USA > Pennsylvania > Historic homes and institutions and genealogical and personal memoirs of the Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania Vol. II > Part 9
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the said Bernhard Arndt, wished to remove his wife from Corborn to Baumholder he was under the necessity of purchasing her manumission for a sum not known to me. The instrument of the manumission bears date at Tweybrucken, the 12th day of February, in the Year of Our Lord, 1717. At Baumholder, Bernhard followed the trade of a shoemaker, and, as his earnings furnished but a scanty supply for his family, he frequently ex- pressed a wish or inclination to emigrate to America, but his wife constantly refused and put a negative on his proposition until, to us, a trifling circumstance occurred which was thus : My grandmother, who was so adverse to giving her consent to go to America, had put a pig in her stable to raise and fatten for the express pur- pose to regale herself and children with a boun- tiful repast of meat diet, but before this took place one of the princesses of their duke got mar- ried, in consequence of which an extraordinary tax was prescribed to be laid on his subjects for the purpose of furnishing the princess. For this extraordinary request or requisition no provision had been made for the payment thereof, and no other means were at hand to dis- charge the tax but the sale of the pig fattening in the stable. After this instance no further objec- tions were made to the proposed emigration to the land of liberty in America. Their preparations were made for the removal and at the end of April or the beginning of May in the year 1731 the fam- ily of my grandfather departed for their new country, consisting then, besides the parents, of two sons and one daughter. The eldest son's name was Abraham; the second, (my father) Jacob, and Catherine. They came down the river Rhine and embarked at Rotterdam for America. On the voyage another son was born, whom they named Henry. They landed in Philadelphia, paid their passage, and for some time lived in Ger- mantown, and from thence removed into (as I believe) the poorest soil of the then county of Philadelphia, where my grandfather continued the occupation of a shoemaker and taught all his sons the same trade.
And now, as the children of my grandfather branched out into four different families, I will
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confine myself to that of my grandfather, only mentioning that Abraham married the amiable daughter of Philip Reed, and by her had issue of sons and daughters. Henry married a woman whose name was Bender, and the daughter Cath- erine was married to a man named Leidig, which in the event proved rather unhappy. Leidig is dead and she is a pauper on the township, at the same time having a daughter married to one Kolb, who is able but not willing to support her. My father, one of the sons of said Bernhard, as I men- tioned before, was born at Baumholder on 24th of March, 1725, and here he married Elizabeth, the daughter of Jacob Geiger, who had emigrated from Germany. She was born in Ittlingen, in the bailiwick of Bretton, in the Upper Palatine, on the 20th of September, 1726. After marriage he purchased a farm in Rock Hill township, in the county of Bucks. Whilst he resided there the French war in 1755 broke out, when he quit his occupation of shoemaker and accepted a captain's commission in the provincial service, and with his company was stationed at what was called the frontier, to check the incursions of the savage In- dians in the stockade forts then called "Norris" and "Allen." In the end he was pro- moted to the rank and command of major and stationed at Fort Augusta (near the present Sunbury), and, at the conclusion of that war when the Pennsylvania troops were disbanded, he was of course dis- charged from that military service. He then sold his farm in Bucks county, and made a purchase of John Jones, of a mill and farm on Bushkill creek, near Easton, to which in the year 1760 he removed his family, consisting of five children besides the parents. I, as the eldest, was one; his daughter Elizabeth, born September 29, 1750, who was married to Jacob Shoemaker and de- parted this life on July 4, 1797, leaving issue of sons and daughters ; Margaret, born July 29, 1752, departed this life in an unmarried state on IIth day of , 1768; Jacob, a second son, born May 14, 1756, who became intermarried with Elizabeth, one of the daughters of Zacharias Nyce, of the county of Montgomery ; and Abraham, the youngest son was born January 31, 1759, and was
married to Ann, one of the daughters of William Henn, of Morris county, of the state of New Jersey. After my father settled on his new pur- chase he used much industry and economy in im- proving the same as to buildings and so forth, and kept a strict family discipline (in my opinion rather too severe) and had all his children in- structed in the German Reformed Protestant Christian religion. God seems to have blessed his endeavors, so that eventually he could help his children to begin a living in the world. When the dispute between Great Britain and their colonies (now the United States of America) commenced, he took an early and active part on the side of the Americans, at the expense of a large part of his property, occasioned by the depreciation of the then emissions of paper bills of credit. Having thus established himself to be what in those days was called a good Whig, he was elected by his fellow citizens of the county to represent them first in the convention that framed the late consti- tution of Pennsylvania, and afterwards as a mem- ber of the house of representatives, and also of the executive council, as by the public records will appear ; thus he continued to serve his country and its cause until age and change of opinion in politics with the people made it desirable for him to retire from public to private life and enjoy the residue of his days as comfortably as could be ex- pected. Thus he continued to reside at his mill after all his children had removed from him and kept their own families. My mother departed this life on the 17th day of March, in the year, 1797, aged seventy years, five months and twenty-seven days. He shortly came to reside with his daugh- ter and her husband, Jacob Shoemaker, and re- mained with them until some time after the death of his daughter, when he removed to my family in Easton, where he resided until his death, which took place 3d of August, 1805, aged eighty years, four months and ten days. As to myself, I was born on my fatlier's farm in Rock Hill township, in the county of Bucks, on the 5th day of June, in the year 1748, and was from thence with the family removed to my father's new purchase near Easton, where I lived a hard and laborious life. In the year 1774 I paid my addresses to the ami-
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able Miss Elizabeth Feit, one of the daughters of John Feit, of Greenwich township, in the county of Sussex, New Jersey, and became married to her on the 13th of December of the same year. With her I lived as happily as could be expected to fall to the lot of man, but alas! this felicity was of short duration. On the 15th of January, 1776, she was delivered of a female child, which died the third day after its birth, and this was the first corpse that was interred in the family burying-ground near the mill; and then my good and much beloved wife soon after de- parted this life on the 3Ist day of the same month, aged seventeen years, eight months and twenty-seven days, and was buried beside the body of our child. Being thus left without a family of my own I continued the occupation of miller in my father's mill, and in the month of June, 1776, when the affairs between this country and Great Britain began to come to a serious crisis, I then, at the request of the committee of this county, consented to take command of a com- pany of riflemen as their captain, in what was then called the "Flying Camp." This acceptance to such a hazardous undertaking was owing to several inducements-patriotism was the leading one : the next was that I would serve a grateful country, but in the last I was eventually convinced of my error, for experience has taught me that there is no notion of such a thing as gratitude with the citizens of a Republican government. I marched that company according to orders to dif- ferent places, and among the others to Long Island, where, on the 27th of August, we partook in the disgrace of a defeat by the superior force and discipline of the British forces. There by the shot of a small cannon ball I got wounded in the left arm, which ever after deprived me of the use of the elbow joint. In the beginning of the year 1777, when the new government of Pennsylvania became organized, I was by the legislature thereof appointed register of the probate of wills and recorder of deeds. This appointment I accepted and was thereafter too delicate to solicit the pen- sion I was entitled to on account of being crippled. Thus I held said office, with that of justice of the peace ; the emoluments thereof at that time and
during the war did not much more than com- pensate for the stationery that was wanted for the use thereof. On the 12th day of August, 1777, 1 became married a second time to Miss Elizabeth Ihrie, one of the daughters of Conrad Ihrie. She was born in Forks township on April 6, 1756; this second marriage proved as happy as could be expected. By this union we had the fol- lowing named children: Maria, born March 6, 1779 ; Susanna, born February 2, 1781 ; Elizabeth, born February 14, 1783; Jacob, born April 27, 1785, died August 6, 1806; Sarah, born February 27, 1788: John, born May 21, 1789, died October 29, . 1806; George Washington, born June 25, 1791 ; Annie, born March 15, 1794 ; Benjamin F., born June 23, 1796; Samuel, born August 17, 1798.
I continued to reside at the mill until the 4th day of March, 1796, on which day I removed my family to Easton into a house I had purchased previously from my father-in-law, Conrad Ihrie, in which I continue to reside now. Here I con- tinued to administer to the office of register of wills and recorder of deeds and clerk of the orphans' court and in the discharge of the duties of those offices I have the consolation of knowing that my official conduct was approved by the gen- erality of citizens, the widows and the orphans, and particularly my own conscience. In the gen- eral election of the year 1799, when the govern- ment term of the late Thomas Mifflin constitu- tionally expired, there were two candidates nom- inated by the citizens of Pennsylvania for the high and important office of governor of the state. The one was James Ross, of Pittsburg, and the other Thomas McKean, of Philadelphia. Having had a personal acquaintance with both gentlemen in nomination, my opinion was that James Ross was of the two the better person, and if elected would. be governor of all the citizens in the state. The other would be that of a giddy-headed party only .. Under the circumstances I was led to believe that as a citizen of a free republic I was undoubt- edly entitled to the freedom of choice: I did so, and voted for James Ross : by doing so the event proved that I was in the minority, and had thereby in the opinion of the successful candidate com-
4 X
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mitted an unpardonable crime which all past serv- ices entailing danger and wounds for the estab- lishment of our independence and the blessings of a republican government, and also the upright dis- charge of official duties, could not wipe out. This supposed Governor Mckean would sooner par- don a man guilty of murder or treason than him that did not vote for him. I consequently was marked out as one of his first victims of Demo- cratic frenzy and zeal for the giddy party he had espoused, and my dismission from all public em- ployment as soon as he was settled in the chair of government convinced me that all my Revolu- tionary and other services were rendered to an. unjust and ungrateful country. I can in truth inform the reader of this, that I have derived as- much consolation as I have chagrin and disgrace from my adherents in all change of public opinion to the good old Washingtonian creed to which I mean to adhere through life.
Second Part. It now becomes my (George WV. Arndt) duty in compliance with my father's request (after having concluded his life) to con- tinue the present history, confining myself mostly to such events immediately interesting myself. My father adhered to his political principles un- changed through his life, agreeable to his declared determinations. After being dismissed from office by Thomas Mckean, the governor, he devoted himself to shop-keeping for support, a business in my opinion ranking no higher than the meanest profession, but which he pursued until the spring of 1813. He had long labored under bodily as well as mental affliction, a depression of spirits, hypochondria, all gradually working on his frame terminated his existence on the 6th day of May, 1814, having attained the respectable age of sixty- five years, eleven months and one day.
George W. Arndt, the writer of the foregoing paragraph, early in the year 1813, proceeded to settle on the estate lately occupied by his father, and which afterward became the joint patrimony of himself and his brother Benjamin, and therein," in conjunction with his brother-in-law, Charles Lombbeart, undertook the manufacturing of wool- en cloth in connection with farming and milling. On the 27th of -, the same year he
became married to Henrietta Byllbysby, by whom he had the following children: Wel- lington, born February 28, 1814; Jack- son, born February 12, 1815; Susan and Eveline, twins, born October 1I, 1817, died February 1, 1815, aged one year, three months and seventeen days. After an ill regulated pursuit of business for four years he was compelled to abandon it, and in the year of 1817 he removed his family to Easton and continued without any definite employment until July of the following year. He then determined to emigrate to one of the western states in the hope of retrieving his for- tunes, his patrimony having been wholly dissipated or insolved, and accordingly set out on a tour with the intention of selecting a spot for the purpose. Having passed through the countries bordering on the Ohio and the Mississippi rivers, he finally ar- rived at the city of New Orleans, where in a few days he was attacked by the unhealthfulness of the climate and after lingering nearly six months he died there on the 29th of June, 1819, aged twenty-eight years and four days, thus terminat- ing an unimportant life marked with much indis- cretion and misfortune.
CAPTAIN JOHN ARNDT. A battle oc- curred on the 27th of August in which the Ameri- cans were beaten and forced to retreat, which they did in a masterly manner. On the 29th of Au- gust the American loss of killed was upward of one thousand men. One of the companies was commanded by Captain John Arndt, of Forks township. Captain Arndt lost many of his men and he himself was severely wounded. Colonel Peter Kickline was with Mr. Arndt and they were taken prisoners. Captain John Arndt after his release form con- finement, returned to Easton in Septem- ber, 1790, and was appointed a commissary with David Deshler for supplying the sick and disabled troops with the necessaries of life. The services of John Arndt during the Revolution were men- tioned in a publication in 1799, and says that it is well known that John Arndt turned out in 1776, a time which tried men's souls and assisted in toil and danger against the British foe. He got
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wounded and crippled, but declined soliciting for a pension which by law he was entitled to, accept- ing an office in this county, in the conduct of which he is known to have been the true friend of widow and orphan. In 1777 he was appointed register of wills, recorder of deeds, etc., and clerk of the orphans' court, and the most efficient of the committee of safety. In 1783 he was elected a representative in the council of censors to propose an amendment to the constitution of Pennsylvania. In 1783 Dickenson College at Carlisle was incor- porated, and Mr. Arndt was appointed one of its trustees. He was chosen one of the electors of the president and vice-president of the United States, and cheerfully gave his vote for the illustrious Washington. During the war he advanced money out of his own private funds toward the recruiting service, thus practically illustrating his devoted- ness to the cause. The exigencies of the state were then so great that actions testing the pa- triotism of the citizens favorable to liberty were called for continually, their lives and fortunes were to be risked, and John Arndt was not found want- ing. The following is a letter from John Reed, president of the executive council of the state of Pennsylvania :
"In Council, Phila., April 2, 1781. "Sir-Your favor of the 25 ult. has been received and we are much concerned that the Treasurer of the county is unable to answer the draft, and the more that it is not in my power to send you money. The State Treasurer has not Io pounds in the State Treasury. We hope you will have patience to bear with some difficulties, and we will do all in our power to relieve you. "Yours, "JOHN REED, President."
During the insurrection of 1779 by John Freas, Jarrett Haaney and others, his utmost exertions were used to preserve law and order. As a miner- alogist and botanist he held no mean rank. His correspondence with the Rev. Mr. Gross and other clergymen shows he was a pious man. In 1796 a law passed rendering it necessary that the county records should all be at the county seat or town, which occasioned the removal from his mill to Easton. On the election of Governor Mckean
he was removed from office, after which he de- voted his life to mercantile pursuits until his de- ccase in 1814.
Jacob Arndt, the father of John, was born in Germany. His father was named Bernhard. During the Indian wars he was in active service in 1755 as captain at Fort Allen, near Mauch Chunk, and in 1758 major of the troop at Fort Augusta. His reports are found in Pennsylvania archives and other publications of transactions. During the war in 1760, Mr. Arndt purchased the mill property about three miles above Easton, on Bushkill creek, from John Jones, and soon after- wards removed to the mill. Easton was a very diminutive town when Mr. Arndt first visited it in 1760. He had engaged to meet Mr. Jones in Easton to receive the deeds of the mill property, and for that purpose he came to Easton and hitched his horse to one of the forest trees in the square and attended to his business, and it did not appear to him that Easton was much of a place. In 1763, when the Pontiac Indian war commenced, he was elected a captain by his neigh- bors, who associated themselves together to pro- tect themselves against the savages under the fol- lowing agreement : "We, the subscribers, as under- signed, do hereby jointly and severally agree that Jacob Arndt shall be our captain for three months from the date of these presents, and be always ready to obey him when he sees occasion to call us together, in pursuing the Indians, or helping any one of us that shall happen to be in distress by the Indians. Each person to find powder, arms and lead at our own cost, and have no pay, but each person to find himself in all neces- saries, to which article, covenant and agreement we bind ourselves in the penal sum of 5 pounds lawful money Pennsylvania, for the use of the company, to be laid out for arms and ammuni- tion, unless the person so refusing to obey shall have a lawful reason. Given under our hand and seal the 13th October, 1763." Signed Jacob Arndt, Peter Seip, Michel Lawall, Amam Hay, Paul Able, and thirty-four others.
Mr. Arndt was elected with George Taylor, Peter Kickline, John Obely and Lewis Gordon to the convention to the forming of a constitution of
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the state in 1774. In 1776 he was a member of the executive council of Pennsylvania. In 1796 he removed to Easton from his mill. A copy of a letter from Dr. Gross speaks of Mr. Arndt, re- specting his health, in 1803: "It is tolerable for his age, but time has and continues to press bodily infirmities heavily upon him. His eyesight is almost entrely gone. His feet begin to get weak and can not for a long time bear the weight of his body, but his appetite is good, and for to live happily and contented depends upon himself." He died in 1805.
THE REV. JOSEPH MAXIMILIAN HARK, D. D., educator and author, has been for the past eleven years principal of the Moravian Seminary for Young Ladies, at Bethlehem, Penn- sylvania, the oldest girls' boarding school in the country, with an unbroken history of over one hundred and fifty years behind it. His writings have left their imprint upon the trend of public thought, while his instruction from the platform and pulpit has aided in molding character and in shaping the destiny of many individuals.
Dr. Hark is of German and Danish lineage, and traces his descent from a Danish merchant whose son, Johann Hark, a saddler by trade, was his great-grandfather. His grandfather, John Gottlob Hark, was a bookbinder by trade, and his father. Joseph Hark, largely devoted his energies to the practice of medicine and surgery. Joseph Hark (father) was born in Nisky, Saxony, Jan- uary 15, 1819, and when about twenty-seven years of age came to America as a theological graduate of the Theological Seminary at Gnadenfeld, Ger- many. Following his arrival in America in 1846 he became a teacher at Nazareth Hall, a Moravian school at Nazareth, Pennsylvania, but, deciding to become a member of the medical fraternity, he began studying for that profession and was gradu- ated in the Franklin Medical College at Philadel- phia, after which he engaged in practice at Naz- areth. He was married in 1848 to Maria Louisa Bute, who was born in Philadelphia, April 7, 1827, a daughter of Dr. George H. and Mary ( Bardill) Bute. Dr. Bute was a native of Prussia, while his
wife was of Swiss parentage. They went as Moravian missionaries to Surinam, Dutch-Guiana, and afterward returned to Philadelphia, Pennsyl- vania, where Dr. Bute entered upon the practice of medicine. He had been a student under Pro- fessor Hahnemann, and was the first homoeopathic physician in America. Subsequently he removed to Nazareth, where he continued in active practice until his death.
J. Max Hark-for so he always signs himself -spent his boyhood days in the village of Nazar- eth and acquired his early education in the Mora- vian schools and Nazareth Hall. His father made him his companion upon long rides through the country, where he grew to love nature and gained from her many valuable lessons. After complet- ing the course of study at Nazareth Hall he en- tered the Theological Seminary at Bethlehem, and upon his graduation from the latter institution he returned to Nazareth and for two years occupied a position as teacher in Nazareth Hall. He early displayed a love of literature and of scientific thought, and derived great pleasure from the peru- sal of the volumes, ancient and modern, which constituted his father's large and well selected li- brary. While teaching he also devoted much thought to the scientific and philosophic writers of the day-Lyell, Asa Gray, Darwin, Tyndall, Huxley, and Herbert Spencer, the last named of whom perhaps more than any other thinker of this age or of past ages has given Dr. Hark that comprehensive view of life and that catholicity of spirit which sees a remnant of good in everything. and all the world divinely planned and not a mighty maze.
Dr. Hark was married in 1873, and about the same time entered upon ministerial work as pas- tor of a Moravian congregation at Lebanon, Pennsylvania, where he labored for three years. On leaving that charge he was asked by the Min- isterial Association to deliver his farewell address to the united evangelical churches of the city at a special union meeting held in Zion Lutheran church, the largest edifice of the place-an un- usual compliment, for he was the only minister who had ever been requested to do this. From
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Lebanon he went to Philadelphia, where he en- tered upon the pastorate of the Second Moravian church, and subsequently accepted a call from a church in Lancaster, where he labored as pastor for thirteen years, and this terminated his pas- toral service. Since that year (1893) he has served in the capacity of principal of the Mora- vian Seminary for Young Ladies at Bethlehem, and during these eleven years he has not only maintained the high reputation of the school, which for more than a century and a half has been a leading educational center of the country, but has raised its standard in many ways, keeping in touch with the progressive spirit of the age. The site of the Moravian Seminary is almost on the spot where once was the little village of Christian Indians known in the old records as Friedenshutten, or Tents of Peace.
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