William Enyeart (1752 - 1828)

When the  Revolutionary War began, 25 year old  William Enyeart  was called to duty  and was commissioned Ensign on December 10, 1777, in the fourth Company, third Battalion of the  Bedford County Militia.  Within months  he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant on May 23, 1778,  telling us that he was a respected and capable young man to hold the rank of a commissioned officer in the Militia.  From 1778  through 1783 William  was a part of the  Rangers of the Frontier.  It was the duty of the Rangers to scout the forests and guard the settlements against surprise attacks  from  hostile Indians who were incited by the British to reign fear and havoc on the remote frontier settlers.  The Pennsylvania  Archive, 5TH Series, Volume  5, pages  71, 73, 74, 77 record his service.  

It is thought that William Enyeart was born in Middlesex County,  New Jersey in 1752. Around 1770 he moved from New Jersey to Pennsylvania where he first settled in the Trough Creek Valley of Bedford County. A short time later he moved to the valley of the Raystown Branch of Juaniata River. Here he acquired land in the upper part of Hopewell Township and partially in what is now Penn Township and began his improvements.

In 1772 William Enyeart married Catherine Shell in nearby Frederick County,  Maryland. William and Catherine (Shell) Enyeart became the parents of five children, who were, John, Mary, William, Elizabeth and David. Catherine died in childbirth on March 20,  1788 at the age of 38 years while giving birth to  twin girls who  died the same day. Catherine was buried in the Yocum Cemetery on the Raystown Branch, but was later reinterred in the Reformed Cemetery at Marklesburg, Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania with William.

Life was difficult for families living in this area.   J. Simpson Africa in  his book  The History of Huntingdon and Blair Counties,  Pennsylvania  wrote  that William Enyeart  "during the revolution sought protection in the fort at Standing Stone, and when no Indians were suppose to be about tilled his farm in company with a neighbor by the name of Reed, who improved an adjoining tract of land, one standing guard while the other worked. They several times escaped barely with their lives, as one occasion Enyeart jumping down the bank of the river and running to the fort near Marklesburg, thus avoiding the savages, who waited to waylay him should he try to return to Huntingdon."

In  1777 William Enyeart  started to build a home.  He positioned the house  on the side of the mountain on the Raystown Branch of the Little Juniata River just  south of Huntingdon in Hopewell Township. Construction  slowed  during the Revolutionary War. By  1782 the war effort was ending and William Enyeart got back to work on his very impressive, large stone house overlooking the Juniata Valley.  When finished it contained 10 rooms and was two and one half stories high.  William,  a part time blacksmith by trade, had made all the nails, spikes and other hardware used in the construction.  The house was so well constructed that the walls were still standing after  200 years. Tax assessment* in Bedford county, Hopewell Township for the year 1788  show William Enyeart with 170 acres, one horse and three cattle. Huntingdon County  was formed in 1787 out of the north portion of Bedford County and included William Enyeart's farm. Records show that William was warranted 100 acres of land in Hopewell Twp Huntingdon Co on March 7 1789.  Unfortunately the entire area around the old homestead was completely cleared to make way for the Raystown Dam.

After Catherine died  leaving him with five children, William  married for a second time. On September 5, 1788 he married  a much younger Jane Norris.  She was born August 19,  1774 in Sharpsburg,  Prince Georges County, Maryland which is now Washington County,  Maryland.  She was a daughter of Joseph Norris and Mary Moody.   William and Jane (Norris) Enyeart were the parents of sixteen children: James, Joseph, Silas, Thomas, Catherine, Benjamin, Jane, Rachel, Levi, Nancy Ann, Martha, Sarah, Rebecca, Margaret, Abraham and Eleanor.  Imagine that!   Jane was the mother of 16 children and mothered her five older step children as well.  All in all, William was the father of a total of  21 children who survived childhood.

William and Catherine are buried in the Reformed Cemetery at Marklesburg, Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania.  William died at the age of 76 on September 2, 1828.

Jane (Norris) Enyeart, survived William  by twenty years. She subsequently moved to Indiana with a number of her children who pioneered there.  Jane died on September 20, 1848 at the age of 74 years. She is buried in the Lagro Cemetery in Wabash County, Indiana where seven of her children are also buried.

William and Jane were  the parents of  Rachel who was born in Hunterdon Co. on July 12, 1800.  Rachel married  John Heffner and had a son named Benjamin.  Benjamin married Ann Eliza States and  was  the father of my great grandmother Ella Mae Heffner.  If anyone reading this story has knowledge of Jane Norris Enyeart  I would love to hear from you to share information.

*http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~pahuntin/townships/hopewell/index.htm

For more interesting stories about the Enyeart family, please see  the William Enyeart Heirs Company Homepage.

                                                      Please see this list of all My Revolutionary War Ancestors.

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                                         This page  © 2013, Cynthia H. Smith


Send email to chsmith47@yahoo.com

This site may be linked, but not duplicated in any way without consent. The copyright on this page must appear on all copied and/or printed material.

GENEALOGY IS A WORK OF HEART Your comments and suggestions are appreciated. It is with pleasure that I am able to present this information here for you to enjoy. If you discover a relationship here, I would very much enjoy hearing from you.

                Email address--- chsmith47@yahoo.com

Peter (Hilgert) Hilliard (1754 - 1834)

Here is another story of the valor of our Revolutionary War ancestors from Upper Mount Bethel Township in Northampton County, Pennsylvania.  These German speaking men were first and second generation Americans ready to fight for the cause of freedom in their newly adopted homeland.  Peter Hilgert was born on December 7, 1754, three years after his father  Johann Franz Hilgert arrived from Germany.  Over time the name came to be spelled Hilliard.

Peter served as a private in the Revolutionary War as a Waggoneer.  More than likely he was driving a Conestoga wagon as described here.

"The Conestoga wagon and its antecedents saw widespread use in Pennsylvania as early as 1730, and many of the wagons supplied to General Braddock's ill-fated 1755 expedition were of that type. In 1789 Dr. Benjamin Rush described the Conestoga as a 'large strong wagon, covered with linen cloth ... In this wagon, drawn by four or five horses ... [farmers] convey to market over the roughest roads, two or three thousand pounds weight of ... produce. In the months of September and October it is not uncommon to meet in one day from fifty to an hundred of these wagons on their way to Philadelphia, most of which belong to German farmers.'   Similar sights must also have been common during the war.^"  Copyright © 1999 John U. Rees. All rights reserved http://www.continentalline.org/articles/9902/990202.htm.  

Peter applied for a pension in 1832. In his affidavit  he states that  he enlisted and served several terms of duty in the Pennsylvania Troops.  First for nearly 3 months beginning April 1, 1776 in Captain John Mack's Company under Colonel Jacob Stroud.   From December 1777 for 3 months in Captain Patrick Campbell's Company under Colonel Nicholas Kern.  Later he served again for 3 months under  Captain Patrick Campbell and  Colonel Jacob Stroud from October  1778 or 1779.

In testimony on the pension application for Elizabeth to receive compensation based on her husband's service, George, brother of Peter Hilliard, stated that he remembered his brother telling stories that he drove a wagon to haul the wounded and dead from the field of battle after the battle was over.  George believed that this had been the Battle of Brandywine.  

Sometime during the conflict, around the year 1779,  Peter married Elizabeth Emrich, a daughter of Jacob Emrich and his wife Ann Elizabeth (The verdict is still out as to whether she was a Beck or a Buss) Emrich.  The Pension affidavit says Peter Hilgert and Elizabeth Emrich were married at her father's house  in Mount Bethel Township by Mr. Fredrick, a preacher.  In 1850, Margaret Emrich Hilgert, wife of George Hilgert, Peter's brother stated that she was the sister of Elizabeth Hilgert.   

Peter and Elizabeth had three children whose births were recorded at the German Reformed Church in Mount Bethel (see Notes).  Christine Elizabeth Hilgert/Hilliard born on April 21, 1780, Catharine Hilgert/Hilliard born on August 17, 1782 and  John Philip Hilgert/Hilliard born on December 14, 1785. 

After the war, Peter was a member of the Pennsylvania legislature. He was allowed pension on his application executed August 31, 1832, while a resident of Upper Mount Bethel Township, Northampton County, Pennsylvania.

He is  buried in the Old Union Cemetery in Stone Church, Centerville, Pennsylvania where his grave is marked each year with an American Flag to honor his service.  I recently (2/21/2016) learned that Elizabeth is buried in the Milton Cemetery in Northumberland County, Pa.   The stone says she  died September 24, 1840 at the age of 80 years, 3 months and 13 days. This calculates to a birth date of Jun. 11, 1760.

Peter and Elizabeth's daughter Christine married  Jacob Eilenberger.  They  had a daughter Catherine who married John Correll.  Their daughter Josephine Correll married Henry Good and had a son named George  who was the grandfather of Dorothy Alice Good Smith.

Notes:                                                                                                                

• Church Record of the Evangelical Lutheran and Reformed Congregation at Mount Bethel Township, Northampton Co., PA , 1914. Transcribed from the old German Record by the Rev. Dr. Wm. Wackernagel. Containing birth records from 1774 - 1890. Personal copy.
• Daughters of the American Revolution, http://www.dar.org, Ancestor #:A056250
• Find A Grave Memorial# 114640718,  Elizabeth Hilgert

Please see this list of all My Revolutionary War Ancestors.

                                                            This page  © 2013,  Cynthia H. Smith           

This page updated February © 2016, Cynthia H. Smith


Send email to chsmith47@yahoo.com

This site may be linked, but not duplicated in any way without consent. The copyright on this page must appear on all copied and/or printed material.

GENEALOGY IS A WORK OF HEART Your comments and suggestions are appreciated. It is with pleasure that I am able to present this information here for you to see. If you discover a relationship here, I would very much enjoy hearing from you. 

 

Paulus Brodt (1733 - 1782)

By December of 1782 the Revolutionary War was  nearly over.  The newly formed government of the United States of America had entered peace talks with Britain and American troops were happy to be home to celebrate Christmas with their families.

But it was a sad time for the family of Paul Brodt as he had lost his life in a boating accident on the Delaware River sometime in December.  Paul and his wife Maria Barbara Miller had ten children by 1782, the youngest of them, Susanna, my 3x great grandmother,  was born in April of that year.  But let us back track a little.

Paul came to this country from Germany when he was 16 years old.  I've covered his early history on  my webpage at Paulus (Brod) Brodt.  By the time the Revolutionary War broke out he was a well established businessman operating tanneries along the Delaware.  A tannery was a place where animal skins were processed to produce leather.  Leather was a much used material for the making of  such things as saddles, harnesses, shoes and trunks.  It was a pretty stinky business and I imagine it may have looked something like this.

His tanneries were in Portland, Upper Mount Bethel township and Lower Saucon in Williams township.  Both of these locations are in Northampton County, Pennsylvania. Portland is on the Delaware River in the northern end of the county and  Williams township is to the southern end of the county.   Check out this map.   I calculated that the distance on the river between the two places  is roughly 40 miles.  

Now that would be a lot of travel on the river.  I imagine that Paul picked up skins from fur traders as he went between his tanneries.  He would have also used the river to transport the finished leather hides  to markets. There are many  dangerous rapids in the river and in December there could have been many other hazards for the men in boats to circumvent.   Evidently he had become a wealthy man for at his death in 1782 he left a large estate to his children.

I have found his name  in the PA Archives, 5th Series, Vol. 8.  He was in the 1st Battalion, and 1st class under Captain Joseph Fox.  This  abstract card is a transcription of the data extracted  from  the original records in the custody of the State Archives concerning Revolutionary War service in the Pennsylvania Militia.  

His DAR  record, Ancestor #: A014691, tells us that he was a Private in the Northampton Co. Militia under the command of Colonel George Hubner  and Captain Joseph Fox.  

After his untimely death his wife Maria Barbara Miller  remarried  and had five more children.  In 1785 her father filed a court petition for the  disposition of the property left to the children of Paulus Brodt.  It was not until 1789  that a final settlement of the Brodt Estate was reached.   His daughter Susanna married Christopher Illick.  Their son Sam  married Henrietta Kressler  and had a daughter name Clara who married Henry McEwen.

Pennsylvania State Archives @ http://www.digitalarchives.state.pa.us

                         This page  © 2013,  Cynthia H. Smith
                        Email  to chsmith47@yahoo.com