This collection consists of 25 incoming letters and printed items to Henry Stahl, undertaker at Homeworth and nearby Washington Township, Ohio, in the late 19th century. Stahl kept letters, receipts, and trade cards, plus printed pamphlets, advertisements, and price lists for funeral home supplies and stock. They pertain to caskets and children's coffins, floral designs, wrappers, linings, trimmings; embalming fluid, headstones/tombstones/monuments, trade magazine subscriptions, and other items. Businesses that Stahl engaged with include Hamilton, Lemmon, Arnold & Company; Excelsior Coffin and Casket Works; Detroit Metallic Casket Company; Cincinnati Coffin Company; and others.
Please see the Box and Folder Listing below for information about each item in the collection.
Henry Stahl was born on December 13, 1824, to parents Samuel and Jane Hurst Stahl in Adams County, Pennsylvania. According to Perrin's History of Stark County (1881), "Henry Stall" (i.e. Henry Stahl) was raised a Free-Will Baptist. He "worked as a farm hand until after he was 21, then learned the carpenter's trade under Kirk McLean, which occupation Mr. Stall [i.e. Stahl] has followed . . . working under other carpenters and frequently as a contractor, building houses and barns; he erected the schoolhouses at Strasburg and in District No. 9." Henry Stahl and Serena Burns (1826 or 1827-1903) married in 1848 and the couple had at least one child, Dennis Stahl (1851-1914).
Sometime in the early 1870s, Stahl became an undertaker and served Stark and Columbiana Counties. He was actively engaged in professional organizations, serving on the finance committee of the Undertakers' Association of Ohio in the 1880s. While the Stahls lived in Washington Township, Ohio, he received his business mail at Homeworth, a few miles away in Columbiana County. In addition to funeral and carpenter work, Henry Stahl was civically active, serving as a school director, Master of the Grange, and Director of the Washington and Paris Township Insurance Company.
Dennis Stahl became an assistant to his father and married Amanda Ickes (1852-) in 1876. According to the U.S. Censuses, Dennis and Amanda lived with Henry and Serena Stahl in Washington, Ohio. After the death of Serena Stahl in 1903 and Henry Stahl in 1908, Dennis took over the Stahl undertaking business.
