(Continued from Thursday.)
Tobias Kreider, the school teacher left all his home property to his wife, except Benjamin's shop. This shop must have stood on the home property southwest of Rocherty. It was likely Benjamin's property.
Now, what kind of a shop was it? What was Benjamin's trade? Benjamin had a nephew, Gottlieb Kreider, who was a blacksmith. Mrs. Jacob Becker, of Palmyra, is a daughter of Gottlieb, the blacksmith. She says that she can remember when her father's old Uncle Benjamin from Harrisburg used to visit them that he would stand around in her father's blacksmith shop and tell her father how to make things. She thinks that he could not have told her father how to make blacksmithing things if he himself had not been a blacksmith. It strikes us that this is pretty good reasoning not only for a woman, but also for a man. So we shall adopt it, and say that Benjamin Kreider was a blacksmith on the homestead.
Benjamin, we are told, was married twice, but we have not learned the names of either of his wives. He had no children. Mrs. Becker says that in his old age he lived in Harrisburg, not unlikely he died there and is there buried. It may be that Sarah Kreider, b. April 25, 1791; d. Sept. 7, 1830; or Mayd [sic] Kreider, b. Nov. 23, 1795; d. Nov. 23, 1821-both about Benjamin's age and buried beside his parents, either might have been one of the wives of Benjamin, or they might have been his two wives, both dying young. It is only surmise.
Tobias Kreider, Jr., is the fourth son mentioned by the father in his will, and he is named as one of the executors of his will. He was likely best fitted of all the sons for such work.
When we asked John B. Kreider, of 425 New street, aged more than fourscore, son of Joseph the Drover, what was the occupation of his Uncle Tobias, He at once replied: "He was a surveyor. He moved to Pinegrove." He is doubtless the Tobias who was deputy county surveyor from 1825 to 1836, and who was also justice of the peace. For in both cases it was Tobias, Jr. John S. Bomberger in saying that the father Tobias, the school teacher, was a surveyor, likely got father and son mixed.
The records inform us that Tobias Kreider, Jr., executor of his father's will, on April 1, 1858, sold 6 acres of land, 2 contiguous tracts, to Christian Dohner of Cornwall. It ran by land of the heirs of Moses Dohner. The 6 acres were certainly the Tobias Kreider homestead. The sale was 23 years after the father's death (1835); but the mother to whom the home was willed did not die till April 2, 1857. So the home was sold one year less on[e] day after the mother's death. Perhaps at this time Benjamin gave up his shop and went to Harrisburg. As a Dohner home, the first baptism of the Brethren in this neighborhood was performed in the stream on the property; and Dohner and his wife were two of the six persons baptized.
Tobias, Jr., may have married a Dutweiler, for Miss Ida Kreider, of Walnut street, Lebanon, says that when his descendant came over to Lebanon county to visit, they always went to see the Dutweiler's. Tobias, Jr., had 3 children:
-Miss Ida Kreider.
Christian, the fifth son of Tobias the school teacher, lived in Manheim, Lancaster county. The older living relatives in Lebanon county still remember him. He likely died in Manheim, though someone thought he finally went West. He is said to have had 2 children:
According to Hon. A.S. Kreider he had a son Harry.
Obed Kreider, sixth son of Tobias, the teacher, is said also to have lived in Manheim, and later to have gone to Ohio, near Dayton. He was a school teacher. He married ------ Boggs; had no children.
Gottlieb T. Kreider was likely the youngest son of Tobias, the school teacher. He was a character, none of your kid glove school teachers. He was likely a good teacher, but some of his ways would not be allowed in the teaching profession today. He lived along the Horseshoe pike, about one mile east of Fontana, later moved to Annville. He was married twice, first to Catharine Berry, by whom he had 4 children; secondly to Elizabeth Fernsler, by whom he had 3 children. His children were:
We have now completed the records of Tobias Kreider, the school teacher, the youngest child of Christian, who resided at the extreme eastern part of the Kreider settlement, son of Jacob the settler. We shall now turn our attention to Christian's brother Martin.
Martin Kreider was one of the four sons of Jacob the Settler, who secured a patent deed in 1760 for the paternal or rather material estate of 585 acres on the Snitz Creek. Martin's farm out of this tract was immediately east of the Colebrook dam and contained 160 1/2 acres. It lay between the farms of his brother Christian on the east and George on the west. It was almost rectangular in shape, being slightly narrower in the center than at the ends. It extended southwest to the road that branches off at Bomberger's school house, the mill road; and northeast to the Seefley and Hans Zimmerman lands, to the Cornwall pike. It embraced the western farm of Henry Bomberger, the Tobias Kreider and Martz properties, and the land on which Haucksville stands, and the Frank Hauck farm.
We have seen that Martin did not long retain this farm. On Sept. 7, 1764, he sold his 160 1/2 to his Uncle John Kreider, on the western half of the "Settlement." John Kreider and Barbara his wife, on Jan. 14, 1768, transferred this farm to their son, Rev. Martin Kreider, concerning whom we have already written at length.
On March 30, 1772, Martin Kreider in Augusta county, Virginia, had given a bond of £66. to Christian Kreider of the Province of Pennsylvania. This was Christian of the extreme eastern part of the "settlement," about whom we have just written. On the back of this bond Christian writes, "mit meinen Br. Martin Kreider."
So the identification is absolute and complete. By 1772 Martin Kreider under consideration was living in Augusta county, Virginia. Augusta county is between the Blue Ridge and the Allegheny mountains, in other words in the Valley of Virginia, a continuation of the Cumberland Valley, and like it surpassing in fertility. We have learned nothing about the family of Martin, but if he had no children, he was no Kreider. We shall instead say a little about
Kerchival, in his History of the Valley, says:
"A large majority of our first immigrants were from Pennsylvania, composed of native Germans or German extraction. There were, however, a number direct from Germany, several from Maryland and New Jersey, and a few from New York. These immigrants brought with them the religion, habits and customs of their ancestors. They were composed generally of three religious sects, viz., Lutheran, Mennonites and Calvinists, with a few Dunkers (Brethren). They generally settled in neighborhoods pretty much together."
Martin Kreider was a Mennonite and he certainly was one of the very first settlers in the Valley of Virginia. Jamestown on the eastern coast of Virginia was settled in 1607, but the valley west of the Blue Ridge mountains had very few settlers before the Revolution. "The Great Oppression" instituted against the peace of the people of Pennsylvania during the Revolution, supplied the Valley of Virginia with very good citizens. Elder D.H. Zigler, of the Valley of Virginia, whose ancestor was one of the first settlers in the Bethel region northwest of us writes:
"In the introductory chapter, it has been shown how the Brethren in Pennsylvania
refused to engage in warfare or take an oath. As a consequence of this, their property was
confiscated. Therefore, destitute of earthly possessions they entered this new country. . . God
never forsakes his people in their faithfulness to him. This is abundantly shown in this
instance, for rich was the inheritance they were to possess. In their lives, we see fulfilled the
words of Christ. Mark 10:29, 30. "During the time of the enactment of these checkered scenes in east Virginia (mutual
killing by Indian and Englishman and arbitrary enforcement of the tenets of the Church of
England), just across the Blue Ridge Mountains lay the beautiful and fertile Valley of
Virginia, practically unknown to the English colonist. Here for centuries the Red Man
alone pitched his wigwam and with his squaw and papoose enjoyed the refreshing mountain
breezes after the day's chase was over. With a feeling akin to bitter hatred, he watched the
encroachment of Mr. Zigler adduces proof that an agreement had been entered into by the English and the Indian, that the
white was not to pass over the Blue Ridge; and quotes from a Quaker writer who states:
"The English going beyond the bounds of their agreement, eleven of them were killed
by the Indians while we were traveling in Virginia. The English encouraged the Germans to
settle in the valley, because they became a good barrier for all that part of the country." "The Indian welcomed the German neighbor from the north. The kind treatment of the
dusky man of the forest received at the hands of William Penn had reached his ears.
Therefore the settler wending his way from thence was not looked upon with suspicion as
See "A History of the Brethren in Virginia," by D.H. Zigler. The man who has killed his fellow man startles at the sight of his own shadow, where the man who has
under similar provocation refused to injure his fellow, lies down and sleeps without fear. Conscience does the
work in both cases.
Upon the scene just described Martin Kreider of Snitz Creek, a Mennonite, was one of the very first to enter. An intimate connection exists between Lebanon county and the Valley of Virginia. Lebanon county will not be the most enlightened county in our country as long as we do not know these things.
It is not our purpose to visit Kreiders in the Valley of Virginia, so we call on another early Kreider on Snitz Creek.