Amon Kelble

1840s

Born 20 May 1846 in Baden, in the German southwest, to Andreas Kölble and Maria Anna Bohli.

1860s

In 1865, at nineteen, he sailed for America with his fiancée Louisa Gastiger and his brother Charles; a sister died during the Atlantic crossing. They reached Xenia, Ohio, on 24 September 1865, and Amon and Louisa married there on 2 April 1866.

1870s

The young family settled on West Street in Xenia. Amon worked as a laborer and by 1875 had set up as a stonemason, taking Greene County contracts for culverts and bridge abutments along the Little Miami River.

1880s

The busy decade. His firms — Kelble, Seifert & Bender, then Kelble & Co., nicknamed “the Big Four” — built the Greene County courthouse addition, the new Xenia high school, and bridges across the county. From 1883 he also kept a saloon on West Main Street, which brought repeated charges for selling liquor on Sundays; a jury acquitted him on eleven counts in July 1883.

1890s

Kelble & Co. laid the masonry for the Xenia water-works building and in 1889 worked on the Soldiers' and Sailors' Orphans' Home at Knightstown, Indiana. Amon dissolved the old partnership in 1890 and started A. Kelble & Co. with Robert McKay and Elias King. For many years he was also foreman of the rendering department at the Millen slaughterhouse. He fell ill at Christmas 1896 and died at home on West Main Street on 28 March 1897, aged 50.

Baden to Xenia: Leaving Germany

Amon Kelble was born on May 20, 1846, in Baden, in the far southwest of the German lands, the son of Andreas Kölble and Maria Anna Bohli. In 1865, at nineteen, he left home for America together with his brother Charles and his fiancée, Louisa Gastiger. The crossing was not without loss — a sister travelling with them died during the Atlantic voyage. The party reached Xenia, in Greene County, Ohio, on September 24, 1865, joining an existing community of German immigrants there. Amon and Louisa were married in Xenia on April 2, 1866, beginning a marriage that would last thirty-one years and produce the family that still carries the Kelble name in America today.

Stonemason of Xenia

For the first decade after his marriage Amon worked as a laborer, but by 1875 he had set himself up as a stonemason, and the next twenty years show him steadily building both a business and a reputation. His firm — first Kelble, Seifert & Bender, later reorganized several times as Kelble & Co. and, briefly, nicknamed “the Big Four” — won a long string of Greene County contracts: culverts and bridge abutments along the Little Miami River in the 1870s, the stone foundation for an addition to the county courthouse in 1875, the masonry for Xenia's new high school (completed February 1883), and, in 1888–89, work on the Soldiers' and Sailors' Orphans' Home at Knightstown, Indiana, a project that took him away from Xenia for weeks at a time. In 1887 his company laid the masonry for the town's new water-works building. In May 1890 Amon dissolved his old partnership and started again as A. Kelble & Co. with new partners, Robert McKay and Elias King, continuing to take on culvert and foundation work around Xenia into the mid-1890s.

Alongside the stonework, Amon also spent about twenty-four years as foreman of the rendering department at the old Millen slaughterhouse — steady, unglamorous work that ran in parallel with his contracting business for most of his adult life.

The Saloon on West Main Street

From 1883 to 1894 Amon also ran a saloon on West Main Street, and it brought him repeatedly before the law. In May 1883 a fight between two patrons spilled into the alley behind the saloon and ended with a shooting; Amon himself was fined for selling liquor on a Sunday. The following month he faced eleven separate counts of Sunday liquor sales — and in July 1883 a jury and the mayor found him not guilty on all of them. He continued to run afoul of Ohio's liquor-tax laws through the 1880s and into the 1890s: he was slow to pay his Scott Liquor Law taxes in 1884, went in person to pay the Dow Law tax in 1886, and in September 1894 the Ohio Anti-Saloon League's superintendent visited his saloon and reported underage boys on the premises. He was also twice charged with disorderly conduct at his own home, in August 1887, and once brought — unsuccessfully — a case of his own against a neighbor, John H. Cooper, in January 1886.

Family, Property, and Community

Amon and Louisa's life in Xenia was built as much around property and neighbors as around his trades. They bought and sold several parcels on West Street and West Main Street over the decades — the family home doubled as Amon's business office — and in September 1894 Amon transferred a lot worth $900 to his son, Amon E. Kelble. He was an active member of the Improved Order of Red Men, rising through the local Wahoo Tribe's offices to Deputy Great Sachem by 1889 and representing Xenia at the order's statewide council in Newark, Ohio, in 1886.

Family life brought its own small dramas and celebrations, recorded almost in passing in the documents: a wedding-anniversary party for fifty guests in April 1891, gifts given for a neighbor's wedding, a runaway horse that dragged a wagon through a plate-glass window on Second Street, and a night in November 1890 when Amon, up early for the pork house, spotted a stable fire on Main Street and raised the alarm before it could spread.

Illness and Death

Amon fell ill at Christmas 1896 with what the family recorded as “inflammation of the bowels.” He rallied briefly in mid-January 1897, then took a turn for the worse in March. He wrote his will on March 10, dividing his estate between Louisa and their children, and died at home on West Main Street on March 28, 1897, after roughly four weeks confined to bed. He was fifty years old. Louisa outlived him by eleven years, remaining in Xenia until her own death in 1908.