The pioneers who came to settle in the Central Ohio River Valley faced similar challenges as new “transplants”. Native Americans had previously inhabited this area for thousands of years. As an integral part of the forested bioregion, they lived primarily as hunters, but also tended some crops on a small scale. These forest-dwellers were displaced as new settlers moved in. The European settlers began to transform the landscape to better suit their lives as they were used to living them.
Many of the newcomers had been subsistence farmers in Germany. They left well-established villages surrounded by small parcels of over-worked agricultural land to inhabit a new world which offered abundant, available land covered with trees growing in soil which had never been extensively plowed. They left most of their belongings behind, coming with little more than the skills they’d learned in the Old World, a powerful determination to carve out a place for their families, and a strong work ethic to carry out their vision.
Barn built by Ignatz Ruchmann, 1848.
The new settlers were self-sufficient, but their strong
sense of community brought them together to help raise a barn, build a church,
or provide support in time of need. Those who succeeded in establishing themselves
on the land did so by adapting their farming skills to their new surroundings,
living simply, and wasting little. Their frugal lifestyle, the use of resources
close-at-hand, and hard work yielded enough to support families with as many
as 8 or more children.
The farm which we now call Sunrock Farm was established by a German immigrant couple, Ignatz and Mary Ursula Ruschmann, in 1848. They wanted to raise animals and grow crops on their new land. Ignatz cut down many oak, maple, and hickory trees. He used a broad axe and an adz to shape the massive logs into beams, rafters, and boards for the barn and the family’s home. When a handle broke on the axe, Ignatz skillfully fashioned a new one using the shaving horse and draw knife. As the cleared land was prepared for tilling and grazing, tons of limestone rock had to be moved.
Some of this rock was used to build walls and foundations, much was stacked in discrete piles to be used for other purposes. Some of these piles can still be found today. Ignatz relied on a horse-drawn sledge to haul hundreds of limestone slabs uphill from the creek that flowed through the farm. The large, flat rocks were skillfully set into place atop one another to create the massive dry stone foundations for the home and barn. These buildings, simple in design and constructed of native material, are still standing and in use, having weathered the past 150 years beautifully.
