THE RITTER FAMILIES
OF NORTHEAST KOSCIUSKO COUNTY, INDIANA

I. Overview.

These pages are intended as an overview of the Ritter settlers in northeastern Kosciusko Co., Indiana, and include an attempt to reconstruct the relationships between those settlers.

By the 1860's, these were eight households headed by males Ritters in Northeast Kosciusko Co., Indiana (Plain, Tippecanoe and Turkey Creek townships). In addition, there were a number of Ritter women married and in their husband's households. These Ritters were, in approximate order of known appearance in the county, David Ritter, Isaac Ritter, John Ritter, Elias Ritter, and four sons of George Ritter (Abraham Ritter, Elijah Ritter, John Ritter and Henry Ritter). Catherine Ritter had come with her husband Peter Hamman, and Rebecca Ritter arrived with her husband Jacob Peterson from Stark County, Ohio. Elias Ritter's mother and two sisters (Caroline Ritter and Lovina Ritter Stamets) also came from Stark County to Kosciusko; and three daughters of George Rittter (Martha Ritter French, Louisa Ritter Mock and Delilah Ritter Wood) came from Tuscarawas County, Ohio after living first in Lake County, Indiana.

There are no Ritters listed in Kosciusko County in the 1840 census. David Ritter and Isaac Ritter appear first in the marriage records when they married two Mock sisters, Nancy and Elizabeth, in 1842 and 1845, respectively. Peter Hamman's biographical sketch states that he and his wife Catherine Ritter came from Tuscarawas Co., Ohio to Kosciusko in the fall of 1842, and mentions that Catherine was from Stark County, Ohio. John Ritter, who also came from Tuscarawas County, arrived by 1848. In the 1850 census, we find three Ritter families in Kosciusko County: David, Isaac and John, all in Tippecanoe. In addition, Peter Hamman and his wife Catherine Ritter were in Turkey Creek in that year, and a Rebecca Ritter with husband Jacob Peterson can be found in Van Buren township. In an enumeration of inhabitants (i.e. adult males) made in 1853, we again find John, David and Isaac in Tippecanoe. In addition there is an "Ephraim" Ritter in Tippecanoe and Peter Hamman is in Turkey Creek. Elias Ritter, his sister Caroline Ritter, another sister Lovina Ritter Stamets, and their mother Christena all came to Kosciusko between 1850 and 1860. Lovina must have come between 1854, when she married in Stark Co., Ohio, and 1855-56,when her daughter Nancy was born in Indiana. Seven children of George Ritter of Tuscarawas Co., Ohio came to Kosciusko between 1853 and 1863, after having lived for a few years in Lake Co., Indiana, where their father died in 1855. They were nephews of the John Ritter who came by 1848. Abraham and Elijah were both in the area before 1860, as was probably their brother John. It is possible that "Ephraim" is either Elias or Elijah, since there are no Ephraim Ritters listed in the 1860 Indiana census, or in Ohio or Indiana marriage records from that period. Abraham first appeared in the Kosciusko records in 1858 when he married Peter Hamman and Catherine Ritter's daughter Mariah. Through Abraham, I am a descendant of George Ritter (the Tuscarawas County Ritters), and through Mariah, of Catherine Ritter from Stark County, Ohio. Abraham's brother Henry and the sisters Martha, Louisa, and Delilah moved from Lake to Kosciusko in the early 1860's. After the mid-1860's quite a few additional Ritter households can be found as the children of the original settlers began to marry. By 1900 many of the children of the original families had moved on to Missouri, California, Wisconsin and other states west of Indiana.

John Ritter was the son of John Ritter senior, who settled in Tuscarawas Co., Ohio by 1816. George Ritter was John jr.'s older brother, and thus the children of George Ritter were grandchildren of John Ritter senior. It is my hypotheses that the other early Ritters in NE Kosciusko were part of the Elias Ritter sr. family. Not all connections have been proven, but the probability is high that Isaac, David and Catherine were siblings and children of Elias Ritter, senior. Elias jr., Caroline and Lovina are fairly clearly established as children of Elias. When this account was first written in 2000, most of evidence of common ancestry was circumstantial. More recently y-chromosome evidence and a brief family account from a David Ritter descendant has confirmed some of the earlier hypotheses.

RITTERS WHO SETTLED IN KOSCIUSKO 1842-1863

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