Louis Rau, Company H 72nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry

Private Louis Rau, Co. H, 72nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry

Wedding  photograph of Louis Rau & bride Mary E. Seitz Rau

April 21, 1879

Home of Louis and Mary E. Seitz Rau
626 Mills Street, Sandusky, Ohio

 Spring/Summer 1880

Some weeks back I received information about a Civil War soldier who served in the 72nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry raised by Fremont, Ohio attorney Ralph Buckland. The regiment was made up largely of residents of Sandusky and neighboring counties. 

Jack Smith of South Bend, Indiana shared these photographs of his great grandfather Louis Rau, who was born in Prussia February 25, 1843. He was a farmer and the son of John Rau. At the age of 21, Louis Rau was recruited at Sandusky, Ohio, December 1, 1861 by Captain Anthony Young and served in Company H under Captain Michael Wegstein. Rau fought at the Battle of Shiloh, the Siege of Corinth, and the Siege of Vicksburg. 

At Vicksburg, Rau became so ill with intermittent fever and diarrhea, he was determined unfit for field service. He was given a 30-day furlough and discharged on a surgeon's certificate of disability on December 1, 1864. He then served in the Veterans Reserve Corps. February 25 1865, he re-enlisted in Captain William Fisher's Company F of the 107th  Ohio Volunteer Infantry for one year. He fought at Sumtersville, South Carolina and at Swift Creek. On July 13, 1865, Rau was transferred to Company C. of the 25th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He was honorably discharged at Charleston, South Carolina at the end of his term of service on February 24, 1866.

Rau returned to Sandusky, Ohio and married Rosa Bader, whom he divorced in 1875. Four years later, on April 21, 1879, he married Mary E. Seitz. They were the parents of three children: Louis, born Feb. 17, 1880 died August 7, 1880; Anna M. born May 7, 1881; and Laura M. born January 20, 1883.

The family lived at 626 Mills Street in Sandusky. Louis Rau worked in Sandusky's fisheries. Louis Rau died of a heart attack at the age of 72 on March 27, 1916. He is buried in Sandusky's Oakland Cemetery.

                                         Oakland Cemetery
                                       Courtesy of Find a Grave

Louis Rau sparked a strong interest in the Civil War for his great grandson Jack Smith, Smith began collecting original images of Abraham Lincoln in 1959. His collection of more than 750 images was one of the largest known collections. It was acquired by the Indiana Historical Society in 2003. The collection is cataloged and appears online. 

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Jacob Kuebeler and the Kuebeler Monument at Oakland Cemetery

Erecting the Kuebeler Monument
Oakland Cemetery
Sandusky, Ohio
1907
Charles E. Frohman Collection

When Jacob Kuebeler passed away in the spring of 1904 at his home in Sandusky, Ohio, the local paper heralded the millionaire as its wealthiest citizen. Indeed, he was! Jacob Kuebeler had gained his wealth through years of hard work. One of sixteen children, Kuebeler was born in Herigen Hessen, Nassau, Germany in 1838. At the age of 22, left his homeland, arriving in Sandusky just before the Civil War. The following year, he married Christina Zimmerman. They were the parents of two daughters.

For the next four years he toiled in a Sandusky brewery. After spending a short time in Akron at the Oberholz Brewery, Jacob returned to Sandusky. With his brother August, he founded a small brewery in Sandusky. It was known as Jacob Kuebeler and Company. Only 20 barrels could be produced each day, but Kuebeler’s product was an immediate favorite. Kuebeler had only a single horse and wagon to make deliveries.

                                                                         


Jacob Kuebeler and John Stang
Courtesy of Sandusky History

The business grew and in 1893, stock was issued under the name Kuebeler Brewing and Malting Company. Three years later, Jacob Kuebeler’s brewery merged with the Stang Brewery with Jacob Kuebeler as its president. The Kuebeler brewery was one of the largest businesses in the city and later became part of the Cleveland and Sandusky Brewing Company.

                                                                           

Kuebeler also invested in local enterprises. Among them were the Cedar Point Pleasure Resort Company, Diamond Wine Company, Oak Harbor National Bank, Gilchrist Transportation, and others. Kuebeler’s brewery and businesses were responsible for much of the local employment.

According to the Sandusky Register, more than 3,000 people paid their respects at the Kuebeler home. The funeral cortege was a half mile long. It seemed only fitting that this great brewer and businessman should have a monument worthy of his accomplishments. To that end, Joseph Carabelli, the successful Italian sculptor and stone cutter of Cleveland was commissioned to create an appropriate marker for Jacob Kuebeler’s gravesite at Sandusky’s Oakland Cemetery. Sandusky’s cemetery was typical of the park-like cemeteries of the Victorian era that flourished after the Civil War and spread rapidly throughout Ohio

Carabelli, designed monuments for all of Cleveland’s most prestigious families, including that of John D. Rockefeller. For Kuebeler, Carabelli created a magnificent obelisk that weighed 80 tons and was 48 feet high, twice the height of any monument in Sandusky’s Oakland Cemetery.

Above is a rare image produced from a glass plate negative in the Charles E. Frohman Collection. Taken in September 1907, the picture features Joseph Carabelli himself. He and his workmen were about to hoist the Kuebeler obelisk atop the sections that make up the base of the monument. Carabelli, wearing a vest, is pictured standing near the obelisk. Today, Carabelli’s work on the Kuebeler lot still remains the tallest monument in Oakland Cemetery.Below is a photo taken by local commercial photographer Ernst Niebergall.

Kuebeler Monument
Photograph by Ernst Niebergall
Charles E. Frohman Collection