Vitals: Hans Jacob III & Magdalena Steck Stutzman

Hans Jacob III *(1705-1775) b. Spiez, Switzerland; r Berks Co., PA (son of Hans Jacob, Jr. & Anna Loyse Regina Mueller Stutzman)

Immigration: probably 1727 to Philadelphia on Adventure with father. Mother and all children except his brother said to have been lost at sea. Father said to have returned to Spiez without his sons. Later return to U.S. and resided in Peters Twp., Cumberland Co., PA. Some land lay south in MD in 1761.
Naturalization: 1767
Will: written 1773, probated 1776

m1. Hanna Krabill?

Children:

  1. David (  )
  2. Platina (  ) m. _____Stoner
  3. Jacob IV (  )
  4. Hanna (  ) m. ______Leer
  5. Daniel (  )
  6. Abraham, Sr. (  )

m2. Magdalena Steck (1710-1760) b. Switzerland; r.Berks Co. (Parents unknown)

Children:

  1. Christian, Sr. (1732-1770) b. Switzerland; r. Shartlesville, Bern Twp., Berks Co., PA (m Barbara Hochstetler – our line)

*As many as three Jacob Stutzmans (more?) are recorded in Pennsylvania and Maryland in the 18th century. One settled in the Conococheague River Valley, Cumberland Co., and had farm split between two states with the survey by Mason & Dixon, 1765. Another Jacob moved to Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana.

Documentation:

Harvey Hostetler. Descendants of Barbara Hochstetler and Christian Stutzman. Arthur, IL, 1938

Book in Cambria County, PA, Library by John Hale Stutesman, Jr.

See “Our Stutzman Family Tree” & other Vitals

Various Ancestry.com Public Family Trees & other sources

RETURN TO OUR STUTZMAN FAMILY TREE

Last revised 1/17/20

 

3 Responses to Vitals: Hans Jacob III & Magdalena Steck Stutzman

  1. Charles Shaulis says:

    What Really Happened On the Voyage to America?

    We know that Johann Jacob Stützmann and his stepbrother Johann Michael Müller arrived at Philadelphia PA on 02 Oct 1727, among 53 Palatines with their families, about 140 persons in all, aboard the ship Adventure, John Davies, Master, from Rotterdam, Netherlands, last from Plymouth, England. This is confirmed in the book Pennsylvania German Pioneers by Ralph Beaver Strassburger.

    Thanks to the pervasive use of the copy/paste type of genealogical record keeping that includes incorrect information, without supporting source citations, widespread on Ancestry.com Member Trees and other Internet genealogy web sites, there are persisting, undocumented claims that Johann Jacob Stützmann arrived with his father, also Johann Jacob Stützmann. One of those sources originates from the book Descendants of Barbara Hochstedler and Christian Stutzman by Rev. Harvey Hostetler, D.D., listed in the References section. On page 5 of his book, Rev. Hostetler cites the discredited reference from Dr. R. H. Stutzman of Tower City, Pennsylvania:

    “that Johan Jacob Stutzman, according to the traditions handed down from generation to generation in his family, on his voyage to America, lost his wife and all his children, except two sons Jacob and Christian. Not having money enough to pay his passage ‘he bound out his sons as indentured servants to pay therefor.’ He then returned to the Old Country. Possibly Capt. John Davies who under the circumstances would naturally take a deep and kindly interest in the stricken family may have helped in the discussion of plans and opened the way for collecting the debt due him and carry out the father’s natural longing for his old home and friends, leaving his sons in the care of his fellow church members of the Amish faith. That his sons were under 16 years is shown by the fact their names were not reported, under the law that the Captain must report the names of all male passengers over 16 years. These sons later appear among the Amish in Bern Tp., Berks Co., Pa.”

    Knowing that Johann Jacob Stützmann (2nd), the son of Johann Jacob Stützman (1st) was born on 01 Jan 1706, this would put his age at 21 years, 9 months, and 1 day when the Adventure docked in Philly. If the Johann Jacob Stutzman identified on page 15 of Pennsylvania German Pioneers is the father, why wasn’t his almost 22-year-old son also enumerated? Could it be that the Johann Jacob Stutzman that stepped off the boat was the SON? Johann Jacob Stützmann did immigrate to the United States in 1727…just not with his father.

    In her Backpedaling: Irene Charitas is a Heitz, not a Schlosser article on her DNAeXplained – Genetic Genealogy blog, Roberta Estes cites the Kallstadt Protestant Reformed Church record for the death of the wife of Johann Jacob Stützmann (1st):

    “Laetare Sunday, the 27th of March 1729 died in (Hof) Weilach as a result of consumption, Anna Regina, lawfully wed wife of Johann Jacob Stotzmann, steward of the esteemed Lord of the Manor. Aged 75 years and was buried at Callstadt (Kallstadt) with the ringing of (church bells); hymns and a funeral sermon.”

    When I first read this, I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions (okay, maybe not that many) of Miller-Stutzman family genealogists cried out in terror. Since starting my research on my great-grandmother’s Stutzman ancestors, EVERY REFERENCE STATED THAT JOHANN JACOB STUTZMAN’S WIFE & SEVERAL OF HIS CHILDREN DIED EN ROUTE TO AMERICA & WERE BURIED AT SEA IN 1727, THAT JOHANN JACOB STUTZMAN ARRIVED WITH THE SURVIVING MEMBERS OF HIS FAMILY, SONS JACOB AND CHRISTIAN, AT PHILADELPHIA ON OCTOBER 2, 1727, ABOARD THE SHIP ‘ADVENTURE’, etc., etc., etc.

    According to the Kallstadt Protestant Reformed Church records, Johann Jacob Stützmann (1st) married Louysa (Louisa) Lunge on 12 Jul 1730, after his first wife died on 27 Mar 1729. He lived for another nine years after his remarriage.

    According to the Friedelsheim-Gonnheim Evangelical Reformed Church records, Johann Jacob Stutzmann (1st) died around 06 Sep 1739, the date of his burial.

    All of this means that (a) Johann Jacob Stützman (1st) never immigrated to America with his son, and (b) his first wife did NOT die on the way to America nor was she buried at sea.

    Second, John Hale Stutesman, Jr., author of Jacob Stutzman (? – 1775) His Children & Grandchildren (Baltimore, 1982), states that Jacob Stutzman named the following six children in his will, and only these six children shared in the division of his estate: son David, daughter Plantina, son Jacob, daughter Hannah, son Daniel, and son Abraham.

    There is no mention of Christian. The only reference to “Christian Stutzman” in John Hale Stutesman’s book is given on page 3:

    “Other, equally unproven, reports assert Jacob’s kinship to the pioneer Stutzman families of Berks County, Pennsylvania, where Magdalena Stutzman took up land near the present site of Shartlesville in 1738. (Lancaster County Warrant #229 to “Maudlin Steudsman”) Rev. Harvey Hostetler studied in great detail one of these, mostly Amish, families. (Descendants of Barbara Hochstedler and Christian Stutzman, Arthur, Illinois, 1938)”

    I searched high and low for any mention of Christian Stutzman as the son of Johann Jacob Stützmann (2nd), and found the following references:

    In her The Rest of the Miller-Stutzman Story article posted 11 May 2016 on her DNAeXplained – Genetic Genealogy Blog, Roberta Estes wrote:

    “Mary Stutzman was the daughter of Christian Stutzman, born about 1732, and Barbara Hochstetler. Christian Stutzman could have been the son of Jacob Stutzman or perhaps even a younger half-sibling or uncle. Since Stutzman isn’t my direct line, I do have some references, but not a lot, so I began on the internet where I discovered that Christian, at least by some, is attributed to be the brother of Johann Jacob Stutzman, the “step-brother” of Johann Michael Miller Jr.”

    and

    “Ancestry trees showed a plethora of information, with some trees showing Jacob and Christian as full brothers, but we’ve already shown that’s nigh on impossible due to the age of Anna (Loysa Regina). They could, however, be paternal half brothers or otherwise related.

    “The Stutzman project at Family Tree DNA seems to be abandoned and shows no project results. So I turned to YSearch, with the hope that some of the Stutzman clan had uploaded results there. Indeed they had. Three entries – and two of those entries appear to be the lines we’re seeking. I checked the compare box to view their results. First of all, none of the three match to each other, so these lines are definitely different. I checked my own Stutzman resource books, and the Jacob Stutzman line that Anna (Loysa) Regina married into is reported to be from Erlenbach, Switzerland. In this case, that would be equivalent to the first entry, user ID V85YJ. The other entry, VZJYF is the Christian Stutzman line from Berks County, PA, whose daughter married Peter Miller. By running the Genetic Distance report, I verify that at 12 markers, which is all the further kit V85YJ tested, they have a genetic distance of 6, which very clearly indicates they are NOT a match.”

    I believe that you fell into the same fox hole as Rev. Harvey Hostetler in 1912 and, again, in 1938 in his books Descendants of Jacob Hochstetler, the Immigrant of 1736 (Elgin, Illinois, 1912) and Descendants of Barbara Hochstedler and Christian Stutzman (Scottdale, Pennsylvania, 1938).

    Several Ancestry.com Member Trees list Johann Jacob Stutzmann (2nd) and Magdalena Maudlin Steck as the parents of Christian Stutzman. However, I could not find any birth, marriage or death source citations for Magdalena (Steck) Stutzman to back up those Ancestry.com member claims.

    John Hale Stutesman began his Jacob Stutzman (? – 1775) His Children & Grandchildren book with a section titled “Origins,” which I thought was meaningful enough to reproduce parts of it here:

    “On 15 March 1773 Jacob Stutzman signed his name with an elegant flourish to his will which named as heirs his wife Hanna, sons: David, Jacob, Daniel, Abraham, and daughters: Plantina Stoner, Hanna Leer. This is the seminal – albeit terminal – document for a study of the life, origins, and descendants of this deeply religious, courageous farmer who settled the violent frontiers of Pennsylvania and Maryland in the mid-18th century. The will, written in marvelously inventive English, identified the testator as ‘Jacob Stootsman of Peters Township Cumberland County and Province of Pensylvania’. The signature, in German script, clearly spells the family name “Stutzman”…with the umlaut over the ‘u’….

    “The records of the settlement of the estate of Jacob Stutzman provide official evidence that he died on the land which he had purchased in Maryland in 1761. These records also prove that he had previously owned land in York County, Pennsylvania.

    “Before that, the record grows murky.

    “The fact that he was naturalized in 1767 proves that Jacob Stutzman was not born in the British colonies of North America, or elsewhere under the British Crown. Whether he came to America as a child or as a man has not yet been determined.

    “The fact that his son, David, was born circa 1742 suggests that Jacob Stutzman was born prior to 1725.

    “He named ‘my well Beloved wife Hana’ when he made his will in 1773 but the date and place of their marriage is unknown.

    “There are persisting, but quite undocumented, assumptions that the Jacob Stutzman who made his will in 1773 in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, was a son of the ‘Johann Jacob Stutzman’ who arrived in Philadelphia from Europe in October 1727. (Minutes of the Pennsylvania Provincial Council, Provincial Records, Vol. Ill p. 288)

    “In September 1752 a ‘Jacob Stutzmann’ arrived in Philadelphia from Europe. (Pennsylvania German Pioneers, Strassburger & Hinke) The scholarly genealogist Dr. John Scott Davenport argued persuasively in an unpublished manuscript of 1972, revised in 1976, that this man was the Jacob Stutzman who took up land in Frederick County, Maryland, in 1759, moved in 1763 to North Carolina where he lived in the Uwharrie Dunker congregation until 1801 when he migrated to Clark County, Indiana, and died there in 1813.

    “As to European origins, there are two separate but potentially related theories. One holds that Jacob Stutzman’s family had a small farm, vineyard and tavern in the Rhenish Palatinat near Durkheim, Germany. The other claims that the Anabaptist Stutzman families came from the vicinity of Lake Thun in Switzerland.

    “There is considerable evidence that Stutzman families were living near Durkheim (Bad Durkheim, Rheinland-Pfalz, West Germany today) in the early 18th century. For instance, in the Lutheran Church at Kallstadt is a baptismal record of a ‘Johann Jacob Stutzmann’ who was born on 1 January 1706…on the Weilacher Hof, near Hardenburg, son of the tenant farmer on the Weilacher Hof, Johann Jacob Stutzmann and his wife Regina Elisabetha’. (Kallstadt is a few miles north of Bad Durkheim. Hardenburg is about a mile to the west of Bad Durkheim.)

    “These clues – facts or fancies – deserve attention; but the Past has no beginning, only layers of receding time. So, this ‘Life’ of Jacob Stutzman will set its foundation on the solid official record of his presence as a landowning adult farmer in York County, Pennsylvania, in the 1750’s. The deep waters below the mid-18th century level will hold their mysteries for other times and other strengths.”

    Beginning two or three years ago, new pieces began to be placed on the table for the puzzle that is the genealogy of Johann Jacob Stützmann (2nd). We didn’t know if we have all the pieces for the entire puzzle to be assembled, or if the cats of time had permanently batted a piece or two off the table, forever disappearing into the cosmos, along with all of those socks from the clothes dryer. Since we can’t look at the picture on the top of his puzzle box, until definitive evidence of Christian Stutzman’s parentage is discovered, there will be a missing piece in that part of puzzle that links Johann Jacob Stützmann (2nd) and Christian Stutzman together.

    • admin says:

      Charles,
      I admire your dedication to scholarship and your use of humorous metaphor. Both make family history more fun. Unfortunately, I too fail to cite my sources on every turn. Guess I’m too anxious to get the information on that puzzle table you refer to. Thank you for what amounts to the longest and most detailed inquiry (?) yet on my website. Let’s see what others have to say. I know I need to revisit this part of my wife’s family.
      Larry

    • Bill Stutsman says:

      I share Charles’ frustration.

      Often as we pass the threshold of the early 18th century we get caught in the mire of going from documentation to folklore. The problems with Ancestry.com are not new. When I first started using the LDS tools in the late 1980s, I noted a lot of duplication, incompleteness, and contradiction in the material.

      I’ve been using John Hale Stutesman’s book as a kind of baseline. I knew him and he was incredibly intelligent and meticulous. Like you, I couldn’t tie John Hale’s family to Hostetler either.

      I was not struck by the Adventure list and Jacob Stutzman’s age. But I should have been. I’m curious about how his birthdate has been determined as I have been unable to do so. Help me if you can. I like some of the entries I’ve seen for Johann Jacob Stutzman (1660-1775) as he would die at 110.

      My great-grandfather is the ‘Abraham’ that is noted on p. 50 of John Hale’s book.

      Let me know if you can extend back the material in John Hale’s book.

      Bill Stutsman
      bill.stutsman@gmail.com

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