Roots Trek: October 2015

Saturday, October 31, 2015

Messiah Evangelical Lutheran Church

The Messiah Evangelical Lutheran Church is located in Dutch Corner. It's in a beautiful valley surrounded by hills and farm land. It's one of the oldest congregations in Bedford County. You can read more about its history here.

Although the original building is long gone, the current building is in the same location where my ancestors went to worship. Here's a few pieces of history I've been able to uncover that show my ancestors' involvement in this church:

In Jan of 1760 Johannes Frederick Reighart and Maria Esther Imler (my 6th g-grandparents) were married there.

On 14 Apr 1812 Adam Ickes (my 4th g-grandfather) was confirmed there.

Recorded in an 1819 Record of Contributions: Adam Ickes $1.50, John Ickes Sr. $1.00, John Wisegarver Sr. $3.00, John Lingenfelter $1.00, [John] Frederick Reighert $3.00.

There were a few cars in the parking lot, so I went in to see if I could get a few questions answered about the Lutheran Church in Pleasantville while Brent captured a few images of the current church building. There were several church ladies there performing various acts of service. They were very kind and extremely helpful. One of them, JoAnn (I think) Hammond, is almost surely related to me through my Hammond ancestors.

The church is located at 741 Messiah Church Road Bedford, PA 15522

It may not be the same structure, but this would be the same scenery my ancestors saw
walking out the front door of the church.

Another view from the front door.

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All original content, images, commentary, etc. copyright © by Joy Denison 2015-2016. All rights reserved. All writings, poems, speeches, essays, images, scans, likenesses, etc. by Adam Ickes (b 1845) as well as personal histories, images, and all other content by all persons referenced and discussed within the pages and posts in this blog may not be copied, shared, or reproduced in any way without expressed permission by the owner unless included here from other referenced sources or are historical records already considered to be in the public domain.

John Ickes and Maria "Mary" Elizabeth Stambaugh Ickes, 5th great-grandparents

I won't go into too much of John's history prior to coming to Bedford County, but I will mention a few things. He was born in Hanover, York County, Pennsylvania in 1742. When he was 21 yrs. old he married 16 yr. old Magdalene Stambaugh. They had 4 children. Magdalene died sometime in 1772 at the approx. age of 25 . Two years later he married her younger sister, Maria Elizabeth Stambaugh. Elizabeth was 24 yrs. old when they married. According to future land records she went by the name of Mary as well as Elizabeth. John and Mary had 5 children. Mary raised her sister's children as well as her own.

John served in the York County Militia in the Revolutionary War. In 1781 he was listed as a private and it appears he served in the same battalion as his wives' brother, Jacob Stambaugh. In 1785 he was listed as a lieutenant. The war was over in 1783 and upon his release he was entitled to receive veterans benefits in the way of pension and/or bounty-land grants. Lieutenants were entitled to 200 acres of public land. (If you're interested, you can read more about it here.)

Some veterans chose to locate the public land associated with their bounty-land warrants and settle there, but most veterans sold them and simply returned back home. I have no idea what the actual details of John's benefits or his transactions entailed, but I'm fairly certain his veteran's benefits helped to accommodate his move to Bedford County and the acquisition of land there.

John, Mary, and some of their children came to Bedford County around 1792. He would have been about 49 years old. According to early land records, Henry Ickes had purchased land in Bedford County in about 1777 (if I'm reading the record correctly). Other genealogists tie John to an uncle Henry, his father's brother. Whether he's related to Henry or not, I think I can safely assume that John was not the first Ickes in Bedford County, but he was my first direct-line ancestor.

John first purchased land in what was called Dutch Corner, a portion of Bedford and St. Clair Townships bordered by the Evitts Mountains on the north and on the east. It was settled mostly by German immigrants. You can find out more about Dutch Corner at dutchcornerpa.com.

The application and surveys - here and here, for John's first two tracks of land can be found on the PA State Archives website. Unfortunately, the surveys show the size and shape of each parcel of land, but there's no information about the exact location. Bill Bowser of the Dutch Corner History Group put all the surveys together like puzzle pieces and superimposed them onto Google Earth.

Land Application signed at the bottom by John Ickes

With all these resources it wasn't hard to find John and Mary's original Bedford County homestead on a present-day map - provided all the information I had was correct.

One of the neighbors is pretty proud of the neighborhood. At least we knew for sure we were in the right general area.

A family farm on Oppenheimer Road on the way up the hill to John and Mary's old homestead.

We had to wait for a few pheasants to cross the road.

Some of the views were spectacular!

Here it is!

This is as far as we dared take our rental car. We think his land went up pretty close to the ridge.

From my research of even more land records it seems that John and Mary sold this farm and bought another (better) farm in St. Clair Township in Bedford County in 1822. Just a year later he sold the new farm to his son, Adam. I'll discuss more about that on Adam's page. It also appears from census records that John and Mary continued to live with Adam and his family after Adam took charge of the family farm.

John's will speaks of his devout Christianity and belief in the eternities:

"In the name of God amen, I John Ickes of the Township of Bedford and County of Bedford and State of Pennsylvania, considering the uncertainty of this mortal life and being of sound and disposing mind and memory make this my last will and testament first and principally, commend my soul into the hands of Almighty God, hoping for remission of all my sins through the merits of Jesus Christ my blessed Savior redeemer and my body, to the earth to be buried in a Christian like manner, and as for such worldly estate and effects which I shall be possessed of or entitled to at the time of my decease I give and bequeath the same as followeth that is to say, first my will is that all my estate real and personal shall be sold by my Executors and the money ariseing from the sale thereof to be divided amongst my children – 2nd I have though proper to make one exception in this my last will and testament that is my son Adam Ickes shall have the priviledge of taking my plantation that I now live on at nine hundred pounds and if he does, then Jacob Ickes’ portion to be paid one year after my decease John Ickes in two years, Henry Ickes in three years, Elizabeth Ickes in four years, to have her bed and bedding one cow two sheep and one hundred and fifty Dollars besides her equal share with the rest. Phillip Ickes in five years Adam Ickes in six years. Margaret Stambaugh Dec’d her share to be divided between her first husbands children viz: John Amich, George Amich, Jacob Amich, Peter Amich and Elizabeth Eyler. Jacob Amich to have as much as one of his brothers and half as much in seven years. Peter Ickes Dec’d his portion to be divided equally and wife share & share alike in eight years. Susanna Cobler Dec’d her portion to be equally divided amongst her children Polly, Isaac, Adam & Michael Cobler in nine years. Should my son Adam Ickes decline taking my plantation at the price stated then I authorize and empower my Executors to make a good and sufficient Deed of conveyance to the purchaser and my heirs to have their portion at the same time. And lastly I hereby appoint my son Adam Ickes and John McDonnald Executors of this my last will and testament, hereby revoking all former wills by me made.

"In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal the twenty day of November in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and twenty three."

Mary died in August of 1823, 2 months before John wrote this will. 5 1/2 years later John passed away. He was 87 years old. Both John and Mary are buried at Old Union Cemetery in Osterburg, Bedford County, PA. From her research, Aunt Allie wrote that in a 1934 edition of the Bedford Inquirer, a local newspaper, it was reported, "Work was started last Friday to clean up Old Union Cemetery. All the weeds, briars and brush are being removed and the ground leveled. When completed it will be sowed with lawn grass and then kept mowed. In looking over the cemetery, a headstone was found bearing the inscription - John Ickes, born 1742."

Old Union Cemetery is located on the west side of Highway 869 (William Penn Road) just north of Kansas Street. (Not to be confused with Trinity United Church of Christ and its cemetery on the east side of Hwy 869.)

John and Mary Elizabeth's grave markers

There are two unmarked grave markers on either side.
The one on the left is a flat stone at ground level and the one on the right looks like a large rock.
They're probably not their infant children given their ages when they moved to Bedford County,
but they could be infant grandchildren.

Many war veterans are buried in Old Union Cemetery

This memorial was erected 50 years after the cemetery clean-up which was written about in the Bedford Inquirer in 1934.

There was a large bush/tree growing in the back of the cemetery with lots of these pod looking things growing on it.
I thought they were cool.

John Ickes: Husband, Father, Christian, Patriot.

Update: While doing immigration research for a genealogy class I was teaching at a local library, I was searching for evidence of John's father or grandfather's immigration from the Palatine area of Germany/France in the off chance I might actually find something. As expected, I did not find the Ickes immigration, but very unexpectedly I did fine his wives' family's immigration.

Unfortunately, my computer crashed and I lost all of my original research and documentation. But parallel research was done by this family here. (The link probably won't open unless you're logged in to familysearch.org.) From what I remember, it was Magdalena and Elizabeth's father, grandmother and step-grandfather who came to the US from Kuzenhausen France in 1739. Their deceased grandfather was the son of Félix Stambach who had relocated to the Alsace region of France from Moravia (currently the Czech Republic). Félix would have been my 9th great-grandfather.

And here's the really cool part. Félix Stambach's estate in Kuzenhausen France still exists. And it's a living, working museum called La Maison Rurale de l'Outre-Forêt or The Rural House of the Outer Forest. Pics and info can be found here.

My Bedford County Family

Adam Ickes (not to be confused with his grandfather, Adam Ickes) was born in Pleasantville, Bedford County, Pennsylvania in 1845. Here is his Bedford County ancestry:

Elizabeth Ellen Harbaugh, Adam's wife, was born in 1843, also in Bedford County PA. Here is her Bedford County ancestry:

All of their ancestors shown on the pedigree charts on a blue background lived in Bedford County. I have no evidence to believe that the names printed in blue with a blue border around them ever lived in Bedford County (but I included them just to balance out the pedigree charts). The names on Adam's pedigree in light blue still need more documentation to prove they actually fit in this line. More research is needed.

Friday, October 30, 2015

Pre-Trek Prep

Multiple generations of my dad's family lived in Bedford County Pennsylvania beginning in the mid 1700s. My direct-line ancestors left Pennsylvania in 1884, but many descendants of some of my early ancestors still live there today.

My 2nd great-grandfather, Adam Ickes, (born 1845) and his wife Elizabeth Ellen Harbaugh had a daughter named Allegra. She was their youngest child, born in 1873 in Pleasantville, Bedford County, Pennsylvania. She lived to be over 100 years old. I actually met her when I was a young girl. She was living in a nursing home in Fort Collins, Colorado at the time. It's hard to believe I actually met (and kissed on the cheek) the daughter of a Civil War soldier. At some point in her life she had become interested in genealogy. She handed over all of her research, documents, photos, keepsakes, etc. to my dad sometime back. Several years ago he passed everything on to me.

Allegra Ickes at age 18

Growing up I knew the basics about many of my identified ancestry: names, relationships, birth places, etc., but in order to take the most advantage of a trip to the homeland of this particular family line I needed to find out a whole lot more.

I've identified 39 direct-line ancestors that lived in Bedford County. The vast majority of them, I believe, were German and Irish immigrants. Several men were Revolutionary War veterans. Two of my 5th g-grandfathers were directly involved in the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794. There were active abolitionists in their families, risking their lives and freedom to help secure freedom for others. Most of the men were hard-working farmers looking to make better lives for themselves and their posterity. Many of the women experienced great heartache from the untimely death of young children. From my research of wills and historical church records, they all seemed to be very devout Christians from various denominations which included Lutheran, Quaker, Methodist, German Baptist, and Independent.

Many online resources were used to get as much information as I could prior to roots trekking in Bedford PA. I scoured findagrave.com for burial locations and any historical info attached to each person. I found historical accounts and stories in old local history books available on archive.org, google books, and familysearch.org (viewable at any local Family History Center). I looked for land records on the PA State Archives website and also found old maps from 1861 and 1877 (St Clair, Union/King, and Pleasantville) showing actual locations of houses and farms labeled with the occupants' names.

My great-aunt Alle's (Allegra mentioned above) research was extremely helpful to me. Many of my ancestral lines have been heavily researched with family research websites available online. Other websites specific to the history and early settlers of Bedford County were very informative as well. I'm sure I'm missing other key resources, but hopefully I'll remember to mention them in subsequent posts. (There was A LOT of incorrect information online as well, especially within ancestry.com family trees. Those are not primary sources and should not be treated as such.)

I sent emails; matched up old maps with Google Earth; compiled all the information I found by event, family name, and venue; printed simple pedigree charts to keep track of everybody; and made one custom google map showing every cemetery, church, parcel of land, and historical venue I wanted to visit. My husband, Brent, accessed my Google map on his phone while he navigated our way around Bedford County.

It was the third week in October, 2015. We actually flew into Columbus, Ohio where our daughter and son-in-law are attending grad school at OSU. We left the airport and headed toward PA, only having to return after 30 minutes on the road to exchange our rental car - a delay I was none to excited about - but we arrived with a couple of hours of daylight left on our first day. (From now on I think I'll do my best to avoid flying first thing Monday morning and I'll NEVER book on Travelocity again! But that's another story for another day.)

We finally got a rental car we KNEW we could trust!

We were blessed with awesome weather. We had just missed the peak foliage as the first freeze had happened the previous week, but it was still breathtakingly beautiful. The title image above (may not be visible on a mobile device) was taken from Barefoot Road near Pleasantville at dusk. I captured 484 images over 2 1/2 days.

All the people we met were incredibly friendly and helpful. The Bedford County phone book listed 63 people with the last name of "Ickes". I've never seen more than one or two "Ickes" listings - myself and/or my dad - in any other phone book. I actually met my first Ickes outside my own immediate family (excluding my dad's sister and great-aunt Allie).

After 3 days in Bedford County we made a quick side trip to Kirtland, Ohio to visit some historic LDS church sites, and we ended up in Columbus, Ohio where another son, his wife and 2 kids joined us for the weekend. The purpose and focus of our week spanned 11 generations. We had a great trip and a great time!