Johann Jacob Krieger was born 19 April 1755 in Berks County, Pennsylvania, the second son of Nicholas Krieger and Catharina Maria, maiden name said to be Borger.

His birth and death dates are found on his gravestone at the Bethania Moravian God’s Acre Cemetery in today’s Forsyth County, North Carolina.

Although no marriage record has been located, Jacob, as he was called, married Susanna Schaus/s, the daughter of Philip, not long after the banns were published in the Bethania Moravian Church.

Banns were published for 3 weeks in a row, so it seems likely that Jacob and Susanna married sometime in late November 1778.

It also appears that Jacob and Susanna became church members at the time of their marriage as the church diary entry noting the death of Jacob’s father, Nicholas, in 1804 mentions that although Nicholas wasn’t a member, his three sons all belonged to the Moravian Church.

Jacob died on 30 September 1824 in Stokes County, North Carolina, leaving a will naming his wife, Susanna, and their five children.

Stokes County, NC Wills, volume 3:130

He was fairly well-to-do, as after the death of Susanna, his estate inventory value was about $1000, equal to about $30,000 in today’s money.

Susanna was born 24 February 1758 and died 4 June 1828, Stokes County, North Carolina.

In 1778, Jacob Krieger was granted 400 acres of land in (then)Surry county, North Carolina. The land was on Dorothea Creek and part of the 200 acres he later sold to his brother, Henry. (Stokes County, NC Deed Book D:8)

It appears this family lived all their lives in Bethania, at the time in Stokes County, and all are buried in the Bethania Moravian God’s Acre Cemetery, which today is in Forsyth County, North Carolina.

Children:

1. Elizabeth, born 30 July 1779, Surry County, North Carolina; died 18 March 1823; married Henry Schultz, c1799. They were the parents of at least one son, John Jacob.
2. Catherine, born 5 March 1782; died 4 May 1834; married Jacob Conrad, marriage bond dated 12 February 1809, Stokes County, North Carolina [NOTE: Bond indexed as Cathy Krous, but looking at the original record, it looks more like “Krocer,” a phonetic variation of Krokar or Krieger.] They were the parents of six children.
3. Frederick, born 20 March 1784, Surry County, North Carolina; died 4 August 1820; married Maria Margaretha Pfaff, c1808. They were the parents of five children.
4. John, born c1788, Surry County, North Carolina;  predeceased his father, dying c1819; married Maria Elizabeth Spainhour, c1810. Their three children are named in Jacob’s 1824 will – Solomon, Timothy and Lavinia.
5. Susanna, born 22 December 1791; died 22 December 1825; married Jacob Hilsabeck. They were the parents of four children, the youngest of which was born the day before Susanna died.

In a few days, we will look at the family of Frederick Alberty and Elizabeth Krieger.

I’m realizing that there is much more to say about the Nicholas Krieger family to fully explain where my facts originated.

Five days ago, I shared background bits and pieces that helped to explain information floating around in cyberspace, but which offers little to document Nicholas, his wife and children.

To recap my previous post, my husband’s ancestors, Nicholas Krieger (1709-1804) and Catharina Maria (possibly Borger, but no proof found) (1729-1810) are thought to have married in Germany, where their first known child was born.

About 1754, they emigrated to Berks County, Pennsylvania, but after an undetermined number of years, they moved on to Maryland.

By 1767, their final move to them to what was originally Rowan County, North Carolina, where they settled near the Moravians, who were also of German background.

To date, I’ve only come across a handful of records that document the existence of Nicholas Krieger:

1.1768 Taxables of Rowan County, North Carolina – “Nicholas Creger” on Gideon Wright’s list
2. 1772 tax list of Surry County, North Carolina, on which “Nicholus Creager” is taxed for 2 polls – white males over 16 years, which would be Nicholas and son Johann Heinrich (aka Henry), born in 1753.
3. Surry-Wilkes Taxables, 1771-1777, which may include the same list in #1 because “Nicholas Cregor” is taxed again for 2 polls.
4. Nicholas Krieger wrote his will in German, signed with his XX mark, on 28 November 1785, although he lived 19 more years and it wasn’t probated until the March 1804 term of Stokes County Court. In it, he named his wife and five children, although his daughter Elizabeth, named in the will, had already predeceased her father in 1781. This will, combined with the will of one of his sons, proves that his daughter Elizabeth married Frederick Alberty, which is my husband’s line.
5. The Bethania Diary entry for January 1804 in the Moravian Church records, which mentions Nicholas’s age and death.

There are also a few later tax lists documenting Nicholas living in Stokes County after it was set off from Surry County.

What is unusual about Nicholas Krieger is that no land records have been found for him buying or sellling land, although there are a couple of references to others’ property bordering the line of Nicholas’s land.

There are also no clues as to Nicholas’s occupation. He may have been a tradesman rather than a farmer. His son Jacob bought 400 acres of land in 1778. It is possible that Nicholas and his wife lived with Jacob’s family or on a portion of that land.

Nicholas and Catharina Maria Krieger were the parents of five known children:

Children:

1. Johan Henrich, born 24 June 1753, reportedly in Germany; died 3 June and before 4 June 1828, the day his funeral was held, Stokes County, North Carolina; married twice (1) possibly Elizabeth Schauss, but I find no documentation (2) Regina Elizabeth Zimmerman, 27 August 1805, Stokes County, North Carolina. It is believed that Henry had no surviving children by either wife.
2. Johan Jacob, born 19 April 1755, Berks County, Pennsylvania; died 30 September 1824 Stokes County, North Carolina; married Susanna Schauss, about November 1778, Surry County, North Carolina. They had five children.
3. Elizabeth, born c1757; died 3 May 1781, Surry County, North Carolina; married Frederick Alberty, c1773. They had three children.
4. Johan George, born 13 July 1759; died before September 1843, Stokes County, North Carolina; married Catherine Ludwig, about June 1783. George had nine children.
5. Rosina, born c1761; died 15 September 1831; married Abraham Stoltz, before 1792. They had two, and possibly three, children.

From this, we can see that four of Nicholas’s and Catharina Maria’s children have descendants. No children have been identified for their eldest child, Henrich (more often called Henry).

It’s actually been quite a bit of work compiling resources that document the Krieger family, given that many references to their lives are found i volumes of church records.

In January, there will be four posts documenting the grandchildren of Nicholas and Catharina Maria through sons Jacob and George and daughters Elizabeth and Rosina.

They have many descendants today!

 

 

It’s time to finish my 12 for ’22 series with a look at my husband’s 5X great grandfather, Nicholas Krieger and his wife, Catharina Maria (Borger?).

I thought I had shared a family sketch here several years ago, so I was quite surprised to find that I somehow overlooked this family. However, I’ve known about the Kriegers for 30 years.

Better late than never, as my mom always used to say, so here is the background on the family of Nicholas Krieger.

Today’s post will cover various records and bits of information uncovered about the family with next week’s post covering the family members as a unit.

To begin, finding records for this man isn’t easy, given that Krieger can be spelled several different ways, right down to Crecor and Kruger.

Nicholas and Catharina Maria are said to be from Germany, which I don’t doubt. However, their ancestral home is proven with some saying they hail from Hanover and others from Hanau.

I have to admit I am very suspicious of the similarity in the place names. If someone were to abbreviate Hanover and poor writing was found in a document, HanAU could easily be mistaken for HanOVer, which happen to be more than 200 miles distant from each other. Regardless, I’ve not found any documentation that the Kriegers lived in either place.

The Kriegers were Lutheran – both Nicholas and his wife are buried in the churchyard of the Nazareth Lutheran Church near Rural Hall in today’s Forsyth County, North Carolina.

However, their three sons all joined the Moravian Church, first based in Surry County, North Carolina, so there are several Moravian records that help tell the family’s life stories.

Nicholas Krieger was born c1709, based on the short 1804 Moravian memorial, which state that he was 93 3/4 years old when he died on  26 January 1804, placing his birth in April 1710:

Br. Pfohl held in the German Church at Beaver Dam the funeral of the married man, Nicholaus Krieger, whose three sons and their families belong to our congregation. He himself never belonged to us. . . He was ninety-three and three quarters years old, and lived fifty-four years with his wife, now his widow.

Catharina Maria survived him by six years, passing away on 11 January 1810, aged 81 years. Her gravestone still stands and states “geboren” (born) 1729.

Catharina Maria’s maiden name is widely stated to be Borger, but I have not found a single record that confirms it. Her death is also noted in the Moravian records:

Jan. 15. In the German church at Beaver-Dam Br. Pfohl hled the funeral of the widow Catharina Maria Krieger, who fell asleep day before yesterday. she was the mother of Heinrich, Jacob and Joh. George Krieger, who belong to this congregation.

One more thing must be mentioned here. Most online trees refer to Nicholas wife as “Maria Catharina.” However, precisely two documents have been found that name his wife.

Nicholas left a will written in 1785 and proved in 1804 in Stokes County. He calls her “Catharina Maria.” Second, notice the death announcement transcribed above when his wife died. She is again called “Catharina Maria.” Both records were created by people who knew her and her family and both call her Catharina Maria, not the other way around.

The couple reportedly married in Germany and at least one child, their son Johan Heinrich, is said to have been born there before the family emigrated to Pennsylvania c1754.

There is a huge gap of 20 years difference in age between Nicholas and Catharina Maria, but no evidence has been found that Nicholas had a previous marriage.

Furthermore, there is some question about the birth places of their other sons, too. Johann Jacob, born 19 April 1755, might have been born in Berks County, Pennsylvania or Frederick County, Maryland.

However, the Moravian memorials again come to the rescue:

Our brother Johann Jacob Krieger, who entered into his eternal rest on September 30, 1824, was born near Reading, Pennsylvania on April 19, 1755, and his parents took care that he was blessed with the holy water of baptism.

In time he moved with his parents to Maryland, and in his 12th year with them here to North Carolina, where his father farmed some three miles from Bethania, where the Hennings and Daubs live now. (along Bashavia Creek).

This clears up the mystery of Pennsylvania vs. Maryland – the family left Berks County, Pennsylvania and removed to Maryland sometime after April 1755 and then left Maryland for North Carolina c1766-1767, where all of the family lived out their lives.

There is much more to be shared about Nicholas Krieger (1709-1804) & Catharina Maria (Borger?) (1729-1810) and their five children.

Elizabeth’s birth year is unknown, but, based on the order of children named in her father’s will, Elizabeth was born between the births of Jacob and George.

Children:

1. Johan Heinrich, born 24 June 1753, reportedly in Germany
2. Johan Jacob, born 19 April 1755, Berks County, Pennsylvania
3. Elizabeth, born c1757
4. Johan George, born 13 July 1759
5. Rosina, born c1761

Next is the story of the family’s life in Rowan County, North Carolina, which split to become Surry, then Stokes and finally Forsyth County, which the area is today.