The Monthaven Family

The Monthavens came to Henry County around the year 1870. They came from the beautiful Delemont Valley in Switzerland which is the French section of that country.

When they first arrived in the United States, they settled in Allen County, Ohio. A few years later they moved to Putman County and then on to Henry County.

There were four brothers in this family, and Francois, Jean-Baptiste and Joseph Montavon came to America and the fourth brother, Justin remained in Switzerland. Their parents were Jean-Baptiste Montavon and Marie Josephine Jeanquenat.

You will notice that the name was Montavon when this family was in Switzerland and soon after coming in America they all changed their names. Joseph changed the spelling to Montaven. Most of his descendants are located in Michigan, mostly in Lansing area. His wife remarried and the two younger children took the name of their new father Mr. Pourcho. They settled north of Detroit, Michigan.

These were the "rough and ready days" and this is how Jean-Baptiste Montavon happened to change hisname completely different, to Peter Montavy. This came about after he had become involved in a bar room brawl and several people were hurt. Not knowing how bad things might be, he quickly left town. First he went to Ft. Wayne and then to Kansas City, Missouri, where he lived for forty years with the new name. He was a respected citizen and died at the ripe old age of ninety in 1920.

In this fight Francois, the brother of Jean-Baptiste, was severely hurt. His leg was badly cut and he developed blood poison from the cut. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad had just been completed in the early 1860's and it looked like this was the quickest way to get him to a doctor in Lima. So they "flagged down" a freight train going by and put Francois in a box car and took him to Lima where a doctor amputated his leg. He then changed his name to Frank Monthaven and settled in Belmore around the year 1860.

Francois Montavon married Bridgette McTigue in 1858 in Lima, Ohio, two years after arriving in the United States. She was born in 1842 and at the age of eight years came to America with her Mother and four other children. Their father had come to America the year before. But while they were on the ship coming to the United States the father had died in New York City. So when the Mother and five children arrived in New York there was no home for them. As a last resort she took refuge with the five children by living in a chicken coop for a while. Soon she found no alternative but to put her children up for adoption. For the present, records of several of the children have been lost.

Bridgette was married under the name McTigue, but on some of her first children's birth certificates she uses the name McColley. So one might assume that this was her adopted name. Her Mother died in Belmore in 1896, having the name of Bridgette Maloy. So she evidently had remarried also. The grandchildren remember her sitting in her rocking chair, smoking her corn cob pipe.

Pat McTigue, a brother of Bridgette, was killed by a train in Deshler in 1896. He was a Civil War Veteran. The name McTigue is a very old Irish name and can be traced back to the year 600 A.D., when the people lived in tribes and had tribal chiefs. They recorded their lives in Gaelic poems at that time.

Frank Monthaven and Bridgette McTigue Monthaven had a total of ten children. About half were born in Putman County and the remainder in Henry County. Their children were as follows: Frank Jr., John, Mary, Margaret, Josephine, Ellen, Sade, Grace,

Edward H., and Joseph. Frank Jr. married Augusta Mull, Texas; Margaret married Charles Davis, Deshler; Sade married William Spencer, Carey; Josephine married Marion Patterson, Marion; Grace married John Grubb, St. Louis; Joseph married Dora Wilcox, Deshler. Mary died at the age of 18. John and Ellen never married.

Frank Jr. and Augusta had five children. They were as follows: Kitty, who married Jake Metz and lived in Bowling Green, Ohio, and they had two children, Frank and Marguerite (who married Wally Wagner and moved to Ft. Worth, Texas); Loy, who married Josephine Harrison of Texas, and they lived there for a number of years before returning to Henry Co. (While in Texas a daughter, Betty Jane, and a son, Dale, was born. Betty now resides in Austin, and Dale in Las Vegas.); Lucille married Ranson Bill, and they live in Houston, Texas; H. G. T. Monthaven married Ethel Egbert of Deshler and they had two daughters, Ethelene (married Russel Yantz and live in Deshler) and Romaine (married John Watson who was postmaster in Deshler for a number of years); A. G. T. was a well known Deshler businessman, having been the Ford dealer there for a number of years (he passed away in 1972).

Edward and Horace Monthaven, father and son, were in the restaurant business in Deshler, Ohio, in the 1920's. They also were in the Deshler Bank business in the 1930's. During this time Horace was the City Clerk in Deshler for many years and Edward was a city councilman.

Horace was killed in an automobile accident in 1938, and in 1941 Mrs. Monthaven and family moved to California.

Louis L. Monthaven, whose hobby is genealogy, or researching family history, found through many years of research, that the village of Montavon originated in the year 1330 and the name first appeared when JEHAN de MONTAVON became known in 1431.

Frank Monthaven came from the village of Montavon in 1833. Frank was born in 1833 and his great grandfather Joseph was born in 1735, also in Montavon.

In 1972 Louis and Sylvia Monthaven went to Switzerland to find the small village of Montavon and visit the descendants of Justin, the brother whostayed in Switzerland. They located the village among green rolling hills, dotted with cattle and horses, making them wonder why they would leave such beautiful country and encounter the hardships of moving to America at that time.

Submitted by Louis L. Monthaven