Christina Anhart

  General Notes:

!DEATH: Tombstone says "Cristeena" and that she was 59 years 2 months and 12
days at her death. The tombstone is difficult to read and the 2 months
looks like 11 months, the 59 looks like 79 but she is known to have
been 59 at her death and this is consistent with Census information.

!MISC: Christina is believed to be a full blooded Potawatomi Indian. She has
been described as an "Indian maiden". Interviews with elderly descendants still
living in the immediate area referred to the "dirty little Indian" buried in
cemetary. The Potawatomi Indian information is also found in a letter from
Joe Thompson of Bluffton, Ohio who cites Julia Herr as the source, Julia is
grand-daughter of Julia Boutwell.

                William was a Carpenter and Farmer. It is not known when William and Christina met 
                and married but it would have been around 1820. After the death of William's mother,
                Jane, William headed westward in Pennsylvania. Christina was a "Christianized" 
                Potawatomi Indian. It is unknown how she came to be in Bedford County and raised 
                by a German Lutheran Family that had emigrated from the Northern regions of the 
                Alsace in the late 1700s. Her last name "Anhart" has never been found in any early 
                Pennsylvania records. Christina's European last name has also been recorded as 
                Arehart or Earhart. She was raised by George Arehart of Colerain Twp. in Bedford 
                County. When George died, he made some provision for her and a minor daughter 
                in his will dated June 13, 1814. There are Orphan's Court Records in Bedford County 
                indicating that "at the insistence of William Garlinger intermarried with Christina Earhart,
                daughter of the deceased George Earhart" a suit was filed against the Executor's of the 
                Estate to settle the administration of the account for Christina.

!Religion: Christina was one of the 11 original founders of the Summit
Christian Church organized during the year of her death in 1859. The church met
at the Summit Schoolhouse and was pastored by Rev. H.P. Darst. The church was
attended by as many as 40 members at it's peak. One of the other founders was
Susanna McElroy, widow of Hugh W. McElroy. Christina with her heritage was
obviously not Lutheran, although William Sr. and Christina attended a
Lutheran Church in Bedford County Pennsylvania until about 1841 when they moved
to Columbiana County, Ohio. It is William Sr.'s marriage to Christina that
probably broke the German Lutheran tradition in this branch of the Garlinger's
as they acquired other Christian denominations.

Christina married William Garlinger, son of Jacob Garlinger and Jane ?. (William Garlinger was born about 1793 in , Washington, Maryland, died in 1866 in , Hardin, Ohio and was buried in , Hardin, Ohio.)