More of our German Ancestors

Still more of Virginia Caroline Wright South’s Maternal Lines: Spricht Du Deutsch?

I don’t think I ever met anyone in our family who did not have a soft spot for my dad, Dan South. But I wonder if all of you realized that sometimes he was not only not politically correct, sometimes he was really just not nice. When Dan went into the hospital for his last trip with a brain bleed they could not stop without clogging up his heart valve, he told everyone who asked his identity that he was Peachy Wade. It was difficult for us in the hospital to explain to his granddaughter why he would say this. There is absolutely no way he was that confused; it was just his typical approach to be contrary and make light of all the doctors asking him his name to see if he was “all there.” He also gave his place of residence as Waxahachie just because he loved the sound of the word, and because it had always been his response whenever questioned about where he was headed or where he had been.

For those who are not from Clyde, Peachy was a town fixture, a sort of bent little guy who was most likely mentally challenged. And not all of you would know that after WWII Dan worked at the post office, moving up from clerk to postmaster in his career. Peachy Wade worked there for a lot of that time, carrying the mail over across the street to the RR tracks for pick-up by the T&P trains that would snag it as they blew by, and I suppose he must have done some janitorial work at the PO as well. Lest any of you be confused that the purpose of the guys at the PO was to deal with the mail, please let me clear things up: Dan, Clark Tabor, Preston Poole, and the lot of them were there to pull stuff on each other; I suppose they let Bill Schweikhard and Merwin Eager actually work some of the time, but only enough to get letters into the boxes and bags. Their sole purpose in life was set up jokes on each other and especially on Peachy if they could. One day a long time ago, Peachy showed them a newspaper ad from somewhere pretty far off where some well-meaning father was advertising to get a husband for his pregnant daughter. I don’t know if all the facts were in the ad, but that’s how it was. Dan encouraged Peachy to reply to this ad, and even sent a testimonial to the fact that Peachy had a responsible government job. The daughter Vera came, the marriage was made, and they lived in Clyde and raised the son who became a country musician, at least part-time. This led Dan to one of his wise sayings: For every Peachy, there is a Vera.

I bring this up now to say that back in the 1700s and 1800s in Virginia, for every Rosenbaum, there was a Spraker and vice versa.

The Sprecher or Spraker Family

We already know that the spelling of names can vary quite a bit, and Sprecher is no exception. One finds this spelled in many forms—Spreacher, Spraker, Spracker among them--and of course the census takers and other people recording important records often did not bother to find out how the person spelled his name—they would just use phonetic spelling to the best of their ability. In Germany it might depend on what region of the country one is in to know how to pronounce certain letter combinations like “ch.” The German word for “I” is “ich.” In northern German regions like Prussia, this would be pronounced “ick,” with almost a throat clearing following. In southern Germany, even around Frankfurt where we lived for twenty-one years, the “ch” would be pronounced almost like “sh,” making the ich sound more like “ish” than “ick.” So too with Sprecher, which could be pronounced “spresher” or “sprecker,” and then the recording official could decide how to spell either of those names as it sounded to them.

Johann Christopher Sprecher I (1699-1767) (6xggf) Immigrant Ancestor from Germany We have 32 DNA matches where the common ancestors between our trees and the matches’ trees are Johann Christopher Sprecher and his wife Ernestine Beck

Johann was born in Suelzfeld in the county or “kreis” of Karlsruhe, in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany, very near what is truly the Palatinate area. With time almost all Germans were called Palatinate Germans. When we lived in Germany, we lived part of the time south of the city of Heidelberg, and the main city south of Heidelberg is Karlsruhe; we lived between these cities until the early 1980s when we moved into Heidleberg to be nearer our school. But as I lamented earlier, I was too caught up in my work and parenting and traveling to look into family history or to realize that just down the road was an important birthplace for our family. He married Maria Ernestine Beck (1705-1754) in Suelzfield, Germany, in 1728; she died in 1753 leaving eight children with Johann.  Various dates are suggested on a number of likely looking records for Johann’s immigration to the colonies, but perhaps the most sensible is in the 1740s when the conflicting records of immigration do agree that he arrived in Philadelphia amid the many German immigrants who arrived from Europe. Some of his children were born in Germany and others in Pennsylvania. He also joined in the movement of many of those Lutheran and Reformed Lutheran immigrants who came to Rowan (later Davidson) County in North Carolina. His brother Johann Georg came along as well. The Leonard book says that the Germans were able to occupy some of the best land in the state.  Said to have been a blacksmith, Johann Christopher died in North Carolina in 1767.  

Map showing Suelzfeld in the lower right; we lived for a time in Sankt Leon-Rot outside Heidelberg, Germany, shown top left. The distance here is only a few kilometers.

 Modern Day Suelzfeld

Johann Christopher Sprecher 2^nd  (1738-1830) 5xggf We have 54 DNA matches where the common ancestors between our trees and the matches’ trees are Johann Christopher Sprecher 2^nd and Elizabeth Catharina Reichert.

Johann Christopher Sprecher 2^nd was born in Lynn Township, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, after his parents immigrated to the Colonies. There was an early Pennsylvania census in 1748 that records either him or his father in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1748. He married Elizabeth Catharina Reichert (also sometimes shown as Reicher or Reichardt) in Abbotts Creek, Rowan (now Davidson) County North Carolina in 1760 . The German families who moved to North Carolina were divided between Lutherans, Reformed Lutherans, and Moravian. The Sprecher family was Reformed Lutheran For many years they shared the same church near Abbott’s Creek in Rowan County. The first church was built between 1757 and 1764 as a log structure. It was called the Dutch Congregation because the Germans were called the Dutch settlement on Abbott’s Creek (somewhat south of Winston-Salem and the Moravians; further northwest would be Grayson County, Virginia. The 1778 Rowan County Tax list both Stophel (a nickname for Christopher) and Geroge was listed. Christopher received a land grant in Virginia in 1782 in Montgomery County (later Wythe County). The 1810 Census shows him as head of family of 7 in Wythe County, Virginia. Though I could not locate the 1820 census for him, the 1830 census did show his residence as Cripple Creek in Wythe County, Virginia. The Cranfield book says that the old Spraker home is located about seven or eight miles south of Wytheville, Virginia on the right of the old Sugar Run Road, now Hwy 21 at the junction of the Dry Run Road which goes from Zion church to the lead mines. Here is no longer the original home, but a large brick home occupied (in 1963) by a Spraker. Spraker was an officer in the Zion Lutheran Church in Cripple Creek Valley about five miles southwest of Crockett, Virginia.  died in Cripple Creek, Wythe County in 1830. His will, written in 1812 and proved in 1830 left his property to his son Michael and his blacksmith tools to both Michael and George; he provided that Eliza should have all his personal estate to be used and enjoyed during her widowhood, and afterward to his daughters and named grandchildren. [There are three daughters who married Rosenbaums] He mentions that some of his daughters have had property in advance of during his life, an account of which is to be found in his papers. Michael is ordered to care for Elizabeth in her widowhood “as a dutiful son ought to do his mother.” The son Jacob is to be given fifty shillings by his brothers. Elizabeth died in 1825 and was buried at Zion as was Christopher.

Johann Christopher’s grandson Christopher married a Rosenbaum. And at least three of great grandchildren married Rosenbaums. And it did not end with his children alone.

Catherine Spraker (1765-1830) 4xggm If you recall, we have 128 DNA matches where the common ancestors between our trees and the matches’ trees are John Rosenbaum and Catherine Spraker.

Catherine was one of two sisters born to Johann Christopher Sprecher 2^nd and his wife Elizabeth Catharina Reichert who married Rosenbaums in our line. She was born when the family was in North Carolina living on Abbott Creek in Rowan County in 1765; some researchers place her birth after the family moved to Wythe County, Virginia, however the majority believe her birth to have been in North Carolina. At any rate, she married John Rosenbalm in Washington County, Virginia, in 1799. She died in 1830 and was buried at Zion Methodist Church in Washington County.

Anna Maria “Mary” Spraker (1771-1855) 4xggm As stated above, we have 6 DNA matches where the common ancestors between our trees and the matches’ trees are Mary Spraker and George Rosenbalm.

Anna Maria “Mary” Spraker was born in Wythe County, Virginia, in 1771. She married George Rosenbaum, brother of John Rosenbaum, in 1796. The lived on Reed Creek in Wythe County, Virginia, on the south fork. Their daughter Catherine married  David  Rosenbalm of Washington County, Virginia, making them our 3x great grandparents. She died in Wythe County, Virginia in 1855.

Wythe County. The Rosenbaums lived near Crockett and Cripple Creek and Reed Creek.

More German Families intermarried with the Rosenbaum, Rosenbalm, and Spraker families

Baumann

Johann Adam Baumann (1691-1717) 7xggf  Immigrant German Ancestor

Johann Adam Bauman was from Bacharach on the Rhine River in Germany born in 1691. His first wife passed away in Germany or on the journey to the colonies. He married a widow Anna Margartha Kugel soon after his arrival in Pennsylvania. He is mentioned in the Knittle book as being in the Hudson River settlements in New York by 1718. Most of those families moved on to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Cranfield did some primary research on Johann while he lived in Germany. Johann Adam’s family were Reformed Lutherans (more conservative Lutherans) and their records are primarily found in the Reformed Lutheran records stored in Coblenz, Germany, also on the Rhine. Adam was in the group of Germans who went to England and joined German families who sailed for the colonies and received the promise of land and some substance while awaiting their land assignment. Adam was said to be a butcher and a widower married Anna Margaretha in 1711. The facts of their deaths is not known.

Barbara Baumann (1717-1776) 6xggm

Barbara was born to Adam and his second wife Anna Margaretha (probably spelled Margarethe since there are no silent e’s in German, and an e on the end of a word is normally pronounced like a at the end of a word, “uh” ). She was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1717. She married our immigrant Rosenbaum ancestor, Antonius Conradus Rosenbuam in 1730 and they lived out their days in Pennsylvania.

Mueller or Miller

Georg or George Mueller or Muller or Miller (1700-1757) 7xggf  Immigrant Ancestor from Germany

George Mueller’s family was Swiss, but had moved up to Bavaria, Germany, by the time of George’s birth. George emigrated to the colonies and lived his life in Pennsylvania, marrying Clara Schnurr who was part of the Ephrata Colony in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, like her brother-in-law, Henry Heinrich Mueller. It is quite possible that George was associated with Ephrata as well since his brother and wife had ties there.George died in 1757.

Ephrata Cloisters was the work of just one of several groups of Germans who came to America with a change of lifestyle in mind. Other similar groups were the Moravians' Wachovia and old Salem groups in North Carolina. Ephrata Cloisters was established in 1732 by Conrad Beissel at Ephrata in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. It was related to the Schwarzenau Brethern movement of Alexander Mack in Schwarzenau, Germany. That community had split over which day was the true Sabbath, Sunday or Saturday. Beissel established a convent for women (even married women) and a monastery for men who lived apart from the opposite sex in celibacy. They believed in a strict interpretation of the Bible and self-discipline. They slept on wooden benches 15” wide with wooden blocks for pillows. They slept only six hours per night, broken into two sessions between 9 and midnight, and again between 2 and 5am. They ate one small meal per day and spent much of their time praying privately. There were lengthy services on Sunday led by Beissel. Other believing families lived nearby and considered Beissel their spiritual leader; they attended services with them on Sundays and were necessary to support the cloister. Ephrata is famous for its music, mostly composed by Beissel with his own system of four-part harmony. Their hymnal consisted only of words. The cloisters also practiced a unique type of calligraphy called Frakturscriften (broken script or writing) and had a large printing works for their own and others' use. They are known to have printed the 1500pp. Martyrs Mirror for the Mennonites. They also printed a Sabbath-School card for use. At its peak, Ephrata had over 250 acres of land and 80 celibate members with another 200 members living in families and farming to support the cloister. They also had a sawmill, a pottery, a basketry, and a gristmill. Ephrata declined with Beissel’s death 1768. During the Revolutionary War Ephrata cloister was used as a hospital. The monastic feature was gradually abandoned as the members died in the early 1800s. In 1814 the group combined with the Seventh Day German Baptists which was in existence up until around 1934. The State of Pennsylvania kept a 28 acre site to maintain the history of Ephrata.

 George’s brother Henry first received a land grant from William Penn in 1734, and another in 1736. He eventually had numerous land tracts in Lancaster County. There was a dispute between Henry and the Ephrata founder Conrad Beissel over Zion Chapel for which Henry paid the dedication, and then was later informed it could only be used by those in the group who lived separately from their wives. Henry lived with his family, so he was given another 100 acres to live on with his family in the town of Ephrata, now called Smithton, Pennsylvania.

Johannes Adam Muller (1726-1780) 6xggf We have six DNA matches where the common ancestors between our trees and the matches’ trees are Johannes Adam Muller and his wife Maria Magdalena Faber.

Johannes Adam Muller was born to George and Clara Muller in Pennsylvania in 1725. He moved his family to Rowan County, North Carolina, as did many other German immigrants to the colonies in the 1740s. he died in Rowan (now Davidson) County, North Carolina in 1780. He married Maria Magdalena Faber whose parents had also traveled from Pennsylvania to North Carolina where she met and married Adam Muller. She is buried in the Moravian cemetery near Friedburg, North Carolina, which would have us conclude that her family was Moravian. Her parents, Michael Faber and Sarah Meinhert Faber, are also buried in the Moravian cemetery in Friedburg, North Carolina. Sarah is mentioned in Moravian records.

The Moravians and the Moravian Tract in North Carolina

The historic Moravian Church began in Bohemia and Moravia in what is now the Czech Republic. In the ninth century (the 1000s) these countries converted to Christianity from the influence of two Greek Orthodox missionaries, Cyril and Methodius. They translated the Bible into the common language and introduced a national church ritual. In the centuries that followed, Bohemia and Moravia fell under the jurisdiction of the Church of Rome, but some Czechs protested. The foremost reformer was John Hus (1369-1415) who was a professor at the university in Prague. Hus led a protest (earlier than Luther) against the Catholic Church and was burned at the stake in 1415. The Moravian church organized as the Unitas Fratrum (Unity of Brethren) in 1457 in Kunvald, about one hundred miles east of Prague. Their main tenet was that it was not belonging to a particular sect or adhering to a particular doctrine that made one a Christian, it was living life according to the teachings of Jesus. Gregory the Patriarch, considered the Moravian founder, described Moravians as people who had decided “to be guided by the gospel and example of our Lord Jesus Christ and his holy apostles in gentleness, humility, patience, and love for our enemies.” The Unity of Brethren grew to over 200,000 and 400 parishes and continued to publish the Bible in their language. The religion spread to Poland and was led by Comenius who lived most of his life in exile in England and Holland. He died in 1670. The 1700s saw the renewal of the Moravians under the protection of Count Zinzendorf.

The Moravians first came to America during the colonial period in 1735 as part of Oglethorpe’s philanthropic venture in Georgia, but this venture failed. They established a permanent presence in Pennsylvania in 1741. They were able to purchase over 500 acres for the settlement of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which was soon linked with another settlement in Nazareth. These two communities became known for their agricultural and industrial economy. There were other established communities of Moravians in Philadelphia, on Staten Island, New York, and Lititz and Hope in Pennsylvania. Augustus Spangenberg, a Moravian bishop, led a group to survey a 100,000 acre tract of land in North Carolina. It came to be known as the Wachovia Tract, the name coming from Wachau, Count Zinzenberg’s estate back in Austria. Bethabara, Bethania, and old Salem were the first Moravian settlements in this tract. In the southern part of the tract was Forsyth County, and established congregations in Charlotte, Greensboro, Wilmington, Raleigh, and Stone Mountain, Georgia. Friedberg was established in 1769; its name means mountain of peace and freedom. Rowan, Surry, Stokes, and Forsyth counties were formed from the Wachovia Tract.

One thing I found interesting about the Moravians is that John Wesley was influenced by a group he visited in the colonies and later worshiped with some Moravians in London. It was among these people that John had what he described as his warming of the heart or conversion experience that led to his becoming a religious leader.

Charaty Gertrude Mueller/Muller/Miller (1744-1807) 5xggf As stated above, we have 55 DNA matches where the common ancestors between our trees and the matches’ trees are Charaty Gertrude Miller and Alexander Rosenbaum.

Charaty was born to Johannes Adam Muller and Maria Magdalena Faber Muller in 1744 in the Swatara region of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  She married Alexander Rosenbaum in Earltown, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in 1762. Although this family moved first to North Carolina, they came in the early 1800s to Washington County, Virginia. Both are buried in Zion Methodist cemetery near Abingdon.

Reicherts and Happes

Jacob Salomon Reichert (1714-1796) 6xggf Immigrant Ancestor from Germany We have 17 DNA matches where the common ancestors between our trees and the matches’ trees is Jacob Salomon Reichert and his wife Anna Elizabeth Happes.

Jacob was born to a family that had been in Hebstahl, Germany, for at least two generations. He married Anna Elizabeth Happes in 1740. It appears that her brothers, Georg and Michael Happes, decided to emigrate to the colonies, and Jacob and his wife caught the fever to do so as well. In April of 1751 Jacob, described as a linen weaver, traveled with two men from neighboring villages to Heidelberg to get permission to emigrate. After paying some taxes, two of them were given permission; the third man was refused because his wife and children were Catholic and the officials did not believe Catholics were welcome in the colonies. Jacob appears on a list of Palatinate immigrants for the year 1751. Jacob and Georg arrived in Philadelphia in late 1751 aboard the ship Queen of Denmark. Jacob appears on tax lists for 1759, 1761, and 1768 in Rowan County, North Carolina, so Jacob’s family fits a familiar pattern of arriving in Pennsylvania and then moving south to North Carolina. Jacob purchased land from his son-in-law on Abbott’s Creek in Rowan County. He is listed in the 1790 federal census in Rowan County, North Carolina. Jacob’s name was sometimes anglicized to Rickard. Jacob and Anna Elizabeth had eight children. Jacob died in 1795 in Rowan County. His will leaves his sons John and Casper his land and his personal property to his other children.

Elizabeth Catharina Reichert (1738-1825) 5xggm As stated above, we have 54 DNA matches where the common ancestors between our trees and the matches’ trees are Elizabeth Catharina Reichert and her husband Johann Christopher Sprecher 2.

Elizabeth was born to Jacob Salomon Reichert and Anna Elizabeth Happes before they left for the colonies in 1751; there are two possible dates given, 1738 and 1745. She married in Abbotts Creek in Rowan County, later Davidson County, North Carolina, to Johann Christopher Sprecher [perhaps he could not find a suitable Rosenbaum?] in Wythe County, Virginia.  She and Johann Christopher were instrumental in forming Zion Lutheran Church in Wythe County. They had twelve children. Elizabeth died in 1825 and is buried at Zion Lutheran Church.

Resources

Resources from Ancestry.com that I found helpful for this section include David Leonard’s 1927 Centennial History of Davidson County North Carolina, Findagrave, Cranfield’s Rosenbaum, Rosenbalm family of Southwest Virginia, Ancestry Family Data Collection-Individual Records, Virginia, Deaths and Burials Index, 1853-1917, and Virginia Marriages 1660-1800, New World Immigrants, Vol.II.

Even though I do not pay to see the actual, complete foreign records, Ancestry shows me that there were these records pertaining to our foreign folks: Baden, Germany, Lutheran Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1502-1985, Speyer, Germany, Civil Registry Vital Records, 1798-1875.

Knittle, Walter. Early Eighteenth Century Palatine Emigration published in 1937.

https://archive.org/details/historicalaccoun00aura/page/n3 online version of Monroe Aurand’s Historical Account of the Ephrata Cloister and the Seventh Day Baptist Society n.d.

https://www.moravian.org/2018/07/a-brief-history-of-the-moravian-church/ online history of the Moravians.

https://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1063&context=pafolklifemag An interesting article about emigration from the Neckar Valley near Heidleberg that has details about Jacob Reichert.

https://feefhs.org/resource/germany-palatine-index-r Palatine Index for surnames beginning with R and the year they emigrated.