This is a reprint of a “From the Local History Room” column that first appeared in July 2013, before the launch of this weblog.
A closer look at ‘the Mackinaw Hermit’
By Jared Olar
Library Assistant
A Pekin Daily Times story dated June 30, 2013 reported that during that June’s Mack-Ca-Fest celebration, the Mackinaw Historical Society dedicated a memorial stone in Mackinaw Cemetery to “Old Charley” Schultz (1852-1936), known locally as “the Mackinaw Hermit.” In this column we’ll delve a little more into the life of this local character.
The Daily Times reported that the leading researcher and authority on Charlie Schultz is Kathy Friend of the Mackinaw Historical Society. Among the materials Friend and other researchers have collected on Mackinaw’s hermit are old newspaper articles and obituaries, U.S. Census records, and title deeds and probate records. Despite the mystery and local color that surrounded him while he lived, a reasonably complete account of his life can be pieced together from available records.
Schultz was born on July 5, 1852, in Störmthal, a village near Leipzig, Germany, the only son of Carl Fredrick and Theresa Juliana Schultz. He died on Feb. 6, 1936, at his cabin north of Mackinaw. The name of the village where he was born is spelled differently in various sources. His death certificate spells it phonetically as “Stermthal,” while his obituary in the Feb. 9, 1936 Bloomington Pantagraph spells it “Sturmthal,” and a Dec. 5, 1931 Pekin Daily Times story about him says he “was born in Steernthal (Storm Valley) Germany, in the kingdom of Saxony about ten miles from the capitol city of Leipzig.”
U.S. Census records also affirm that he was born in the old German kingdom of Saxony, although the 1870 census curiously gives his and his parents’ place of birth as Bavaria. The 1931 Pekin Daily Times article tells of how “Old Charley” came to the U.S. with his parents and older sister, saying that in Saxony, “the military law bound a man to the Kaiser (sic – the German Empire did not exist until 1871, and Saxony was ruled by a king, not an emperor) from the age of eighteen to forty-five years. His father being dissatisfied, and not wishing to bring his son up under this condition, wanted to come to America. He was then only 43 years of age and a bound man. Each year, during peace, a drawing was held for those who wished to emigrate. If a man drew a ticket on which was the Kaiser’s picture, he was still bound to his rule, but if he drew a blank ticket, he was a free man. Charlie’s father drew a blank ticket and came to America in the spring of 1853 bringing with him his wife, daughter and little son, Charlie, nine months of age. Charlie has been christened Karl, in Germany, but upon their arrival in New York, his parents, who ignorant of American customs, upon being advised that Karl was a strictly German name and the American version was Charles, changed his name to Charlie.”
The Schultz family settled at first in Akron Township, near Princeville in Peoria County. By the time of the 1870 census, however, they had moved to Olio in Woodford County, where they remained until the 1880s. In the 1870 census, Charles Schultz, 18, is listed as a farm hand working for his parents Charles Schultz, 60, a wagon maker of Olio, and “Julia” Schultz, 55. By the time of the 1880 census, however, “Chas. G. Schultz,” age 28, was an unmarried laborer living near his parents in Olio.
Of this period of his life, the 1931 Daily Times article says he and his parents “lived most of the time on their farm in Woodford County, Illinois. His father gave up farming when corn sold for only ten cents a bushel. He then returned to his trade of wagon making while Charlie attended public school. When Charlie was seventeen years of age, he worked in Peoria, for two years in a furniture factory, at the foot of Chestnut Street, owned by Albert Lincoln.”
The Pantagraph obituary mentions that Schultz wrote a biographical sketch in Dec. 1931 “and gave it to Henry Tyrrell, a neighbor, to be opened on his death.” According to the obituary, the biography tells of Schultz’s arrival in America as a baby in 1853, when they “came directly to Illinois, settling temporarily at Spring Bay. He also lived in Louisville, Ky., Princeville and Versailles, where his parents lived 20 years. He finished his schooling there. . . At the age of 17, the biography said, he finished his schooling and became an apprentice for a furniture maker. At different times, he followed farming and worked in a wagon shop. His father was a wagon maker by trade.”
The Pantagraph obituary also mentions, “It is understood in Mackinaw that he prepared to be a lawyer, but the biography does not reveal this.” In comparison, the Peoria Star’s obituary of Feb. 9, 1936, says, “. . . young Schultz studied in the Starke (sic) County School, and later at the University of Illinois . . . He was well educated and could speak several languages.” As a German-American immigrant, he would have been able to speak both German and English, and he presumably picked up other languages as an autodidact, since published sources mention that he was an avid reader. Obituaries also mention that he was an adherent to tenets of the Christian Science religion.
Why he decided to move to Mackinaw and live a bachelor’s life alone in a cabin will probably always be a mystery. While his parents were living, records frequently show him living with or near them. It is probably not a coincidence that his father died in 1893, perhaps about a year before he came to Mackinaw. His mother had died in 1887. (Schultz’s parents, sister and brother-in-law and other kin are buried in Schiebel Cemetery, Wyoming, Ill.) In any case, the title deed to the 40 acres north of Mackinaw that he bought from John White is dated 24 April 1895, and from that time until his death he remained in the Mackinaw area. He was buried in Mackinaw Cemetery, presumably in an unmarked grave.
Although he died without a will, his nephews and nieces from the Princeville area – the children of his older sister Henrietta Rosene “Frieda” Schultz Klepfer (1841-1897) – inherited his land as his only living relatives. On May 3, 1937, they took out a warranty deed transferring their uncle’s land to the ownership of Daniel Unsicker of Mackinaw Township for the nominal sum of $1. What became of Old Charley’s cabin is unknown, but it long ago passed into history, with its colorful occupant.
