Ernest Christian August Bachman

Ernest Christian August Bachman (spelled Bachmann in Germany) married a Biesman in Germany and had seven children including Ernest Carl August Bachman, Sebastian, Christian, another Ernest who was called Ernest to distinguish him from Carl August, Johanna who remained in Germany and was a twin to E. Carl August, Elisa who also remained in Germany, and another daughter whose name is unknown.

Ernest Carl August Bachman

1829-1913

Ernest Carl August Bachman was among the oldest residents in the area around Three Oaks, Michigan.

August Bachman was born in Saxony, Alten Breitungen, Germany and married Susanna Elizabeth Hess in Germany. E. Carl August Bachman came to America May 1, 1861 with his wife, father-in-law, John V. Hess and other family members. John Hess was a master shoemaker by trade and past sixty years old when he came to America with his family. E. Carl August and Susanna E. Bachman lived in Niles, Michigan initially before moving to a farm North of Three Oaks, Michigan owned by John Hess and his wife Eva Catherine in 1871.

E. Carl August and Susanna E. Bachman had a total of nine children as follows. One child, Fred, was born in Germany and died in infancy shortly after the Bachman’s arrival in America. Two boys born in America died in infancy and are buried in Niles, Michigan. Charles F. Bachman who is discussed below. George Bachman, whose wife was Blanche and had one daughter who died in young womanhood with no children. George was a railroad conductor who was killed while working on railroad switching cars. Elizabeth W. Bachman who never married and lived in Three Oaks for many years in the old home place and kept house for her sister Lucile. Lucile Bachman who also never married and lived at the old home place in Three Oaks for many years. Lucile was a saleswoman on the road for the Warren Featherbone Co for many years. Henry Bachman was a teamster in Chicago and had one daughter, Helen. Ferdinand Bachman was an electrician and electrical engineer at Niles, Michigan for many years. He married Melissa Helmich and had one son named Gordon Bachman.

John V. Hess, the father-in-law of E. Carl August Bachman, owned an 80 Acre farm North of Three Oaks, Michigan. Initially there was a log house on the farm where they lived which was gone by the early 1890s. The country was all woods then and was known as the Galien Woods. Three Oaks was known as Chamberlain’s siding. There was an angling road that ran from what is now Three Oaks through to New Troy, Michigan. Houses were built along this road so that when the area was laid out in square sections many of the houses were left off the main road. John Hess built the first frame house in that section when the township was laid off in squares so his house was left in the center of a section a half mile off the main road from either side of the square section. So there was a lane running down to the Hess farm house and buildings.

E. Carl August Bachman and his family moved onto the Hess farm shortly before Eva Catherine Hess died in 1876 and took care of John Hess until he died in 1891. Apparently E. Carl August Bachman gave John Hess $1,000 and agreed to take care of the elderly Hess couple for the rest of their lives in exchange for the farm.

E. Carl August Bachman was a stone mason with the Michigan Central Railroad who only came home monthly or over weekends. Therefore, Susanna E. Bachman and her children mostly took care of the farm. When Carl August Bachman came to America he spoke only German and no English so he was only able to find work as a common laborer. However, Carl August Bachman was a skilled stone mason in Germany and one day he demonstrated his stone mason skills while working on a railroad bridge and from then on received good pay as a skilled stone mason building railroad bridges.

Lucile and Henry Bachman were of high school age when they moved off the family farm and into Three Oaks, Michigan.

When E. Carl August Bachman retired from the Michigan Central Railroad, He and some family members moved to the Village of Three Oaks, Michigan in 1892 into a house owned by his daughters Elizabeth W. Bachman and Lucille A. Bachman, where Ernest Carl August Bachman lived until he died in 1913.

Before Carl August Bachman died, he would visit the family farm frequently and kept a garden there. He also kept a horse named Florie, a cow and a couple pigs and some chickens. He drove to the farm quite often and provided considerable help, especially during corn planting time and in the fall when apples and potatoes were gathered. Other horses, cattle, hogs and sheep on the farm belonged to his son Charles F. Bachman. There was a barn on a lot next to the house, a smoke house, chicken house and chicken yard. Most of two back lots were covered by an apple orchard. E. Carl August Bachman was quite an active man until about age seventy and his last few years of life

August Bachman was brought up in the Lutheran faith but united with the German Evangelical church of Avery in 1865 and in 1891 transferred to the M. E. church of Three Oaks. He possessed a cheerful and kind hearted disposition, and was a generous and thoughtful father and grandfather.

August had been in gradually failing health for many months before his death and his daughters Elizabeth and Lucille deserved great credit for taking care of him during his final months of life. He was exceedingly patient even when his sufferings seemed almost unbearable. The funeral was held at the home of Rev. Floyd R. Maynard, pastor of the M. E. Church of Three Oaks and he was buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery at Three Oaks.

Charles F. Bachman

1865-1934

Charles Bachman was born at Niles, Michigan and at an early age moved to Three Oaks with his parents and then to the family farm about three miles north of Three Oaks where he spent his boyhood.

On November 6, 1887, Charles F. Bachman married Charlotte Jane Ingersoll who was called Lottie as shown on her grave stone. They had four children, Ernest Archibald Bachman, Elsie E. Bachman, Eunice Bachman, and Edson G. Bachman

Charles F. Bachman owned forty acres of land in Galena Township, La Porte County, Indiana, which was about four miles Southwest of Three Oaks, Michigan on the state line between Indiana and Michigan. The State line ran through the farm yard so that the house was on the Indiana side of the line and the barn was on the Michigan side of the line. Ernest Archibald Bachman was born on this farm in 1890.

In 1892, Charles F. Bachman sold his 40 acre farm in Indiana and moved to the farm owned by his father, Ernest Carl August Bachman, three miles Northeast of Three Oaks, Michigan. Charles Bachman took over operation of the farm owned by his father on shares, three fifths to Charles and two fifths to E. C. August Bachman who would pay the taxes and also receive half the fruit from the farm.

For a number of years before moving to Three Oaks in 1907, Charles Bachman engaged in the business of hay, straw and grain brokerage, buying and shipping and carried on an extensive business, before the advent of the automobile.

On January 1 st, 1907 Charles F. Bachman bought a hardware and farm machinery store in Three Oaks, Michigan from the bankruptcy sale of Charles Sherrill. On March 4 th, 1907, Charles Bachman held a sale of his farm tools, stock, etc. on his father’s farm and moved his family into Three Oaks, Michigan. Charles Bachman first rented a house from William Maloy in the Northeast part of Three Oaks, where Eunice Bachman was born in 1907. Charles F. Bachman operated his hardware and machinery store in Three Oaks, Michigan until his death in 1934.

Charles Bachman’s wife Lottie died suddenly in 1909 at age 44 and Charles remarried Elizabeth Siegmund who came from a well known family south of New Buffalo who brought great comfort to Charles Bachman in his old age.

Charles was a man who took his work and life seriously and was always willing and able to go to the aid of anyone in need or trouble. He was active in his business up until the last week of his life. His business was his first and last thought. He loved his children with great affection, who remembered him with loving kindness for the close associations.

While not a member of any church, he was at heart essentially a religious man with a deep feeling which he only voiced to those closely associated with him.

Charles Bachman passed away at his home in Three Oaks at 7:30 a. m. Saturday morning, May 27, 1934 after several month’s illness. He had been confined to his bed only a few days, however.

Funeral services were held on May 29 at the home of Rev. Louis Kling, pastor of St. Johns Evangelical church. Pallbearers who bore Charles Bachman to his last resting place in Forest Lawn Cemetery at Three Oaks were Benjamin Drier, Earl Hollett, D. H. Beeson, E. L. Kelly, Lorenzo Clapp and Henry Paff.

Ernest Archibald Bachman

1890-approximately 1953

Ernest Archibald Bachman was the oldest son of Charles F. and Charlotte Bachman and was named after Charlotte’s father, Ernest Archibald Ingersoll.

Ernest Archibald Bachman lived on his grandfather’s farm with his parents until 1907 when he was sixteen years old. He finished the eighth grade at a County school in Avery, Michigan about two and a half miles from the farm. E. Archibald Bachman then attended Three Oaks High School at Three Oaks, Michigan and graduated in June 1910.

While attending High School, Ernest Archibald Bachman worked before and after school in his father’s hardware and farm implement store as well as during the summer months. He attended to the mail, banking, ordering merchandise and keeping accounts. He also assisted in setting up farm machinery and learned a considerable amount about farm machinery but did not like that kind of work.

E. Archibald Bachman of Three Oaks married Marie F. Marx of New Buffalo at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Three Oaks, Michigan in 1913. Witnesses to the marriage were Edson Goit Bachman of Three Oaks and Esther M. Marx of LaPorte, Indiana. The Catholic Priest was Jas P. Welch.

E. Archibald Bachman attended law school for two years in Chicago and graduated from the Chattanooga, TN College of Law June 10, 1919 and received a license to practice law in all Tennessee courts from the Supreme Court of the State of Tennessee August 13, 1919.

In 1925, E. Archibald Bachman was regarded as a rapidly rising young Democrat in Hamilton County, Tennessee and was a candidate in a primary election for criminal clerk court, after having lost an election for the Tennessee state legislature by a very small number of votes. In 1925, E. Archibald Bachman was living in the Highland Park area of Chattanooga. He was a Dokey and a member of the Knights of Pythias and was well known to all fraternal organizations in Chattanooga.

Ernest Archibald Bachman and his wife Marie had four children, Ernest Arthur Bachman, Mary Jane, Robert Charles and Margaruerite. Archibald Bachman died in his sleep at his home on E. 12 th Street in Chattanooga, Tennessee and is burried with his wife at Greenwood Cemetary in Chattanooga.