“From These Roots We Came”

Since our ancestors generally married someone who lived in the same geographical area as them, it is not unusual to find several ancestral surname lines living in the same area at the same time. One of my third great grandmothers on my paternal grandfather’s side, Magdalena Supplee [every one has eight third great grandmothers and eight third great grandfathers for each of their grandparents], brought with her heritage many of our ancestors that settled in the Philadelphia area. Most of these were from Germany, with a few from Holland and France.

Shortly after Magdalena Supplee married Thomas Smith Taylor in 1781 in Pennsylvania, they moved to Virginia. Their first child, Joseph Taylor was born there. By the time the next in our ancestral line was born (Ruth Taylor-my 3rd great grandmother), they were living in Jefferson County, Ohio. From there our ancestral lines made the pilgrimage through Ohio, Indiana, Alabama, Georgia, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and California. Our particular branch remained in Alabama and Georgia while others moved on.

Both of Magdalena’s parents were from the Germantown and Greater Philadelphia area. Her immediate ancestors were among the earliest settlers in Germantown. On her father’s side were the surnames Supplee (Souplis), Stackhouse, De Haven (In Den Haven), Leverings, Schibhower, and Bokers. On her mother’s side were the surnames Zimmerman, Schaal, Van Fossen, and Sellen. Each will be mentioned below with some of the details of the roles they played in the newly evolving society in the Philadelphia area. These families were generally not strangers to one another, but had frequent interaction, as witnessed by the eventual intermarriages among the families.

Not only was Philadelphia important historically in the formation of the United States, but prior to the Revolution, the city was a major port of entry into the then British Colonies.

William Penn, who established Pennsylvania, had been to the Rhine Valley in Germany in 1681 to recruit immigrants to his new colony. The first group to respond to his invitation were Mennonites from Krefeld, Germany. They arrived in Philadelphia on the ship Concord in October of 1683. Many of these ended up in Germantown, Pennsylvania (today primarily a neighborhood in Philadelphia).

Fancis Daniel Pastorius, in 1683, was commissioned by the Frankfort Land Company and a group of merchants from Krefield, Germany to form a settlement in America. Pastorius, who had joined the Pietists (a religious sect), planned to create the settlement in Pennsylvania, and through the above mentioned company and merchants, purchased fifteen thousand acres in Pennsylvania. This purchase became what was known as Germantown, Pennsylvania. Ultimately, 5700 acres, granted to Daniel Pastorius for himself and for the German and Dutch purchasers, whom he represented, became the German Township.

Pastorius converted to Penn’s Quaker faith and became one of its foremost proponents. He led the settlement of Germantown as a settlement of Quakers and Mennonites. This settlement began on June 20, 1683. The settlement’s expansion continued with the Mennonites from Krefeld that arrived in October of 1683, only a few months after Germantown’s beginning.

When the township was divided for allotment to individual purchasers, one of our ancestors, Andreas Souplis, became owner of a thirty-nine acre lot with a 239 foot frontage on what is now Germantown Avenue. It is known that he was a resident in 1689. Andreas Souplis ((Ahnentafel 1264 - Generation 11) was a Huguenot who was born in 1634 in Alsace Lorraine, France and had served in the French Army as an officer.

He left France in 1683 under the reign of Louis XIV and his large scale persecution of the Huguenots, going first to Germany and then to the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area. This was just prior to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes which occurred in 1685.

The period of persecution of Huguenots had been going on already for over a hundred years. There had been a period of eighty-seven years, under the Edict of Nantes, in which the Huguenots were “officially” allowed to practice their faith. When Henry IV became ruler, he signed the Edict of Nantes on April 13, 1598, ending the Wars of Religion and establishing 20 specified French “free” cities where the Huguenots were allowed to practice their faith. In reality, the persecution never ceased. Even the official support soon ended upon the murder in 1610 of Henry IV. At that time the Catholics, under Cardinal Richelieu, began a siege of the Huguenot free cities which resulted in their last stronghold of La Rochelle falling to Richelieu in 1629. Widespread persecution of the Huguenots again began in earnest and under Louis XIV (1643-1715), the Edict of Nantes was finally revoked on the 22nd of October, 1685. Louis XIV stated a policy of “one faith (Catholicism) , one law, and one king” and the end result was the destruction and burning of Protestant churches and homes, and many Huguenots being burned at the stake.

Andreas Souplis’s first wife was Anneckie (surname unknown), and she is believed to be the mother of all of his children. His children were born in Germantown, Pennsylvania in the 1680’s. After Anneckie died, he married Gertrude Stressinger. Andreas was naturalized in July of 1691 and became Sheriff of Germantown that same year (1). He was a weaver by trade.

There was a strong protestant background among all of these Germans, many who left due to either religious persecution or seeking a greater freedom of religion from the established Lutheran church. One of these Heinrich (Henry) Sellen (Ahn 2550, 12th Generation), nineteen years of age at the time, emigrated in 1685 along with 69 others from Krefeld, Germany to Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is believed that the Sellen (also Cellen/Cell/Zell) surname began with a group of Monks who left a Monastery in Kampen, the Netherlands, and later became leaders in the Lutheran church and in the Protestant Reformation. This group of Monks were called Cellebroederpoorst (poor Cell brothers) and hence the derivation of the names Cell/Zell/Sellen. [link to the history page on ancestry.com for Henry]

Heinrich Sellen shows up as buying and selling numerous properties in Germantown over his lifetime. He was a prosperous person who at various times was an attorney, an oil miller, and a businessman. He was also a generous man. In September of 1714, he deeded land to establish the first Mennonite Church in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Prior to that the Mennonites had been meeting in private houses. The first deeding of land for a church was actually delivered to John Neus and Henry Sellen (on behalf of the church), on February the 10th, 1702-03 by Arnold Van Fossen, another of our ancestors. It was this land (and additional land) that was deeded directly to the church by Heinrich (Henry) on September 6, 1714 (2).

Arnold Van Fossen (Ahn 1274, 11th Generation), was also a Mennonite who had been born in Krefeld, Germany about 1665. He is reported to have emigrated at the age of 35 years of age from Hamburg-Altona, Germany to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on May 3, 1700 (3). Although he was a year older than Heinrich, Arnold later married Heinrich’s daughter, Mary Elizabeth Sellen (Ahn 1275, 11th Generation). Their daughter Sibella Van Fossen (Ahn 637 - 10th Generation) who married Jacob Christopher Zimmerman (Ahn 636 - 10th Generation), became another link in our ancestry.

Johann Jacob Zimmerman (Ahn 1272 - Generation 11 and father of Jacob Christopher Zimmerman), whose wife and family members are tied very closely to Germantown, Pennsylvania, never actually made it to Pennsylvania. His unique life is worthy of its own story. I have written an entire essay on his life and influence, entitled: “Johanan Jacob Zimmerman: Reformation, Pietism, and the Apocalypse”.

Johann Jacob was an astronomer, astrologer, mathematician, Lutheran clergyman, and most significant historically, one of the leaders of the German “Pietist” movement. He believed that the end of the world was coming in 1694 and prepared a group of believers to head to the “New World” to wait for Christ’s coming. He died the day before the group was to leave, but because of his plans and their journey to America, his children became the progenitors of our existence. Because they were, we are!!

His wife, Maria Margaretha Schall, (Ahn 1273-Generation 11), their daughter Maria Margaretha, and three sons, Philip Christian, Matthaeus, and Jakob Christian (Ahn 636, Generation 10); continued the trip to Germantown after Johann Jacob’s death, with the rest of the group. Johann’s granddaughter Mary Zimmerman (Ahn 159-Generation Eight), would be the first Zimmerman to enter into our ancestral line.

Another of the prominent families of the area was John Wigard Levering’s family (Ahn 1270 - Generation 11). He and his brother, Gerhard Levering, were the only children of their father Rosier Levering who chose to come to America. Wigard Levering arranged a contract with the Frankfort Company, to emigrate to the Philadelphia area. It was agreed that they would transport Wigard Levering, his brother Gerhard, Wigard’s wife Magdalena, and their four children, Anna Catherine, William, Amelia, and Sibella, from either Holland or England to Pennsylvania. They emigrated to America in 1685, arriving on the ship Penn’s Woodland from Holland. They, like many of the other families in the area were Huguenots, and the openness of religious practices in the colonies appealed to them. Levering family traditions say that Rosier, their father, was a physician, and a pious man who had belonged to the Reformed Church in France. This explains why Rosier, like Andreas Souplis, had left his native France to go to another nearby country. In his case, he had gone to Germany. It was there that Wigard was born. In his own words, he said:

“I, Wigard Levering, was born in Germany, in the Prinicipality of Westphalia, in the District of of Munster, and town of Gemen. My father’s name was Rosier Levering, and my mother’s maiden name was Elizabeth Van de Walle, who was born in Wesel. In the twenty-third year of my age, I, Wigard Levering, was married to my beloved wife, Magdalena Boker. Her father’s name was William Boker, and her mother’s name was Sidonia Williams Braviers, of the city of Leyden, in Holland. The above said Magdalena, my wife, was also born in Leyden, and God hath blessed us with the following children . . . . (4)“

Upon his arrival, Wigard settled in Germantown, Philadelphia where the Frankfort Company in August of 1685 conveyed 50 acres of land to him. He stayed there until about 1691, when he bought five hundred acres of land to the West in nearby Roxborough township. He lived the rest of his life in that location with his family until his death.

Both Andreas Souplis and Wigard Levering (two of Magdalena Supplee’s great, great, grandfathers) were naturalized at the same time on the 7th of May 1691. This was two weeks to the day after his daughter, Sidonia Levering (Ahn 635-Generation 10) was born.

Twenty years later, Sidonia marries Peter De Haven (Ahn 634-Generation 10), bringing another Germantown family name into our lineage. Peter was born on the 5th of December, 1685 in Mulheim-Am-Ruhr, Germany, the fifth child of Evert In Den Hauven (Anh 1268-Generation 11) and Leisbeth Schiphower/Schibbauer (Ahn 1269-Gen 11). Evert and his wife emigrated to Germantown by 1698, at which time their earliest known residence in Germantown was recorded.

Evert, like most of the German immigrants, was a religious man. He is said to have been Ruling Elder at the Skippack German Reformed church in 1706 and was active in more than one church. In 1710 he, his wife, and his children appeared in the old Bensalem History of the Presbyterian Church. He was also an Elder in the Whitemarsh township church.

Peter De Haven lived a long life, dying in 1768 at the age of 82. Andrew Johanson (5), in a speech given in August of 2004 concerning the founding father’s of Boehm’s Church said that he saw a stone marker in the church yard with the dates for Peter De Haven as: born March 12, 1668 and died May 23, 1768, making him 100 years of age at death. This is likely a reversal of numbers, for Peter was born on December 3, 1685/1686, according to most records. His parents were married on May 21, 1675, eight years after the supposed stone marker date, and Peter was their fifth child..

Peter’s daughter, Magdalena De Haven ( Ahn 317-Generation 9), became the next link in our ancestry. Magdalena’s brother Peter (1722-1816) ran gun factories and powder mills in Pennsylvania during the Revolutionary War and supposedly provided hay for the animals of George Washington’s troops.

I have attempted to show some of the history of the early emigrants to Germantown, Pennsylvania who became our ancestors. Some were “famous” and some not so famous, but all lived an interesting life, and helped to make our country what it is today.

Conclusion

Some might ask why we should even be interested in these ancestors who came to America some three hundred years ago to Germantown, Pennsylvania. For me, they go back ten to twelve generations. For my children and grandchildren, they go back even further in history.

The easiest answer is that of all the thousands of ancestors going back thousands of years, each was important to our existence. As I have previously stated, “Because they were, we are!!” If any one of these individuals had not existed, none of us or our family members would be here today.

We have been influenced genetically, culturally, and in our religious beliefs because of these ancestral links. May we learn from their history, repeating the “good” and avoiding the “bad” which accompanied them in their journey through life.

Notes:

(1) Part of the information on the Souplis/Supplee line was sent to me by Ginger Hoffman on 4/27/1996, and came originally from an article entitled: “A Supplee Line of Descent”, Pennsylvania German Magazine, January, 1911. Additional data has been gathered and verified since that time.

(2) “Ancient & Modern Germantown, Mount Airy and Chestnut Hill”, page 534.

(3) “Krefeld in Amerika” by Alois Neisner

(4) This quote is from a section called “FAMILY REGISTER OF WIGARD LEVERING” at the internet site:

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~janet/Levering.html

(5) http://www.icasinc.org/2004/2004m/2004mahj.html

Research Links:

Huguenots

The National Huguenot Society
The Huguenot Society of America
Huguenot Society of Georgia
Huguenot Society of South Carolina
The Huguenot Society of Great Britain & Ireland
The Huguenot Society of Florida
Cyndi’s List: Huguenot

Germantown (Philadelphia) Pennsylvania

The Life of Francis Daniel Pastorius:the founder of Germantown

© 2008 by E. Lamar Ross and Infopreneur Publishers, LLC.