Frederick & Rachel: Our Hess Family Immigrants

A tribute to the bravery, faith and love of this great mother and father of the far-flung Hess family today.

Note: The following account draws upon original sources gathered by the John W. Hess organization, Robert M. Hess, and my dear Aunt Anne Hess Clark . I’m grateful to Anne’s work over many years – represented in 60 pages of source material – that makes this kind of a history so much easier to write. Much of what follows is repurposed and drawn from her prior writing and ongoing research. Auntie had her work cut out for her in that many of the 18^th century immigrants to Pennsylvania did not establish church books in this country, and some of the more conservative groups objected to church books as being an evidence of pride, according to genealogist, Naomi Hebbert. So based on whatever we’ve found so far, and reliant on Anne’s editing support and overall audit, the following represents our best attempt to capture the exciting story of our Hess family’s arrival and new life in America

Imagine leaving for a trip far from home – unsure whether you would ever come back. And imagine not even being sure you would survive the trip.

That’s more or less how Frederick (“Friederich” in German) must have felt leaving his homeland of Baden-Wurttemberg (Southern) Germany for America as a young man in 1753, at least 21 years old, and apparently without any other close relations aboard – no siblings, spouse, or children.

His journey would have started traveling down the Neckar River, past Heidelberg, to the Rhine River.

This was no cruise. Long before the hundreds of inventions that would turn international travel into an exotic adventure, crossing the ocean to America represented in many ways a harrowing and dangerous experience.   

An agonizing ocean crossing. Sharing his observations of these kinds of voyages, a German immigrant, Gottlieb Mittelberger, wrote in 1750 about “such hardships as no one is able to describe adequately with their misery.” As the ships went up the Rhine River from middle Europe towards Holland, the people Gottlieb witnessed were “packed densely, like herrings.”  Adding to their difficulties, the ships had to stop at 36 toll places to pay the required toll.  Sometimes the toll keeper was not present, and this required stopping for long delays until he returned. 

A Custom House on the Rhine River, one of 36 on the journey to Rotterdam, Holland.

But after finally making it to Cowes, England (on the Isle of Wight) where they re-stocked for the long journey, it was the subsequent crossing of the Atlantic Ocean where “the real misery begins.”  Having already been enroute for 3-4 months since May, the next 7-12 weeks were made difficult by mounting disease and hunger.

Gottlieb recounts the “hunger, thirst, frost, heat, dampness, anxiety, want, afflictions and lamentations, together with other trouble” such as lice that “abound so frightfully, especially on sick people, that they can be scraped off the body.”

All this suffering worsened considerably during frequent ocean storms: “The misery reaches the climax when a gale rages for 2 or 3 nights and days, so that everyone believes that the ship will go to the bottom with all human beings on board. In such a visitation the people cry and pray most piteously.”

Gottlieb summarizes the often “wretched and grievous condition” of passengers on these ships involving “terrible misery, stench, fumes, horror, vomiting, many kinds of sea-sickness, fever, dysentery, headache, heat, constipation, boils, scurvy, cancer, mouth-rot, and the like all of which come from old and sharply salted food and meat, also from very bad and foul water, so that many die miserably.”  

As a whole, “the sighing and crying and lamenting on board the ship continues night and day” – with the burdens especially heavy for the women and “their innocent children.”

Knowing all these risks, why would Frederick – anyone for that matter – make such a momentous and challenging trip?

Lots of reasons, for sure. But one thing is clear: Frederick and his eventual wife, Rachel, were both people of faith in the new world – a faith very clearly not welcome in his homeland anymore. And they must have felt some kind of higher inspiration to come to America, to own land, and to worship as they choose.

This would be consistent with Lehi’s prophesy of long ago about this “land of promise, a land which is choice above all other lands had been covenanted to be a land for “all those who should be led out of other countries by the hand of the Lord” – even exclusively, as this ancient prophet declared, “there shall none come into this land save they shall be brought by the hand of the Lord.”

Persecution in the motherland. Johannes Frederick Hess, as he was originally named (in the German tradition of giving all children the first name of a Saint, likely St. John, the Beloved) was born in approximately 1730 – in Southern Germany, not too far from Switzerland.

We tend to think of Switzerland as a neutral peacemaking country. But four hundred years ago, it was violently repressive towards minority religious views – much more like Iran or Venezuela today. And similar to the Latter-day Saints fleeing violent Missouri and Illinois for a refuge in Utah, those seeking after further light and knowledge about God in Switzerland at the time had to flee brutal repression towards anyone that believed differently from the established religion.   

This included arrests, imprisonment, branding, banishment – along with attempts to force people to abandon their faith. Under duress from persecutors, Hans Brubacher confessed in 1530 the following disagreement with the reigning religious attitudes of the day: “The preachers of the day have never explained the Holy Scriptures and Divine Word correctly, nor correctly presented to the Christians the cup of Christ with the blood even to this day. . . and have not properly declared to the simple populace the Holy Spirit and His work, and where life comes from and much more that Christians must know.”

On March 7, 1526, the Zurich City Council passed an edict which established a death penalty by drowning for participating in the Anabaptist movement, which represented one of the strongest departures from the dominant religion of the day. This policy sadly continued for the next 90 years.

Anabaptists drowned in the River Limmat 1527. Credit: Zurich Central Library. Below you can also see a memorial plate in the middle of the river today, marking the spot where a group of Anabaptists were drowned from a fishing platform.

Yet even after nearly a century of the harshest of persecution, dissident Christians remained. So, in 1639, members of the Zurich City Council formed a commission to deal with the “Anabaptist problem” – implementing a law to confiscate the properties of all Anabaptists and hunt down any who were not already in prison. The similarities with the extermination order issued by the Missouri Governor against 19^th century Latter-day Saints is hard to not notice, as Anne Hess Clark has pointed out in the Milton Miller Hess History (to go deeper on all this European context, I highly recommend you check out that more extensive history).

Beheading of Anabaptist Martyrs (Rembrandt, 1640)

Due to this hostility, Anabaptists left Switzerland for Germany, invited by the German leaders of the time. Germany had been devasted by a freezing winter and by many years of war, so new refugees were welcomed as tax-paying citizens. Through time, friction once again increased between Catholics and Protestants, such as the Anabaptists and the Lutherans.

In a place with these kinds of attitudes, wouldn’t you want to leave too?

New freedom on the horizon. All this is likely an influence on why Frederick was willing to make such a harrowing crossing – embarking as a young immigrant on the ship, Richard and Mary, originating in a Southern German city, Nurtingen, on the Neckar River and captained by John Moore.

A ship from about the same time Frederick would have traveled across the ocean

However gloomy the rest of the trip may have been, Gottlieb writes about the moment when “ships come in sight of land” and people first spot their new home, “so that the promontories can be seen, which the people were so eager and anxious to see, all creep from below on deck to see the land from afar, and they weep for joy, and pray and sing, thanking and praising God.”

This was often true even of those beaten down from the long crossing: “The sight of the land makes the people on board the ship, especially the sick and the half dead, alive again, so that their hearts leap within them; they shout and rejoice, and are content to bear their misery in patience, in the hope that they may soon reach the land in safety.”

The ship we believe carried Frederick, arrived September 15, 1753, at Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – no doubt making his own heart skip a little at the fresh possibilities that may await. After all, Pennsylvania was well-known by that time as a place of refuge for persecuted Protestants of the world – just as William Penn had promoted it since 1681 when he was granted a charter by the King of England.

Yet even in the New World, loyalty was expected to the Crown. “As soon as the ships that bring passengers from Europe have cast their anchors in the port of Philadelphia,” Gottlieb continues, “all male persons of 15 years and upward are placed on the following morning into a boat and led two by two to the courthouse or town-hall of the city. There they must take the oath of allegiance to the Crown of Great Britain. This being done, they are taken in the same manner back to the ships.”

Now are they free to go? Not so fast.

Entering a possible second bondage. Along the way, most people ended up losing most, if not all, of their money trying to survive. Just the trip from Southern Germany to England involved so many long stops, that people had to spend a great deal to replenish supplies. In fact, many people who made this trip ended up losing so much money that they had to basically sell themselves or their children into a “redemptioner” system that resembled outright slavery.

We often tend to speak of forced labor as something only African populations endured coming to the United States. And although there is no question they experienced far worse than white immigrants, the story of forced labor across races deserves more attention, in what Gottlieb Mittelberger calls a “traffic in human souls.”

Anyone in debt to the ship was examined and bought by different masters, even if that meant being separated from family members. By the time Frederick arrived in America, he likely had become impoverished by his trip, and in great debt to the ship.

Like someone forced to wash dishes at the diner, since they didn’t have money to pay for their meal, it is possible that Frederick was forced to work upon arriving. Gottlieb notes that “our Europeans, who are purchased, must always work hard” – with earlier positions, status and rank in the old world mattering little in America, with the except of certain technical skills, since “none but laborers and mechanics are wanted.”

When people arrived who were not used to that kind of hard labor, Gottlieb likewise notes they were “treated to blows and cuffs, like cattle, till they have learned the hard work.” Many were treated brutally. Sadly, Gottlieb adds that “Many a one, on finding himself thus shamefully deceived by the newlanders, has shortened his own life, or has given way to despair, so that he could not be helped.”

Alternatively, some end up running away, “only to fare worse afterwards than before.”  Just over one year into what we believe could have been his own forced servitude, a record has been found that around Christmas of 1754, a landowner named Johannes Schimel of Falckner Swamp (near Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania – a day’s walk from Frederick and Rachel’s eventual home) put up a notice that his German servant, Frederick Hess, a toolsmith, had run away.

Making a new life. That same year, 1754, Martin Hess had arrived in Pennsylvania – a family member (probably a brother) who may have paid off Frederick’s debt, and somehow played a role in setting him up for a better life. Martin arrived with his wife, three children, mother-in-law and sister-in-law on the ship, Peggy – receiving 25 acres in Derry Township in 1754.

Naomi Hebbert speculated that Frederick lived with Martin, as one possible reason we don’t see him on the land records – “If this was the father [or brother, I say] of Frederick Hess, it may explain why we do not find deeds for Frederick.  He may be living on land given to him by his father [or brother] without a legal transfer of the land.” Another reason perhaps is the landowner Schimel found him and he was forced to work the rest of his term?

New settlers in Pennsylvania could purchase land from the colony agents at one pound per fifty acres – while servants were promised fifty acres at the end of the term of servitude. Townships contained approximately five thousand acres – distributed among a set number of families.  Any person purchasing such a large survey of land committed himself to the seating and improvement of that land – by providing additional settlers plots of land.

If someone failed to bring others into their land, and it remained vacant and uninhabited after three years, it again became available to new settlers "to the end that the Province might not be like a Wilderness… but be regularly improved for the benefit of Society in help, trade, education, Government, also Roads, travel, Entertainment, and so forth." (The Township: The Community of the Rural Pennsylvanian by Lucy Simler)

Frederick and Martin both settled in Derry Township, then-Lancaster County (now-Dauphin County), near the present-day Hershey, Pennsylvania – which itself is a day’s journey from the Susquehanna River.  

Early work in the New World mostly consisted of “cutting wood, felling oak-trees,” and “rooting out” and “clearing large tracts of forest.” These cleared forests were then laid out for fields and meadows – with the wood from the prior trees turned into fence posts:

From the best hewn wood, fences are made around the new fields; from there all meadows, orchards and fruit-fields, are surrounded and fenced in with planks made of thickly-split wood, laid one above the other, as in zigzag lines, and within such enclosures, horses, cattle, and sheep, are permitted to graze.

Love in a new land. But life is not all about work. And it was also in 1754 that Frederick is estimated to have married his beloved, Rachel. What was their love and life like together? How we would love to know more!  

Over a period of 11 years, Frederick and Rachel had 7 living children – beginning with a son, Henry, within a year after their marriage and a daughter, Elizabeth, four years after their marriage, in 1758.  

Three more sons, Frederick (‘64), Jacob (‘66) and John (‘67) subsequently followed, with Susanna (‘70) and Mary (‘72) born last.

These colonial children grew up and lived through perilous and historic times. In the 1750s, when most of these children were still quite young, Indians in this part of Pennsylvania were abducting women and children, scalping and killing many others, encouraged by the French and in hopes of getting their lands back.  Later, when the Declaration of Independence was signed, they would still be a young family (ranging from 4 to 22 years of age).

There’s no question the family must have feared sickness – and perhaps been victim of the worldwide epidemic of dreaded smallpox, along with other colonial epidemics such as cholera, yellow fever, malaria, dysentery, scarlet fever, influenza, pleurisy, colds, whooping cough, mumps, measles, typhus, typhoid fever, hookworms, and parasites.

Faith in a new land. Rachel and Frederick are both listed in 1770 in the membership rolls of the Great Swatara Church of the Brethren or the Dunkers, as they are called, because when a believing adult was baptized, they were immersed three times in the water forward, for the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

The German Baptist Brethren Movement began in 1708 – drawing from Radical Pity, Anabaptism, and the Reformed Protestants. It reflected a desire to follow more closely the New Testament teachings of Jesus Christ. The focus was heart-felt conversion, reading the Bible, personal prayer, and living a holy life.

Persecutions as described earlier forced many to leave for America, where they shared their beliefs with others upon arrival. In 1752, Mr. George Miller described being awakened by the Spirit of God and embracing this reformist teaching – teaching and encouraging his neighbors, who eventually became “united into a society” and ongoing congregation in 1756, presided over by an older man, Elder Michael Pfautz. (After Pfaultz passed away, George Miller was ordained Bishop by Elders Christopher Sower and Martin Urner in 1780 – serving until his death at age 76 and buried on his farm by his wife’s side).

Although it’s possible Frederick may have joined the Church of the Brethren during this time,  most people coming from Germany at the time were deeply committed to a deep revival of faith (Pietism). There were also many other related people in this congregation arriving from the same place, which provides further evidence of an earlier commitment.

The Great Swatara Church of the Brethren was named based on “a river near to which the people dwell”- and involved only 20 families at this time – with 39 baptized members. (The faith community continues today in the same region of Pennsylvania).

Meetings were mostly held in the private home of members, a practice hearkening back to persecutions in Switzerland which forced them to remain private – much like Christians in places like China today. Annually, a ministering leader would visit each home and ask “Are you still in the faith of the gospel, as you declared when you were baptized? Are you, as far as you know, in peace and union within the church? Will you still labor with the Brethren for an increase in holiness, both in yourself and others?”

As long as there were not concerns to resolve, the people would join in a tradition called a “love feast” from Saturday afternoon through Sunday noon.

As you can see, the word of God was a central and “directing force” in the lives of these people. As tradition in Mennonite and Anabaptist homes, the family Bible, pewter communion ware, and devotional books were kept in a traditional Swiss cabinet located opposite the stove.

Writing home from America. No doubt, Frederick and Martin sought to send word home to loved ones after arriving in America – written in the German language that many of the people undoubtedly still spoke (with final wills written in German). Yet grumpy Gottlieb again, writes discouragingly about the “many letters” that are entrusted in Pennsylvania and other English colonies to “newlanders who return to the old country.”

Yet rather than having safe passage, according to Gottlieb (who plainly had a pessimistic view of the entire American adventure), said that when the letters arrive in Holland, they were often opened, and “if anyone has written the truth, his letter is either rewritten so as to suit the purpose of these harpies, or simply destroyed.” In an early example of false advertising, he alleges there were some employed in Holland to “perfectly forge any handwriting” in a way that imitated “all characters, marks and tokens so admirably that even he whose handwriting they have imitated must acknowledge it to be his own.”

Even the people not easy to convince could therefore be persuaded to believe the American voyage was unbelievably wonderful – with the shipmasters convinced “this is the best way to induce the people to emigrate.”

Despite Gottlieb's claims of the American people taking advantage of refugees, it seems to me the fact that both Frederick and Martin have 80-100 acres within a short time period after they arrive in America (thanks to William Penn's settlement system) does seem to be a fulfillment of some pretty wild dreams people coming to America could dream of – especially if Frederick was, in fact, that impoverished right after arriving.

Living Through the French and Indian War (1754-1763). There would have been plenty to write home about in these early days. No doubt, the work of raising a family on subsistence farming itself was engrossing enough. But in their lifetimes, Frederick, Rachel and their children and neighbors had to endure two different wars – and not the kind that one hears about distantly overseas.

These wars were right in the neighborhood – right around the corner. This first French and Indian war lasted from when Frederick was 24 until he was 33 – with casualties he no doubt witnessed, right at the time he and his neighbors would have been clearing land to plant crops, provide food, and build homes for their families.

Many accounts tell of settlers being shot in their fields by the Indians, scalped and left for dead, and children being kidnapped and taken to Indian villages to work. Immediately north of the area they settled is a small brush-covered hill that would have been easy to use to attack and annoy the settlers, without warning. [The movie or book, “Alone, But Not Alone,” is a good re-telling of one such kidnapping incident, available online.]

Given these terrifying realities, Martin Hess built a block house to which his neighbors could run for protection when the Indians began to attack – which house was itself 1 mile away from an even stronger fort built by Peter Heyderick, one of Martin’s long-time neighbors (a plaque on the original site of Fort Swatara marks the spot today).

An elderly settler from the area shared in an 1844 interview a recollection of Mr. Noecker and Philip Maurer who was shot dead in their fields while ploughing and cradling oats on his farm. Martin Hess escaped unhurt – and offered his own block house to others as a place of refuge, where often half a dozen families would retreat. One man, Mathias Boeshore, ran from the Indians towards Hess’s home, and “just as he had got inside the house, seized his gun, and turned upon his pursuers, levelling his deadly weapon at them, and while in the act of drawing the trigger, he received a shot from an Indian, which wounded him but slightly.”

The oldest remaining military blockhouse in North America, Fort Edward in Nova Scotia, Canada - completed in 1750, the same period where Martin’s would have been built.

The same elderly settler remembers times when the Native Americans “appeared in great numbers.” Since all the neighbors were stuck in their own houses and unable to gather for protection, he recalls Peter Heydrick telling everyone to resort to the fort, while he would take a fife and drum, and “marched himself into the woods or thickets, now beating the drum, then blowing the fife; then and again gave the word of command, loud and distinct, as if it had been given to a large force—though he was the only one to obey orders.” By this trick and, Peter managed to distract and scare the threat away and “collect his neighbors securely.” 

A community of friends. As you can see, the association of neighbors was important to both survival in wartime, as well as to worship and work together. Adam Hamacher was another ministering leader of the Big Swatara’s congregation – and a long-time neighbor and fellow church member with Frederick’s family. He was also witness to Frederick’s will, and died about the same time as he did.

Adam lived on land that the Hershey Chocolate Company is now on – with the graves of the Hammacher family discovered during the building of the Hershey Kiss Factory on Aug 6, 2002. Hershey Foods constructed a fenced cemetery and mounted the headstones on a memorial wall within the cemetery.

Without question, Frederick Hess and his family lived nearby, associating with Adam and his family as close neighbors and fellow congregants. My Auntie Anne Hess Clark rightly also underscores this connection as unassailable evidence for the deep-set and inescapable family love for chocolate. (:

Living through the Revolutionary War (1775-1783).  As Americans, we rightly look back on the Revolutionary War with admiration for those who fought for our country’s freedom. At the time, however, it was surely not as clear to fellow countrymen and women what the right path forward should be – especially among those who continued to feel gratitude to the newfound religious freedom they had gained in Great Britain’s colonies.

Frederick, Rachel and their neighbors lived about 95 miles  from Philadelphia, especially central to the revolution – about which Founding Father, Robert Morris said, "You will consider Philadelphia, from its centrical situation, the extent of its commerce, the number of its artificers, manufactures and other circumstances, to be to the United States what the heart is to the human body in circulating the blood."

This would have been a time of significant fear as well. It’s perhaps not a coincidence that a few weeks after the Declaration of Independence, on July 27, 1776, Frederick acts as a witness to the will of his friend, Melchior Reiger. Lots of people would have likely been wanting to set their house in order, since few knew how this conflict would end up.

When the Declaration of Independence was signed, Frederick would have been 46 years old – one year older than I am, but a relatively old man at the time (he would die 10 years later). 

His children in 1776 ranged from Henry and Elizabeth (22 and 18 years old), down to 4- and 6-year-old Mary and Susanna – with the young boys spanning 10 and 17 years old. That means some of their boys would certainly have been of fighting age.

One individual we believe could be Frederick’s son, Henry, is listed in a 1782 list of Revolutionary soldiers – when he would have been 28 years old (Pennsylvania Archives Fifth Series v. 4, Ser 5 v.4, 1906-1906)

By the time the war was over and the Constitution was signed in 1787, Frederic and Rachel’s son, Jacob, had passed away the year prior at age 20. Was that due to any exposure to violence of the war? We do not know.

But we do have some evidence that Frederick may have actively resisted joining the fight. Whether to join the revolution was a debate between Pennsylvania residents, as it was throughout the American colonies. In the famous “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania” Declaration signer, John Dickinson, anonymously wrote appeals in 1767-68 that were widely read to unite the colonists against the Townshend Acts in the run-up to the American Revolution.

Yet with war on the country’s doorstep, real-life Mennonite, Amish, and German Baptist farmers sent a “Short and Sincere Declaration” to the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1775 about their desire to stay out of the conflict. The statement indicated that they “received with Cheerfulness” the prior advice by the assembly to those who “do not find Freedom of Conscience to take up arms” that they “be helpful to those who are in need and distressed circumstances.”

Peacemaking amidst wartime.  The statement continued, “It being our principle to feed the hungry and give the thirsty drink; we have dedicated ourselves to serve all men in everything that can be helpful to the preservation of men’s lives, but we find no freedom in giving, or doing, or assisting in anything by which men’s lives are destroyed or hurt.”

In this, Frederick and his community of faith is embodying the hard and unpopular teaching of Jesus, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” The same principles were reiterated by Paul in his letter to the early Christians in Rome: “Recompense to no man evil for evil. . .If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves. . . Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.”

And that’s just what these peaceful people did. As one Hessian officer said, “they are most hospitable to us.”

The statement from the peaceful farmers added, “we beg the patience of all those who believe we err in this point…we are not at liberty in conscience to take up arms to conquer our enemies, but rather to pray to God, who has power in heaven and on earth, for us and them.”

However admirable this may be in retrospect, at the time it would have been extremely controversial – likely subjecting the Hess family to some degree of pressure and persecution from the patriots. 

Frederick himself appeared to decline military involvement. One year after the Declaration of Independence, a Hess is listed in the “Assessment of the Non-Associators in Derry Township, August 20, 1777” – which is a name applied to American colonist who refused to support and sign military association charters – instead, opting to pay a fine.  We do not know if this “Leanard Hess” listed is mistakenly our Frederick Hess, but Frederick is also mistakenly labeled as “Leanard” once in 1777 tax records for Derry County – and there is no other “Leanard Hess” seen in any other records of the period.  If this is, in fact, Frederick, it may indicate that he was a non-associator during the war.   

That being said, Martin Hess accepted land, likely for military service in the earlier French and Indian conflict in Hanover Township, Lancaster County in 1767 (perhaps for fighting, and maybe just for allowing his home to be a refuge).  

Even today, it may be easy to miss the powerful example Frederick, Rachel and other peace-loving believers in that day show for us today – especially given the extent to which that early Revolutionary war is rightly celebrated for establishing a land of liberty. 

In doing so, however, we can perhaps forget about the horror any war – including that fought by our beloved Founding Fathers – can perpetrate on both sides. This perhaps explains why Russell Nelson prophetically declares that “Any war is a horrifying violation of everything the Lord Jesus Christ stands for and teaches.”

As another kind of culture war spirals around us continually, the bravery of our early ancestors to not fight has something to teach us. Although some insist the right thing is to join in the fight with the various battles going on around us, Frederick and Rachel highlight another way – reflected in modern witnesses that “true disciples of Jesus Christ are peacemakers.”

This attitude is reminiscent of the Nephites, willing to defend, but not wanting to take the offense – as well as the anti-Nephi-Lehites, who refused to take up arms at all. And the possibility of Frederick opting not to fight out of faith conviction, but his sons joining in, also reflects Book of Mormon patterns in the story of the Sons of Helaman (whose fathers covenanted to not fight, but whose sons took up the swords to protect their people).  

Even for those not serving in the war, Anne Clark Hess notes there must have still been a considerable “burden on the people to supply food, shelter, and such to the soldiers.”

These early American believers “lived to themselves and bothered no one.” They were the kind of people sometimes called the “Quiet Ones in the Land.” A historian in colonial America said of them: “They are meek and pious Christians and have justly acquired the character of the Harmless Tunkers.”

It was only through their immersion baptism and refusal to accept military service that these people usually came to the attention of public officials. Once again, this prompted some severe persecution by some of the patriotic elements in the colonies. But by this time, these humble Christians were used to it. Not only had they been persecuted for their faith in Europe, they had likely faced the stigma of being poor immigrants upon arrival. Now they experienced further judgment and possible retaliation for not fighting in the war.

An otherwise simple, peaceful life.  It’s remarkable to imagine Frederick and Rachel going on with their lives – paying taxes demanded by the British Crown, while others raged against the injustice. And while war ravaged the country around them, they kept farming and raising their children, likely supporting the war with their harvest.

While other neighbors possessed mills and stills, Frederick called himself a “yeoman or farmer” in his will years later. Several years before the war, Frederick sold a large amount of land in 1770 (282 acres), then lost even more between 1771 and 1773 – going from 100 acres down to 80 in 1773 while his cows decreased from 4, to 3, to 2 each year – still maintaining 2 horses. (This decrease in his animals could be explained by helping his eldest son out as he started his life).

Indeed, by 1782, four years before Frederick dies, his oldest son Henry Hess has 100 acres, 1 horse and 1 cow – at age 28 years old.

Even in the middle of the war, 1779, Frederick maintained 80 acres with 20 new acres added one year later in 1880, and another 18 acres two years later (118 acres by 1782). During this time, he added 1 horse and 2 cows to his original herd of 1 horse, culminating in 3 cows and 6 sheep three years later. 

While other neighbors owned negroes, Frederick never did – in line with his faith. And perhaps still sensing deeply the pain of possible prior servitude, there were not even any servants ever listed in his tax records. 

Community service. While uncomfortable with military contributions to his community, Frederick participated in its civic life – accepting a term in 1775 in partnership with Henry Snyder as “overseer of roads” (with for the Derry Township” – appointed by the local court as part of a group of three whose job was to summon “all their inhabitants” to “assemble and build roads and bridges.”

[In 1762, the supervisors of highways obtained the right to levy taxes to defray the high costs of building and maintaining roads in the townships. In the past they had followed the English custom of calling residents out as necessary for work on the roads. Each man provided his own tools and those who contributed a team for a day obtained credit for three days of work. The Assembly, recognizing that this seventeenth century system was now burdensome and inadequate, passed the Highway Act of 1762 – with a highway tax was at three pence per pound on all property, real and personal, of freeholders and inhabitants].

Under William Penn’s direction, townships became a method of settlement that brought orderly compact settlement and a government capable of maintaining the peace, supervising the highways, overseeing the poor, and of assuming an even greater role as the colonial world expanded and moved west. This fostered an environment conducive to economic growth and community solidarity.

From the book: The Township: The Community of the Rural Pennsylvanian by Lucy Simler, we learn that by “placing responsibility for implementing governmental policies and for guarding the welfare of the community on all able residents of the township, regardless of economic and social position, Penn also encouraged organizational skill, initiative, and self-confidence throughout a broad spectrum of society.” Simler adds, “From life in the township came preparation both for the eighteenth-century world of economic liberalism and for political independence.” She continues:

The responsibilities of the township is to reiterate the administrative duties of eighteenth-century English justices of the peace: keeping the peace, maintaining the highways, caring for the poor, levying and collecting taxes, and implementing special programs and policies as directed by law. A number of minor officials—constables, overseers of the poor, supervisors of highways—assisted the justices and actually carried out the duties of local government within the villages, towns, and townships.

Simler adds that:

All reputable freeholders, those persons qualified to vote, had an obligation to serve in turn in each of the three principal positions: constable, supervisor of highways, and overseer of the poor. Township officials were chosen yearly in one of two ways. The freemen elected them by voice vote or ballot at a regularly held township meeting, the dates of which were set by law, or justices of the peace appointed them from a ranked slate of candidates, prepared at a township meeting, usually with two names for each position to be filled.

Townships were small enough so that, as a rule, all residents had to participate in each governmental role more than once over their lifetimes. Simler notes, "Rich or poor, old family member or recent resident, the town meeting made sure that every reasonably responsible man took his turn. it is difficult to imagine eighteenth-century officeholding patterns that could have been more equalitarian."

Frederick took a turn, and likely had new experiences that were alternatively stressful, challenging and perhaps enjoyable.

Eight years later in 1783, as he was nearing the end of his own life (two years after he wrote his will), he took a turn as one of the “overseer of poor”– which had authority, according to the same Simler text (quoted below) to levy a tax subject to the approval of justices of one penny per pound on the clear value of estates, real and personal, of all residents of the township and of four shillings on all not otherwise rated – something that could be done as often as might prove necessary. In 1734, because of the increase in the number of the poor in the province, the tax rate increased to three pence per pound and nine shillings per head – remaining that until 1771.

In addition to providing relief for the poor of the township, the overseer had responsibility for protecting his township from vagrants, for providing work for the able unemployed, and for apprenticing the children of the poor to useful trades. As in England, communities carefully prevented those who might become public charges from establishing legal residence within their bounds for with it went a right to relief in time of need. The overseer required the registration of strangers and servants and forced wandering undesirables to move on promptly or return to their last legal residence. Each vagrant not expelled meant additional taxes which the overseer would have to levy. If necessary, the overseer brought suit in the county court to force a township to take back one of its poor.

On occasion, there was a special tax as well to cover the costs of holding stray horses and other cattle and of advertising and to compensate the keeper for his trouble. Another part of this position was being custodian of the township book, containing town officeholders, expenditures – along with the “drama, the tensions, and the routine of township government.” (Town meetings were held as necessary at convenient places within the community. In the absence of the constable, this overseer would post notice of the place and time of such meetings at least five days in advance of the event).

Each overseer was asked to submit the name of his successor at the end of his term, often consulting with the township. Failure to do so meant either that the overseer must serve again in the coming year or receive a fine up to fifty pounds.

Saying goodbye. Feeling the effects of age, stress, or sickness, Frederick made his will on 15 October 1781, describing himself as being “weak and sick in body but of sound understanding” and newly “sensible of the frailty of my transitory life.” 

Frederick left his wife “the bed and bedstead, spinning wheel, and chest,” and other household furniture she needs, along with “a cow which she shall choose” and a “horse creature which she may choose with her saddle”- along with “fifty pounds in hard money” and one third part of the personal estate.

Frederick’s family member Martin likewise leaves tender words in his will, entreating his son for the care of his wife, who he calls "my true and loving wife Barbara": 

To maintain his mother in a Christian and decent manner, and if his mother cannot live well and peaceably with him he shall build a good sufficient house fit for a woman of her age to live in, and give to his said mother yearly and every year as long as she lives eight bushels of good wheat and four bushels rye and one cow sufficiently keep winter and summer, and one fat hogg of a hundred pounds wheat, and to sow a quarter of an acre of good ground with flax seed for her every year, and give his mother the third part of the gardening truck every year, and the third part of the apples

At this time, Frederick and Martin both clearly imagined their dear wives outliving them – and wanting to provide for each. Yet by the time Frederick died five years later, at age 56, Rachel was also gone.

The same year Frederick died, Jacob had also passed away at age 20.

Frederick and Rachel's son, Jacob Hess, also died in 1786 at age 20 –presumably just a few months earlier than his father. A share of Frederick’s will was left to “the legal Representatives of Jacob.”  It’s possible these deaths were connected in some way – and also possible that Jacob fought in the prior revolution. Our direct ancestor, John Hess, later names his son after his deceased brother, Jacob.

Five of the other children grow to adulthood and raise their own families, living till the ages of at least 32 (Henry), 46 (John), 54 (Elizabeth), 65 (Mary), and 70 (Frederick) and Susanna later married Henry Royer, and Mary, married Jacob Hollinger.

The final settlement was made June 6, 1786 – with inheritance distributed to the remaining children. Aside from an extra 5 pounds to his oldest son, Henry, all the children were “heirs one like the other” in accordance with the will. Showing a balance of 857 pounds, this and other money from selling the house was “divided in equal shares among my children.”

Frederick Hess, son of Frederick, moved to Franklin County, Pennsylvania by 1787 – with his other siblings following his lead in moving to the same county. There, Frederick bought land from Andrew Hamilton on February 28 – just over 6 months after his father’s massing. Seven years later, he sold the same plot of land to Henry Rebuck. Genealogist Naomi Hebbert speculates that John “could have been living with his brother [Frederick] after the death of his father, as he was only 17 years of age at this time.” Significantly and reflective of how he felt about his older brother, John later named his eldest son, “Frederick.”

This same Frederick Jr. has a deed with Samuel and Elizabeth Hollinger – his cousin and auntie – who subsequently live on adjoining farms, which “indicates a close relationship between these families.”

[To be continued….can’t wait to learn more about John and Catherine now!]

Thank you, Frederick and Rachel, for your faith, your courage, and your love. May we all, your posterity, make you proud – I pray. And may we think of you much more here, till we meet in person in a grand and glorious reunion to come.