From 1978 to 1981, while studying for my BA at the University of Waterloo, I and my family lived in the Vanier neighbourhood in south Kitchener, not far from the intersection of Fairway Road and Wilson Avenue. A few blocks away from our house, I discovered a large old farmhouse in the middle of the neighbourhood, at the corner of Clark and Siebert Avenues. The place was surrounded by low-rise apartment buildings and 1960s brick bungalows and back-splits.
As I got to know Kitchener and Waterloo better over the years I’ve lived here, I’ve found similar houses in the middle of many neighbourhoods. I came to realize that their design was very like that of most of the big old farmhouses in the townships around the cities. Recently I have learned that this is called the “Mennonite Georgian” style, and it’s the type of house design that Mennonite immigrants brought with them from Pennsylvania.
I’ve become very fond of these big old houses in the city, remnants of the rural landscape that our cities have engulfed and reminders of the Mennonite pioneers who cleared the land of forests, cultivated the soil, and built these houses for their families. I’m always on the lookout for any I haven’t seen before, pleased when I see improvements being made and disappointed when I see the signs of run-down.
So you can imagine my deep disappointment a few weeks ago, when Sande and I cycled up the curve on Siebert from Vanier, and I was confronted by an empty lot with a few piles of rubble on the corner of Siebert and Clark. Another piece of our history—253 Clark Ave—is gone.
It is true that the place has been used as a multi-unit apartment building for as long as I’ve known it. It’s always been a bit on the careworn side, with it’s tacked-on vinyl-sided additions, old aluminum storm windows and soffits, and rattling window air conditioners. But surely it deserved better than to be razed.
Since seeing that empty lot, I’ve done a bit of research to uncover its history.
I found that the house is represented on the 1861 Tremaine’s Map of the County of Waterloo, Canada West: a little solid square on the west end of lot 51. The property is labeled with the name “Geo Histand,” and the rest of lot 51 is divided up between Elias Snider and Tobias Bowman. (Elias Snider was the guy who developed the mills at what became known as German Mills, just south of the property, where Manitou Drive dips across Schneider Creek, as well as the mills in St. Jacobs.)
I checked I. C. Bricker’s “Waterloo Township History to 1825” in the Waterloo Historical Society Annual Report for 1934, in order to discover the early history of this piece of land. I found that the lot was originally assigned to John Erb, one of the major investors in the German Company (see Upon these Rocks: The Erb and Eby Clans). In 1806, Erb sold 121 acres to Matthias Scheirich (spelled Shiry/Shreigh in the article) and, in 1815, 26 acres to Benjamin Bowman and 207 acres to Christian Shantz.
Next, I went to Waterloo Region Generations (https://generations.regionofwaterloo.ca/) to check what Ezra Eby had to say about George Histand and lot 51. I discovered that George Histand (usually now spelled Hiestand) did indeed live on lot 51 and that he had been serially married to three sisters—Esther, Veronica, and Elizabeth, daughters of John and Barbara (Groh) Sheirich. John was the son of Matthias and Catharine (Mooney) Sheirich.
Matthias Sheirich was born 6 Dec 1751 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. He married Catharine Mooney, born 1762, in the early 1780s, and they had at least 8 children, all born in Pennsylvania. In 1805, the family immigrated to Waterloo Township in the great wave of Mennonites who arrived in the years following the German Company purchase. They acquired a portion of lot 51, right on the southern border of the so-called German Company (Upper) Tract, from John Erb and began clearing their land for a new life in Canada. Catharine died in 1825 and Matthias in 1835. They are both buried in First Mennonite Church cemetery.
John Sheirich was 18 years old when his family immigrated. Two years later, in 1807, he married Barbara Groh (born May 28th, 1784). Barbara was daughter of Michael and Elizabeth (Witmer) Groh. Michael had travelled from Pennsylvania to Waterloo Township with several others in early 1804 to scout out the land. He chose land between Preston and Hespeler (records show that the family owned 2 lots in Beasley’s Lower Block by 1810), cleared some land, and built a small log cabin before returning to Pennsylvania in August.
Michael and Elizabeth packed up their family and headed back to Canada in September. They had barely crossed the Niagara River when Michael took sick, and he and his daughter Barbara stayed with a Boyer family in the Welland area so he could recover, while Elizabeth and the rest of the family went on to Waterloo. However, Michael died within a few weeks, on 20 Sep 1804. Barbara clearly travelled on to rejoin her family, since she married John Sheirich a few years later. Elizabeth lived on as a widow until 1858.
John and Barbara (Groh) Sheirich had a family of two sons and seven daughters. They lived on Matthias Sheirich’s lot 51. John died on 3 Apr 1862 and Barbara on 28 Nov 1858. Although they reported their religion as Lutheran in the 1851 census, he is said to be buried in the First Mennonite cemetery; his marker reads “To / the memory of / John Shiry / who died 3rd April / 1862.” I can’t find where Barbara is buried.
George Hiestand’s father, David Histand, was born in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, on 5 Nov 1789. In the spring of 1816, he emigrated to Waterloo Township, where he worked for his uncles George and Jacob Bechtel near Blair for two years. In 1818, David married his cousin Elizabeth (born 8 Aug 1792), daughter of George Bechtel, and they settled just north of Preston. David died on 6 Jan 1833. Elizabeth then married George Clemens and died near Kossuth, north of Hespeler, on 21 Jul 1885. David and Elizabeth are both buried in the Hagey Cemetery in Preston.
George was David and Elizabeth’s eldest son, born 1 Nov 1820 at their home near Preston. In 1844, George married Esther (or Hester) Sheirich, John and Barbara’s second youngest daughter, and moved onto her parents’ farm. On 17 Feb 1845, Esther gave birth to a daughter, Mary, but both she and the infant died the following day. She was a few months short of her 20th birthday.
A year and a half later, George married Esther’s younger sister, Veronica, on her 18th birthday. She bore two children, Elizabeth in Sept 1846 and David in July 1848. David died two months after his birth, and Veronica died two months after that, on 10 Nov 1848, at the age of 21. On 25 Oct 1849, just shy of 29, George married the second oldest Scheirich sister, Elizabeth, who was 33. Elizabeth had one child, Anna, in Dec 1852, but this child died too, on the day she was born.
For many years, probably from the late 1840s to the mid 1870s, George’s youngest brother, John, who never married, lived with George’s family. In the 1851 census, George Hiestand (age 31) is listed as a farmer, John Hiestand (age 24) as a labourer, and John Scheirich as a “gentleman” (that is, retired, at age 65). The household also included Elizabetha Hiestand (wife, age 36), Elizabetha Hiestand (daughter, age 6), Barbara Scheirich (age 66), and Maria Wendel (age 17 and daughter of a neighbouring family, likely the house maid). The Hiestands are all listed as Mennoists, the Scheirichs and the maid as Lutherans.
According to Ezra Eby, George’s only living daughter, Elizabeth, and her husband, Daniel M Weber, lived on the farm as well, from their marriage in 1865 until about 1895. (George’s in-laws had died in 1858 and and 1862, so there would have been space for a new family.) Elizabeth and Daniel’s nine children would have been born on the property; at least one child, Joseph, died the day he was born, and it’s possible that only four of the children lived to adulthood.
George and Elizabeth were married for 41 years. She died on 17 Dec 1890, at the age of 74. After her death, George, at 70, married a 51-year-old “spinster,” Magdalena Biehn, who managed to outlive him by 27 years. George died on 23 Jul 1901. He, his three children who died in infancy, and his last three wives are all buried in First Mennonite Cemetery. His first wife, Esther, is buried at Hagey’s.
It is unclear whether John Sheirich or George Hiestand built the big house on lot 51, or when exactly it was built. We know, however, that George Hiestand lived and farmed there for about 57 years, and the house was known by his name.
This house stood for well over 150 years, looking out from its rise of land over George Hiestand’s fields and the valley of Schneider’s Creek, over the village of German Mills. Relatively recently it lost its outbuildings and was hemmed in by spreading residential and commercial development.
In all that time, it saw a lot of history pass through its halls, a lot of lives and a lot of deaths, no doubt some joy, but certainly a lot of sorrow. Surely, it deserved better than to be smashed down and hauled away as rubble, to be replaced (probably) by some ugly condo development.
Note: George Hiestand is a (very) distant relative of mine through the Bechtels. His grandfather, George Bechtel, was a first cousin of my ancestor Rev Joseph Bechtel.
Sources:
Bricker, I. C. “Waterloo Township History to 1825.” Waterloo Historical Society Annual Report, volume 22 (1934).
Ezra Eby Revived! Ontario Mennonite, Amish, and Brethren in Christ family History (http://ezraeby.com).
Library and Archives Canada. Census of 1851, Search Results for George Hiestand, Canada West (https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/census/1851/Pages/results.aspx?k=cnsSurname%3a%22Heistand%22+AND+cnsGivenName%3a%22John%22+AND+cnsAge%3a%2224%22+AND+cnsProvinceCode%3a%22CW%22). Viewed May 27, 2021.
Waterloo Region Generations: A record of the people of Waterloo Region, Ontario (https://generations.regionofwaterloo.ca/).
500 Years of Migration 