The Ramseyer farm fortune: from 50 cents to the “Potato King”
By the time Al Ramseyer (1921–2008) was growing up, the Ramseyers were among the most prosperous farm families around Smithville, Ohio. Four generations built it, each starting from what the last one handed down.
1. Johannes (1835): borrowed passage money
The family arrived in Ohio in 1835 with nothing. Johannes Ramseyer came from France “with borrowed passage money”, and his son Peter helped pay the debt back (1910 county history). As a non-citizen Anabaptist in France he “could not buy land” (1986 family history), so owning land in Ohio meant a great deal.
2. Peter (1822–1880): canal labourer to 412 acres
- Arrived at 12; “legend has it that Peter had 50¢ left upon arrival”; dug on the Sandy and Beaver Canal, and married with fifty cents in cash, working for his father-in-law.
- Bought a hill farm, then in 1857 160 acres near Paris, Ohio.
- **At his death in 1880: 412 acres and about 350,000–400,000 in today’s money, plus the land.
- He gave each son a start: Daniel got $1,000 at age 22.
3. Daniel (1856–1942): land and Norman horses
- Bought 100 acres from his father and resold it at a profit; ran his father’s 203-acre farm for three years.
- 1878: bought 124 acres in Wayne County (“little improvement had been made”), and built it up to 322 acres in Greene Township, valued about $40,000 in 1910.
- His trade was feeding and selling purebred Norman (Percheron) horses; eastern buyers came to the farm. In 1890 he built a 90 × 45 ft barn with room for 32 horses.
- He sold 118 acres to his son A. C., the start of the next fortune. (History of Wayne County, Ohio, 1910, vol. II, pp. 987–989.)
4. A. C. “Potato King” Ramseyer (1880–1948)
| Year | What happened | Source |
|---|---|---|
| c.1900s | A.C. gets land from his father near Smithville (118 acres by 1910) | 1910 county history; Spudman 2007 |
| 1906 | Starts a Guernsey dairy herd imported from the island of Guernsey | Wayne County Public Library wiki (via search summary) |
| late 1920s | Milking over 200 head; “attained prominence many years ago as a dairy farmer” | WCPL wiki; MWR obituary 1948 |
| 1923 | First potato and wheat crops | Spudman 2007 |
| 1920s | Sells 100-lb bags of potatoes at the farm and trucks them to grocers and peddlers in Cleveland, Akron, Canton, Columbus, Mansfield | Spudman 2007; AARP listing |
| 1932 | Barn fire kills the Guernsey herd (150 cows per Spudman; all but one per the library wiki). He turns to potatoes. Farm about 2,000 acres | Spudman; WCPL wiki; Wooster history exhibit |
| 1926–27 | Named an Ohio Master Farmer (one of twenty, The Ohio Farmer); 606 bushels/acre record in 1927 | Xenia Evening Gazette, Oct 1927 |
| 1940 | About 1,300 acres of potatoes around Smithville plus 300 acres of seed potatoes at Coudersport, Pennsylvania (Potter County, Pennsylvania’s certified-seed centre) | Spudman 2007 |
| 1940s | ”Extensive interests in the citrus industry of the Rio Grande Valley in Texas”; daughter Esther (Mrs. Miller) lived at Mission, Texas | MWR obituary |
| 1946 | Sells half of his Wayne County land and buys 3,000 acres in the Rio Grande Valley | WCPL wiki (single source) |
| 1927–48 | Trustee of Bluffton College; paid to remodel its chapel (1940, later the A. C. Ramseyer Chapel) and gave $8,000 for College Hall (1943) | Bush 2000; The Mennonite 1940, 1944 |
| 1942 | Gas well on his land (Sec. 22, Green Twp.); Medal of Award, Pennsylvania Potato Growers | Oil & Gas Journal; Guide Post |
| 23 Jul 1948 | Dies of a heart attack aboard the British liner SS Mauretania, travelling with a Wayne County group to the London Olympic Games, then to visit Edna in Germany. Funeral at Oak Grove, 4 Aug 1948 | MWR 5 and 19 Aug 1948 |
5. After 1948
- Sons Alvin Jr. (Christopher’s grandfather) and Arden ran the farm together, cutting potatoes back to about 400 acres, then split it after seven years (Spudman 2007).
- The farm sold potatoes to Frito-Lay for almost 50 years.
- Arden’s line became Ramseyer Farms (pumpkins, corn maze, agritourism, from the 1990s); Al Jr.’s son Don took over the potato farm in 1988 (250 acres of chipping potatoes in 2007).
Why the family prospered (a reading of the evidence)
- Land, compounded: each generation started with land or cash from the one before ($1,000 → 124 acres → 322 → 2,000+).
- Switching to what paid: horses (Daniel), a pedigree dairy (A.C. to 1932), then potatoes sold direct to fast-growing industrial cities, with seed grown in Pennsylvania.
- Turning disaster around: the 1932 fire, in the middle of the Depression, pushed A.C. into the crop that made the “Potato King”.
- Spreading out: Pennsylvania seed land (from about 1935, with partner Edward D. Fisher), Texas citrus by the 1940s, and a gas well (1942).
Bluffton College (checked 2026-10-31)
- His obituaries call him “a director of Bluffton College” and “a member of the Board of Trustees”. Term found 2026-10-31: 1927–1948 (Perry Bush, Dancing with the Kobzar, 2000).
- Bluffton catalogs 1920–21 and 1922–23 (Internet Archive) do not name him, so he joined the board later (likely 1930s–40s, when Lloyd L. Ramseyer, no close relation known, was president from 1938).
- The Ista yearbooks show the family on campus: Irene Ramseyer (class of 1929, Smithville); Edna Ramseyer, home economics and Dean of Women (1941–43); Alvin Ramseyer (1941, 1942) and Ruth Neuenschwander (1943) — Christopher’s grandparents were students together (1941, 1942, 1943).
- Board minutes and trustee lists of the 1930s–40s are not online; Bluffton University Archives (Musselman Library) holds them.
Maps of the land (what exists)
- Smithville: the 1897 Caldwell Atlas of Wayne County shows landowners by name — Daniel Ramseyer’s farm in Green Township should be on it (copies: Library of Congress G1398.W4 C3 1897; Osher Map Library has only the cover online; Wayne County Public Library holds it). No 1930s–40s plat map was found online. Present-day parcels are on the Wayne County Auditor’s online GIS.
- Coudersport, Pa.: Potter County deed books (Recorder of Deeds), 1930s–40s.
- Rio Grande Valley: Hidalgo County deed records (and Cameron/Starr), 1940s.
- No public map of the 1,300-acre or 3,000-acre holdings has been found.
Still to find
- The year A.C. was named Ohio Master Farmer: winter 1926–27 (found 2026-10-31)
- A newspaper account of the 1932 barn fire and of his 1948 death (Wooster Daily Record) task/human
- The Texas land: county deeds (Hidalgo County) and what happened to it after 1948 task/human
- A.C. Ramseyer’s trustee term: 1927–48 (found 2026-10-31)
- Bluffton University Archives: any board memorial (1948), and the chapel’s naming task/human
- Look at the 1897 Caldwell atlas, Green Township page, for Daniel Ramseyer’s farm task/human
- The Mauretania passenger list (New York departure, July 1948) task/ai
About this research
Supporting documentation is linked throughout. This project is an exercise in AI-assisted research and development, and I haven’t manually verified every link or conclusion. All transcriptions and translations of Swiss parish records were made with AI, and their accuracy should be treated accordingly.