Local history: After leaving farm, Welker dedicated his life to the law
This mausoleum at Wooster Cemetery houses the remains of Martin Welker, who, among other accomplishments, served three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Three long-departed people call the Wooster Cemetery home: one man and two women, both wives of the man.
The man, Martin Welker, was born in Knox County in 1818 to one of the earliest Ohio settlers, a hard-working immigrant from Germany. He first attended school in a 16-foot square log cabin, one wall of which was a great stone fireplace, necessary because school was held when children’s help was not needed on the family farm in the long, cold months of winter.
At the age of 14, uninterested in the farming life, Welker left home and took a position of clerk at a store in Millersburg. He continued in that capacity until he reached adulthood, when a fortuitous event occurred. He was commanded to be a witness on a grand jury. His observations of that event served to shape his future and the future of Ohio.
Welker dedicated his life to the study of law. He associated himself with a local law office, serving an apprenticeship, studying intently and learning all he could about the law. According to Ben Douglass in his history of Wayne County, “In the literary societies with which he was identified, he soon acquired a reputation as a cogent reasoner, an apt and skillful debater, as well as an accomplished and vigorous writer.”
Among his many accomplishments were his private law practice in Millersburg from 1851-52, judge of the Ohio Court of Common Pleas for the Sixth Judicial District from 1852-57, and private law practice in Wooster.
Welker was elected lieutenant governor of Ohio and president of the Ohio Senate in the 53rd General Assembly, serving from 1857-58, and elected on the ticket with governor of Ohio, Salmon P. Chase.
With the outbreak of the American Civil War on May 14, 1861, Welker was appointed judge-advocate of the second brigade of the Ohio Volunteer Militia at rank of major and served with Gen. Jacob Dolson Cox. He was appointed as an aide-de-camp with rank of colonel to the governor of Ohio on Aug. 10, 1861. He then served as judge advocate general of Ohio for the balance of 1861 and was the superintendent of drafting under Gov. David Tod, commencing Aug. 15, 1862. He served as assistant adjutant general in 1862.
Welker was elected as a Republican from Ohio’s 14th Congressional District to the United States House of Representatives of the 39th, 40th and 41st United States Congresses, serving from March 4, 1865, to March 3, 1871.
He was a professor of political science and international law at The College of Wooster from 1873-90. Welker also served as president of the Wooster National Bank and vice president of the Wayne County Fair board and member of the Grand Army of the Republic.
Welker died March 15, 1902. He was laid to rest in the Welker mausoleum, Wooster Cemetery, next to his wife of 53 years, Maria Amor-Welker, who had died in 1894. Welker took his second wife, Flora E. Uhl of Cleveland, in 1896. She died in 1947 and is buried in the Welker mausoleum.