A Whole Lotta Family - Person Sheet
A Whole Lotta Family - Person Sheet
Spouses
Birth17 Apr 1717, Lancaster Co, Province of Pennsylvania, BCA
Death17 Feb 1789, Russell Co, Virginia Age: 71
BurialCastle Indian Cemetery, Russell Co, Virginia2444
Notes for Mary Elizabeth Castle (Cassel)
No documentation has been found thus far about Jacob's wife and children. This memorial has no documented sources. The only mention that was found, which may or may not be her was from a letter written 6 January 1750 from Samuel Eckerlin to Alexander Mack that was published in The Pennsylvania Berichte, a Germantown newspaper, and includes a reference to a family named KASSEL on the Little River and probably refers to Jacob Castle: "Upon this occasion I want to report to you about the great inundations which occurred on the 25th of August, a little past midnight, on the Roanoke and the area northeast of it. Our river as well as the Little River were also very high but nobody here suffered mentionable damage. On the Roanoke, however, and other nearby places there was much damage. At several spots entire hills were swept down and leveled and several tracts of bottom land, all inhabited, were filled with so much gravel and sand that they can no longer be lived on. This I have seen myself. Also, houses and barns were carried away and with them a great deal of the crop. The Roanoke was a mile wide at several places and the water rose to 15 feet above otherwise dry land. Since you are familiar with this area, I want to give you details . . . . Those who were with them on the boards saw no more of them. KASSEL's wife and children and their old mother were in the house at the same time. They all survived up on the collar beam save for a small child whom PETER KINTER's wife had on her lap. It drowned with them. After daybreak, the others found out that they had been carried with the upper part of the house for a mile into some woods. They found a rope and tied it to a tree so that they would not be carried any further until the waters subsided or someone would come to their rescue . . . .The Kassel mentioned above was more than likely Jacob Castle.