Sheetz Surname
Surname analogs: Sheetz, Sheets, Schietz
Winneshiek County Iowa

As linked to my interest in the Strayer, Heckart surnames. The Descendent Tree is a blend of material from Lila Sheetz Schneider, web resources and/or my own material. Lila, b. 1910, is a life long keeper/researcher of family and Freeport/Decorah area history. Lila grew up on and continued to live on part of the original 1852 entry farm of Andrew and Catherine Strayer Sheetz.

Speculations regarding the close relationship between
the John Strayer, Adam Heckart, Andrew Sheetz families:

=====The Strayer, Heckart, Sheetz, Boyd, Shoup families lived in the same general area of Penn, NE of Harrisburg, on the east side of the Susquehanna River during colonial times.
=====Andrew Sheetz married Catherine Strayer in Upper Paxton Twp. of Dauphin Co, PA in 1838, which was the same year Catherine's brother John Strayer moved to Shelby Co, MO, with the Adam Sr. Heckart family, who was the father of John's 'to be' wife Elizabeth Heckart and her brother Adam Jr. Heckart.
=====The families of two older generation Heckart's (John Adam Sr and brother Yost) and John Strayer would farm and build/run mills in Shelby, Ralls, Monroe Co, on the Salt River flowage in northeast, MO, 25-40 miles west of Hannibal.
=====Andrew and Catherine Sheetz remained and farmed in Dauphin Co, PA, until sometime in the summer of 1851, when they made the journey to the old Clinton/Jonesburg (Northfork, Suffax) village area, on the Salt River, Washington Twp, Monroe Co, Missouri, to join his brother/law John Strayer and Adam Heckart (John Strayer's bro/law), who had been running the old Clinton Mill from 1848, in Monroe Co, MO, and had been in Missouri since 1838.
=====From 1838-1848, Adam Heckart (and his brothers( and John Strayer, were involved in building and running the Walkerville Mill, in Shelby Co, MO, twenty miles up the Salt River from old Clinton.
=====Strayer/Heckart had already made a probing trip or two by 1851, to what would become the Decorah/Freeport area in Winneshiek Co of NE Iowa, looking for new mill building sights. They had traveled by steamboat from Hannibal, Missouri, up the Mississippi River to the Lansing area, taking overland trails near the (Upper) Iowa River. Heckart and Stayer entered a great deal of land along the Upper Iowa River and tributary creeks of the Decorah/Freeport valley. John and Adam probably made at least two trips to NE Iowa during 1851-1852 before moving the families.
=====Early in 1852, Strayer and Heckart were accompanied from Missouri to NE Iowa by Andrew Sheetz, as Andrew made entry (registered) into the 'Sheetz' farm a mile plus north of what would become Freeport, in section 12 of Decorah Twp, Winneshiek Co, Iowa, in May of 1852. =====Adam Heckart make multiple land entries in the area, probably with gold he had broght back from his early 1849-1850 trip to the gold fields in Butte Co, California. John Strayer also entered land, or partnered with Adam Heckart, at the time It is likely the men had started a mill and shelter building before taking the families up from MO in probably late fall of 1852. Thus by 1853 the Dauphin Co, PA, German families of Strayer, Heckart and Sheetz moved together from Monroe Co, MO to Freeport, Winneshiek Co, IA. Adam Heckart had returned from his successful 1849-1850, trip to the CA gold fields and was a seasoned explorer and traveler. Both John and Adam were seasoned millwrights and builders. It can be assumed Andrew Sheetz has similar Pennsylvania German skills.
=====The group would have taken their goods by wagon, pulled by oxen from Monroe Co, about 40 miles to the Mississippi River port of Hannibal. Steamers had been running up the River for about 15 years. They would have boarded the steamers with their possessions and landed at Lansing in NE Iowa, takiing their wagons on to the Freeport area, traveling the Upper Iowa River trails. The men had already taken this same route in their explorations, at least two times. Families of John Strayer and bro/law Adam Heckart built and ran the first big mill at Freeport, which may have been the first functional mill on the Upper Iowa River in the Decorah/Freeport valley as they were up and running by 1853. The Sheetz family farmed/lived on land in Section 12, north of Freeport, putting up buildings, 'improved' the farm and added four children after the move to Iowa.
=====Adam Heckart would make his third and final trip to gold country in California in 1865, starting a major ranching operation in Butte Co. John Strayer x Elizabeth Heckart and Andrew Sheetz x Catherine Strayer would remain residence of the Freeport village area the remainder of their lives.
=====George Strayer, brother of Catherine and John, joined them in Freeport, from Penn, probably in 1855, perhaps early 1856. George would marry Mary Jane Kirkland in 1860 and remain for the rest of his life involved with the milling and farming the fields on the southern edge of Freeport.
=====In 2006, Lila Schneider, ggdau. of Andrew and Catherine still owned some of the pioneer farm, and her son was still farming the same land. Lila was a life-long keeper of genealogy and history of the Sheetz and Strayer related families in the Winn.Co.IA area and we shared material through the 1990's and as computers became more functional in the mid 1990's. Oct 2005, Mar 2006, Jan 2009. My best speculations to date; Barry Zbornik, Hannibal, MO iowaz@hotmail.com