Monthly Archives March 2024

My GGG Grandfather, Tobias Ambre Ohmer, sailed from LeHavre, France to New Orleans on the ship Carack, arriving in April of 1851. The following is an account of the the burning and eventual sinking of that very ship in the year 1857.

Built 1849 in Thomaston, Maine
Ship Carack, 874 tons
Built by R. Walsh
Chief Owner W.J. Fales, Robinson, Ambrose Snow

Telegraphed to the New Orleans Picayune

Steamboats Passed Vicksburg

[By the National Line]

Vicksburg, Aug. 1 — The John Briggs passed down at 7 o’clock this morning.

Later from Key West

Probable loss of Bark Pacific

The annexed letter from our Key West correspondent, giving an account of the destruction of the ship Carack, by fire, and the probable loss of the bark Pacific, with other marine intelligence, came to hand th...

Tobias Ambre Ohmer, my ggg grandfather, sailed from LeHavre, France to New Orleans, arriving on June 16, 1851. The Captain was listed as W. J. Fales.

The Aug 1, 1857 edition of the New York Shipping and Commercial lists that the Carrack was bound for Liverpool from New Orleans when it caught fire and sunk Southwest of the Tortugas. It states that the ship was owned in Thomaston, Maine and was built December 8, 1849.

The Cutler files states the Master was A. Snow and the owner was R. Walsh. She was surrendered Aug 7, 1857.

Ship CARACK, (Not COSSACK,) from New Orleans to Liverpool, was the vessel as before suggested destroyed by fire S. W. of Tortugas. A letter to the Charleston Courier, from Key West, says that her cargo consisted of 2780 bales of cotton , and that the ship was v...

Susan Catherine Ohmer, the last surviving daughter of a pioneering Dayton family, died Tuesday, one month shy of her 106th birthday.

Miss Ohmer had lived most of her life at Floral Hill, a 14-room house on Creighton Avenue built in 1864 by her grandfather, Nicholas Ohmer. The neighborhood, near the Dayton Mental Health Center, is known as Ohmer Park.

She died at the Maria-Joseph Center, where she lived with her sister Ruth since 1987. Ruth Ohmer, a former society editor for The Journal and The Herald, died last July at the age of 96.

“Susie is the boss, the one who always decided things for us all,” Ruth Ohmer said in a 1987 interview.

Another sister, Alice, who also lived at Floral Hill, died in December 1986 at the age of 9...

Mrs. Emma Althoff Ohmer, 92, of 1350 Creighton Ave., widow of Charles T. Ohmer, a Dayton realtor and civic leader, died a 1 a.m. Saturday at her residence after an illness of one year

She and her husband developed the residential section known as Ohmer Park.

Born in Dayton, she was the daughter of the late Pius and Catherine Althoff, pioneer Daytonian. She attended  St. Joseph parochial school and Mount Notre Dame Academy at Reading, O.

In 1882, she married Mr. Ohmer in the old St. Joseph Catholic Church.

As a young bride, Mrs. Ohmer braved the rigors of frontier life, as she and her husband moved to the then sparsely settled area of northwestern Minnesota to engage in wheat farming.

During her 23 years there and after her return to Dayton sh...

Through clever visual trickery, vital West Coast warplane plants were made invisible to prying enemy aerial eyes.

By Bill Yenne

When I was a young boy in Seattle, my father told me about a fake town that had been built on top of Boeing’s Plant 2 during the war. This naturally fired my imagination. What an ingenious way, I thought, to fool the enemy bombers that might being coming over the Emerald City to wreak havoc. He told me about it with exaggerated caution to underscore the fact that it had been top secret during the war. Nobody was supposed to talk about it, although everyone in town knew about this faux neighborhood that employees called “Wonderland.” By the time people in the know were allowed to talk about Boeing Wonderland, the company was tearing it down.

Wonde...

April 17, 1823 – February 27, 1903

NICHOLAS OHMER, was the oldest son of Francis and Margaret Ohmer, who were born in France, and emigrated to this country in 1832, coming as emigrants in a sailing vessel, landing in New York in that year, bringing with them three sons and two daughters. After remaining a short time in New York, they moved westward, via the New York &; Erie Canal, to Buffalo, thence by steamer to Sandusky, Ohio, thence by wagon to Cincinnati, Ohio.

Francis Ohmer, Sr., being a tailor by trade, and finding no employment, went to Trenton, Butler County, Ohio, where a member of his own nationality had settled ; he remaining there until 1837, working at his trade...