The Armchair Historian and more Heydrick Lore

I am, alas, an armchair historian. My method of choice is the dogged google search. How fortunate for me that google is digitizing scores of books in the public domain. How else could I have so easily found references to my third-great grandfather, Dr. J.C.H. Freund in an 1847 copy of The Lancet. This issue contains, on page 503, a dramatic account of a confrontation between Dr. Freund and another doctor who were battling for control of the German Hospital that Dr. Freund had recently founded in London. They apparently came to blows.

I fully intend to visit the many places where, lodged in historical societies, local libraries, archives and museums, I can find more stories of my relatives. Until those journeys happen, however, I rely on manipulating key word searches in the hopes that I'll turn up some unknown document on the internet.

While I may rely on the work of others (what historian hasn't?) I will dutifully supply you with the links to someone else's work. I may borrow, but I don't plagiarize.

An excellent example is contained below. Since my previous post began the story of the Heydrick migration to Pennsylvania, I went looking to augment what I already knew about the first few generations of Heydricks in Montgomery County. A new google search provided this:

http://www.hetrick-philadelphia.org/Melchior_Heydrick.pdf.

Here is the product of one Stephan Hetrick who has done a lot of legwork for me and on whose work I gratefully piggy-back. Mr. Hetrick relied primarily on the official Schwenkfelder record for his information, a copy of which my cousin Bob's wife now has. Good for the Schwenkfelder's for keeping such good records! This Schwenkfelder record is available on-line from the Mormons, but you have to pay them to look at it. I'd rather not, thanks.

So based on Mr. Hetrick's reading of the Schwenkfelder genealogy record we learn the following interesting facts:

Our original Heydrick emigre was Balthasar, son of Melchoir. Melchoir stayed home in Silesia when the others set sail for Pennsylvania. Balthasar was born about 1708 and he died in 1753. He's buried in a Schwenkfelder cemetary on Skippack Creek Road in Montgomery County. Balthasar got right to work improving his lot and in the summer of 1735, less than a year after having arrived in a new land, he bought 100 acres of land along Swamp Creek. By 1743 he had become a naturalized citizen--but of what? Pennsylvania was still a British colony so I don't know if he became a citizen of Pennsylvania, or of Britain or of what exactly. A good question that Mr. Hetrick and the Schwenkfelder book don't seem to answer!

Balthasar arrived in Pennsylvania with his German wife, Rosina Heebner, but she died four years after arriving here. He waited a few years and then in 1741 married Marie (or Maria, I've seen it both ways) Hoffrichter in Frederick, Montgomery County. It was this marriage that produced the next Heydrick great-grandfather,

(An aside: the 1994 Stanley Cup Champion New York Rangers had in goal one Mike Richter who is from Flourtown, Montgomery County. How cool would it be if Mike Richter's ancestors came from the Hoffrichter line! My cousin, the Stanley Cup Champion!)

Balthasar and Rosina had several children including a son who was named after his father. This Balthasar junior was born December 29th, 1750 in Frederick, Montgomery County. He lived to be 80 years old and died December 19, 1831 and is buried in Union Cemetary, Flourtown.

Balthasar somehow became a Captain in the Pennsylvania Militia during the Revoluion and was attached to a Col. Houlgate's Battalion. His one-story log house stood for many years (I have a terrible xerox of a photograph of it) on the turnpike in the center of Flourtown.

I've done a little bit of searching and do find some references to a Col. John Houlgate who was a commander of a battalion in Philadelphia County. Stay tuned on this. I may get the time to read the full text of a several hundred page on-line archive of the Pennsylvania militia--but not in time to post this.

Balthasar and Elizabeth Nungesser were married about 1786. They had six children who lived to be recorded in the genealogy including son Isaac, born July 9, 1796 in, where else, Flourtown, of course. It was Isaac who moved the Heydrick lineage to the infamous 'burg on the Delaware--Bridesburg, naturally.

The Heydricks who settled in Flourtown--the many uncles and cousins of our direct forebears--were apparently all industrious, upstanding citizens of their communities. They included merchants, carpenters and mill owners. Several served in the Pennsylvania militia during the Revolution. Balthasar junior's cousin was the celebrated Dr. Christopher Heydrick who studied with the very well known Dr. Benjamin Say and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1792. He spent some time as a physician at the hospital and was also a member of the Academy of Natural Sciences.

The next posting will take up the story of the Bridesburg Heydricks.

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