THE LIFE AND TIMES OF CHAS. HAHN: On June 11, 1848 a man named Charles Hahn was born on a small farm in Black River Township (currently Amherst / Brownhelm Township) along the lake shore about 4 miles west of Lorain, Ohio. The house sat perhaps a mile and a half west of Beaver Creek. Today one would hardly know it, but for the length of Charles's long life - and nearly twenty years beyond - that land retained its identity as rich farmland and orchards.Charles's father, George, had come to Ohio from Hessen, Germany with his father, Peter, in 1837. After the passing of George's mother his father and two brothers migrated to Iowa - never to return. Staying behind, George married a German girl named Elizabeth Bretz and took up farming on the farm where Charles was born. The elder Hahn was, some would later say, a man of "thrift" whose practice of "economy" allowed him to acquire a good deal of property during his long life. It was a trait that he passed on to his only surviving child and son Charles.Charles received his early education in district schools and, afterward, Oberlin Business College. On May 7, 1870 he married Catherine Baumhardt, daughter of Adam and Christina (Herwig) Baumhardt. The Baumhardt family owned a farm about a mile west of Hahn's. [Note: It was on a tract of land that would some years later be sold to the Ford Motor Company and upon it a huge auto assembly plant constructed.] But in any case, the young couple set-up housekeeping on the Hahn family homestead. And in short order folks in the area found that Charles did not merely inherit his father's "thrifty" business sense - he "excelled" at it.Very soon the farm consisted of 400 acres of rich, fertile land. Despite the fact that the Nickel Plate and Lake Shore Railroads took 10 acres of it when they laid their rails through the farm Hahn's keen business sense and tact led him to the acquisition of additional properties of substantial size; one near Oberlin and another in nearby Erie County.In 1900 Mr. Hahn's expertise as a businessman led him to become one of the primary orgainizers and first president of the National Bank of Commerce of Lorain, Ohio. He served as president of the organization until 1924 when he assumed the position as president of the bank's board of directors.In 1935, in the very same house in which he was born almost 87 years before, Charles Hahn quietly departed "this mortal coil" in his bed. His loving wife, Catherine, had taken the voyage a year earlier. Together life had been good to them. Their marriage had seen over six decades pass. They successfully raised six children: Erie County farmer Lewis E. of Ceylon; George who farmed near Oberlin; Martha Schaible of Elyria; Minnie Wangerlen of Oberlin; and Bertha Schmidtkons and Amelia Holstein both of Amherst. Today when travellers pass through the area where Charles Hahn was born, worked, lived, and loved nary a trace - a vestige - of his life in the yesteryear remains. It certainly is not what it was. Yet, to quote the words of an unknown author it may be that: "What you need to know about the past is that no matter what has happened, it has all worked together to bring you to this very moment. And this is the moment you can choose to make everything new. Right now." Methinks that Mr. Hahn would agree with that thought.