Sedgwick County KSGenWeb

Portrait And Biographical Album of Sedgwick County, Kan.

Chapman Brothers 1888

Pages 792 - 794

DAVID H. MELLINGER, of the firm P. S. Mellinger & Co., dealers in wall paper and paints, is a worthy and intelligent representative of the industrial interests of Wichita. We take pleasure in placing before his numerous friends a brief biographical sketch of him. He is a descendant of an ancient German family, and many of his ancestors were Mennonites, or members of a religious denomination who derived their name from Menno Symms, a monk who renounced the Catholic religion, and founded the Mennonite Church about the year 1419, from the scattered bands of the North German Anabaptists. They were persecuted in the old country on account of their religious views, and obliged to fly for their lives, leaving even their household goods, and being unable to dispose of their real estate, the Government confiscated it. Thus much valuable property belonging rightfully to Mennonites in this country has become lost to them; some attempts have been made to recover the property, but no persistent efforts have been made. The followers of that religion are a very peaceful and industrious race of people, and from the original Mennonites, as from the Puritans of New England, have descended a sterling class of people, who are found in many of the States and Territories from Pennsylvania to California.

            Jacob Mellinger, the grandfather of our subject, was a farmer in Lebanon County, Pa., which continued his abode until death. He married a member of the Arndt family, and they became the parents of five sons -- William, Jacob, John, Samuel and David. David, the father of our subject, was born in Lebanon County, and as he grew to manhood learned the carpenter's trade. He was also an excellent cabinet-maker, and made the case for one of the tall clocks of the period, which is still in the possession of his son, is in a fine state of preservation, and is valued highly, not only as a relic, but as a timepiece, which will keep good time for a century to come. Mr. Mellinger was industrious and upright; he was small in stature, but of an iron constitution, with great powers of endurance, and when an old man could walk many miles with very little fatigue; the simple habits of the men of those days, who led quiet, healthful lives, could well be imitated by the younger generations of to-day. Mr. Mellinger was in religious principles a German Methodist, or Allbright. He rounded out a long and useful life of eighty-one years. The maiden name of his wife was Susan Huber. who, on the maternal side, was a descendant of the Bosler family. Mr. and Mrs. Mellinger became the parents of ten children, of whom the following is the record: William and Elizabeth died when quite small; Jacob died at the age of thirty; Maria married Joseph Miller, a plasterer at Manheim, Lancaster Co., Pa.; Susanna married Laborious Shutte, a coach-maker of Spring Garden, Lancaster Co., Pa.; Rebecca married Joseph Smith, a painter in Marietta; Frances married Jacob Harnish, of Lancaster County; Elizabeth married Benjamin Bletz, who was engaged in the planing-mill business at Columbia, Pa.; David; Barbara Ann married Christian Fate, a tailor, of Wichita.

            David Huber Mellinger, the subject of this biography, was born March 5, 1831, at Manheim, Lancaster Co., Pa., in the old home that had been in the Mellinger family at least 200 years. He received a common-school education, and could have been more liberally educated had he chosen, but he chose an active life rather than the sedentary life of a student and a professional man, and learned the carpenter's trade under the careful instruction of his father, with whom he worked until he was eighteen years of age. He then apprenticed himself to his brother-in-law, Joseph Smith, for three years, to learn the painter's trade. He married, at the age of twenty-two, Miss Catherine E., daughter of William and Rachel (McBrint) Sands, and to them have been born six children, namely: Anna, David Sutton, Helen R., Paul Sands, Jennie and Josie May. Anna married Henry Allison, of Columbia, Pa., a station agent; she is now deceased, leaving six children. David married Miss Lizzie Holmes, of West Virginia, and to them have been born two children; Helen married John K. Miller, a molder, of Marietta, Lancaster Co., Pa.; Paul married Savilla Smith, of Mt. Joy, Pa., and lives in Wichita; to them have been born two children. Jennie married Sylvanus Groff, a telegraphic operator of Marietta, and they have one child; Josie lives at home with her parents.

            Mr. Mellinger, after learning his trade of painter, continued to work at it in Lancaster County, Pa., until 1859, and then removed with his family to the South, and settled in Carroll County, Miss. Shortly after that the war broke out, and he was obliged to move to Louisiana, to a place forty-eight miles north of New Orleans, and remained there six months as section boss on the New Orleans, Jackson & Great Northern Railway. After the capture of New Orleans by the United States forces under Gen. Butler, Mr. Mellinger was appointed night watchman to guard the machinery and other property taken from New Orleans by the Confederates and railway officials. As soon as the property was shipped to Jackson, Miss., Mr. Mellinger went to work in a shoe manufactory at Hammond Station, remaining at that place for three months. There his family was exposed to raids from both armies, and he removed to Amite City, twenty miles further north. He was at that time in great danger of being conscripted into the Confederate army, and took "French leave" for New Orleans, leaving his family to find their way to him in that city as best they could. Mrs. Mellinger, with all the true courage of woman in times of great danger, immediately undertook to make the journey to New Orleans with her children. She went first by rail to Ponchatoula, thence by stage to Madisonville. From there, in order to reach her destination she wished to cross Lake Pontchartrain, but could not procure transportation, and was obliged to return to Madisonville. By no means discouraged by this failure, she made a bargain with a Frenchman to take her and her children across the lake in a skiff for $150. She paid him the money, but he landed them in an almost uninhabited and dangerous place in a swamp. Here Mrs. Mellinger was obliged to take shelter in a small hut surrounded by palmetto trees of immense growth, and the tangled and impenetrable undergrowth of the luxuriant semi-tropical forests of that country of thickets and swamps, of which the Northern reader can have but little realization. These "Dismal Swamps," as they are rightly called, abound with animal life of all kinds; alligators, poisonous snakes, reptiles and insects are among the terrors, and, at that time, were indeed among the least. On the rear of all large armies march a large body of tramps, bummers and hangers-on, whose only object is robbery and violence, and they might be lurking in those swamps. Apprehending these dangers for herself and little ones, Mrs. Mellinger became alarmed at the prospect of spending the night in such a place, and, although it was dark and stormy, she succeeded in inducing the Frenchman to take them in his skiff onto the waters of the lake. They proceeded on their journey, were near foundering several times in their frail bark, but finally reached the camp of some Federal soldiers in safety, and were thence transported to New Orleans, where they had no difficulty in finding Mr. Mellinger. He secured a position as watchman on board a contraband boat, and so secured free transportation for himself and wife and children on the ship "Matanzos" to Brooklyn, N. Y., and thence proceeded to their old home in Lancaster County, Pa., where they continued to reside until they moved to Wichita, in February, 1887. Mr. Mellinger then established himself in his present business, in which he is meeting with well-merited success. He carries a full line of wall papers, paints, etc. Our subject inherits in a marked degree those virtuous characteristics of his race that make him a good citizen and a true man in every relation of life.

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