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