| CLIMBING THE BROWN
FAMILY TREE
by: Brenda Brown Lasko Chapter 2 The First Generations The first of Abel Brown's line probably settled in America sometime in the late 1600's or early 1700's. We know he and his parents lived for a time in what is now New Jersey. I believe they were of Scotch-Irish ancestry and were Protestants by faith. Many such people fled Europe during this period to find freedom from the domination of the Catholic Church. We do not know Abel's parents' names nor the number of brothers and sisters he may have had. I have no idea of how long his family remained in New Jersey but it was there Abel was born on a cold February day in 1768. We know he had a brother John, born in 1775 and I believe it is likely he had another brother, William, born in 1764. Research has shown that William may have been born in Maryland and if so, it would indicate the Brown family may have lived there before moving to New Jersey. Abel's birth was 5 years after the French and Indian Wars ended in 1763 and just 8 years before the beginning of the American Revolution. It was a time of great unrest among the colonists. Nearby Philadelphia was boiling with activity. The Fathers of our Constitution were hard at work laying the foundation for a new country. The east coast was becoming thickly populated and many large cities had already sprung up in the hundred or so years since the Pilgrims had landed. The city of Philadelphia was the largest with nearly 25,000 people. The rapidly growing population was pressing in tighter against early settlers who had come to America to escape the burdens caused by living in close quarters. Where there were people, there was a need for government and rules. Since many had fled the oppression of the goverenment of their homeland, they were growing ever anxious to move on, away from all possibility of tyrany and unjust rule. The Scotch-Irish had no love for the British and there is a possibility that Abel's father may have fought in the Revolution to escape British rule and Catholic oppression. He would have been about the right age to have been a soldier and many of the families who maintained links with our Browns were known to have been in the Revolution. It would be a big help if we knew where the Brown family went when they left New Jersey. We have no definite proof of the route they followed but it looks as though they may have settled for a time in western Pennsylvania. When this missing piece of information is found we will have a good chance of learning who Abel's parents were. WASHINGTON (GREENE) COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA Many of the colonists who served in the Revolutionary War were given land grants in Washington County, Pennsylvania near Dunkard Creek and Ten Mile Creek. Originally this section of Pennsylvania was known as Washington County but when the counties were redefined this area became Greene County. It is located south of Washington, Pennsylvania, near the panhandle of West Virginia. It was here many of the families associated with our Browns settled. The Lemleys, Noffsingers, Yohos, Cathers, Ingrahams, Stuckeys, and Goetzs were all thought to have been in this area and many of these names appear on the lists of Revolutionary War Soldiers. This is why I believe Abel Brown's father might have served in this war. I really must stress the "might have" in the last statement because there is no proof for it at all. Several of the families I mentioned were German and later became entwined in our lineage. Three of these German families were the Goetzs, Lemleys and Noffsingers and they will play a major part in our family's history. THE GOETZ, LEMLEY AND NOFFSINGER CONNECTION Gorg Goetz, later known as George Gates, was the son of Johannes Andreas Gotz. Johannes was born in Bingen, Germany about 1734 and came to America on November 7, 1754, aboard the ship "John and Elizabeth" to Philadelphia. He served in the German army at age 16 for 4 years and then settled down and married. On October 1, 1754, he and his wife went down the Rhine River to Rotterdam, Holland and from there set sail for America. Less than two years later he fought in the Indian Wars in America in 1756 at Fort Augusta in Shamoklin, Pennsylvania. He was a private in Captain Patrick Work's Company under the command of Col. William Clapham. After the war, he remained in this area and raised ten children. Gorg Goetz died about 1812 and is buried near Indiana, Pennsylvania. His son, George married Maria Sevilla Stiehl, daughter of Mario Melchior Steheli on June 11, 1782, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The name "Stiehl" had been spelled many different ways but eventually became Steele in most records. Mario Steheli and his family arrived in Philadelphia from Rotterdam, August, 30, 1743 on the ship "Francis and Elizabeth." George and Sevilla lived for a time at Fort Reading, Pennsylvania in the same log fort as Daniel Boone. They named their first male child, Daniel, and according to the Gate's family Bible, Daniel Boone was his Godfather. Mathias Noffsinger was the son of Rudolph Nafzger, born in Frankford-on-Main, Hesse Cassel, Germany around 1725. Rudolph left Germany in 1749, sailing from Rotterdam and stopping in England before crossing the Atlantic. He arrived in Philadelphia on September 15, 1749, aboard the ship "Phoenix." He is reported to have had at least eight children. His son, Mathias, married Nancy Anne Brill and eventually moved to York Township, Belmont, County, Ohio, where our Browns also settled. The Noffsinger family has a very active genealogical group and I hope someday to exchange information with some of the members. George Lemley was the son of David Lemley, who came to Philadelphia in 1723 from Germany. Very little is known about David Lemley, other than he had five sons and three daughters. George was born in Philadelphia in 1741 and has been proven to be a Revolutionary soldier, serving in the 1st Battalion of the Washington County Militia. He owned several tracts of land in Washington County, Pennsylvania, most of it due to his military service. George Lemley married Catherine Yoho about 1763 and eleven children are known to have come from this union. They remained in Greene County for the rest of their lives and are buried in the cemetery of Whitely Township. Two of their sons, young George and Peter, were born in Washington County and these two young men would eventually find their way to Ohio and meet up with Abel and some of his family. This section of south west Pennsylvania is still populated by the descendants of George and Catherine. I have included these three brief family histories because they are all probably ancestors of ours. We definitely know the Lemleys and Noffsingers are direct blood lines in our family. George and Catherine Lemley are the grandparent of Nancy Lemley, who became the wife of Abel's son Isaac. All of these families stayed in close contact for several generations and worked their way into the family tree on several branches. There have been books written on the Lemleys, Noffsingers and the Gates and I could not begin to include all of the information available on them. At this point in history many things had taken place in America. The French and Indian Wars had been fought and a Treaty of Peace had been signed in Paris in 1783, ending the Revolutionary War and British rule. The colonists were setting up their own government and establishing rights to new territories. The Native Americans, who had at first welcomed the white visitors, had been pushed farther and farther west as more and more whites came to this new country. Angry and fearing the loss of all they loved and owned, they fought to keep the whites from advancing any deeper into their land. But as history will show, it was a lost cause. The Indians had many villages along the major waterways and well-traveled trails cut through the forests. The whites too, used the Indian trails and followed the same waterways as they began to map the land and searched for new places to settle. The white invasion had reached deep into the heart of Indian country and stories of hostile redskins were told in the settlements back in the East. Frontier Rangers were at work fighting the Indians and building forts throughout the Midwest in an attempt to protect the settlers from Indian attacks. At some point the Browns, and other families, began making trips to the city of Wheeling, in the northern panhandle of what was then known as Virginia. Wheeling was settled in 1769 and became a major junction for the Cumberland Road and Ohio River traffic. It was a common sight to see flatboats loaded with people and their belongings going down the river heading for the new frontiers. I imagine there were many long discussions in front of a crackling fireplace about what the men had seen on their frequent trips to Wheeling and down the Ohio. As the men talked of getting land in Virginia, the women listened silently and worried about the hardship of moving their families and belongings again. The women knew the decision would be made without much concern to their objections. It appears that the men traveled back and forth for a number of years before taking their families to settle in the Ohio Valley. They would, at some point, make their way along what is now old Route 40 to Wheeling and settle in Ohio County. (This section of Virginia became West Virginia during the Civil War period.) I don't know if Abel was old enough to be married at the time they all moved to Virginia, but it was here we first learn he had a wife. Index 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Epilogue
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