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The Mensch Family

By Anne Dealy, Director of Education and Public Information

I had a call from one of our supporters this winter, asking me to check if several of her ancestors were buried in Glenwood Cemetery. I was able to find the information she wanted fairly quickly, but I was sidetracked in the process. I tried to verify if a member of one of the families was in Glenwood or Washington Street Cemetery. This led me to look up the family name, Mensch, in the newspaper and I found enough to intrigue me. I often find myself chasing down information about a person, family or event when they inadvertently come across my desk. My primary job here is not answering research requests, but like all historians I enjoy piecing together a story about the past and I thought this one might be interesting. Their story is not extraordinary, but it is a window into an ordinary family in Geneva in the 1800s.

I initially found four members of the family in Glenwood Cemetery: Nancy and Christian Mensch and William and Catherine Mensch. In other records I saw a CM Mensch among a list of Civil War veterans buried at Washington Street Cemetery. With some diligent sleuthing I was able to put together an outline of the family and their lives. I first located Christian Mensch in the 1850 census for Seneca Falls. He was a brickmaker and lived next door to a blacksmith named John Mensch. John Mensch and his family had been in Seneca County during the 1830 and 1840 census. Before 1850, the census only names the male head of household, but given John’s age of 74, he was probably Christian’s father.

By 1860, Christian’s occupation is innkeeper. Although he is still in the Seneca Falls census, he was the proprietor of the Mansion House on Seneca Street in Geneva by the 1850s. He was also reported to race trotters (harnessed horses) in town. In 1856, he relinquished the position at the Mansion House to manage the newly renovated Eagle Hotel on Castle Street. Before the hotel could reopen, it burned in a suspected arson. This is documented by a broadside we have in our current exhibit We Didn’t Start the Fire: The History of Firefighting in Geneva. Christian subsequently returned to running the Mansion House. While there, the newspapers reported that in 1862 he assaulted a drunken Union soldier in self-defense. Both newspaper accounts remark that while justified, the response was overly violent. I couldn’t find any evidence that he was charged in the case. Mensch likely was in some distress at the time, as his oldest son Charles had recently died. A soldier with the 33rd NY Volunteers, he sustained a leg wound at the battle of Williamsburgh in May of 1862. Following an amputation, he died, likely of infection. Charles was the one buried in Washington Street Cemetery.

In 1863, Christian purchased the Mansion House. The family was living there by 1865 according to the state census. Christian was reported as ill but “not dead” in the Geneva Gazette in February 1866. He did die the next month at 43 and was also buried in Washington Street Cemetery.  His widow, Nancy, was left with their remaining four children. Her husband must have left her some money, as she had a personal estate of $5000 in the 1870 census. By that year, their oldest child, Sarah, had married Frederick Andrus, a grocer. They and their child lived on Genesee Street with Nancy and the other children. At 22, her son William was working as a house painter. Like his brother, he had served in the Civil War. He had been a member of Company K of the 15th Regiment New York Engineers which was mustered up in 1864 around Lima, Goshen, Avon, Cicero and Syracuse. Daughters Julia and Emma were still young and also living at home in 1870. In 1873, Nancy purchased two homes, one on Geneva Street where she lived with the Andruses, and the other on High Street, where William lived with Catherine Bradley, whom he had married the year before. (His son was listed at the same address as him in the early 20th century, possibly in a second house. Based on the 1904 Atlas of Ontario County and directory listings, he may have owned houses at 75 and 77 High Street.)

According to the newspaper, William had a checkered career. Based on their reports, he had some run ins with the law in the 1860s. He was arrested for robbery in 1865 when a drunken party of men were attacked and robbed in downtown. William and several other men were accused of the crime. He and two of the others were released due to a lack of evidence. He may simply have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was also fined $50 in 1869 for assault and battery, but I couldn’t find any reference to the original crime. Despite this history, he was appointed as a village constable in 1877 and was one of the founding members of the Geneva Police Department in 1882. The newspapers often mention him in connection with criminal investigations. Based on his expense logbook, he spent much of his time arresting people for crimes of assault, theft, or “Keeping a House of Ill Fame.” He remained with the department until he resigned in 1893. The following year, his daughter married Dan Hawkins, the man who had replaced him in the department.

After leaving the police force, William resumed the family’s trade in hospitality and opened a saloon and liquor store in the Dove Block. This landed him back in the newspapers in 1897, when he was arrested for running a gambling establishment. He initially pleaded not guilty, but after being indicted by a grand jury, he changed his plea and paid a $25 fine. His next job was as the captain of the state boat John Raines. The boat crew did repairs on the canal and its bridges between Geneva and Montezuma. In 1903, the boat was re-named the William Mensch after him. In the 1910s, both he and his son Frederick were working for Standard Optical Company.

In 1901, Nancy Mensch died and was buried in Glenwood Cemetery. Her husband’s remains were removed from Washington Street Cemetery and re-interred beside her own. When William died in 1917 of a stroke, he, and later his wife, were buried there as well.

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