"HOMEWARD BOUND" - a photo by Hohenbe
Biographical accounts
from the lives of Jack's ancestors
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"SUMMERS, JOHN, b. 13
Dec. 1740, prob. Montgomery Co., Pa., Elizabeth Ridenauer,
d. living in 1807. SERVICE: Contributed 96 pounds of flour to the Continental
Forces at Augusta Co., Va., to render service to his country during the American
Revolution. CHILDREN: Mary Barbara, b. 17 Oct. 1777, Va., d. 24 Feb. 1853,
Va., m. 15 Feb. 1796, Daniel Hull, b. 1768, d. 1854; Johannes, , b. 24 Feb. 1765, m.
Martha Williams or Catherine Ingleman; Mary, m. 8 Apr. 1797, Joseph Dome; Elizabeth,
m. 9 Dec.1799, Daniel Beck; David, m. (1) 10 Dec. 1807, Rebecca Engleman, m. (2) 10
Oct. 1831, Juliann Palmer; Henry, m. Polly - - -; Jacob, m. Christena
Venis; Margaret, m. 16 Apr. 1809, Joseph Fauber; Catherine, m. 25 Oct.
1813, George Leonari; Eva, m. 24 Feb. 1812, Peter Huff. DESCENDANT:
DELLINGER, Margaret E. Naugle (Mrs. Marion O.), No. 487582."
A ROSTER OF REVOLUTIONARY
ANCESTORS OF THE INDIANA DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, Vol. II., p. 310.
Subsequent investigation indicates that the actual birth year for John SUMMERS was 1746,
and later D.A.R. records verified this, as do church records from New Hanover Township,
Montgomery Co., PA.
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"The Utz family came
here from the South. Mrs. Utz lived to tell many interesting incidents from
her pioneer days. She tells with particular satisfaction and in the more prosperous years
of the family, how poor they were when they settled here in the woods. He[r] husband
often left her alone to cross the Ohio River with his sack of corn to be ground into meal
and get other provisions for his family. On one occasion, he was gone for longer than
usual, so his wife said that she lived for several days on lettuce and salt. On one
occasion, she thought that Indians were prowling about the cabin, so she cautiously left
and climbed into the tree that was in the forest near her cabin. She slept in the tree all
night and returned to her cabin in the morning."
HISTORY OF GEORGETOWN, INDIANA
by Stanley E. Trinkle
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"The United Brethern [sic]
Church was the first religious organization in the village. In 1843 they built a brick
church on the south side of State Road 64 near the western edge of town. It has been used
as a residence since 1889 when a frame church was built where the present church stands,
located at the corner of Walts County Road and State Road 64. (The first church is
located about eight buildings west of the present post office, it is a small red brick
building.) About 1869 the church was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. The
people faithful to their church built the present brick church. Mr. Edward Argenbright and
Mr. William Harmon did the masonry work. They have had a parsenage [sic] since
1860....The Wolf, Summers, Welch, Hobson, Crandall, Thomas, Keithley, Argenbright, Utz,
Hottell, Yenowine, and many others had been faithful through out its history. This church
was used for years, but later merged with the Methodist is to have a church on Canal
Lane...."
HISTORY OF GEORGETOWN, INDIANA
by Stanley E. Trinkle
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"Hiram Hopper, one of the
oldest residents of Floyd county, died at his home near Greenville on the 22d, of
paralysis, after a long illness. His age was 79 years and nearly all of his life had been
spent in Floyd county. He served two terms as County Commissioner. He was in all
regards a most excellent citizen and was respected for his integrity and many good
qualities. He leaves a family."
Obituary, NEW ALBANY DAILY
LEDGER, Saturday Evening, August 22, 1890
"We'll shed a tear
tomorrow dear
Upon his peaceful grave
And trust when he gets over there
That God his soul will save."
Inscription on Hiram Hopper's gravestone
CLICK HERE
to read a story
about Hiram Hopper's grandfather, Capt. Jonathan Hopper, a member of the Bergen Co., NJ
Militia, who was killed by loyalist Tories during the Revolutionary War.
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Heinrich Finis (or Fenis) came to America
as a Hessian mercenary serving in the British Army
during the Revolutionary War. On December 25, 1776, he was one of 868 soldiers
captured by General George Washington's troops at the famous Battle of Trenton (New
Jersey). After the
war, Heinrich and his brother Christian refused repatriation to Germany and instead
settled in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. There he married Margaret Wolfe and among
their children was a daughter named Christina, who would eventually marry Jacob Summers in
Augusta
County, Virginia. By the time of their marriage, the German surname had become
Americanized
to "Venis".
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The migratory routes that our ancestors
followed as they moved away from the east coast seaports were
usually the same trails that had been used for centuries by the Native Americans as they
traded and mig-
rated in the eastern United States. After thousands of immigrants traversed these trails,
they became known as "roads". Among the most famous of these were the
"Great Wagon Road" and, decades later, the "Wilderness Road". The
Great Wagon Road, used throughout the 1700s, began in Philadelphia and wound
its way through the Pennsylvania towns of Lancaster, York, and Gettysburg; through
Hagerstown, Maryland; then to Winchester, Virginia, where it entered the Shenandoah
Valley. It carried the German and Scots-Irish
settlers to the Valley and, for those who wanted to go on, down the length of the
Appalachian Mountains to North Carolina and Georgia. Towns sprang up as enterprising
settlers stopped to build taverns, inns, merchandise stores, and blacksmith shops for
those who would follow.
After the Revolutionary War, the area west of
the Appalachians began to open up to settlers. A new road
took shape, branching off from the Great Wagon Road at Big Lick (later Roanoke), Virginia
and heading south and west to Tennessee and, through the Cumberland Gap to Kentucky and
Indiana. This was the
route followed by my Shenandoah ancestors.
"Pioneer Routes"
"Early settlers of Kentucky [and
southern Indiana] generally took one of two major routes: the northern route along the
Ohio River [e.g. the Hiram Hopper family] or the southern route through the
Wilderness Gap and its many tributary branches [Summers, Utz, and Baker families] into
the eastern and central regions of Kentucky. [NOTE: the author here is referring to
the Wilderness Road that crossed the Cumberland Gap between Virginia and
Kentucky/Tennessee.] Both points of entry into the Kentucky wilderness were also
important stops on existing trails that may have been used by local wildlife and Native
Americans. In large part, the establishment of pioneer stations and forts took place along
these pre-existing trails.1
The southern Wilderness Road Route was taken by a majority of pioneers who came to
Kentucky through the Cumberland Gap along the famous Wilderness Road from Virginia through
the Appalachian Mountains. The Gap was critical in the settlement of the West
because it was the only natural route through the Appalachian Mountains. As a result, the
Wilderness Trail continued to be an important route for settlers moving west until the
Civil War. Of the approximately 400,000 pioneers who traveled west before 1800, it is
estimated that three quarters of them used the Cumberland Gap route. 2
And while those settlers originated from as far north as Pennsylvania, the majority came
from Virginia and North Carolina.
"Gateway to the
West"
Painting by Kentucky artist DAVID
WRIGHT depicting Daniel Boone leading
pioneers through the Cumberland Gap along the Wilderness Road
In frontier times, the Wilderness Road was a southern loop for connecting pioneer roads
reaching from the Potomac River in Virginia to the falls of the Ohio River in western
Kentucky. [NOTE: The "Falls of the Ohio River" lies between Louisville,
Kentucky and Floyd County, Indiana]. The portion of the road from Kingsport, Tennessee
to the bluegrass regions of Kentucky that gave the road its name was no more than a
narrow, difficult, hazardous trail winding over mountains. From 1775 to 1796 this segment
of the road was nothing more than a horsepath. No wagon passed over it during that period
of time when more than 200,000 people made their way into Kentucky and beyond. [NOTE:
our ancestors made this 550 mile trek after 1800 when travel was slightly easier.
Nonetheless, Grandmother Susie Ott reveled in passing on stories that had been handed down
from two generations prior about the dangers of Indian raids and hearing the screams of
catamounts (similar to what we know as mountain lions today) as our ancestors made camp at
night during their migration from Virginia.] It continued as an important feeder
thoroughfare for the western settlements until the Civil War.3"
1. O'Malley, Nancy, Stockading Up, Lexington, Kentucky: University Press, 1987.
2. and 3. Kincaid, Robert L. The Wilderness Road, New York: Bobbs Merrill
Company, 1947.
From "WESTWARD MOVEMENT: The
Kentucky Microcosm" by Roseann Reinemuth Hogan, Ph.D. in the July/August 2000 issue
of ANCESTRY MAGAZINE, from Ancestry.com
ADDITIONAL NOTE: This artical discusses the migrations of settlers who were already in the
United States prior to the move. Many immigrants from Europe who settled in western
Kentucky and southern Indiana, such as the family of Johann Roth, arrived in this country
at New Orleans, Louisiana, then travelled by riverboat up the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers.
********************************
********************************
The following are excerpts from an informal
Family History written by Jacob L. Summers, grandson of David Summers, in 1929 when Jacob
was 79 years old. Most of the information was passed down through the generations,
therefore some of the dates are not quite accurate.
The first story describes the arrival of Jacob Summers, the author's great-grandfather, in
Floyd County Indiana. Again, the author did not have the benefit of accurate records
regarding dates.
"JACOB SUMMERS, son of John Summers,
...was born in Augusta County, Virginia, about the year 1760 and moved to Georgetown,
Floyd County, Indiana in the year 1816. He crossed the Ohio River where New Albany
now stands. At that time, where New Albany stands, was a heavy beech forest with a small
cluster of log cabins in a swampy marsh. He, in company with the small colony who came
with them, travelled the old Government trail laid out from New Albany to Jasper in Dubois
County. They wound their way over the knobs [steep tree-covered hills
approaching the size of small mountains, known as "bluffs" in other parts of the
country] by way of Edwardsville west to Georgetown where they settled and lived there
the rest of his life. He was a blacksmith and gunsmith and followed his trade there for
many years." [NOTE: other families in the
party included the Engleman, Baker, and Yenowine/Yenawine families.]
The second story concerns David Summers, the author's grandfather, who was the oldest son
of Jacob Summers and Christiana Venis. David had married Sarah Engleman in 1830 when he
was 22 years of age and she was just 14. They eventually had a total of thirteen children;
it is not known how many had been
born when this event took place.
"During the gold excitement in
California in 1840 he joined a company equipped with ox teams, muskets, flint lock rifles,
and such other necessities as required. They took up their line of march and started for
the gold fields in California. This adventure proved a failure with many that made
the long and tedious journey - their findings being very limited. They sold their
belongings and prepared to return to Indiana as best they could. DAVID SUMMERS had
saved his findings sufficient to take passage on an old sail vessel and sailed from San
Francisco to New Orleans. This proved to be a tedious journey as the old ship would lay in
a calm for days at a time scarcely moving a ship's length in 24 hours - during this time
their fresh water supply became almost exhausted and the passengers were limited to one
pint of water in 24 hours and that had been stored in casks in the hull for four years
when finally they landed at Jamaica island and took on a supply of fresh water. In about
six weeks from starting they landed safely in New Orleans. He then took passage up
the Mississippi - then up the Ohio River to Leavenworth and walked from there to his farm
two miles north of Milltown on Blue River."
The third story concerns the Engleman family who
had been closely associated with the Summers and Utz families long before they left the
Shenandoah Valley in Virginia for their new home in Indiana. The author includes two
interesting pieces about John Engleman, Sarah Engleman's grandfather, which together make
an excellent "rags-to-riches" story.
"In an early day Germany had her
large national Parks that abounded with wild game and it was a custom to set apart a
certain day to hunt in these parks. Nobody was allowed to carry fire arms except the
noblemen and lords. The peasantry were drafted to drive game but not allowed to kill any.
John was a peasant and on one of these occasions concealed an old pistol which he hid in
his possession and during the drive came in close range of a deer and killed it. Realizing
the atrocity of his crime he drug the deer beside a log, covered it with rubbish and
sought his
passage into America."
"...(He) came from Germany in time of the Revolutionay War and fought in the
Revolution under General Lafayette. He and the General became warm friends and in the time
Lafayette's sister came over from France and in course of time she and John Engleman were
married."
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The following account was found in the book
"GENEALOGY OF THE BAKER FAMILY" by Robert Helsley Baker.
"He [Heironymus
BECKER/BAKER] was Elder of St. Pauls Lutheran Church, Strasburg, Va., and signed the
Deed received from Lord Fairfax in 1771 for the church farm at Capon Road, known as the
Glebe Farm. He sponsored a number of infants in baptism. On 8-6-1770 he and his older
brother Phillip each contributed 8 shillings on the subscription list. Heronymus'
signature can be seen on a church record that he signed on 8-1-1778 at the Lutheran
parsonage in Strasburg. There is a photostatic copy at the parsonage. Some of the records
were in German."
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A family story passed down through the
generations describes the murder of a Baker ancestor in
Germany before the family came to America. According to the story, one evening a man
came to
the ancestor's home, and asked our ancestor to take him by boat to a downstream location.
Our ancestor never returned, and was found dead in his boat the following day. The story
also includes
a family member with the name Reese. No information concerning this account could be
found,
nor was the name "Reese" found in any historical documents from Germany
associated with the Baker family. Professor Daniel Bly, in his book "FROM THE
RHINE TO THE SHENANDOAH", documents that in 1778, Alexander Stockslager, the
father of Esther (Stockslager) Baker, died
"...as the result of foul play" in Shenandoah County, Virginia, under
circumstances nearly
identical to the family legend. Two men arrested for his murder but both were acquitted.
Prof. Bly's
account goes on to say that Alexander's widow Ester (Keller) Stockslager later married a
man
named Joel Reese. It is therefore likely that this Virginia murder is the correct version
of the family legend that was inadvertently modified as it was passed from generation to
generation.
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After arriving in Indiana, Jacob and
Christiana Summers established their farm in the southwest corner of Greenville Township
in Floyd County. They were actually located closer to the community of Georgetown than
they were to Greenville proper. At some point after settling there, Jacob
donated a portion of his land to be used for the new St. John's Lutheran Church. Jacob and
Christiana are buried in the church cemetery. As of 2002, St. John's is now a Pentecostal
Church,
and Jacob's grave could not be found. Christina's headstone can still be seen directly
behind the current church building. (Recent information provided by another Summers
descendant in Indiana
states that Jacob's grave is located next to Christiana's, but the stone is gone and the
gravesite is
overgrown with weeds and grass.)
During the Civil War, one of the few incursions made by Confederate troops into Union
territory
took place when a Colonel John Morgan and his small band of Rebel troops advanced
through Kentucky, then crossed the Ohio River and raided portions of Harrison and Floyd
Counties in Indiana. After a few skirmishes, the majority of Morgan's troops were captured
and the threat was ended. The following excerpts from the "HISTORY OF THE OHIO
FALLS COUNTIES" provides an interesting insight into this relatively minor episode.
"Among the oldest churches in this part of the county is the St. John's Lutheran
Church, as it is called, located on Richland Creek, near the southern line of the township
(Greenville). A Lutheran organization was erected here prior to 1820, among the
organizers being the following pioneers: . . . Jacob Summers and family, Jacob Engleman
and family, Jacob Yenowine, John Engleman, John Burkhart, .... Rev. Glenn was their
minister. He was a stern old Christian, but a man of a good deal more courage than
prudence. When John Morgan made his raid through here, he happened to march past the
door of the old clergyman. The latter was so incensed that he did not or could not
restrain his passions. He stood in his door and raved and stormed at the rebel
raiders, and, upon some slight provocation, took down his gun and shot one of them.
This very indiscreet and it would seem, under the circumstances, almost criminal act
brought upon the old Unionist the vengeance of Morgan's command. No sooner had he
shot the soldier than he was himself shot in his own door, and instantly killed. Not
only this, but the rebels burned his house and barn, and destroyed and carried off all
that was valuable on the premises."
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 |
Charles (Carl)
Ott was born about 1825, the son of Walburga Ott and the great-great-grandson of Joachim
Ott and his first wife Maria Catherina Wigand. His mother was a single young woman when
Charles was born, but when Charles was about twelve years old she married Anton Kiefer.
The family settled in the village of Zell, Baden. Walburga died in 1849, and soon
thereafter a serious disagreement arose between Charles and his stepfather. Although the
details are not known, Charles found it prudent to leave Baden in 1853 without receiving
official permission to do so. He arrived in New Orleans late that year. Family legend says
that he walked from New Orleans to Blount County in eastern Tennessee where he married and
began to raise a family.
He was among a handful of eastern Tennessee settlers whose sympathies
remained with the North during the Civil War, and he served in the 2nd |
Tennessee Volunteers in the Union Army. He and his wife Mary (Wolf)
had eight children.
He died in Knox County, Tennessee in 1904. Many of Charles' descendants are still living
in the Knoxville area.
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