My paternal great-grandfather, William F. Lohn, was a native of Germany.  He was born in Prussia and his wife, Louise Kaisern, was born in Hanover.  Great-Grandfather, a doctor and later a hat maker, migrated to the United States because of compulsory military training.  He met his wife in Travis County, where they settled twelve miles above Austin on the Colorado River, near Bee Cave.  They purchased land from the state of Texas.  The land patent, which wa signed by Governor Hogg, is now in the possession of my father.  When they began rearing their family they decided never to teach their children how to speak German, because  they had now moved to America and wanted their children to speak English.  This was unlike many other foreigners that drifted to the United States.
    Grandfather, William Edward Lohn, Sr., was born in 1862, near Austin, and at the age of eighteen, moved with his family of one sister and two brothers to McCulloch County, near the present site of Lohn.  This was two years after the last Indian Battles between the whites and Indians in McCulloch County.  When Great-grandfather Lohn died, he was buried in the corner of the original Lohn estate.  This has now become a private Lohn family cemetery where some of the immediate family is buried.
    William Edward Lohn, Sr., met Mary Elizabeth Riley at some of the community dances where he played the fiddle.  They were married in 1890, and to this union were born nine children, all of whom he delivered, the last one being my father, William Edward Lohn, Jr.  He was born in 1912, on the original homestead of three hundred twenty acres that was purchased from the state of Texas at one dollar per acre.  My father still owns one hundred twenty acres of this original homestead.
    Because of having no mail delivery in the community, Grandfather Lohn contacted the postal department and and asked that they grant a post office.  He circulated a petition on horseback to secure the sufficient number of signatures.  He presented the petition to the post office department, leaving the preferred name of the post office blank.  When the request was granted, they filled the blank with Grandfather's name, thereby, naming the new town Lohn.
    Lohn grew to be a thriving little town consisting of a bank, three grocery stores, two cafes, a theater, two blacksmith shops, two drugstores, a hotel, a doctor's office, a meat market, a post office, four churches, a school, a pool hall, a boarding house, two cotton gins, two confectioneries, a tabernacle, and four gasoline stations.  The lumber for the Lohn Central School building was hauled from Brownwood by Grandfather Lohn.
    Grandfather lived quite an active life up until a month before his death 1944.  Being commonly known as the Father of Lohn, Texas, he was active in civic organizations, having been trustee of the tabernacle for thirty-eight years, and the one who instigated its building.  He also was trustee of the Lohn public school for thirty-three years and had a leading hand in its organization, too.
    In the fifty-five years of the married life of Grandfather and Grandmother, his death was the first to break the family circle.  There had not been a death among their children, their in-laws, or grandchildren in fifty-five years, which is a very outstanding record in my family.
    My paternal grandmother has been traced back seven generations.  She was Dorothy Love, who was born in 1750 and died on april 27, 1823, at the age of seventy-three.  She had a son, William Love, who was born on March 1, 1771, and died at the age of twenty-six. He married Elanor Shelton, who was born on November 4, 1771, and died at the age of seventy-two.  William Love and his wife were very wealthy plantation and slave owners in Tennessee.  When their daughter, Elizabeth Love, who is my great-great-grandmother, married William Curd, a Baptist minister from Tennessee, her parents gave them twelve slaves for a wedding present.  William Curd's parents were Charles Curd, who was born January 27, 1781, and Nancy Lumpkin, who was born on August 11, 1780.  Elizabeth and William Curd's daughter was my grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Riley, who married William Edward Lohn, Sr.  They are the parents of my father, William Edward Lohn, Jr.

Submitted by: Louann Hall