Portrait and biographical record of Queens County (Long Island) New York, Part 14

Author: Chapman, firm, publishers
Publication date: 1896
Publisher: New York ; Chicago : Chapman Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1220

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The first wife of Jacob Scheimer was Margaret, the fourth daughter of Heivert Papen and Eliza- beth Rittenhouse, only daughter of William Rüt- tinghuysen. The exact date of their marriage is not known. He was an ardent adherent of the Augsburg Confession of Faith, as his subsequent religious history shows. Rev. Dr. Mann, of the Lutheran Theological Seminary of Philadelphia, in a historical discourse, says: "Two hundred years ago the first German emigrants came to our beautiful Pennsylvania; they were few in

* number. * They came as Christians * **

* and, being unprovided with churches, they united with the Quakers and Mennonites, and worshipped with them; but all historians agree that the Mennonites kept no church books from 1710 to 1770, or they were lost." Prior to 1735-40 no Lutheran denomination had been or- ganized except the Zion Lutheran Church of Phil- adelphia, and the record of that church does not contain the names of Jacob Scheimer and Mar- garet Rittenhouse Papen in its marriage list; but other documents prove that they were married between the years 1720 and 1722. Mar- garet's signature appears on the deed above referred to, dated March 5, 1728, show- ing that she was alive at that date; but she died between that year and 1732. The exact date of her death and the place of inter- ment cannot be determined. They had six children, namely: Abraham, who was married March 3, 1749, to Lena Westbroeck, daughter of a large landed proprietor of Northern New Jer- sey; Anthony; Mrs. Elizabeth Vickeson, Mrs. Mary Shoemaker, Mrs. Catharine Young and Sarah.

His wife, Margaret, having died, Jacob Schei- mer married again, and his second wife's Chris- tian name, Elizabeth, only is known. Their oldest child, Jacob, was born in Skippack, Pa., June 4, 1734. In 1740 he removed to a planta- tion which he had purchased, situated on the northern slope of the Lehigh hills, bordering on

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the southern banks of the Lehigh River, below Bethlehem, Pa., where he died September 17, 1757, aged seventy-eight years. His will, pro- bated October 15, 1757, is on file in the regis- ter's office, Philadelphia, Pa. He was twenty years the senior of his first wife and thirty years older than his second wife, and was seventy years old when his youngest son was born.

Willem Rüttinghuysen, grandfather of Jacob Scheimer's first wife, came from Broig, Holland, and settled in Germantown, Pa., in 1689. He was the first American Mennonite bishop and the great-grandfather of the celebrated astron- omer, David Rittenhouse. His name became fa- mous on account of his having established, on the Wissahickon, the first paper mill in America. He owned over three hundred acres of land on the west side of Main Street, Germantown. Heivert Papen, father-in-law of Jacob Scheimer, came from Papenburg, on the bank of the river Ems, which flows into the North Sea. He settled in Germantown in 1685, and married Elizabeth, only daughter of Willem Rüttinghuysen. By religious profession he was a Quaker. He owned over three hundred acres of land on the east side of Main Street, Germantown, adjoining his father- in-law's tract. (Recorder of deed's office, Phil- adelphia, Germantown Book, p. 219, I. 4, p. 30.) In 1689 he built a house which was demolished only about 1884. In Westcott's History of Phil- adelphia appears the following notice of it: "A mansion built by Heivert Papen, on the north- east corner of Main and Johnson Streets, in 1689, drawn expressly to illustrate Westcott's History of Philadelphia." Heivert Papen died in 1708, leaving five daughters, but no sons; hence his name became extinct.

The names of "Jacob Scheimer and his wife Elizabeth" appear frequently in the old Lutheran Church book of that denomination in Lower Saucon Township, as communicants and as spon- sors at the baptism of infants of well-known fam- ilies. Their place of burial has not been discov- ered. They had issue: Jacob, born June 4, 1734, died June 6, 1764; Conrad, died in De- cember, 1760; Samuel; Edward, born February 28. 1741, died February 16, 1815; Peter, died prior to 1764; Isaac, born August 6, 1749, died April 10, 1838; and John, died prior to 1764.

Edward Shimer, the fourth son of Jacob Scheimer, married in 1765 Rosina Seip, widow of his brother Jacob. They had three sons and one daughter: Jacob, born January 1, 1767, died

October 5, 1845; Isaac, born May 6, 1769, died January 1, 1838; a son that died in infancy; and Susanna, born February 22, 1776, died August 16, 1863. Rosina Seip was born in Odenwald, Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany, January 1, 1739. In the spring of 1751 her eldest brother, Melchior, emigrated and landed in Philadelphia Septem- ber 14, 1751, settling in the eastern part of what is now Weissenberg Township, Lehigh County, Pa. John Seip, grandson of Melchior, founded Seipstown, the principal village of Weissenberg, in 1820.

Soon after Melchior Seip's emigration, his father died and the widow with her adult son Peter, her thirteen-year-old daughter Rosina and eleven-year-old son Jacob, followed her son Mel- chior to America, the ship landing in Philadelphia September 22, 1752. She, however, was taken ill while crossing the ocean, died and was buried at sea, when within six weeks of their place of destination. Peter Seip, with his sister Rosina and brother Jacob, settled where subsequently Seipsville, in Northampton County, Pa., was founded. Jacob Seip was the first American ancestor of Dr. Amos Seip of Easton, Pa., and Rev. T. L. Seip, D. D., president of Muhlen- berg College, Allentown, Pa. Peter Seip was cor- oner of Northampton County in 1770.

Edward Shimer acquired a part of the original ancestral estate by inheritance and purchase, and here he and his wife died and were buried in a private burying plot. The eldest son, Jacob, married, in April, 1791, Elizabeth Beyl, born Sep- tember 15, 1772, died January 31, 1857. They had seven sons and one daughter: John, born June 7, 1792, died July 29, 1878; Joseph, born May 2, 1795, died August 13, 1878; Edward, born June 27, 1797, died October 10, 1869; Isaac, born August 25, 1799, died December 17, 1863; Jacob, born October 10, 1802, died in October, 1871; Elizabeth, born April 21, 1805; Samuel, born September 21, 1807; and Abraham, born March 12, 1809, died January 1, 1881.

Elizabeth Beyl was a daughter of Balthazer Beyl, a Palatinate, who landed in Philadelphia September 26, 1737. Between the years 1742 and 1754 warrants were issued and patents granted to him for four different tracts of land, amounting to about two hundred and fifty acres, in Upper Saucon Township. Northampton County, Pa. He was an elder and vestryman of the Evan- gelical or Lutheran congregation of Upper Sau- con, for the use of which congregation he had

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donated part of the land. His will is dated July 12, 1791, executors John Beyl and his wife Anna Maria. Elizabeth Beyl's sister, Susanna, married Jacob Seip Shimer's brother, Isaac, 1796, who is the maternal ancestor of the Boyer family of War- ren County, N. J. Another sister, Catharine, first married Solomon Owen, and later became the wife of Paul Heller. Of Paul's children, Abraham married Mary B. Egner and is the father of Hon. Frank B. Heller of Hellertown, Pa. Her brother, John Beyl, owned in 1780 taxable property assessed at sixteen hundred and forty pounds in Lower Saucon; at the same time his brother Henry was the owner of property, the assessed value of which was nine hundred and forty-two pounds, situated in Forks Township .. William Beyl's name appears in the tax list of Upper Saucon in 1781. John Beyl was one of the most prominent citizens of Northamp- ton County and held the office of justice under the commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1784.

At a meeting of a number of citizens in the stone church near Ironville, Lower Saucon, Northampton County, February II, 1806, in order to consult how best to promote Christian virtue and put an end to the immoralities of the neigh- borhood, it was decided to form an Association for the Encouragement of Christian Virtue and the Advancement of Civil Order. John Beyl was elected president, and also acted as chairman of a committee appointed to draft a constitution. Edward Shimer and John Beyl were members of the Committee of Safety of Northampton County, Pa., during the War of the Revolution. About the close of the eighteenth century the name of Beyl disappears from the list of assessments in Upper Saucon; whither they went is not known.

Jacob Seip Shimer was a progressive farmer and was often consulted by his neighbors on agri- cultural matters. In June, 1809, for $10,666.66, lawful money of the United States, William Cur- rie of Plymouth Township, in the county of Lu- zerne, yeoman, deeded to Jacob Shimer the his- toric tract of one hundred and eighty acres and mill. A new mill was built in 1812 and around it, as a nucleus, the village of Shimersville, at the mouth of the Saucon Creek, gradually grew. Jacob Seip Shimer's only sister, Susanna, was married, first, "to one of the Binghams" of Phil- adelphia, two brothers who owned a tract of a thousand acres on the south bank of the Lehigh. River, which they kept as a hunting ground. Susanna's husband died early, without issue, and

his surviving brother returned to England, his native place, and Lord Ashburton was one of his descendants. The second husband of Susanna was Dr. Von Steuben of Bethlehem, a near rela- tive of Baron Von Steuben and General Von Steuben of military fame.

John Beyl Shimer, grandfather of the subject of this sketch and eldest son of Jacob Seip Shimer, married April 7, 1816, Mary (Polly) Schweitzer, born February 19, 1797, died January 1I, 1873. Their children were Elizabeth, wife of John Rie- gel, a paper mill manufacturer; William, born June 5, 1820; George and Samuel (twins), March 5, 1823; James Oliver (father of our subject), July 31, 1826; Jacob Theodore, November 28, 1834; Robert Anthony, October 3, 1836; Mary Ann, September 22, 1828; and Sarah, March 3, 1832. Mary Schweitzer was a daughter of John Schweitzer, third son of John Schweitzer, who was the first American ancestor of the Schweitzer family in Northampton County. He lived in Bethlehem Township. John Schweitzer, Jr., also resided in Bethlehem Township and the assessed value of his real estate in 1780 was twelve hun- dred and twenty pounds. His will is dated 1839 and is on record in the office of the register of deeds at Easton, Pa. He had eight children: John, Isaac, Susanna, Catharine, Elizabeth, Mary, Rebecca and Sarah. The third child, Susanna, was married to John Lerch Shimer.

James Oliver Shimer, father of the subject of this article, was a prominent woolen manufac- turer and died in October, 1891, at the age of sixty-three years. In religious belief a Lutheran, he was especially interested in Sunday school work and for thirty years held the office of super- intendent. One of his sisters, Elizabeth, married John Riegel, the well-known paper manufacturer of Riegelville, Pa .; his brother William and his sons are skillful iron founders at the old home- stead; George is a woolen manufacturer in Phila- delphia; Robert is a successful dry-goods mer- chant in New Jersey; and Jacob is especially known through his inventive ability.

May 2, 1850, James Oliver Shimer married Elmira Dorinda Sophia Dubs, who was born De- cember 14, 1829, daughter of Rev. Joseph S. Dubs, D. D., an eminent minister of the Re- formed Church, and sister of Rev. A. J. G. Dubs, D. D., pastor of a church in Allentown, Pa. (the largest outside of Philadelphia), and Rev. Joseph Henry Dubs. D. D., professor of history and arch- aeology in Franklin and Marshall College, Lan-

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caster, Pa. The older brother is widely known for his matchless oratory and great executive abil- ity; the younger for his historical and poetical writings, the former constituting him a recog- nized authority in his special field. Of the chil- dren of James Oliver Shimer the eldest, Alice, is the wife of Henry J. Pretz, a banker in Al- lentown, Pa .; Edgar Dubs is second in order of birth, and was born at Shimersville, near Bethlehem, Northampton County, Pa., Febru- ary 25, 1853; Louise E. is the wife of John L. Hogan, a commission merchant in Philadel- phia, and a writer of acknowledged authority on dietetics; her book on "How to Feed Infants" is published by Lippincotts of Philadelphia; Carrie E., who lives in Jamaica, is a teacher of music, and is also author of "Preparatory Touch and Tech- nic;" Anna died when quite young; William H., the youngest of the family, was trained under Dr. Pancoast and is a practicing physician at Meyers- ville, Tex.

From the "Pennsylvania Magazine" of Octo- ber, 1894, volume 18, page 367, the following facts are gleaned concerning the origin and his- tory of the Dubs family in America: Among the one hundred and eighty-five passengers on the ship "Dragow" that crossed the Atlantic in 1732 was a young Swiss gunsmith, Jacob Dubs, who was born August 31, 1710, in hamlet Aesch, parish of Birmensdorf, canton of Zurich, Switzer- land. His parents, Jacob Dubs and Anna Glättli of Bachstetten, were married in Birmens- dorf, March 24, 1705, and had three sons, Hans and Ulrich, who died in infancy, and Jacob. For many generations the family had resided in Bir- mensdorf and the neighboring village of Affol- tern, and the earliest records show they were ar- morers. According to tradition the original stock was Bohemian. The name is the Czech word "dub," an oak. It is held to be derived from the name of a town near Prague, called "Duba" (The Oaks), or in German Eichen or Aycha, a name also well known in Bohemia and often written Dubsky. According to Merian the families Von Eichen and Berka were originally named Dubs, the first a translation, the second derived from an estate.

A branch of the family became Hussites in the fifteenth century and during the wars fled to the Austrian province Styria, where we find them settled in 1446. The head of the family entered military service and distinguished himself in ex- peditions against the Swiss. He was knighted on

the field by Emperor Maximilian I., who also gave him the privilege of occupying a clearing in the imperial forest. The arms granted are carefully preserved and were recognized and ap- proved by Frederick I., king of Prussia, in 170I. They appear in "Europaische Wappensamm- lung," published by John Rudolph Helmers, Nu- remberg, 1705, and represent a silver lance with pennon on a blue field, surmounted, as a crest, by three ostrich feathers, two silver and center blue. Prof. Joseph Henry Dubs, D. D., has in his possession an ancient engraved seal with these bearings.

About the beginning of the Protestant Reform- ation a younger son or grandson of the Styrian knight removed to Switzerland. The motives for his removal are supposed to have been the influ- ence of Hussite family traditions. He became an earnest Protestant, but the family in Styria has remained Catholic to this day. He settled six or eight miles from Zurich and there engaged in the manufacture of weapons. In 1531 Zurich was invaded by an army from the Catholic can- tons and he became a soldier, losing his life with Zwingli, the reformer, in the battle of Cappel, October II, 1531. In an ancient chronicle of the church at Affoltern, it is recorded that the armor- er Dubs of Birmensdorf was slain at Cappel in defence of his faith. The same fact is also stated by Henry Bullinger, the successor of Zwingli, in his "Reformation Geschichte," but the name there is twisted into Jacob Dupps. The descend- ants continued as gunsmiths and were quiet, hon- est and unpretentious.

Jacob Dubs was fairly well educated and ex- celled in penmanship. His mother died in his early boyhood and his father married again. When he became of age he followed several of his cousins, who had already crossed the ocean. Arriving in Pennsylvania, he sought his country- men in Great Swamp, Bucks County, where Rev. John Henry Goetschins of Zurich had recently founded a congregation. On the oldest extant list of members appears his name. A short distance away, in Lower Milford, Lehigh County, he set- tled on one hundred and fifty acres, which was surveyed in 1734. Water power was provided by a branch of the Perkiomen. Here he erected a small forge, made arms and iron implements, and it was said of him that he could make any- thing from a plough to a darning necdle. He made a harpsichord, long in possession of his de- scendants. Through his efforts was laid the

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foundation of the business enterprises afterward carried on by his sons and grandsons. In 1734 he became a naturalized citizen of America. He married Veronica Welker, a native of the Upper Palatinate, and a woman of culture, who gath- ered the neighboring children in her kitchen and taught them to read. Their sons and daughters were Felix, born February 28, 1738; Barbara, April 5, 1744; Margaretha, 1746; Daniel, Octo- ber 5, 1748; and Elizabeth, October 16, 1750.

The experiences of Jacob Dubs were those in- cident to life in a frontier settlement. Not only were his privations great and hardships many, but he was exposed to perils from savage foes and wild beasts that lurked in neighboring woods. Wolves were especially troublesome, and Daniel, his son, when a little boy often amused himself by imitating their barking; once a wolf rushed on him, but he escaped into the kitchen through an open window, by the aid of his mother. Though a man of peace, when the Indians in- vaded the Lehigh Valley, Jacob Dubs joined a company that followed them beyond the Blue Mountains. Deeply interested in the welfare of the church, he was efficient in his service as ruling elder, an office held in the same congrega- tion by three generations of descendants.

In 1759 Felix Dubs, still unmarried, started for Philadelphia with a load of farm produce. He spent the night at North Wales with Matthias Schwenk, whose daughter, Elizabeth, afterward married Daniel, a brother of Felix. Rising early in the morning while yet it was dark, he fell into a well not properly covered and was drowned. Barbara, daughter of Jacob Dubs, married Jacob Boyer, who during the Revolution sold his farm, receiving payment in depreciated Continental money. He became financially involved and re- moved to Tennessee, whence his descendants later came back to Pennsylvania and paid all his debts with accrued interest. Margaretha became the second wife of Jacob Dillinger and has nu- merous descendants. Elizabeth married Jacob Haak, a wealthy man and a prominent Freema- son. Daniel, in 1772, purchased his father's busi- ness for three hundred and fifty pounds, and the father lived retired until his death three years later. Daniel erected the first brick house in Le- high County, a building that still stands, in excel- lent condition. He married Elizabeth Schwenk and their children were Anna Maria, born June 27, 1777; Jacob, June 21, 1779; Henry; Daniel, born April 7, 1786; John, September 5, 1788;

Solomon, October 10, 1794; and Joseph S., Octo- ber 16, 1796, the last-named being our subject's grandfather. He was licensed to preach the gos- pel in 1822. It was usual with him to preach three times on Sunday. He also found time to con- tribute to the periodicals of his church. In many collections of hymns may be found "Wie Som- mers schoen die Blumen blueh'n," written by him about 1840, and often sung at the burial of in- fants. The common people knew him as Father Dubs. All his sermons were charming for their clearness, force and fervor, and for unequaled beauty of delivery. He officiated at the corner- stone laying, or consecration, of sixty-five churches. In 1866, Franklin and Marshall Col- lege, in recognition of his fame and faithful serv- ice conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity. He died April 14, 1877, after having been for thirty years pastor of Zion's Re- formed Church at Allentown, in which the his- toric bells of Philadelphia were concealed during the Revolution.

Referring to the personal history of the subject of this biography, it may be said that Professor Shimer spent his early life in attendance at the schools of his native place, while during his leisure hours he assisted his father in the mill. At an early age he developed a fondness for machinery and devoted much of his time to its study, becom- ing an expert in its manipulation. At the age of twelve he was so far advanced in his studies that the country school at Shimersville taught nothing of which he was not the master. He then en- tered a private school of high grade at Bethle- hem. It was his father's ambition that he should be educated for the Lutheran ministry, he having been reared in that faith, although his mother's family were members of the Reformed Church. At the age of fifteen he received a license to teach a public school, and the following year his par- ents removed to Allentown in order to afford him better educational advantages. At once he en- tered Muhlenberg College, of which Rev. Francis Augustus Muhlenberg, D. D., was president, and it was his influence that directed the youthful student toward philosophical studies. In 1874 he graduated from the art department of the col- lege, carrying off the highest honors of his class. Soon afterward he went to New York City to study Greek, Latin, German and Hebrew, still with the view of becoming a minister. He be- came a member of the family of Dr. Edward F. Moldehnke, whose son Charles, now a well-known

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Egyptologist, by his intense thirst for archaelogi- cal and mythological lore, aroused in our subject the teacher's instinct and caused him to decide that his energies should be devoted to teaching instead of preaching. In 1875 he became a teach- er in Grammar School No. 42 in the city of New York, and with his customary thoroughness at once began the systematic study of pedagogy in all its aspects. He studied it closely, not only in books, but in the school room, thus investigating in his own way the great and fundamental laws of education. He also became a teacher in the foreign departments of the public evening schools, and later a teacher of rhetoric and elocution in one of the evening high schools.

The devotion evinced by Professor Shimer to the cause of education, the new ideas which, when put into practice, worked out the same as in theory, attracted attention, and in 1886 he was invited to lecture on psychology in the University of the City of New York. Two years later he was made adjunct professor of pedagogy in that institution of learning. In 1877 he received the degree of A. M. from Muhlenberg College and in regular course the degree of Ph.D. in 1887, his thesis being a plea for the founding of chairs of pedagogy. In 1891 he was made a full professor in the University of New York, being called to the chair of psychology, which he now occupies. When the university extension movement was first organized in New York, he was employed by the management to deliver three courses of lec- turse on psychology, two of them in Brooklyn and the other in the College of the City of New York. These lectures attracted a great deal of attention, and his writings, public addresses and translations have been widely commented upon by the press throughout the country, until now his name is well known in all educational circles. One of his specialties, in which he has been most successful, is the working out of theories and then putting them in practice in the school room. Few educators have the gift of word painting which he possesses, enabling the hearer to see the thing he is talking of as plainly as though it were before his facc. He believes that education is more than merely committing to memory certain portions of text books; that it means culture, the development and disciplining of all the faculties of the human body and mind. With this high ideal of his profession and with the thorough preparation he has made for his life work, success has naturally followed. Dr. Henry M. Field,

editor of the "New York Evangelist," writes of him thus: "I was invited by Mr. Charles Butler to pay a visit to the School of Pedagogy in the ·New York University and had the opportunity of seeing a class that was under the care of Pro- fessor Shimer. I had never seen him before, but my attention was at once arrested by his perfect mastery of the subject, by the clearness with which he explained it so as to make all under- stand it, and the remarkable power he had of gaining the attention of his pupils and making them interested and enthusiastic students. I should think he would be a great acquisition to any institution. Indeed, if I were in the neighbor- hood I should often drop in for the pleasure of listening to one who has in a remarkable degree the gift-I may almost say the genius-of teach- ing."

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Portrait and biographical record of Queens County (Long Island) New York, Part 14

Author: Chapman, firm, publishers Publication date: 1896 Publisher: New York ; Chicago : Chapman Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 1220

Author: Chapman, firm, publishers
Publication date: 1896
Publisher: New York ; Chicago : Chapman Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1220