One Township's Yesterdays Chapter XXIX  

BETCHOL

The marriage of ABRAHAM and SUSAN BECHTOL took place, August 21, 1840, in Marion County, Ohio. SUSAN BECHTOL was born August 18, 1819, in Huntington County, Pennsylvania. In her youth she united with the Evangelical Association. She died in Union Township, October 4, 1904, at the age of eighty-five.

The BECHTOLs came to this township not long after settlement was begun in the Zion neighborhood. They acquired properties there and farmed the land. As in the case of many other early comers, we find that the antique records and registers spelled their name in various ways. An old map gives it as BACHTOL. These old spellings remain with us; they are quaint, and they tell us that in those days of long ago names were usually put down as they sounded to the person making the record.

In the 'seventies, Abraham BECHTOL was in possession of forty acres of land a little way northeast of Zion Church, and he also owned forty acres northwest of the church. Like various other land owners in the township during that period, the BECHTOLs were not immune to the fad, if we may call it such, of possessing a patch of ground here and a patch of ground there. Some there were, we might add, whose lands were here, there and everywhere over the face of Union Township.