My Genealogy Hound

GEORGE W. LUDWIG, who is engaged in farming and stock-raising on section 27, township 44, range 29, Johnson County, is very prominent in fraternal circles, and for thirty years has been a member of the Odd Fellows’ society. His membership is with Garden City Lodge No. 296, of Cass County, and he belongs to the encampment at Holden. He is also a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, being connected with the Holden Post.

Our subject was born October 31, 1843, in Chillicothe, Ross County, Ohio. His father, William Ludwig, was a blacksmith by trade, and at an early day moved to Dayton, Ohio, where he died when George W. was about twelve years of age. His wife, whose maiden name was Ann Jemima Weber, departed this life October 25, 1876. Of their eight children five died in infancy. One son, Noah W., served for one hundred days in the Ohio National Guards, and died in Dayton, Ohio, when in his twenty-first year. William Henry, of Cass County, Mo., who is married and has one child, is the only surviving brother of our subject.

George W. Ludwig went to live with his grandmother in Pickaway County, Ohio, on a farm after his father’s death, and remained there until he enlisted in the army, in the mean time receiving a fair education. October 14, 1861, he became a member of Company C, Sixty-first Ohio Infantry, but was later transferred to Company I, Fifty-eighth Ohio, commanded by Capt. Samuel Morrison, with Colonel Bosenwain in charge. Young Ludwig took part in the battle of Ft. Donelson, and at Shiloh received a slight wound in the left cheek. He was stationed on a gunboat during the siege of Vicksburg, was later made Corporal, and June 9, 1864, was promoted to the rank of Sergeant-Major. January 3, 1864, he veteranized, and continued to serve until the close of the war, being granted an honorable discharge September 16, 1865, at Vicksburg. After Lee’s surrender, he was placed on patrol duty for several months. In September, 1862, when at Helena, Ark., he was in the hospital for a short time, and suffered severely with malaria for several months.

After his return from the South Mr. Ludwig attended school in Dayton, Ohio, for a few months, and in 1866 went to Kansas City, where he worked in a planing-mill. He had used the wages received during his army service in assisting to take care of his widowed mother, to whom he was ever a most dutiful son. In the spring of 1867 he first landed in Johnson County, and for a year and a-half was employed by Chesley Gates, a farmer.

October 1, 1868, Mr. Ludwig married Nancy E. Gates, daughter of his late employer. She was born in what was then Van Buren, but now Henry County, Mo., January 21, 1841, and has been a true helpmate and assistant to her husband in the journey of life. Of their eight children, three died in infancy, and the others are Omar W., Mary Etta, Ida May, Inda Ora and Clara Belle. The eldest, born June 26, 1870, is a graduate of Spaulding Commercial College of Kansas City, and is a young man of promise. The daughters have all received good common-school educations and are well fitted to grace any society.

After his marriage, Mr. Ludwig removed to a farm of two hundred acres which his wife had inherited from her mother. He improved the place, clearing some of the land, putting out a good orchard, and building substantial fences thereon. In 1884 he erected the comfortable family residence in which he has since dwelt. Mr. Gates subsequently gave to his daughter a tract of land, and the farm now comprises altogether two hundred and sixty-six acres. The land was formerly prairie, but Mr. Ludwig soon commenced to improve it, and now has it all under tillage or pasture. Good fences enclose the fields, and a fine productive orchard of peach, apple and other fruit trees embellishes the home place. The residence before mentioned is one of the best appearing and substantial buildings in this section, and good barns and other farm buildings are conveniently arranged. All of these improvements have been brought about by the energy and industry of Mr. Ludwig.

Politically our subject is a Republican, though his father and surviving brother were adherents of the Democracy. In 1864 he voted for Lincoln and for Governor Brough of Ohio. Though he had no expectation of being elected, Mr. Ludwig was nominated by his party friends for the position of Justice of the Peace in 1872, and has served as a delegate to county conventions.