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Ropp, Christian (1812-1896)
Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1957 Apr 18 p. 9
Birth date: 1812 Apr 27
text of obituary:
Biography of A Pioneer
Chr. Ropp Was Early Farmer, Bishop of The Amish Church in Central Illinois
CHRISTIAN ROPP was a pioneer minister and bishop in the Old Mackinaw congregation (Amish Mennonite) seven miles south of Eureka, Ill. and later had a leading part in the beginning of the Eureka and Gridley (now Waldo) churches. He was born April 27, 1812, and married Magdalena Schertz March 19, 1836, Bishop Christian Engel officiating. Their wedding trip ended at Mackinaw Dells where five honeymoon months were spent working for neighbor Chris Farni, who was building a mill.
With their summer's wages, $100, they bought 80 acres of forest land north on Walnut Creek where Mr. Farni and his brother Peter helped him build a two-room log cabin home. They moved in as soon as they could, Peter remaining to all up a fine spring nearby. Jan. 30, 1837, brought their first baby and their first year's blessings were abundant — a home of their own, a farm, a steady job and the baby. What more did they need? Much more was needed and Ropp, blacksmith, wood worker, farmer and later a minister, had the skill to provide them.
EXCHANGING work, he and a wagon maker built two wagons, buying only the iron. He made his own plows until 1848. His scythe, two cradles (one for the baby and one to cut the grain), their furniture, the knives and many of their kitchen utensils (including the "panna kuche" turner) were his own workmanship.
With timber abundant he built two log barns, with a covered threshing floor between. the bundles of wheat were laid down, heads out, and four horses trampled round on it to thresh it while two men kept the sheaves turned. Two hours work gave them four bushels of gain [sic] to be cleaned in a fanning mill. In 1845 a horsepower cylinder machine without a grain separating part, a "chaff kicker" they called it, did their threshing. The first separator came in 1848.
FOR money they sold a few farm products. They needed some cloth, iron, powder and lead, sugar and coffee, salt and pepper for the kitchen. A shoemaker came around to make their shoes, a tailor their clothes. Roots, herbs, home made tea, hot baths and plenty of goose grease and brandy rubbed in kept them sound. Salts and castor oil were bought, with mother the doctor.
In 1845 they built a larger and more comfortable house that had skillfully wrought carvings on the fireplace mantle [sic] piece that must have seemed out of place in an Amishman's home, and he the bishop at that. The larger house proved better accommodations for their church meetings. When the Pennsylvania Amish came in the forties, a number of families were kept until they could go to their own homes.
CHURCH services were held in the home, and a big occasion was a wedding. Called to be a minister about 1840, Christian Ropp was ordained a bishop in 1846 by the Mackinaw Church. In their church meetings and social life German was used exclusively, although some of the young folks were beginning to use English.
Country schools before 1855 were all private, usually conducted in winter and about two in a township. Their first public school was three miles south of Eureka in the back part of a country store. Downer's Grove Academy (now Eureka College) was only four miles away, but Ropp never thught [sic] of sending any of his children. It wasn't Amish.
WITH the steel plow and the reaper coming into use, some of these woodland folks turned to the prairie. Christian Ropp bought his first half-section of prairie land in 1853 four miles west of Hudson, Ill. Jonas Troyer, whose home was five miles west, meeting Ropp one day told him that there was still 320 acres near his home that could be bought from the U.S. for $1.25 an acre. The railroad land cost more so the first settlers were all on government land.
He and his son Chriss Jr. went to look it over in March and found much of it covered by water from a rapidly thawing snow. In the fall a small house and a slough-grass covered barn were erected. The east 160 was rented to Christian Kaufman, a brother Amishman from Ohio, in 1856-57.
In the spring of 1855 he went to Chicago and bought enough 16 foot fence boards to enclose the farm, as well as some building lumber. This carload and freight cost more than the farm. The fence post used were sawed at home and transported with the oak lumber for the barn by four yoke of oxen with Chris Jr. and David carrying the ox goads, returning the next day. The 16-mile trip took all day.
WITH the three oldest boys able to help with farm work, and with the horsepower sawmill operating, he was doing well and had a small box built at the back of a bureau drawer. In this they hid $800 in gold to be used to improve the farm. This was never disturbed, although many times visiting or church services took them away all day. They moved to the prairie in March 1858, into the house where the Kaufmans had lived, finished the barn and began farming on an extensive scale.
The 1860 corn was all planted with a two row planter made by Chris Jr. In the next few years, father and the boys built fifty more. Then the project was abandoned. They sold for $35.00 each.
Their prairie home with two additions was a low ceiling, flat roofed house of nine rooms. It had three chimneys, a place for four stoves, was forty feet long, with a full length front porch. The inside finish was clear black walnut from his Walnut Creek timber and at the west end of the porch a sloping outside celler [sic] door gave entrance to the cellar.
IN 1861 the timber land farm was sold and he began to buy on the prairie. The farm one mile south of East White Oak Mennonite Church, son Peter's farm, was bought in 1862 for $12.50 an acre, the 160 west of it in 1863, Anna's farm, for $17.50, the 320 joining it for $17.50, the 320 joining it at the north, the home of David and Jake, in1865,for $20.00, while the 200 southwest of Hudson where Christian Jr. lived, was purchased in 1866for $30.00. Two years later,120 acres, the rest of that half-section was bought for $40.00.
He then had two sections of rich prairie land, 160 acres for himself and 160 acres for each of his children. He never bought any more. Five industrious sons and high Civil War prices were the largest factors in his unusual success. In 1866 they sold 3500 bushels of spring wheat at $1.90 a bushel and 7,000 bushels of corn at $.90, with cheap land lying all about.
MOVING to the prairie took him far from the Deer Creek Church where he continued to serve as bishop. He had sided in founding the Eureka and Gridley Prairie churches and often went there, besides holding services in his home. He performed more than 100 marriage services. No record was kept. Emmanuel B. King of Hutchinson, Kan. may be the only one of all those still living.
His wife died, Mar. 23, 1868, and was buried on his farm east of the house. This is now the Ropp Cemetery. Jonas Troyer, Christian King and Christian Kaufman were three Amishmen who settled on this road before he did. The Troyer Cemetery was begun in 1859, the Kaufman Cemetery in 1873, making three burial places.
IN 1869 he married Magdalena Birky of Morton, Ill. who survived him. He continued farming until 1880. After that neighbors farmed the land with the old man residing in the house until his death on Aug. 3, 1896. For 50 years he had been a bishop in the Old Order denomination of the Mennonite Church. He was five feet, nine inches tall and weighed about 170 pounds in his active years, with blue eyes and hair inclined to be curly like some of his brothers. There were seven children, "der Grystal, der David, der Pater, de Anna, der Johannes, 'es Lenalie und der Yakop," all born three miles north of Mackinaw Dells, Ill.
When "Grystel" was about 24 some young folks were their guests, one of them a young lady named Stalter six months younger than he. The clothing worn by the young women was a little too worldly to suit Aunt Lena so she remarked after their departure, "Wan de Staltern net so stoltz, wer kentz sie mi Grystel ban." (If this Stalter girl not so stylish was, could she my Chris have.)
BISHOP Ropp's clothing, hat and beard told that he was an Amishman, an adherant [sic] of the old time faith, one who believed that there were values in church teaching and rules of conduct; not so much dogma and words, but do thus and so to be a Christian. In his own life he lived the qualities of industry, sobriety, honesty, thrift, piety, brotherly kindness and fine neighborliness, the sturdy virtues upon which sobriety depends, and he abstained from the changing world of show and fashion.
