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“Jacob Brumbaugh (1726-1799), A Washington County Dunker Farmer & Patriot of the Revolution”

Thursday, October 9, 2025, @ 6:00 – 7:30 pm when Norman Donoghue will speak

At Washington County Free Library, 100 Potomac Street, Hagerstown, MD 21740

Come find out why and how a member of the German Baptist Brethren pacifist sect became a “Patriot” of the American Revolution, recognized as such by Daughters of the American Revolution and the Society of Sons of the American Revolution. Dunkers refused to bear arms or to take an oath of allegiance. Their faith pledged to do violence to no man.

For questions, call the Free Library in Hagerstown, 301-739-3250.

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Results of Archeological Dig at Brumbaugh-Kendal-Grove Homestead

Maryland Historical Trust Will Report Soon on Results of Archeological Dig at Brumbaugh-Kendal-Grove Homestead Located in Washington County—

Issues 33-Page Background Essay on Jacob Brumbaugh’s Home Farm

The background history 1752-1997 of the home farm “Clayland’s Contrivance Resurveyed” of Johann Jacob Brumbaugh (1726-1799) northeast of Hagerstown has been studied in detail prior to the issuance of an archeological report. The farm in 2010 had been listed as the Maryland Historical Trust’s #1 endangered historical site. Efforts to find a lessee for the buildings, the main house and a barn, who would put it to some adaptive reuse were unavailing. The buildings were destroyed before the pandemic and a contractor pursued an archeological dig on the site. It is likely that in the fall of 2025, a report will be issued on the results of the archeological dig. When it is received, we will report it here. Click Here to read.

The present report on the farm’s history updates our knowledge of Brumbaugh. It reveals that the date of his marriage to Mary Elizabeth Angle (Engle) was January 28, 1760. It adds that in addition to being a wheat farmer, distiller of whiskey, and weaver, Jacob was recognized as a wagonmaker. This is consistent with his large size and the fact that he served as a wagon master on the Braddock Expedition in 1754. The report also notes that during the American Revolution, he paid the county supply tax, another indicator of his patriotism despite his religious pacifism. Jacob has long been recognized as a Patriot under the rule of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) and Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) for contributing two blankets and selling grains to the local agent for the Continental Army.

Check periodically to learn the latest at my website. And please leave any comments or questions you have. Brumbaugh may be the only 18th century member of the German Baptist Brethren about whom we know his entire life story in some detail.

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A Biographical Sketch of

Johann Jacob Brumbaugh (1726-1799) From Original Research

Johann Jakob Brombach (1726-1799) was born February 8, 1726, in Osthelden, Siegen-Wittgenstein, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, the son of Jakob Brombach (1690-1738) and Anna Catharina Siebel (m. 1720), and he was baptized at Kreis Ferndorf. He died April 10, 1799, in Bedford County, Pennsylvania. His body was carried back to his home farm, Claylands Contrivance Resurveyed, north of Hagerstown, Washington County, Maryland, where he is buried in a family cemetery off route 10, where a black, wrought-iron fence protects his headstone in the middle of a cornfield. (The cornfield is owned by the Hagerstown Regional Airport and they are legally required by contract to continue to maintain the gated cemetery). In his new home, he became known as Jacob Brumbaugh, with various spellings used.

Jacob arrived at age 24 in Philadelphia on Capt. Thomas Coatam’s ship Nancy on Aug. 31, 1750, from Rotterdam via Cowes (an island in the English Channel). Family legend recorded is that he arrived with 50 pounds sterling in his pocket (which was a goodly sum, the equivalent of two years’ pay for a British soldier then). Prayer coventicles were prohibited in his homeland, and it is likely that he emigrated both for greater religious freedom as well as economic opportunity. He signed his name to take the oath of allegiance to the British king and to the colony established a century earlier by William Penn. From there, he sought inexpensive but fertile farmland and found it in then in Frederick County, Maryland, where, described as a “weaver,” he bought 50 acres in 1753, the beginning of his eventual 900-acre farm property. There he grew wheat, rye, barley, oats and other grains. Local records show that Jacob owned no slaves and grain farmers did not generally need them like tobacco farmers did. 

Part of his farm lay on the line which Mason & Dixon laid out in 1765 as the agreed-upon corrected boundary between the colonies of Pennsylvania and Maryland, which before 1765 had been in dispute.

Jacob married Mary Elizabeth Angle/Engel (b. c. 1740 of Henry Angle, dates unknown, an earlier German immigrant) who is recorded by some church historians as “the first convert to the German Baptist Brethren sect in western Maryland”; this marriage occurred sometime in the late 1750s when it is likely that settlers had to fall back East a few miles to avoid widespread Indian depredations during the French & Indian War. During that war, family legend, recorded later, notes that Jacob served as a “packman” on the Braddock Campaign of 1754 which marched close by his farm; and local records show that Jacob “quartered” soldiers on his farm and served as a “scout” for Jonathan Hager’s rangers during those years. (There are also multiple stories recorded in early 20th c. Brethren histories of Jacob Brumbaugh aiding Col. George Washington during that Campaign, but without any recorded evidence to support them. Evidence does reveal that Washington was injured at the same time as his batman was also injured and that Washington paid someone unnamed for a week’s nursing and that later Washington in correspondence acknowledged that Dunkers were especially proficient at healing arts.)

Jacob’s farm prospered and he and Elizabeth had at least seven children, all of whom survived to adulthood, married, and six of whom had their own children: Jacob Jr. (b.c. 1760) m. Catherine Rentch; Mary Elizabeth (c 1761) m. Samuel Ullery (a Dunker minister); John (c 1762) (also a Dunker minister) m. Mary Elizabeth Miller; Daniel (1772) m. Elizabeth Long; David Angle (1776) m. Anna Eve Kiessecker; Henry (1777) m. Margaret Rentch; and George (1783) m. Louisa Gelwicks (childless until they adopted a baby girl).

Around 1763 the local town Jonathan Hager had named after his late wife, Elizabeth town, was formally recognized. It prospered and was only later in the early nineteenth century that the town became known as Hagerstown.

Johann Jacob was over 50 years old in May 1776 at the time of the revolutionary war and the draft age was 16-50 then in Maryland, so he was exempt on account of his age. He gave over his “gun” as he was instructed, to Capt. Cellars. When blankets were collected for the army, he gave 2 blankets—these actions are recorded in the minutes for 1776 of the committee of observation of Elizabeth town; and later in the war, he sold grains to Henry Schnebely, the local agent for the Continental Army as is shown in a receipt of 1780. All these actions were later in about 1912 deemed by Daughters of the American Revolution (as well as the Sons of ….SAR) as actions qualifying Jacob as a “Patriot”; therefore, his descendants can qualify for membership in these organizations. As Jacob was a member or supportive of the Church of the Brethren (then called “Dunkers”), which was devoutly pacifist, we have the rare, but not unheard-of, occurrence of a pacifist as patriot. His sons Jacob Jr. and John both paid fines in Dec. 1776 indicating that they were both then of military age and pacifist Dunkers.

Jacob’s and two his eldest sons’ non-participation in the revolutionary war never seemed to have unduly disadvantaged the Brumbaughs as it did many pacifists who were fined, publicly shamed, punished, ignored commercially, had their livestock and furniture distrained to pay fines and otherwise severely disadvantaged. This did not occur to Jacob, and he and his family prospered in the post-war period. They prospered so much that Jacob seemed to have a mission in the 1780s & ‘90s to buy up as much farmland as he could in a pacifists’ paradise called “Morrison’s Cove,” a fertile valley in Bedford County, Pennsylvania, about 80 miles northwest of Hagerstown where other Dunkers and Mennonites lived. He bought there 12 farms of aggregate acreage of about 3,000 acres. Land speculation was then rampant. It is likely that Jacob was thinking ahead to his children’s inheritance and determined to see that they had farmland enough on which to make a living. Today, there is in the Cove a Brumbaugh Mountain and a main road called Brumbaugh Road. (Numerous members of both lines of Brumbaughs discussed in this sketch lived at some point in the Cove).

Three of the farms so purchased were bought from Henry and Elizabeth Drinker, an elite, wealthy Quaker merchant couple in Philadelphia. There is correspondence between Jacob and Henry in Henry Drinker’s archives at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Also, in 1803 Jacob Jr. traveled to Philadelphia to pay off the final balance of a mortgage on one of the properties, and on Aug. 23, 1803 he was invited in to breakfast with the Drinkers (as recorded in page 1677 of volume 3 of Elizabeth Drinker’s nearly 50-year diary published by Northeastern University Press in 1991) to complete that transaction. Drinker had a leaning toward selling to German pacifists on the belief that they worked hard and were better credit risks.

The other action Jacob Brumbaugh took in the post-war period was to operate two copper stills for distilling grains into whiskey. Jacob was a fairly major distiller when he died with over 450 gallons of whiskey in the inventory of his estate. When the administrators of the state held the public auction a couple months later, they sold only 270 gallons, leaving 80 gallons to be consumed at the auction by the 75 people who attended the 2-day affair. No doubt, a good time was had by all. Although Brethren congregations often admonished their members not to drink alcohol to excess, particularly at estate auctions, many did so anyway. Among the inventory items were “a Table and 16 benches” “up Stairs” in the barn.  This is usually regarded as an indication that he held “home Church” on the second floor as Dunkers often did. There were no guns or muskets among the inventory, another indication of pacifism. There were “12 old books” indicating some level of literacy. The son Jacob Jr., however, indicated in his correspondence with a creditor that he had had the local schoolmaster write the letter, so the level of literacy was likely not too high in the earliest Brumbaughs. There were also no slaves recorded as part of the inventory; Brethren admonished their congregation not to own slaves.

Philadelphia Quaker merchant Henry Drinker described Jacob in a letter to a correspondent in Maryland as “a bearded German,” the only physical description ever found of Jacob, and many bearded Germans then were sectarians like Jacob.

If one of Jacob Brumbaugh’s goals in emigrating to America had been to work hard to achieve the most he could achieve in an agricultural environment, he had succeeded. If one of his goals was to found a large family on a firm footing with ample land and wealth to provide a sure financial base for his offspring, he had also succeeded at that. One of the goals of Brethren folk was to turn out ample population for the local congregation of the Brethren church. In this effort Jacob had partial success as his eldest three children, Jacob Jr. married to a Dunker, Mary Elizabeth (the only daughter) married a Dunker minister, and John also served as a Dunker minister, were ready to keep the modest numbers of the faith thriving, though his other children affiliated themselves with other churches, in the mainstream of Protestant denominations, mostly determined by the faith of their wives.

Jacob died intestate meaning without a will. His eldest son, Jacob Jr. and his wife served as co-administrators. They had a Maryland and a Pennsylvania estate to settle. The estate settlement was completed amicably over about five years. We have a copy of the inventory of tangible personal property in Maryland and it contains no enslaved individuals, no firearms, lots of whiskey and a broad assortment of farm implements and whiskey distilling equipment. A public auction was held in June 1799 at which all these items were disposed of. The land tracts were distributed equitably among the seven children and Henry got the family farm which he worked until 1754 when he sold it. The total estate exceeded in value $12,000 which made him a relatively wealthy farmer and immigrant. His wife died in 1806.

This pacifist had been an immigrant, a Patriot in his adopted country, a husband and father and grandfather, a Dunker, a farmer and distiller, and a success at nearly all his endeavors. When he died in Morrison’s Cove, Bedford County, Pennsylvania in April 1799, his family carried the body back to his home farm, Claylands Contrivance Resurveyed in Elizabeth Hundred, Washington County (the first, in September 1776, of nearly sixty counties and cities to be named after our first president), Maryland [FindaGrave memorial # FaG 158346036]. Washington himself died in December of that year and he too had been a grain farmer and, in his last few years, an even larger distiller of whiskey than Brumbaugh.

Jacob Brumbaugh’s home, built in the 1750s, was long the #1 “most endangered historical property” in Maryland according to the Maryland Historic Trust, but the property on which it sits has been owned by the Airport for several decades and the old building was recently torn down by the Airport. Some artefacts may be housed at the Maryland Historic Trust. The house was listed “for its connection with the early settlement of Washington County.” Maryland Historical Trust Inventory (WA-I-480). 

Note Bene: There were at least 5 Jacob Brumbaughs during this Jacob’s time and even more came later. Untangling them is sometimes a chore and leads people astray in assuming the person they are researching is one Jacob and not another. First, this Jacob (1726-1799). He had, second, his son, Jacob Jr. (1760-1814)[FaG 211261461] [(FaG = Find-a-Grave.com Memorial #]. Third was Jacob called “Jockel” Brumbaugh (1734-1816)[FaG 158674715], a son of Johannes Henrich Brumbaugh, about whom little factual detail is known. Jockel had a fourth Jacob, his son Johann Jacob Brumbaugh Kemper (1764-1848)[FaG 38598071] and siblings Georg called “Yarrick”, Conrad, and John (also known as Johannes der Strumpf Weber = “John the stocking weaver”). Each sibling had a large family of 8-15 children and many repeated the names Jacob, John, George, etc. in ensuing generations including a fifth Jacob, Georg’s son Jacob C. Brumbaugh (1797-1871)[FaG 12311831]. We believe that Johannes Henrich Brumbaugh was either a brother or a cousin of Jacob Brumbagh-1, but definite documentary proof is hard to come by. Evidence has recently surfaced to indicate that Johannes Heinrich was born 2 miles from Osthelden where Jacob was born.

Martin Grove Brumbaugh, Ph.D. (1862-1930), an educator of renown and governor of Pennsylvania, as well as a Brethren bishop, and Gaius Marcus Brumbaugh (1862-1952), a physician and esteemed genealogist who wrote the book on Genealogy of the Brumbaugh Families in America, were descended from Johannes Henrich Brumbaugh (no known dates), a contemporary of Jacob’s in the same area. Both men served with distinction long terms as board members and MGB as president of Juniata College.

(Sources: Gaius Marcus Brumbaugh, Genealogy of the Brumbaugh Families in America (1913) which was unable to determine Jacob’s birthplace but generously reproduced deeds and much other primary source material; Report on Johann Jacob Brumbaugh by Anne Augspurger Schmidt-Lange, certified genealogist (German born), 2014, based on LDS microfiche of German birth registers; Deed records of Washington County, Maryland, and Franklin County and Bedford County, Pennsylvania; Scharf, History of Western Maryland; histories of the German Baptist Brethren of Maryland by J. Maurice Henry (1937) and Freeman Ankrum (1961); estate papers of Washington County, Maryland; tax lists of these counties; Minutes of the Committee of Observation of Elizabeth town district, 1776-77; Crane, The Diary of Elizabeth Drinker (1991); Henry Drinker archive at Historical Society of PA, Phila.; numerous other primary and secondary sources- for more see JacobBrumbaugh.com, a blog kept by Norman E. “Ned” Donoghue II,  author of Prisoners of Congress: Philadelphia’s Quakers in Exile, 1777-1778 (Penn State University Press, 2023), mail address: ned21@mac.com). Some have suggested that this biographical sketch may be the only complete life sketch of an 18th c. member of the German Baptist Brethren sect.

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What Jacob Looked Like

Jacob bought land tracts from Phialdelphia Quaker merchant Henry Drinker. In Henry’s correspondence with a lawyer in Maryland, useful for collecting payments from the Brumbaughs, Henry had occasion to describe Jacob Brumbaugh using these words: he is “a bearded German.” This is the only contemporary description of Jacob Brumbaugh, possibly from Henry’s first-hand meeting, but more likely as described to Henry by his real estate agent in Bedford County. German Baptist Brethren adult males (like Mennonite adult males) were required as a religious duty not to shave their facial hair. This description of Jacob by Henry endeared Henry to me as there are no other contemporary descriptions of how Jacob looked.

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The Brumbaughs Likely Inherited Early in their History an Intensity in their Religious Passions- My Brumbaugh Lineage

Recently, I commissioned research on what circumstances Johann Jacob Brumbach/Brumbaugh (1726-99) left behind when he emigrated in 1750 from his village of origin in Osthelden, district Krumbach, Ferndorff Lutheran parish, Nassau-Siegen in the principality of Westphalia, German lands of the Holy Roman Empire. For this task, I selected LegacyTree Genealogists of Salt Lake City, an excellent firm which has both remote and on-site services and personnel. They had already done well other research projects for me, and an experienced German genealogist completed the Brumbach research. The result was a “Research Report [Norman Donoghue by LegacyTree, Brumbach2109-2012875 – 22 April 2022]” complete with sources in footnotes and I am drawing heavily upon that report for this my own report on the family heritage.

                                    Religious Activity 

The most prominent conclusion of the above report is that while Johann Jacob Brumbaugh was baptized in 1726 in the Lutheran parish of Ferndorff, of which his village of Osthelden was part, the village of Schwarzenau, the site of historic origin of a Pietist movement, was close by and had adherents present in his native village of Osthelden (literally “East slope”), a village of less than 175 persons. It was all in a rural, heavily forested area. It was less that 20 miles away where Alexander Mack and the other leaders of the German Baptist Brethren sect gathered in 1708 before they emigrated through Amsterdam to Philadelphia in 1719 to rural Pennsylvania and Maryland where at the time of the American Revolution, about 1,000 Brethren worshipped in rural “house churches” in barns equipped with several benches (Jacob died owning 15 benches found in the barn as part of his inventory). This later led to modest sized plain buildings being erected near brooks and streams for their three times forward, full body immersion in flowing water for their baptismal practices. Many local, reform-minded worshipers had gathered in home-based conventicles in Siegerland to avoid being discovered and persecuted by the majority. They sought to return to the simplicity and purity of early Christianity but were treated harshly by local Protestant church authorities. 

The first evidence of Pietist conventicles in the Krumbach area dates to 1739 when a “follower of the Pietist movement wrote a polemical letter [unsigned] to the Krombach pastor Achenbach.” (p. 14). Those opposing this trend called the Pietist sectarians “enthusiasts” or “separatists.” In March 1740, the church elders “discussed how the Separatists should be kept ‘in check’” and worried about “suspicious gatherings” (p. 15). If caught, such persons would be lectured about “spreading erroneous opinions.” The Ferndorf pastor Denhardt also “reported a strong Schwarmerei [bee hive?]” in his parish (p. 15). Alexander Mack (1679-1735) had organized and founded in 1708 his Brethren group of seven radical Pietists in Schwarzenau. They “believed Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed churches were taking extreme liberties with the true, pure message of Christianity as revealed in the New Testament” (pp. 15-16). Also among the neighbors of the Brumbachs in Germany were Mennonites who had emigrated north from Switzerland. These people had a very similar devotion to building a life around the model of early Christianity and practiced agricultural methods at the time which were advanced. They, too, would emigrate to Pennsylvania in search of religious freedom and a place to pursue successfully and in peace an agricultural life.  

Jacob emigrated with a significant sum of money, 50 pounds Sterling (the equivalent of two years’ pay to a British soldier at the time), so this leads one to believe that he had not emigrated primarily for economic reasons, but perhaps for reasons of greater religious liberty, while greater economic opportunity was likely only a secondary prospect. 


It seems likely therefore that Brumbach when he arrived at Philadelphia might have consulted local Brethren who had emigrated in previous decades and settled in Germantown, and even printer Christopher Saur’s ubiquitous German language newspapers, in a quest to find cheap but good agricultural land, which he did find in western Maryland. It had never occurred to the author that Brumbach had arrived with a predisposition or leaning toward the Brethren worship model, when through research here we knew that he had been baptized in a Lutheran church in Germany and had married here the first convert in western Maryland to Brethren sectarianism, his wife, Mary Elizabeth Angle (Engle). It was our belief that she was the agent of his acceptance of the Brethren tenets, but now we see him in a different light.

                                    Occupational Activity

Jacob’s birth home of Osthelden was found in the district of Krumbach (Crumbach) in Nassau-Siegen. The village had been founded as early as 1344 as explained by the 650thanniversary celebrated there in 1994. In 1643 they only had twelve houses and in 1818 there were twenty and 137 inhabitants (an average of 7 to a house). 

While the main industry in his area was forging iron, a secondary occupation was weaving, and Jacob represented himself early in his settlement in Elizabeth town (later to become Hagerstown) as a weaver (so described in his first land tract purchase in 1753) and he later became both a very successful wheat and grain farmer as well as a fairly major distiller of whiskey. 

In the 18th century German landscape the nearby noble manor house of Lohe managed a steel and iron works with iron and steel hammers constantly in operation, but with an outlying agricultural estate. It seems likely that this manorial estate may have been where Jacob learned his outstanding agricultural skills before emigrating to America at the age of 24. (Today, Kreutzal has been created as the center of what were formerly several small villages, including Osthelden) (p. 8). Otherwise, the main products of Siegerland were cast iron balls and guns, stoves, and stove plates (p. 11). 

In the Krumbach area, there was a strictly regulated guild of hammersmiths and the shares in the hammers were “generally inherited in the family.” (p. 10). So, if that was not something that Jacob had in his family or if he had an older brother who inherited that trade, then Jacob had reason to look elsewhere for his main livelihood. Likely, he found a spot (probably by age 10-12) at the manorial agricultural operations—which focused mainly on forestry (producing charcoal for the iron and steel operations), but also grew rye and buckwheat, crops he later grew in Maryland– and he learned to do weaving on the side. This would have given him a dozen years to hone his skills before emigrating to the British North American colonies where other local people had gone earlier seeking a place to earn their livelihood by farming and practice their religious beliefs freely. 

The iron and steel operations suffered in this area during the Thirty Years War, 1618-1648, and thus this phase had ended more than a hundred years before Jacob left. By that time the local economy could have been back to a greater prosperity, but still had a shortage of agricultural land. 

                  Brumbaugh Family in America & Germany

This report also enabled me to add several generations on to my Brumbaugh family tree back to my 9th great-grandfather who lived and died in the same village in the 16th century. 

My mother was Margaret Elizabeth Grayson Brumbaugh (1912-92), eldest daughter of 

My grandfather, Rev. Roy Talmage Brumbaugh (1890-1957), younger son of 

My great-grandfather, Dr. Simon Schmucker Brumbaugh (1852-1935), son of 

My great-great-grandfather, Simeon Keesaker Brumbaugh (1806-1892), eldest son of 

My 3Xgreat-grandfather, David Angle Brumbaugh (1776-1842), fifth son of 

My 4Xgreat-grandfather, Johann Jacob Brumbaugh (1726-99), son of 

Jacob’s father, my 5Xgreat-grandfather, Johann Jacob Brumbach (1690-1738), baptized 13 April 1690, and Catharina Siebel; Johann Jacob Sr. was the son of 

Jacob’s grandfather, my 6Xgreat-grandfather, Johann and Maria (Kolbe) Brumbach (m. 23 Feb. 1681), son of 

Jacob’s great-grandfather, my 7Xgreat-grandfather, Stephan Brumbach (d. 20 Oct. 1686) and Catharina/Cathrin Löw; Stephan was son of

Jacob’s great-great-grandfather, my 8Xgreat-grandfather, Johann/Hans Brumbach who m. Cathrein/Threin Knipen 16 July 1609, in North-Rhein/Westphalia; Johann son of 

Jacob’s 3Xgreat- grandfather, my 9Xgreat-grandfather, Jost in der Brumbach (d. 15 March 1587 in North-Rhein, Westphalia) who lived in the 16th century, more than 430 years ago. 

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The Plethora of Jacob Brumbaugh’s

Jacob Brumbaughs in Washington County, Maryland, & Bedford County, Pennsylvania

Many other men named “Jacob Brumbaugh” lived around the time of this website’s Johan Jacob Brumbaugh (1726 b. Germany-1799 d. Bedford County, Pa., buried on his farm in Maryland), Dunker farmer and Distiller of his 900-acre farm “Resurvey of Claylands Contrivance,” Washington County, Maryland, north of Hagerstown, who died owning 12 additional farms in Bedford County, Pennsylvania.

The four sons of Johannes Henrich Brumbaugh (1709-aft 1761)— (1) Jacob called “Jockel,” (2) Conrad, (3) George called “Yerrick,” and (4) Johannes der Strump Weber (John the stocking weaver)– lived first after 1753 in and around Funkstown (southern border of Hagerstown), Washington County, Maryland, and after the 1780s on farms in Bedford County, Pennsylvania, where some of Johan Jacob Brumbaugh’s descendants also lived; thus, the potential for confusion.

From the Line of Johan Jacob Brumbaugh (1726-1799)

Jacob Brumbaugh Jr. (c 1768-1814 Md.), eldest son of Johan Jacob Brumbaugh (1726-1799)

Jacob Brumbaugh, son of Jacob Brumbaugh Jr. (c 1768-1814 Md.)

Jacob S. Brumbaugh (1800-?) son of John Brumbaugh son of Johan Jacob Brumbaugh

Jacob Benjamin Brumbaugh (1818-?) son of David Brumbaugh (1776-1842)

Jacob Brumbaugh son of John Brumbaugh son of Jacob Brumbaugh Jr.

Jacob Brumbaugh (1825-?) son of David Brumbaugh son of John Brumbaugh

From the line of Johannes Henrich Brumbaugh (1709-aft 1761) (according to a PDF labeled “Descendants of Tilman Brumback,” an ancestor of Johannes Henrich Brumbaugh, a well- researched document of uncertain authorship and origin):

Jacob Brumbaugh (1734-1816 d. Huntingdon Co., Pa.) called “Jockel,” son of Johannes Henrich Brumbaugh (1709-aft 1761)

Jacob Brumbaugh (1769-1855), son of above Jockel

Jacob Brumbaugh born in PA, son of Conrad and Anna Christina Hiser

Jacob Brumbaugh (1797-?), son of George “Yerrick” and Susannna Metzger

Jacob Brumbaugh (1803-1855), son of Henry Brumbaugh son of Jacob “Jockel” and Eliz Folk

Jacob Brumbaugh (1806-1890) son of George Brumbaugh & Maria Bowers

Jacob Brumbaugh (1837-?) son of Samuel Brumbaugh

Jacob Brumbaugh (1795-1881) son of William son of Jacob “Jockel”

Jacob Brumbaugh (1799-1880) son of Conrad son of Jacob “Jockel”

Jacob Brumbaugh (1798-1885) son of Jacob “Jockel”

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Jacob’s and Mary’s son Daniel S. Brumbaugh (1772- 1824)

Daniel S. Brumbaugh
(1772-1824)

Born in 1772, fourth among the children, Daniel married ca 1797 Elizabeth Long, daughter of John Long. They had 10 children, 6 girls and 4 boys.

In 1785 Johann Jacob arranged for sons Jacob Jr. and Daniel to purchase a warrant for 400 acres in Pennsylvania, for what was later called “Springfield farm.” This land was not surveyed until 1805 when it was found to have 407 acres in Huntingdon County contiguous to Bedford and patented to Jacob Jr. and Daniel.

Daniel was 27 and lived on the family farm in Washington Co, MD, when his father died in 1799. His father-in-law John Long died about 1816 and Daniel served with brother-in-law John Long, Jr. as co-administrator of his estate.

In the course of the settlement of Johann Jacob’s estate, Daniel became co-owner of a farm in Bedford Co, PA, with his older brother Henry.

Daniel first appears in the federal census in 1800 in Elizabeth Hundred where he also appears in 1810 next to brother Henry. Then in 1820 he is shown in Woodbury Township, Bedford County, PA, after he and Henry acquired some land there from Johann Jacob’s estate. He then came back to the Hagerstown area, as did Henry.

Judging by his personal property articles left when he died at age 52 in 1824, he was a essentially a farmer: along with the usual horses, cows, sheep, and hogs, there were two stills and apparatus, a windmill, a weaving loom and gears and flax seed; one road wagon and a small plantation wagon; copper kettles; barley, wheat, and corn; also, 10 shares of the Hagerstown and Conococheague Turnpike stock. The loom could have been inherited from his father Jacob who when he first came to this country was identified as a weaver. This is reinforced in that Jacob Sr. also died owning copper kettles, a windmill and two stills; on the other hand, these items are not so unique that it is inconceivable that Daniel acquired them on his own rather than from family inheritance.

At his death in 1824, he lived 4-½ miles north of Hagerstown. He is buried at Salem German Reformed Church in Cearfoss, MD. His wife Elizabeth lived until 1860 and she is buried there too.

Their children were: Susanna, Elizabeth, Daniel David, Louisa, Maria (Bosteller), Thomas Jefferson, Isabella (Bentz), Rosanna Caroline (Barr), Joshua, and Samuel.


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Compilation of the Stories Published About The Pioneer German Immigrant and Washington County, Maryland, Brethren Farmer, Patriot, and Landowner: Johann Jacob Brumbaugh (1726-1799) a/k/a Jacob Brumbach or Broomback




Compilation of the Stories Published About
The Pioneer German Immigrant and Washington County, Maryland,
Brethren Farmer, Patriot, and Landowner:

Johann Jacob Brumbaugh
(1726-1799)
a/k/a Jacob Brumbach or Broomback


by Norman E. Donoghue, II
Compiler



Johann Jacob Brumbaugh is acknowledged as the original owner of the tract now known as the Brumbaugh-Kendle-Grove Farmstead owned by Washington County, Maryland, and forming part of the Regional Airport property.

Reprinted within are the several published stories, without primary source documentation, about the immigrant Johann Jacob Brumbach who is currently the subject of research by the compiler. Most of the included stories were originally compiled by genealogist Richard Lee Hartle of State Line, PA, in 1999, and credit is paid to him for originally bringing this material to people’s attention. This new compilation of 2011 includes new material and has been re-edited by
Norman E. Donoghue, II
and is the subject of ongoing research by Donoghue.

© Copyright 2011 Norman E. Donoghue, II; April 9, 2011


Table of Contents

1. From A History of Washington County Maryland by Thomas J. C. Williams; Vol.2, p.631 (Runk & Titsworth, 1906)
2. From the book Genealogy of the Brumbach Families… by Gaius Marcus Brumbaugh, M. S., M.D. (Frederick Hitchcock, New York; 1913)
3. From the book Pennsylvania German Pioneers, The Original Lists of Arrivals at the Port of Philadelphia 1727-1808 by Strassberger and Hinke (1934)
4. From the genealogy “The Big Long Family”: this genealogy manuscript (unknown author and date) is held in the Western Maryland room of the Washington County Public Library in Hagerstown
5. From History of the Church of the Brethren in Maryland by J. Maurice Henry, Ph.D. (Brethren Press, Eglin, IL; 1936)
6. From Sidelights on Brethren History by Freeman Ankrum (Brethren Press, Eglin, IL; 1962)
7. From Two Centuries of Brothersvalley Church of the Brethren, 1762- 1962, An account of the Old Colonial Church, the Stony Creek German Baptist Church and the area of Bruedersthal (Somerset Co., PA) in which the Brethren settled in the summer of 1762 (1962) By H. Austin Cooper
8. From Daughters of the American Revolution application for patriot status for Johann Jacob Brumbaugh (1912)
9. From Maryland Historical Magazine of March 1914 a reprinted document intended for the Maryland colonial assembly in 1750s to compensate those who Quartered Soldiers, etc. for the British in French & Indian War in Maryland



Preface

Even if some parts or even all of these stories of tie-ins in 1755 between Johann Jacob Brumbaugh and George Washington are untrue or unverifiable, it is interesting that this myth of a common man as quiet colonial hero was ascribed by several historians and genealogists to one man. They ascribed these deeds not to an anonymous Brethren frontier farmer who they sought to hold up as a model, but to one particular specifically named frontier farmer who seems to have been an orphan German immigrant, a model farmer, a father of seven children, a pacifist yet revolutionary patriot, and a man-next-door of modest circumstances (of the ‘middling sort’, at least not a plantation owner or landed aristocrat) who successfully accumulated considerable land resources in two states.

G.B.B. stands for German Baptist Brethren. Adherents of this Anabaptist sect which formed part of the pietist movement, started by Alexander Mack in Schwarzenau, German in 1708, believed in adult baptism by “triune immersion,” dunking three times forward “in a flowing stream.” They are often referred to as Dunkers or Dunkards. Like Amish, Mennonites and Quakers, Dunkers were non-resistant or pacifist (would not bear arms or commit violence), would not swear oaths (including oaths of allegiance to their new country during the Revolution), and would not serve in governmental posts. Moreover, their creed was not written down; some say because they were ever conscious that it was evolving always and if they wrote it down they might find later that what they once thought was immutable, was about to evolve further. It is uncertain when Brumbaugh converted from a German Lutheran to GBB, but some say it was when he married a convert, Mary Elizabeth Angle, and that marriage may have been in 1760, which is post Braddock’s Campaign, or the marriage or his conversion may have been before then.

Ned Donoghue



1. From A History of Washington County Maryland by Thomas J. C. Williams; Vol.2, p.631 (Runk & Titsworth, 1908). In volume 2 the following is found:

THE BRUMBAUGH FAMILY
Jacob Brombach (now spelled Brumbaugh) who was an orphan, emigrated to America from Germany between the years 1740 and 1750.

He located in the Conococheague District, Washington County. He is the progenitor of the Brumbaugh family of this County. Sometime after his arrival in this county he was married to Miss Angle, who was a German Baptist in religion. Mr. Brombach was a Lutheran but eventually joined his wife’s Church.

During Braddock’s memorable campaign, Jacob Brombach served under the great General as a pack-man, his religious ideas preventing him from taking part in the conflict. Besides owning large tracts of land in Washington County, he became the possessor of over six thousand acres in Bedford and Blair Counties, Pennsylvania. After residing for many years in Pennsylvania, he died in 1799 and was buried on the paternal homestead four miles north of Hagerstown. Jacob Brombach was the father of the following children, all of whom were born on the farm where he was buried: Jacob born in 1765; Mary born in 1767, married Samuel Ulrich; John born in 1768; Henry born in 1770, married a Miss Rench; Daniel born in 1772, married Elizabeth Long; David born in 1774 [sic 1776], married a Miss Kissicker; George born in 1775, married a Miss Gelwicks.

Daniel and Elizabeth (Long) Brumbaugh were the grandparents of John Nichols “Nick” Brumbaugh and Phillip Napoleon “Nap” Brumbaugh whose biographical sketches are printed in this book.


2. From the book Genealogy of the Brumbach Families… by Gaius Marcus Brumbaugh, M. S., M.D. (Frederick Hitchcock, New York; 1913) the following was copied:

Johann Jacob Brumbach, b. about 1728, is said to have been an orphan upon his arrival at Philadelphia, Pa. He supposedly had 50 pounds sterling in his possession. He arrived on the ship Nancy August 31, 1750- see his signature on the Immigrant List. He settled in the Conococheague District, about 1 mile south of the Mason’s and Dixon’s Line, and 4 miles north of Hagerstown, then Frederick Co., Md. In 1760, he married Mary Elizabeth Angle, b. 1740,… dau. Henry Angle of Washington county. The latter’s family in Heads of Families, Md., 1790, is given as three free white males over 176 years, and give free white females, including heads of families. He built a substantial house on his tract of land before his marriage. Jacob’s original house was built of rough hewn logs, 36 x 16 – two rooms below and two above, with large open fire places (since closed), and with heavy oak doors and shutters. Philip Napoleon built a porch and a two-story addition during his ownership.

Jacob seems to have immediately dropped the “Johann” from his name upon landing. Even though he signed “Johann Jacob Brumbach” on the immigration list, nowhere has any later signature other than “Jacob” been found, however, this was common practice. Originally a Lutheran, he united with the G. B. B. Ch., (German Baptist Brethren Church) of which his wife was a member.

In the Gen. Braddock Campaign of the French and Indian War he served as a packman, his religious scruples preventing service in actual conflict. His hearing was defective, and this tendency, together with his large stature and strong general constitution, seems to be hereditary in some later generations. He had an unusual faculty for acquiring land, and shortly before his death in the Bedford, Pa., area, on April 10, 1799, it is said he owned over 6000 acres [Note: this amount has never been substantiated, but Brumbaugh did have hundreds of acres of land documented in that area.] in the Bedford and Blair Counties, Pa., as well as other large tracts of land in what was then Frederick Co., Md. (now Washington Co., Md.) His remains were taken to the old Maryland homestead and buried in the small family graveyard. Mary, his wife, died November 28, 1803, and was laid to rest beside her husband. Both graves were marked by crudely dressed lime-stones containing the initials “J. B.” and “M. B.” The remains of their seven children also rest there. [Note – the family burial site remains there and is irregularly cared for. The statement that ‘their 7 children also rest there’ is not correct, with the exception, that his son, Henry, who acquired this land after his father’s death, was perhaps also buried there.]

Johann Jacob’s children seem to have united with different religious denominations, and in the main the descendants of each remained therein; Jacob and Henry became Pres.; Mary and John became G. B. B.; Daniel became Ref.; David and George became Lutheran, according to information supplied by David Stuckey Brumbaugh.


Gaius Marcus Brumbaugh in his Genealogy of the Brumbaugh Families on p. 349 also tells us that: Eve (Brumbaugh) Snoeberger, b. 1806, while yet in full possession of her excellent memory, in 1891 wrote and also said that she “always understood, from my father, that my grandfather (Johann Jacob Brumbach) was a cousin to Johannes Henrich Brumbach, and that Johannes Henrich’s son Johannes (John) was known as the stocking weaver.”
[Ed. Note – Johannes Henrich Brumbach was the progenitor of another line of Brumbaughs, Gaius Marcus Brumbaugh’s lineage. He originally settled in the Conococheague district, as did his alleged cousin, but it is believed that none of his descendants remained there very long. Most moved to the Morrison’s Cove area of Bedford Co., Pa., where Johann Jacob Brumbaugh also settled two of his children on hundreds of acres of farmland in Morrison’s Cove.]

3. From the book Pennsylvania German Pioneers, The Original Lists of Arrivals at the Port of Philadelphia 1727-1808 by Strassberger and Hinke (1934), the following was copied:

[Immigrant List 155 C] At the Court House at Philadelphia, Friday, the 31st August, 1750. Present: Thomas Laurence, Esquire, Mayor.

The Foreigners whose names are underwritten, imported in the Ship Nancy, Thomas Coatam, Master, from Rotterdam & last from Cowes, did this day take the usual Oaths. By list 88. Persons 270. …Johann Jacob Brumbach….


4. From the genealogy “The Big Long Family”. [Note: Daniel Long Miller (D.L. Miller) was born near Hagerstown, Maryland in 1841, the son of Abram and Catherine Long Miller. He married Elizabeth Talley (1848-1926) in 1868. Miller united with the German Baptist Brethren Church in 1863. He was elected to the ministry in 1887 and ordained an elder in 1891. He wrote Some Who Led (1912) about Brethren history but it does not mention Jacob Brumbaugh.]
– what follows comes from p. 15 of this genealogy manuscript (unknown author and date) held in the Western Maryland room of the Washington County Public Library in Hagerstown:

Early Days On The Plantation – Baker’s Lookout

In the panhandle of Western Maryland, at the northeast corner of Greencastle Pike and Broadfording Road, four and one-half miles west of downtown Hagerstown, is the original frontier plantation of Peter Studebaker – “Baker’s Lookout.” This was the home also of the Long family, 1750 to 1845. As early as 1625 this western wilderness was a part of the Crown Colony of Virginia. Early in that century, King Charles I cut a slice out of northern Virginia in order to make a grant to his friend, Lord Baltimore. It included all of the land north of the further (south) bank of the Potomac River, north to the 40th degree latitude. This became Maryland.

The Proprietor bargained and sold parcels of the colony in various sizes. The larger ones of over 2,000 acres or more were called Manors. The Lord of each Manor in these frontier areas had judicial power. By 1753, two years after Long acquired “Baker’s Lookout” the National Trail (U.S. 40) was extended westward to Will’s Creek (later named Cumberland, Md.) The trail passed two miles south of “Baker’s Lookout.” Young Washington passed this way in 1753, when Elizabeth Long (3) was a baby. Governor Dinwiddie of the Virginia Colony sent him to confer at the forks of the Ohio River with the French, who were claiming all of the area north of the Ohio and west of the Alleghenies. Washington returned empty-handed.

Then two years later, 1755, as a matter of grave concern developed for the families and neighbors of John Long. General Braddock with two British regiments passed by on the National trail and met George Washington, aged 23, at the Potomac, with his command [Note: this is wrong; Col. Washington at this time served as an aide-de-camp of Braddock] of 450 Virginia Militia. Together they had a force of about 2000 men. It was thirty-two days and about 110 miles later, they cut their way west to Fort Cumberland through a trackless hardwood forest to a surprise meeting with the French and 1000 Indian Warriors. Braddock was killed on July 9th [Note: wrong again, he was shot that day and died July 13, 1755] and 977 of his men were killed or wounded out of the 1459 English engaged.

Young George Washington, ill and in command of the remnant, was lucky to have a civilian assistant who was of great aid in helping him back to Virginia. A compatriot of John Long, living in nearby Williamsport, an enterprising Brethren named Brumbach (Brumbaugh), refused a quartermaster commission, before joining the expedition as a civilian, caring for food and clothing. He declined a commission because of his pacifist, non-resistant religious background, having only recently left Europe to escape the military. He nursed young Washington back to Virginia and health. (Williams, History of Washington County, MD; Henry, History of the Church Of Brethren in Maryland.)

5. From History of the Church of the Brethren in Maryland by J. Maurice Henry, Ph.D. (Brethren Press, Eglin, IL; 1936) on pp. 31-34 the following is found:

The Pathfinders
JACOB BROMBACH
JACOB BROMBACH was certainly one of the most remarkable pioneers among the Society of Dunkers in Colonial Maryland. He was an orphan lad who came from Germany about 1740 and made his way across the wild frontiers of Pennsylvania and Maryland. He found a home on Conococheague Creek in Maryland, and was apprenticed to a family until he was twenty-one years old. He was married to—- (Mary Elizabeth) Angle, daughter of (Henry Angle) one of the original pioneers in the Antietam Valley. This young woman was baptized at the age of sixteen and has been regarded as the first convert of Martin Urner in Maryland. Some records indicate that she was converted by George Adam Martin but the accounts agree that she was very young.

Jacob Brombach held to the Lutheran faith, and was in all probability christened in Germany. He was a very humble man with a quiet manner of speech.

A few years after his marriage he was baptized and united with his wife’s church. He was never elected to the ministry but was a devout leader in his day. He worked hard and lived frugally. Jacob was peculiarly endowed with good judgment and organizing power. His farm was considered a model for his day. Many men visited his place to learn the art of his success.

When General Edward Braddock was met at Frederick, Maryland, in April, 1755, by Benjamin Franklin, Governor Horatio Sharpe and George Washington to plan the campaign against the French and Indians, the advance scouts marked out the route. The army was to pass over South Mountain and cross Antietam Creek at Delemere. [Note – The official record covering the route can be found in the Congressional Library at Washington, D.C.]

The Orderly Books of General Braddock, two in number, are preserved in the Congressional Library at Washington. These books were secured from the library of one Peter Force, Esq. Two important entries appear to be in the handwriting of George Washington and it is presumed that the books were kept under his directions. The first book covers the period from Feb. 26 to June 11, 1755, and the second from June l2 to l7. The entry giving the route which Braddock’s army was to follow is interesting. Sir Peter Halkett’s regiment marched from Williamsburg, Virginia, to Winchester and Colonel Dunbar went to Frederick, Maryland. They were to reunite on the Virginia side. General Braddock joined Dunbar at Frederick and marched with that regiment.

The official order reads:
Frederick, Friday, April 25, l755.

Parole Appleby.
Colonel Dunbar’s regiment to hold themselves in readiness to march by (April) 29th.
After orders:
One Corporal and four men to march tomorrow evening to Rock Creek with four wagons that came up this evening. When the party comes to Rock Creek, they are to put themselves under Ensign Hench.
Sunday, April 27, l755
Parole Chester
Colonel Dunbar’s Regiment is to march ye 29 and to proceed to Wills Creek agreeable to the following route:

April Miles

29th From Frederick on Road to Conogogee 17
30th From that halting place to Conogogee 18

[All accounts seem to agree that these soldiers including Braddock and Washington camped on the Conococheague creek precisely the night of April 29, 1755, departing to cross the nearby Potomac on May 1. Brumbaugh’s land was described in the 1753 deed to Jacob Bromback of his 90-acre tract known as “Claland’s Contrivance” as “Near a Tract of Land Taken up by Col. Cresap” –see May 8 below–who was also involved in Braddock’s Campaign as a civilian supplier to the army.]

May

1st From Conogogee to John Evens 16
2nd Rest
3rd To Widow Baringer’s 18
4th To George Poll’s 9
5th To Henry Enoch’s 15
6th Rest
7th To Cox’s at ye mouth of Little Cacaph 12
8th To Colonel Cresap’s 8
9th To Will’s Creek 16

TOTAL 129

The men are to take from this place three days’ provisions. At Conogogee they will have more; at the Widow Baringer’s 5 days; at Col. Cresap’s one or more days and at all these places Oats or Indian Corn must be had for the horses but no hay. At Conogogee the troops cross the Potomak in a float.
The army of Braddock crossed the Antietam Creek at a place called “Delemere” near Devil’s Backbone and marched northwest into the more thickly settled region of the German colonists. A part of the army appears to have pitched camp for the night near the home of Jacob Bromback.

General Braddock—probably by invitation—put up in the home of Jacob Bromback. Both Braddock and George Washington appear to have spent the night in Bromback’s home. General Braddock was so impressed with the skill and ability of his host that a commission was offered [Note- not true as he had no such authority] Jacob Bromback in the army. This gave him the opportunity to explain the religious beliefs of the Society of Dunkers to the British general and George Washington. In the soft mellow light of the candle-lighted room these three sat. Jacob Bromback talked in quiet tones of voice with words fitly spoken like ‘apples of gold in network of silver.’ No one will ever know what impressions were made by this pious, humble servant of God on his guests. General Braddock insisted that Bromback accept a commission in his army. One record indicated that Jacob Bromback did not accept an officer’s commission, but was finally prevailed upon to accompany the supply train and care for the sick and wounded.

The army broke camp May 1, 1755, and started to Wills’ Creek at Fort Cumberland to make final preparations for the march against Fort Duquesne. The tragedy of Braddock’s death and the defeat of his army are well known facts of history. However, little is known about the pathetic hours which the soldiers experienced as George Washington, and others, led the wounded and battered forces back across the mountains. General Braddock never lived to return to the fireside of Jacob Bromback, but who can doubt that George Washington stopped at the hospitable home of Jacob Bromback and recounted, around his hearthstone, the trials and hardships of their disastrous campaign?

Years passed and Jacob Bromback continued to labor out on the frontier. “The meek shall inherit the earth” was literally fulfilled in the life of this pious, God-fearing saint, when, for some unaccountable reason, he was given a patent for a large tract of land in Blair and Bedford Counties, Pennsylvania [Note: nothing found yet to confirm any transfer to Brumbaugh of more than several hundred acres of land].

Why did Jacob Bromback come into possession of this patent? Who influenced the king’s proprietary of Pennsylvania to grant a patent to this unknown Dunker out on the frontier? Who would say that George Washington did not have a guiding hand in that grant? [Note: not likely!] Furthermore, it is fancy to believe that when George Washington was presiding over the Constitutional Convention, he gave counsel with others that a clause be put in the Constitution guaranteeing religious liberty and freedom of conscience? Amid all the turmoil and wrangling in the convention did George Washington recall the night when an unknown man out on the frontier expounded the doctrine of peace and goodwill to a British general? Did Washington ever forget the fervor of that sainted voice out in the wilderness?

It has been stated by a recent writer that George Washington was baptized by triune immersion in the latter part of his life. Again, who knows what impression was made by Jacob Bromback upon his guest in his humble home on Conococheague when Bromback explained the doctrine of triune immersion as practiced by the Dunker Brethren? What influence Jacob Bromback had on the life of George Washington will never be known. It does not matter, for Washington had come in contact with a great and good man.

It was enough to have discovered a saint of God out on the frontier. The accounts about him are meager, but the Eternal Father has the record of it all, and when Jacob Bromback finished his earthly pilgrimage in the year 1799, he could answer the call, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant, thou has been faithful over a few things, enter thou into the joys of thy Lord.” Another sainted path-finder in Maryland had passed away.

It was a strange coincidence that George Washington had like-wise passed away. It was a damp, cold day on Thursday, Dec. 12, 1799, as Washington took his accustomed ride over his plantation. The next morning a snow blanketed the earth. He sat by the fireside and meditated with strange thoughts. Saturday night as the wind moaned in the boxwoods around Mount Vernon the beloved Father of his Country answered the call to come up higher, Jacob Bromback, the pathfinder, and George Washington, the patriot, had finished their earthly pilgrimage as the earth slumbered under a blanket of snow.

6. From Sidelights on Brethren History by Freeman Ankrum (Brethren Press, Eglin, IL; 1962), p. 21.

A Light in the Wilderness


Two hundred years ago there lived in Washington County,
Maryland, a young German immigrant named Jacob Bromback. (The pronunciation of the spelling of the name in later years may have been changed to Brumbaugh.) An orphan, he eventually found a home on the creek with the long Indian name, the Conococheague. He married a young lady of the Brethren faith who was said to have been Martin Urner’s first convert when he pioneered with the gospel in Carroll County, Maryland. Some time following his marriage he was baptized and united with the church of which he is wife was a member. His quiet manner of speech, with its accompanying humility, made the man feel at home with the brethren. All his life he was a farmer and a lay leader in the church. Men visited him there to learn of his farming methods. In numerous ways his home became one of the significant outposts on the frontier.

In April 1755 it was necessary for the English government to send forces to the western section of Pennsylvania to attempt to gain control over disputed territory. The English general, Edward Braddock, and his aide, young George Washington of Virginia, were assigned to the task, Braddock commanding the expedition and Washington heading up the Virginia provincials. They had outfitted a large number of men at Frederick, Maryland, with Benjamin Franklin aiding them by supplying of wagons. One of the teamsters was young Daniel Boone who was later to become a legendary character on the western frontier.

From Frederick they started their march toward the fort on Wills Creek in the narrows in what is now Cumberland, Maryland . They slowly made their way over the heights which now bear the name of Braddock. The beautiful valley known today as the Middletown Valley, was before them. Beyond this loomed South Mountain, which they crossed near the future site of Boonsboro. Their course from here was southwest over a succession of ridges known as the Devil’s Back Bone. The crossing of the Antietam was made near where the old colonial school of Delamere now stands, approximately six miles southeast of the present city of Hagerstown. Part of the army went over the site which later in 1763 was laid out as Sharpsburg. Marching on from here, some of the soldiers pitched tents near the home of Jacob Bromback on the Conococheague. Both General Braddock and George Washington, it seems from the available records, spent the night in the home of this progressive and successful farmer. [Note: At least he knew that sometimes historians consult records! Alas, he does not say what records. This account clearly has frustrating moments. It’s just not serious history.] Knowing Washington’s interest in agriculture, we may believe that his concern in talking with Bromback was more than military.

That night old Fairview Mountain, just to the west of them, looked down upon a scene which had much to do in shaping the destinies of people yet unborn. General Braddock at once recognized his host’s more-than-ordinary ability and is said to have offered him a commission in his army. This gave Bromback an opportunity—which he grasped—to explain to his guest the peace principles of the Brethren people. The general still insisted that Bromback accept a commission. After prolonged and serious discussion, they came to a compromise. True to his Brethren principles, Bromback refused to accept the offered commission but agreed to go with the supply train and care for the sick and the wounded. [Note: underlining added.] No one will ever know the full extent of the impression he made on his guests that night, but there is much evidence that the impression was both deep and durable. We might well conjecture, as an added matter of interest, that Daniel Boone, one of whose parents was a member of the Brethren Church, may have shared in these conversations.

On May 1, Jacob Bromback took leave of his family and accompanied the army on its way westward. The men slowly and laboriously chopped trails over the mountains and through the valleys. Today’s traveler over the highway known as the Old National Pike or U.S. Highway 40 [Note: Braddock’s Road is of course famous for becoming this important road to the West.] will be amazed, as he passes in rapid succession the markers indicating Braddock’s camps, at the slowness of the army’s progress. After much hard work they reached the fort on Wills Creek. On this tedious march Washington, who was plagued with poor health all his life, was ill and spent much of this time riding in a litter. Inasmuch as Bromback had gone along to care for the sick and the wounded, we may assume that he cared for Washington in his time of need. [Added.]

It is not our intention to give an account of the tragic defeat which befell the troops under Braddock and Washington on their way to Fort Duquesne. Every student of American history is familiar with it.

According to an old tradition, General Braddock was shot by the brother of a colonial soldier [Note: This is not the generally accepted view, but it is a minority view.] whom he had grossly mistreated. Trained in English methods of soldiery, the general failed to understand or appreciate the independent spirit of the American colonists. He was buried in a lonely grave by the side of the trail, Washington reading the burial service, and efforts were made to conceal the grave. Later his body was re-interred at the place now marked by the imposing monument about eleven miles east of Uniontown, Pennsylvania. We may readily believe that when the burial service was ready for the general, among those standing near by was the newfound friend in whose home Braddock had stayed and whom he had persuaded to come along on his campaign—the Brethren farmer, Jacob Bromback.

The road back east was long and the suffering was acute as Washington now in command, led the dejected survivors along the trails over which they had recently passed with their hopes high. It is possible, and even probable, that Washington availed himself of the opportunity to stop again in the hospitable home of Jacob Bromback. If he did, they must have talked seriously of the events of the recent past, of the many new graves in the wilderness, and possibly of the basic futility of trying to settle the quarrels of governments and of individuals by methods of violence.

Liking the country in which Jacob Bromback lived, Washington later selected a site on the Potomac where it is joined by the Conococheague for a possible national capital. The wide streets in the small city of Williamsport are a reminder of the dream that was never fulfilled. When Washington looked over the location he was entertained in the home of General Otto Williams near the village. The house is still standing and is pointed out to the tourist. However, it has been enlarged and changed since the days when its roof sheltered America’s foremost citizen.

For some reason never made public, Bromback was given a large tract of land in Bedford and Blair counties, Pennsylvania. If an inquirer could have called George Washington aside later, he might have become the possessor of the reason for this—the nights spent by Washington in the home of this man, as well as having had him for a companion on the march. That a Brethren farmer should be given a tract of land like this, far out on the frontier, would arouse questions in the minds of many people. Who can say that Washington’s hand was not back of the grant? Washington is gone. Braddock sleeps by the side of the road. And where Bromback rests perhaps no man knows; but his principles are as much alive as when these men met in his humble home at the foot of old Fairview Mountain.

Is there one who can say that when Washington, called to the highest place his country had to offer, presided over the Constitutional Convention he did not counsel the placing in the Constitution of the clause guaranteeing religious liberty and freedom of conscience? Washington from his lofty heights of state, may have remembered the lowly home where the humble and soft spoken Brethren layman expounded to the British general and himself the doctrine of peace and goodwill.

A light indeed was Jacob Bromback in the wilderness. Even though in later years the candle was consumed, the lights kindled by it still shone forth. They had come in contact with a man of God; and the fruitage of contacts such as that are not for just a day.

History is stingy with its records concerning the life and labors of Bromback. [Note: at least he gives us his excuse for not telling the source of this story.] The men of those days had little time to keep records. Their energies were spent in the stern necessity of wrestling a living from new and often unfriendly surroundings.

The work of Jacob Bromback reminds us that the laity have an important place in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ second only to that of the minister. Perhaps testimony from a consecrated layman is accepted when that of a minister may be considered more or less professional. The history of the church would be different and perhaps better had there been more consecrated laymen like Bromack giving testimony to their faith by both word and deed.


7. From Two Centuries of Brothersvalley Church of the Brethren
1762- 1962, An account of the Old Colonial Church, the Stony Creek German Baptist Church and the area of Bruedersthal in which the Brethren settled in the summer of 1762, and organized by Elder George Adam Martin, presiding Elder. (1962) By H. Austin Cooper
p. 37-38:

Washington’s Illness—Nursed to Health by a Dunker

It was on the 1754 [sic 1755] campaign of General Braddock that Colonel George Washington fell sick with a fever at Wills Creek, the middle of May. The army of nearly two thousand men were a straggling group to behold. They suffered much from traversing the rough mountain roads and Indian trails over the Alleghenies. They had gone without proper food and rest. Braddock was not used to the terrain and the Indian type of warfare that Washington knew quite well would soon break unsuspectingly upon them. Therefore, he alerted General Braddock to what would soon befall them as they came into the heart of Allegheny-land. They hurried their troops to a faster pace. Washington walked, paid the soldiers to carry his gear. He took the gear of war upon his own well mannered and well trained riding horse, far from fort Cumberland. He tried to ride his faithful horse but each jolting step brought his fever even higher. He was delirious as they entered the bounds of Somerset County [Note: PA], near Pocahontas, and lay sick for fourteen days. There was a mill near there run by a Dunker by the name of Jacob Brumbaugh. This mill was located along the Sand Patch-Pocahontas Road. There is a series of old mills in this section of the county, some of them go beyond recorded history of the county—this was one of them. A few scanty notes from several of the older citizens of the area tell that some of the Deals who moved into Greenville Township at an early date from Lancaster County took over the Brumbaugh mill and ran it for some years. The old stones and some of the machinery were taken to Deal’s Mill and that mill was put into operation.

There are several accounts of this experience of General Washington having happened in Washington County, Maryland. In 1756, Fort Frederick, now in Washington County, was erected. In 1758, Frederick County boundaries were established. Following the Declaration of Independence in July 1776, Washington County was established. During those formative years the boundaries between Maryland and Pennsylvania were undermined [Note: It is a fact that there was a dispute between the proprietors of MD and PA over where the border was], and for a good many years afterward. The Mason-Dixon line was completed in 1768. This set the line between the two States. It was believed that Washington County, and Virginia reached to parallel 44, which is now Somerset. Therefore, Marylanders thought that many such narratives as the Washington illness and the Brumbaugh nursing goodwill act happened in Maryland.

Brother Brumbaugh would not accept anything for his act of brotherliness toward young Washington, by was of war supplies which were first offered to him by the young officer. Upon insistence by Washington to receive some gift for his good mercy toward him, Brother Brumbaugh accepted the gift of a horse from the man upon whom destiny was to place the burden and joy of being the Father of our Country, George Washington. This was the one thing needed more than anything else by Brother Brumbaugh for his travels in the backwoods of Somerset County.

10. From Daughters of the American Revolution application for patriot status for Johann Jacob Brumbaugh.

Excerpts from the
Proceedings of the Committee of Observation of
Elizabeth Town* [name changed to Hagerstown in 1815] District, Frederick County [this portion later became Washington County], Maryland
1776

p. 18
Letter from Council of Safety, Annapolis, March 23, 1776
Gent-
The great difficulty we find in providing blankets for regular forces raised for the defense of the province obliges us to apply to the committees of observation for the several counties and districts earnestly requesting that they would use their endeavors to procure from the House Keepers in their respective counties and districts all the blankets and the rugs that they can with all convenience spare for which the Council will pay such prices as the committee shall agree and as well as any expense that may arise in collecting these together and when you have procured any quantity you will send these to Annapolis to Col. Smallwood, etc.

p. 20
In consequence of the proceeding letter from the Hon. the Council of Safety of this province we have agreeable to their request furnished these with what quantity of blankets and rugs the inhabitants of this district can with any convenience spare….
No. 39 Jacob Brumbaugh 1 blanket 0-18-0 [£-shillings-pence]
No. 40 Jacob Do 1 Do 0-18-0…
Rec’d of Conrad Shiby 44 blankets for the use of this province —
12 April 1776 George Strieker

p. 31
Jacob Broombaugh Senr £-8-50 Yrs Adams to Capt John Cellars
Jacob Broombaugh Junior £-3-0 Common money to pay Do
John Broombaugh £-3-0 Do.


p. 232
Co. Stull Treas. for Washington Co. accounts:
Dec. 24, 1776. For so much received from the Dunkers [this is what members of the Church of the Brethren were called in common parlance—because of their belief in “triune immersion” or dunking 3 times those being baptised] and Menonists [Mennonites] for their fines*
Jacob Broombaugh Jnr. £ 3-0-0
John Broombaugh £ 3-0-0
(*fines paid by non-combatants)

9. From Maryland Historical Magazine of March 1914 a reprinted document (at page 348) intended for the Maryland colonial assembly in 1750s to compensate those who Quartered Soldiers, etc. for the British in French & Indian War in Maryland
…
Jacob Broomback 6 days of service 48 0..6.. 0..
Daniel Cresap 6 days of service 48 0..6.. 0..
….






End of the Stories

My continuing thanks to Richard Lee Hartle and Christine Brumbaugh Ellis for their many courtesies in bringing the bulk of this material to light.


Compiled and edited March 2011 by:
Norman E. Donoghue, II

1933 Brandywine Street
Philadelphia, PA 19130
215.313.6070
Ned21@mac.com

by

Jacob’s & Mary’s Son George Brumbaugh (1783-1837)

George Brumbaugh
(1783-1837)

George was the youngest of the seven children and seems to have been the most publicly well known member of the family. Although some say he was born about 1783, in the records of Rose Hill Cemetery in Hagerstown, he is listed as born in 1785. In 1807 at barely age 22, he married Mary Louisa Gelwicks in the Salem Reformed Church where her father’s Charles Gelwicks family also worshiped as did George’s older brother Henry.

George and Louisa had no natural children. They adopted one child, the young daughter of brother David and Eva Brumbaugh, named Eleanora L. G. [for Louisa Gelwicks?] Brumbaugh, who was born in July 22, 1829, was baptized in May 1831 and, sadly, died in 1834 before her 5th birthday. I suspect the young girl was named after her aunt Louisa, but Louisa was absent from the baptism as her parents were listed as sponsors. Two people made George a sponsor or god-father of their infants at baptism in the early 1810s. (1810s, p. 64 and 76).

In 1807 George bought the tavern The Sign of the Swan situated in Hagerstown and operated it until he sold it to a Mr. Meyer about May, 1811. He then started a brewery. In 1820 he was selling hops wholesale according to an ad in the Torch Light. During the 1820s he was elected one of the five commissioners of Hagerstown and served several years as the Clerk for the commissioners; when ads appeared in the newspapers related to their municipal duties, it was his name which appeared as Clerk at the bottom of the ad.

George opened a general store in the 1820s with a partner under the name Hess & Brumbaugh. On a Saturday night in January 1827 in the middle of the night, a fire was started in his stables— it burned them and the Town Hay Scales as well, which he may have also owned. According to the newspaper story, the buildings “were new and valuable buildings” (TL, 1-25-1827). In 1830, he was appointed by the Governor to the Levy Court in Washington County.

He settled his older brother Daniel’s estate as administrator in 1824, the estate of his father-in-law, Charles Gelwicks, in 1820, and also the estate of his brother-in-law, Daniel Gelwicks some time later. He also served in 1834 as both guardian and trustee for the estate of George Hess, with whom he had been in business.

He was a director of the Hagerstown Fire Company and also of the incorporated Hagerstown Savings Institution (Archives of MD, vol. 547 p. 20—laws of Maryland, chapter 24).

He may also have been Commandant of the Blues, the 8th Regiment of Maryland Militia which fought in the War of 1812.

He died in 1837 (Hagerstown Mail 6-2-37), his obituary noting that he “was long a respected inhabitant of Hagerstown.” (Helen Brown p. 77) He was followed in death by his wife Mary Louisa in 1840. They are both buried in Rose Hill Cemetery in Hagerstown.

by

Jacob’s and Mary’s son David Brumbaugh (1776-1842)


David Angle Brumbaugh
(1776-1842)

Horse Fancier, Local Postmaster, Hotelier, and
Father of a Large Brood


A child of the Revolution, David Angle Brumbaugh was born March 17, 1776, the same month his Dunker father Jacob Brumbaugh contributed a blanket for the troops when the Committee of Observation collected such contributions down by the German Reformed Church. He was the fourth of six boys and the fifth of seven children.

David, raised on Clalands Contrivance, Jacob’s family farm since 1753, was married in October 1805 when he was age 29 in the St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church to Anna Eve Kiessecker (daughter of neighbor Simon Kiessecker). He and Eve had twelve children, nine of whom survived to adulthood.

David interested himself early on in beautiful and elegant horses and in cattle. In March 1802 when age 26, David advertised in The Maryland Herald & Weekly Hagers-town Advertiser that he had a “noted horse” named Shepard at his stable who would “stand the ensuing season” at his stable and would “cover” (i.e., “inseminate”) mares at a rate of $4.50 per season or $7.00 for “insuring a colt” (male foal—how he guarantees a colt is unanswered, though perhaps eagerly sought). In that era, the newspaper printed advertisements by private individuals for periodic horse races over four or two miles at a nearby course, and challengers for known race winners were encouraged to come forward (surprise: there was probably betting!).

David appears in the county tax list for 1803-04 as owning three slaves and three horses. He also was appointed by Sheriff Nathaniel Rochester a constable and a road supervisor in Elizabeth Hundred in 1804-05. In 1805 at age 29, David acquired the Johann Lodewick Kammerer limestone house built 1774 on the Maryland-Pennsylvania line, which was still standing until, sadly, it was demolished April 1999. It had long stood as one of the few remaining eighteenth-century stone houses in Washington County. I

In about 1811 David began to run the post office in Hagerstown. There are weekly ads in the Hagerstown newspaper where he lists the addressees of mail not yet picked up at the post office. Over time nearly all members of his family had their names appear at the end of these ads indicating that he probably retained the concession, but passed on the duties to other family members over a long period of time.

David, like his brothers, served often as a fiduciary of decedents’ estates or trusts for the benefit of family or friends. He settled the estate of his sister-in-law, Catharine Rentch Brumbaugh (died 1820), widow of his eldest brother Jacob, Jr. who died in 1814. In 1819, Samuel Spigler and David Brumbaugh were granted letters of administration on the estate of Jacob Spigler, deceased. All of the Brumbaugh sons served as fiduciaries for family or friends, settling estates, holding the auctions, selling real estate, paying the debts and administration expenses, and under court supervision distributing the net assets to the heirs.

David first appears in the federal census in 1810 at age 34 residing in Elizabeth Hundred, Washington County, Maryland, having two children under age ten and owning four slaves. In 1820 there are two David Brumbaughs, one in Election District 3 of Washington County, Maryland, and one just over the line in Washington Township, Franklin County, Pennsylvania. In 1827 David, according to family tradition, moved north across the state line into Franklin County, Pennsylvania. Consistent with this claim is the fact that in 1830 David Brumbaugh and his son Elias both show up in Antrim Township, Franklin County, Pennsylvania (adjacent, to the confusion of some, to both Washington County, Maryland, and Washington Township, Franklin County, Pennsylvania).

On May 28, 1834, David became the first postmaster of the little village of State Line, a mile north of the old family farm in Franklin County, Pennsylvania and this postal concession was continued after his death by his son Jacob Benjamin.

The village of State Line, Pennsylvania, straddles the Mason-Dixon Line, and the part of that village which lies in Maryland calls itself Middleburg. One farmer of that area even plopped his house down so that it clearly rested in both states, all the better to run to the other side of the house when the sheriff called to enforce a lawsuit in the first state!

The eventual village seems to have coalesced, as many villages would, around an early tavern called Pawlings Tavern owned by Henry Pawling sometime in the late 1700s. The tavern became a stopping point for coaches and pack trains carrying merchandise early traders took west into Indian country to exchange for furs. While some incorrectly credit David with founding the village of State Line, those who have studied the facts more closely credit Jacob Strickler or Spigler for founding in 1812 what was once called Spiglersburg. Its origins were when Strickler laid out forty lots beginning at the Mason-Dixon road and running north on both sides of the road from Hagerstown to Greencastle, approximately at the mid-point between those towns. It was then and remains now a village, but a focal point for an active community life, and a source of pride to its residents nonetheless. Its sense of history is assured by the presence of a crown 5-mile marker placed by the Mason-Dixon survey team in 1765, one side showing the Calvert insignia for Maryland and the other the Penn family shield for Pennsylvania.

David was in business and sought relationships of all kinds in that entrepreneurial era in the new republic. David was sued in the 1820s as a partner in Barr, Barr, Springer, Malotte and Brumbaugh. What business they were in is uncertain. In 1826 David gave a testimonial, appearing in the local newspaper called Torch Light, for a spring water business operating nearby as a spa:

I do hereby certify that my wife was subject to a violent headache for a number of years, and by attending the spring of Jacob B. Gilbert in the month of August, 1825, she has been relieved of same. David Brumbaugh.

Presumably, people understood that she was relieved of the headache, not her head.

David and Eve ran as a “public house” or hotel a building David had built in Middleburg or State Line, Pennsylvania. After David’s death, David’s son Jacob Benjamin Brumbaugh owned this place in 1859. In an interview for an article appearing in the July 2, 1897, issue of the Public Opinion of Chambersburg, he maintained that the anti-slavery firebrand John Brown stayed there with his sons and others in October 1859 when he was planning his electrifying raid on nearby Harper’s Ferry federal arsenal (30 miles away) in order to ignite opposition to slavery. (In a related Washington County tale, one of the David Brumbaughs — his brothers Jacob, Jr. and John both had sons named David in addition to his own son Elias David– was signed into the register of another hotel, called the Washington House, in Hagerstown on the same day as another visit from John Brown and his sons– under their known alias of “I. Smith and sons” — on Thursday, June 30, 1859—this original manuscript register page can be seen online at the Western Maryland Regional Library). David’s daughter Catherine Jane Brumbaugh Newman resided in the hotel residence from the late nineteenth century until her death at age 80 in 1904 and her daughter Elizabeth Newman Koontz and her husband George owned it after that.

David died a resident of Antrim Township, Franklin County, Pennsylvania, in April 1842 at age 66. The obituary in the Hagerstown Mail read:

Died.
At his residence in Middleburg, Franklin County, Pa. on Friday evening last Mr. DAVID BRUMBAUGH at an advanced age. On Sunday his remains were deposited in the Lutheran burying ground of this place, in the presence of a large number of relatives and friends.

Eve reportedly died later in 1845. He and Eve are both now interred in Rose Hill Cemetery in Hagerstown. Their bodies were moved there in the 1920s when the Lutheran church where they were initially buried needed to build a bigger educational wing and made the late David and Eve scooch over to make room.

David died at age 66 and his estate was a complex one. His assets indicate readily that he was much more than a farmer, if he was ever a farmer at all, which is doubtful. First, his estate was complex and was settled much like his father’s with both a three-part accounting in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, his legal domicile for the last decade or more of his life, with a second three-part accounting in Washington County, Maryland, where he still had some property and business activities. Like his father, he died intestate leaving to survive him a wife and 10 of his 12 children (one died young and one was adopted by his brother George and predeceased him at age 5). His eldest sons Simeon (then 36) and Elias David (31) were the administrators of his estate charged with collecting all the assets and paying his legal obligations before making distribution to his wife and ten surviving children.

David owned a reputedly once 300-acre tract of land southwest of McConnellsburg (now Fulton County, just west of Franklin County, and carved out of Bedford County, all Pennsylvania, in 1850) and according to family tradition “was very fond of spending his summers there on this mountain land and it was a great treat for the grandchildren to join him there.” After David’s death, his eldest son Simeon (sometimes also spelled Simon) acquired this property, called The Meadow Grand, but then only 72 acres, for $4,935.10 by electing to take this prize possession as his share of David’s estate by a deed executed by all his siblings October 11, 1851, nearly a decade after David’s death.

David’s estate assets were varied and from a study of the estate files in both counties, the whole can be reconstructed roughly as follows:


Franklin Co., PA assets:
Personal property per appraiser’s valuation $ 839
Cash 45
5 promissory notes from individuals 79
“The Meadow Grand,” a 72-acre tract, located near

McConnellsburg, PA (originally Bedford, later Fulton Co.) 4,935
7 building lots in boro of Middleburg, Md. 701
$ 6,599
Washington Co., MD assets:
Conococheague Turnpike stock $ 100
Loans
To 3 unrelated individuals $ 387
To brother Geo. Brumbaugh 1,660
To sons:
Simeon $ 174
Elias David 222
Nathan 670
1,066
3,113
3,213
Approximate Total Value of Estate $ 9,812

It is not so much the amount of the total that is impressive, which is not by any means a princely sum, but the make-up and variety of the property and how it leans away from an agricultural base.

There were some bushels of grains and a wagon on the McConnellsburg property, but the bulk of the assets in Franklin County overall consisted of household or, rather, hostelry furniture—14 tables, 36 chairs, 10 beds (featherbeds, chaff beds, and trundle beds), 7 quilts, 5 coverlets, 1 spread, and 4 “Comforts” along with a King’s ransom of pillow slips and bolsters, table cloths, yards and yards of linens, and the same for carpeting along with multiple stoves, and household kitchen appliances and living room accessories. Here was a couple who earned their living from the gracious hosting of overnight guests, not one who had to scratch his living from a hardscrabble landscape and unrelenting physical work. We have to suspect that Eve had a big hand in this, but the fact that David supported her efforts with financing them is still a sign that some of his father’s legacy had given them the means to support this business.

There were only five cows, a steer, and a bull, and four horses, a sort of basic starter set of livestock, and a smaller amount of tools than in the estate of his father. There was only one still and one barrel of rum, not nearly the volume of distillery items that his father or brothers Jacob or George owned.

The highest priced single item was a mass of 1,700 pounds of iron worth $68; although this may suggest blacksmithing, there was no forge. Nor was there any other set of items that would suggest an artisanal preoccupation. There were, however, 17 “German silver spoons,” one silver watch, one “Family Bibble,” “1 Picture & Glass,” and 3 “Corner Cupboards” with multiple chests, drawer stands, and other case pieces. Eve survived him and exercised her dower right over about 15% by value of the tangible personal property, allocating it to her share of the estate before the vendue.

Although there were no slaves present in David’s estate inventory, family tradition maintains that “he owned some slaves, never sold one, and later liberated them.” There is good reason always to maintain a healthy skepticism of ex post facto claims to liberality when it came to slaves. The Brumbaugh Genealogy goes on to relate that “One of the latter [i.e., one of those liberated] was Samuel Cole of Hagerstown, Md.” But, see earlier in this work the documented story of Samuel Cole’s manumission by George Brumbaugh. There may have been some confusion in the compiling of the genealogy.

The credit economy of the time was evidenced by the number of persons to whom David owed money and the number who owed him money at the time of his death.

What I like most about David’s estate is that its settlement took on a Dickensian Jarndyce v. Jarndyce character suitable for the era in which it was settled. In Franklin County an appraisement was filed on October 4, 1842, of the tangible personal property, as well as a list of the items sold at auction, about 156 items or groups of items.

The administrators’ first Washington County, Maryland, accounting was filed with the Orphans’ Court in January 1845, the second in quick succession in February 1845, and the third not until January 1848; while meantime in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, where he was domiciled, the first of three accountings was filed in September 1843, the second followed it only in October 1851, reporting the sale of his seven building lots and the tract near McConnellsburg, and the final one reporting the collection of miscellaneous assets, mostly interest payments, was not filed until twelve years later in 1863, during the Civil War. That would amount to more than 20 years to settle completely his estate worth less than $10,000! Today even a millionaire’s estate is settled in less than three years. This kind of business was settled at a snail’s pace in those times in small towns.

While I have mentioned most of the assets, I have mentioned none of the estate’s debts or expenses. There is only one expense worth mentioning. David’s son, Elias David Brumbaugh was paid “for driving cattle and hogs from Bedford County $4.00.” A thankless task that! I feel sure that he deserved every penny. He must have drawn the short straw among the ten children.

David Angle Brumbaugh: born March 17, 1776; died April 23, 1842, in Franklin County. He married October 1805 at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran church in Hagerstown, Maryland, Anna Eve Kissecker (various spellings) (daughter of Simon Keysacre born May 20, 1747, died August 25, 1818 and [unknown]) born March 26, 1789, and died July 22, 1845, in Franklin County, Pennsylvania.
David and Anna Eve had the following children:
i. Simon Keesecker born September 27,1806 died July 14, 1892. He married “on Tuesday the 20th of Jan. [1842] near Bedford before Rev. Ettinger to Miss Ann C[hristiana] Stuckey (daughter of David Stuckey, Esq. and Margaret Brake Stuckey [also spelled Stookey] of Bedford County, Pennsylvania) born January 2, 1825, Woodbury Township, Bedford County, Pennsylvania; died February 11. 1906. Both died at Roaring Spring, Blair County, Pennsylvania. About this couple, see more below.
ii. George born November 12, 1808, died young.
iii. Elias David born April 22, 1811 ; died September 14, 1893. He married Marinda Etta Benner (daughter of Harry Benner and Elizabeth Showman Benner). She died August 26, 1878, both at Greencastle, Pennsylvania.
iv. Nathan Henry born May 23,1813; died April 24, 1892. He was married by Rev. J. Rebaugh on November 26, 1840, at Reformed Church of State Line, to Levina Myers (daughter of Jacob Myers and Susan Zent Myers) born January 5, 1819. She died May 28 1902, both Greencastle, Pennsylvania.
v. Elizabeth Louisa born November 15, 1815, baptized December 1815, married William Logan.
vi. Jacob Benjamin born June 23, 1818, baptized August 1819; died February 4, 1903. He married January 1, 1856, Rebecca E. Clopper (daughter Samuel Clopper and Catherine Maria Gordon Clopper) born March 15, 1834. She died April 8, 1914.
vii. Anna Maria born May 20, 1820, died young.
viii. Catherine June born June 11, 1822, baptized January1823; died December 30, 1903. She married July 4, 1842, Joseph Newman, born October 15, 1818; died May 7, 1862. After her husband died Catherine lived in the old State Line hotel, previously the home of her parents.
ix. Anna Maria born December 6, 1824, baptized June 1820; died December 18, 1867. She married Hiram Emrich Brumbaugh, her cousin, born April 13, 1825.
x. Indiana Dorothy (also written “Judianna”) born March 17, 1827, died Mansfield, Ohio. She married Henry Cook; both died Mansfield, Ohio.
xi. Eleanora Louisa G. born July 22, 1829, baptized May 1831, died February 10, 1834 before her fifth birthday. She was adopted by paternal uncle, George, and his wife, Mary Louisa Gelwicks Brumbaugh.
xii. George Washington Andrew Jackson (he signed only George W.) born July 8, 1833; died July 5, 1907. He married December 20, 1872, Anna Eliza Hartman (daughter Charles Hartman, Jr. and Susan Myers Hartman) born 1838. She died May 3, 1905, both Greencastle, Franklin County, Pennsylvania.
Those children of David, above, with dates of baptism were all baptized at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, Hagerstown, Maryland.

David’s Eldest Son Simeon K. Brumbaugh and His Family:

A further mention must be added concerning David’s eldest son Simeon. Many years later in 1888 Simeon sold that mountain property and moved into a cottage in Roaring Spring (Blair County), Pennsylvania, where on January 27, 1892, during what was called the “gilded age” (the 1890s generally in America, so called for the opulently well displayed wealth) he and Christiana celebrated their golden 50th wedding anniversary. According to the newspaper report that week, the occasion began with a festive dinner for about 40 people at their home with a master of ceremonies, toasts, and all. It was recalled in particular that Simeon and his bride, as newly-weds had taken a horseback ride from their wedding before Rev. Ettinger in Bedford County to Simeon’s home in Hagerstown, Maryland, a trip of about 80 miles. Now in 1892 for their 50th five of their seven children and spouses dined at their home along with some friends and neighbors. For a golden wedding anniversary, these celebrants, reaped a treasure of the precious metal: a gold ring from their two sons, a pair of golden framed spectacles from their daughters, a gold watch and chain from their sons, a gold capped cane for father, two five-dollar gold coins (one from their grandchildren and one from friends), a rocking chair, and slippers, and for mother, a silk scarf and kerchief.

Much more importantly, however, this charmed couple, despite living in a remote, rural setting, had the good fortune to have raised two sons, one who was a lawyer in their home town (David Stuckey Brumbaugh, father of Roland E. among others) and one a doctor in Philadelphia (Simon Schmucker Brumbaugh), and four daughters, one married to a doctor, one to a Brethren minister, and one to a successful farmer. Sadly, one daughter, however, had predeceased them. Simeon and Christiana were devoted Lutherans.



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