B & O Railroad deal, Henry Clay Frick further strengthens his financial base by paying his employees in “Frick dollar bills” & building his first “company store”
1876	-Gold rush in the Black Hills -Rutherford B. Hayes elected 19th President -Abraham Overholt Tinstman sells his interest in “A. Overholt & Co.” to brother Christian Stauffer Overholt Tinstman (C.S.O.Tinstman, another son of Abraham Overholt’s daughter Anna), together with the right to use the firm name as a brand & trade mark
c1876	-Christian Stauffer Overholt Tinstman & Christopher Fritchman become partners in the firm “A. Overholt & Co.” -Henry Clay Frick’s borrowing from T. Mellon & Sons reaches $100,000, but he has acquired 60% of the coal acreage & he is producing 80% of the coke from the region, setting his own prices & earning 100% over costs
1877	-Henry Clay Frick trades acre for acre the surface rights of 4 farms for all the coal on the Morewood farm; Frick then opens a “company store” at Morewood, which eventually rakes in profits of 80 to 100 thousand dollars -First national strike over Pennsylvania Railroad labor practices leads to riots, looting & deaths, which forever polarizes America between the antagonistic forces of capital & labor -Henry Clay Frick warns strikers to vacate the shacks on Tinsman’s old railroad; later Frick, with a deputy, personally evicts James King, throwing him into a creek -Abraham Overholt Tinstman is unable to buy back his interest in the Morgan Mines, so the mines officially become the property of Henry Clay Frick
1878	-Christian Stauffer Overholt Tinstman & partner Christopher Fritchman (owners of an undivided 2/3 interest in the firm “A. Overholt & Co.” and lessees of the other 1/3 interest from the First National Bank of Uniontown) take into co-partnership with them James G. Pontefract for the term of one year (from August 1, 1878 to August 1, 1879) & by renewal to April 1, 1881 -Henry Clay Frick sells shares in Frick & Co. to Edmund M. Ferguson, then to Walton Ferguson the following year, renaming the business H. C. Frick & Company; Frick suffers another bout of inflammatory rheumatism & stays at Edmund M. Ferguson’s house in Pittsburgh for a year while recovering
1879	-Thomas Edison perfects the incandescent light bulb -Coal mining & coke production makes the agrarian culture fade away, as trees die from the smoke of coke furnaces & large sink holes appear in local pastures as mines collapse; miners & beehive oven workers suffer death in accidents or lose their health because of polluted air below & above ground; the once-fresh streams & rivers are now polluted; typhoid becomes a leading cause of death -On December 19, Henry Clay Frick quietly celebrates his 30th birthday by buying (on credit) a Havana cigar; he had accomplished his life’s ambition of being worth a million dollars
1880	-James A. Garfield is elected 20th President -Abraham Overholt Tinstman sells 3,500 acres of coal land at a good profit, then buys a half interest in the Rising Sun Coke Works & then establishes the firm of “A.O. Tinstman & Co.” in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania -Building project #3 commences at Broad Ford distillery; by utilizing coal for steam power, the daily capacity increases to 800 bushels of grain and 3,450 gallons of whiskey
1880s	-Large numbers of Eastern European & S. European immigrants begin to arrive in U.S. -Spread of flush toilets in U.S. -Acceptance of germ theory of disease -Mass production of tin cans begins
1881	-Chester A. Arthur is 21st President -Abraham Overholt Tinstman acquires the Mt. Braddock & Pennsville Coke Works -First federal trademark law, which enables producers to register & protect brand names -With a document dated March 1, Henry Clay Frick obtains from the executors of Abraham Overholt (i.e., Martin Stauffer Overholt & Christian Stauffer Overholt) the right to use the “A. Overholt & Co.” name “at the distillery property in Connellsville township, Fayette County, PA,” for the consideration of one dollar “and other good and valuable considerations” -On March 12, partners C. S. O. Tinstman & Christopher Fritchman enter into another agreement with James G. Pontefract, granting him (for 2 years, until April 1, 1883) the right to use the name of the firm “A. Overholt & Co.” and the various brands at the distillery -According to Henry Clay Frick, before the lease expires on April 1, he has purchased the undivided 1/3 interest in the firm “A. Overholt & Co.” from the First National Bank of Uniontown “and others” -By March 23, Henry Clay Frick owns the undivided 2/3 of “a certain tract of land in Connellsville Township, Fayette County, PA” on which are erected a distillery, warehouse, and other improvements, and known as the “A. Overholt & Co. Distillery” and James G. Pontefract owns the undivided 1/3 interest; Frick leases the site to Pontefract for 5 years to “manufacture, storage and sale of whiskey on said premises” -According to Henry Clay Frick, by the latter part of March 1881, he has purchased the undivided 2/3 interest in the Broad Ford distillery property, including all brands and marks from C.S.O. Tinstman & C. Fritchman -According to his testimony, on April 1, Henry Clay Frick leased the firm “A.Overholt & Co.” to James G. Pontefract to make and mark “whiskey manufactured thereat” -On or about April 1, according to their own testimony, C. S. O. Tinstman & C. Fritchman acknowledge that they ceased to own the business & distillery property [at Broad Ford?], but they still maintain the validity of their lease granted to James G. Pontefract for the use of the firm name “A. Overholt & Co.” until April 1, 1883
1882-83	-Three more transcontinental railroad routes
1883	-On April 1, C. S. O. Tinstman and C. Fritchman expect James G. Pontefract to surrender the rights leased to him for the use of the name “A. Overholt & Co.” but Pontefract does not comply; Tinstman & Fritchman sue Pontefract
1884	-Grover Cleveland is elected 22nd President -Abraham Overholt Tinstman sells all his coke interests and engages in the purchase of coal lands in Western Pennsylvania & West Virginia
1884-85	-Depression
1886	-The suit filed by C. S. O. Tinstman and C. Fritchman against James G. Pontefract reaches the Supreme Court on June 17 [U.S. Supreme Court or PA Supreme Court?]
1888	-Benjamin Harrison is elected 23rd President
1889	-Thomas Edison invents motion-picture camera and viewing device -The Johnstown Flood -The Johnstown Flood implicates H. C. Frick
1890s	-Electric trolleys replace horse-driven mass transit systems
1892	-Homestead Steel strike -Homestead Strike impacts H. C. Frick -Grover Cleveland is elected 24th President
1893-97	-Depression
1896	-William McKinley is elected 25th President
1893	-Great Northern Railroad completed
1899	-Another building project commences, with the entire plant at Broad Ford being dismantled & reconstructed & adding new rack warehouses; the construction is finished by 1905

The 20th Century

1900s	-Rise in popularity of vaudeville
1900-10	-Peak years of immigration
1900	-Gold Standard Act -U.S. exports total $1.5 billion
1901	-United States Steel Corp. founded -Assassination of President William McKinley -Theodore Roosevelt is 26th President
1903	-First baseball World Series
1905	-The plant at the Broad Ford distillery has a daily capacity of 1,500 bushels of grain & 6,450 gallons of whiskey
1906	-Pure Food and Drug Act -U.S. invades Cuba
1907	-Economic Panic
1908	-William H. Taft is elected 27th President
1909	-NAACP is founded
1910	-Motion pictures have become an art form -Mexican revolution begins
1912	-Woodrow Wilson is elected 28th President -U.S. troops enter Cuba again -U.S. troops occupy Nicaragua
1913	-First moving assembly line, Ford Motor Co.
1914	-Federal Trade Commission Act -Clayton Anti-Trust Act -U.S. troops invade Mexico -First World War begins -Panama Canal opens
1915	-D. W. Griffith’s film, The Birth of a Nation
1916	-U.S. troops invade Mexico again
1917	-U.S. entry into First World War -Selective Service Act -Espionage Act -War Industries Board created
1918	-U.S. troops at Chateau-Thierry -U.S. troops intervene in Russia -Flu epidemic -Armistice -Henry Clay Frick & R. B. Mellon are partners in the firm “A. Overholt & Co.” at Broad Ford; on March 28, Mellon writes to Frick about the “110,000,000 gallons of beverage spirits of all kinds,” and speculates about profits after being ordered to shut down [due to Prohibition]
1919	-Steel Strike undermined by “steel barons” -Eighteenth Amendment ratified (Prohibition) -Overholt Distillery at West Overton is shut down due to Prohibition, but the Broad Ford distillery remains in operation “for medicinal purposes,” with a capacity of 1,800 bushels of grain & 7,700 gallons of whiskey per day; later the capacity rises to 2,270 bushels of grain & 9,760 gallons of whiskey per day -On December 2, Henry Clay Frick dies at his home in New York City, and is buried three days later in Pittsburgh, PA, following a private funeral, attended by Andrew Mellon, the executor of his will; Frick leaves one-sixth of his fortune to his family, and the rest is bequeathed to charitable institutions in New York, Pittsburgh, and the West Overton-Connellsville Coke Region
1920	-Majority of Americans (51.4%) live in cities -Warren G. Harding is elected 29th President -First commercial radio broadcast
1920-21	-Postwar deflation and depression
1921	-Federal Highway Act -Immigration quotas established
1922	-Economic recovery -Mussolini comes to power in Italy
1923	-Calvin Coolidge is 30th President
1925	-Fundamentalism vs. science in Scopes trial
1926	-American troops occupy Nicaragua
1927	-Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight -First sound movie, The Jazz Singer
1928	-Stock market soars -Herbert C. Hoover is elected 31st President
1929-33	-100,000 American businesses fail -Corporate profits fall from $10 billion to $1 billion -Gross National Product is cut in half
1929	-Onset of the Great Depression -Federal Farm Board created -Stock market crash
1930	-Six million Americans are jobless; millions more are under-employed
1931	-Japan seizes Manchuria -Stock market crash
1932	-Ford Hunger March in Dearborn -Bonus March on Washington, D.C. -Franklin D. Roosevelt elected 32nd President
1933	-13 million Americans are unemployed -Nine million savings accounts have been lost, amounting to $2.5 billion in losses -Beer-Wine Revenue Bill -Agriculture Adjustment Act -Tennessee Valley Authority established -National Industrial Recovery Act -Hitler comes to power in Germany -U.S. recognition of Soviet Russia -Good Neighbor policy announced -U.S. subverts Cuban revolution -Film King Kong released -21st Amendment ratified (repeals Prohibition)
1935	-National Labor Relations Act -Social Security Act -Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO) -Italy invades Ethiopia -Neutrality Act

The Old Overholt Whiskey article was probably written in 1935.

END OF TIMELINE -- Go back to "Karen's Branches"