A Whole Lotta Family - Person Sheet
A Whole Lotta Family - Person Sheet
NameHeini (Henry) Riggenbacher (Rickenbach) 
13
13BurialRickenbach Cemetery, Rickenbach, Berks Co, Pennsylvania11
FatherHanß Jakob Reichen Riggenbacher (Rickenbach) (1653-1709)
MotherElisabeth Buser (1665-)
Spouses
Birth27 Oct 1700, Zeglingen, Basel, Switzerland
Death8 Dec 1740, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Co, Province Of Pennsylvania, BCA Age: 40
BurialRickenbach Cemetery, Rickenbach, Berks Co, Pennsylvania
FatherAdam Thommen (1676-1743)
MotherAnna Margaretha Germann (1675-1786)
ChildrenElizabeth “Betty” (1724-1796)
Notes for Heini (Henry) Riggenbacher (Rickenbach)
48 b. 1696 d. 1741 Lancaster County, PA . On ship list 9/23/1740. From Faust and Brumbaugh "List of Swiss Emigrants in the Eighteenth Century to the American Colonies:"
Heini Riggenbacher of Zelingen (44 years of age}, Barbara Thornmen his wife (39 years of age) and children (with dates of baptism- not birth dates)
Elsbeth 7/30/1724,
Hans Adam 11/18/1726,
Johannes 10/24/1728.
Jacob 6125/1730,
Margreth 3/1811732,
Heinrich 5/22/1735,
Barbara 10/20/1737,
Anna'11/28/1739
left for America.
He lost his two youngest children on the voyage and his wife at Philadelphia. His son Hans Adam returned to Europe 1749-1750 to collect inheritance from the estate of his grandfather Adam Thommen who had died in 1743. Henry's will: Leacock Township, PA 2/28/1740-3/25/174 L Henry Rickenbach RB + may have been son of Martin and Barbara (Gerber) Rickenbacher of Zelingen Switzerland who appear in the fourth generation of a 10 generation (lineal) genealogy on pages 36-39 of Vol I (1942) of "Archiv fur Schweizerische Familienkunde" published by J.P. Zwieky, Zurich, Switzerland.
Martin Rickenbacher was bern at Zeglingen 12/25/1609, married at Kilchberg, Switzerland 1/19/1692. Martin and Bar-bara (Gerberl Rickenbacher had a son Johannes born at Zeglingen 10/8/1699 who had a son Heinrich married to a Margreth Thornmen who may have been a niece of Barbara Thommen w/o Henry Rickenbach RB +. Martin Riekenbacher son of Hans and Anna (Gysin) Rickenbacher,
Hans born Zeglingen 5/27/1626, married at Kilchberg 12/1/1646, died at Zeglingen 3/12/1711, son of Jakob and Barbara (Widmer} Rickenbacher,
Jacob born Zeglingen 7/2511585, married Kilchberg 4/27/1623, son of Michel Rickenbach.
A photocopy of the above quoted genealogy was sent by Thomas S. Howlandand, Jr., 1315 Lindsay Lane, Meadowbrook, Pa.,49046.
5 d/o Adam Thommen of Zelingen, Switzerland.
From: Table of contents Copyright © 2000-03, Donn C. Neal. All rights reserved. neals@shentel.net
The experiences of two second cousins, both named Henry Rickabaugh, who emigrated from the Zeglingen area five years apart, show the obstacles emigrants typically encountered when they decided to leave Switzerland. The first Henry (not the man from whom Sarah Elizabeth Rickabaugh was descended), from R×nenberg, was granted permission to leave by the district council in 1735 and started off down the Rhine to "Carolina," a term the Swiss sometimes used in referring to America in general.
The law required the district council to give permission before emigrants could leave Switzerland, and so Henry's council investigated why he wished to go to America before giving its reluctant approval. The inquiry noted that a pamphlet was being used to recruit settlers for the Carolinas, but Henry said he was induced to go by conversation, especially with his brother-in-law. Henry Rickabaugh and some of the others who left when he did asked for a waiver of the manumission dues (serfdom still operated in Switzerland) and of the ten-percent tax on property being transported, but this request was refused. In 1739, Henry asked for the release of some money owed to him, but for decades no action was taken on his request.
25 The second man named Henry Rickabaugh departed, along with his family, soon after March 16, 1740, when the same district council granted them permission to do so. This Henry took with him property with a fairly high value, compared with that of others, on which he paid the ten-percent tax. Most of the emigrants traveled down the Rhine to its mouth at Rotterdam, then as now one of Europe's principal ports. This journey would ordinarily take only seven to nine days but probably took the emigrants far longer (perhaps five to six weeks) because of various inspections and payments at the more than two dozen customs houses. Then the travelers had to remain in Rotterdam for some weeks until passage to America could be arranged. This was an economic as well as physical ordeal for the emigrants, all the more because they had to leave much of their capital in escrow with the government back in Switzerland until they could prove they were successfully settled and working elsewhere and would not return home as paupers.
The next stop for emigrants was a week or two in a port in England (typically Cowes on the Isle of Wight), where the captain received official clearance to take the passengers to what was still a British colony. Finally the ship could sail for America, usually destined for one of Philadelphia's sixty or more docks along the west bank of the Delaware River. This arduous ocean crossing typically took eight to ten weeks, never less than seven. It was not uncommon for many of the passengers to die of hunger and privation in their crowded quarters, or to be cheated by the merchants who arranged for passage and provisions, or by the captains who were supposed to make those provisions available. Sometimes survivors were forced to pay the costs of passage for those who had died en route; when they could not come up with the funds, they were sold into indentured servitude. Those unlucky ones joined many others for whom indentured servitude was a certainty: would-be emigrants who lacked the cash to cover the expenses of the journey. These people agreed in advance to repay these expenses of their trip with three to seven years of their own labor or else crossed as "redemptioners" who hoped to make enough money soon after their arrival in order to cover the cost of passage. (Some of the latter failed and had to accept indentured servitude as well.)
Following inspections of the health of the new arrivals and the release of those who could pay their bills the merchants who had made the travel arrangements invited anyone interested in obtaining the services of the newcomers to come aboard the ship and bid for their labor. The buyers negotiated with the immigrants, settling how long the latter would have to work in order to pay off the costs of their passage. The deal made, the merchants received their money and the successful bidders led their new workers away. Freedom to make one's way in America sometimes thus had to await repayment of what it had cost to get there, unless one chose to vanish during the term of indentured servitude. Sarah's ancestor Henry Rickabaugh and his family seem to have had sufficient resources to escape the prospect of indentured servitude in America, but their ocean passage was exceptionally stormy. Many of the provisions were destroyed or lost, along with the cooking kettles. As a result, some of the immigrants starved, and these conditions may account for the deaths of Henry Rickabaugh's two youngest children during the voyage and may have contributed to the death of Henry's wife, Barbara, too, soon after the family arrived in Philadelphia in September 1740.
Henry, suddenly alone in Philadelphia with the six remaining children, subsequently moved to Conestoga, Pennsylvania. The surviving Rickabaughs arrived there suitably enough, by means of a Conestoga wagon on November 4, 1740. Here Henry himself died in 1741, perhaps fatally weakened as well by the terrible ocean voyage. The two youngest children, Margareth (8) and Henry (5), were raised by guardians recruited from the Gerber family, to which the Rickabaughs were related.
26 The process Henry would have undergone when he and his family arrived in Philadelphia further enlightens us about what the Palatine newcomers to America experienced. As emigration from the Swiss and German portions of the Palatine increased during the 1720s, the authorities in Pennsylvania decided they should collect information about how many German and Swiss newcomers they were receiving, as well as ensure that those arriving would become loyal citizens of the colony. Beginning in 1727 ship captains were required to list any adult males 16 years or older, along with their families, and these adult males themselves had to swear an oath of abjuration. They were supposed to be taken in person to the courthouse, found in the middle of High (now Market) Street on the west side of Second Street, immediately upon their arrival in order to take oaths forsaking their previous loyalty, swearing fealty to England and its ruler, and renouncing the Roman Catholic Church.
27 Each immigrant was expected to sign the oaths, or to have the clerk sign for him. Those who were ill upon arrival were expected to complete the process when well again, though many never not. It is thanks to these oaths of abjuration, which were bound in volumes, that we can identify so many Palatine immigrants, for the original lists of passengers prepared by the captains and most of the signed oaths of loyalty have long since disappeared. Even so, the remaining records represent only a fraction of all those persons who arrived in Philadelphia, and of course others arrived in other ports although Philadelphia was the major port of arrival. Like Henry, most of the new arrivals who were not bound to servitude did not wish to remain long in Philadelphia: small as it was (extending only from the river westward to Seventh Street and between a little beyond South Street to about Vine Street), Philadelphia reigned during the 18th century as the largest urban area in America and so was probably far larger than the European villages most of these people had come from. The newcomers generally moved outwards from Philadelphia or whatever other port in which they had arrived and began the process of putting down agricultural roots. The search for cheap, undeveloped land (land that they could own) drove them outward until they found sufficient acreage to support their families and perhaps grow some cash crops, chiefly grain, that would enable the settlers to purchase the few things (gunpowder, sugar, and salt, for instance) they could not produce themselves.
Having selected locations near abundant water, they began to clear the ever-present forests (a few acres a year at best). In time these isolated farmsteads, often two or three miles distant from one another, were turned into thriving agricultural enterprises. In Pennsylvania, the Amish and Amish Mennonites lived amongst one another but kept separate; both were in turn intermingled with Lutheran and Reformed neighbors, usually also of German and Swiss origin. We have already met two such families, Zinks and Funkhousers, and will encounter others later on. Gradually the Susquehanna Valley northwest of Philadelphia filled up. Crossings of that great river were established at Harris's Ferry (now Harrisburg) and Wright's Ferry (now Columbia). When the newcomers reached the Juniata River, geography began to steer them first westward and then increasingly toward the southwest. Rickabaughs were among the first settlers who reached Upper Bern Township of Berks County, Pennsylvania, in 1737; they were known as the "Northkill Settlement." At the time, this area, set in a notch in the Blue Mountains, was the very edge of the frontier.28 Following an Indian massacre in 1757, many of those in the Northkill Settlement retreated. Some of them later returned but others, including a number of the Rickabaughs, moved further south to the eastern part of Lancaster County during the 1760s; here they lived in Honey Brook Township (now in Chester County). Other families settled in an area east and south of Reading, along the Wyomissing Creek in what is now Cumru Township of Berks County, Pennsylvania. A Jacob, John, and Adam Rickabaugh all were part of the latter group, and these Rickabaughs very likely include the children of Henry and Barbara {Thommen} Rickabaugh. Other Amish and Amish Mennonites (particularly the latter) were drawn south across the Potomac River and into the northern reaches of the Shenandoah Valley. Rickabaughs were apparently numbered among them, too.
By the mid-1700s there were Rickabaughs living in Virginia by the 1760s, near Broadway and Tenth Legion in what is now Rockingham County. Around 1760 another Mennonite colony was established on the east bank of the South Fork of the Shenandoah River near Hamburg.29 As we have learned, tax records in Shenandoah County record Rickabaughs (the name is spelled Richebaker) during the 1780s. Thus Adam and John Rickabaugh's forbears had been among the Amish and Amish Mennonites who by the middle of the 18th century had arrived at the northern end of the Great Valley and found it beckoning them southwestward into Virginia and beyond. By about 1810, the Amish and Amish Mennonite tide in Pennsylvania had also flowed westward across most of that state, and soon groups were crossing into Ohio. In both instances the Amish and Amish Mennonites were impelled to migrate partly because they disagreed on some doctrinal matter and decided to strike out on their own and partly in search of fresh land: large families like theirs meant many children who needed acreage to develop into their own farms. When they could, those moving sought out another Amish or Amish Mennonite community to attach to. By the middle of the 19th century Amish and Amish Mennonite clusters had sprung up in a broad band across Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, and even beyond. It is no wonder that Henry Rickabaugh, an orphan living with his Hans Gerber foster family, would be particularly attracted to seeking his fortune in Virginia as soon as he was old enough to leave Pennsylvania <ETH> probably sometime during the late 1740s. Doubtless he trekked south with other Swiss and German Pennsylvanians who also found Virginia beckoning. Top Having identified the probable links between Sarah Elizabeth's father, Henry, and his namesake the Henry Rickabaugh who arrived in America as a child in 1740, we can now turn to the European origins of this interesting family. Henry Rickabaugh the immigrant (1696-1741), said to have been a church caretaker in Switzerland, was probably the son of HANS RICKABAUGH and ELSBETH {BUSS}30 RICKABAUGH. Hans was born in Zeglingen, Switzerland, in 1653 and died in 1719. We know nothing about Elsbeth and her family except that she was evidently born on March 24, 1665. She and Hans were married in Kilchberg, Switzerland, on January 26, 1692. Hans Rickabaugh was the son of HANS RICKABAUGH and ANNA {GYSIN} RICKABAUGH, who were married, also in Kilchberg, on December 1, 1646. The elder Hans lived between May 27, 1626, and March 12, 1711; he was born and died in Zeglingen. We know nothing more about Anna and her Gysin family, except that they may have come from the village of Oltingen. Hans Rickabaugh was an innkeeper in Zeglingen and from 1668 until his death the village's Kirchmeier, which translates as "steward" or "renter" of the church. A good guess is that he had the responsibility for administering the church's extensive property, perhaps leasing it from the church and then renting it out in smaller parcels to those who actually worked the land. Hans was the son of JACOB "MICHAEL JOGGI" RICKABAUGH, born in Zeglingen on July 25, 1593.31 His wife was BARBARA {WIDMER} RICKABAUGH, possibly born about 1591. They too were married at Kilchberg, on April 27, 1623.32 Jacob may have died in 1659. Once again we know nothing more about the female line, except that the Widmer family may also have come from the village of Zeglingen. Jacob's father bore the name MICHEL RICKABAUGH, a man who may have been born in 1550. We do not know the name of his wife. According to one Rickabaugh genealogy, Michel was the son of MARTIN RICKABAUGH, born about 1512. Martin in turn was the son of JACOB RICKABAUGH, who lived between about 1480 and about 1530. Jacob is the first Rickabaugh to be recorded in Zeglingen, having appeared there between 1503 and 1530 after having lived in Basel. Once he arrived in Zeglingen he may have lived in the Gelterkinden region of that town, then in a nearby village bearing the name Rickenbach. Earlier Rickabaughs are know to have lived in the old Roman town of Augusta Raurica near Liestal, where a Henman Rickenback was a miller in 1439, and even earlier in Rhinefelden on the Rhine River <ETH> not far from Liestal <ETH> where a Rickenbach Castle (actually, a bishop's residence) once stood. Here a Rudolfus Rickenbach was a minister in 1305. A Fritzchi Rigkenbach of òberlinger was made a citizen of Basel in 1332 for his role in that city's struggle with Endingen. Next Previous | Table of contents rev. 10/20/03 Notes 1Adam is buried in Row 15, Grave 2 of the cemetery, which is found in the southwest quarter of the southwest quarter of Section 4 in Union Township, Marion County, Iowa. Catherine is undoubtedly the "C" Rickabaugh in Samuel's household on the 1870 census, despite the fact that person is said to be male: she has the right age and state of birth <ETH> and is also "keeping house." 2Two sources, including Catherine herself, cite either September 13 or 30 of 1813; the county clerk, however, reported the date as February 1, 1814. The county's marriage book, though, is said to show the ceremony (conducted by a justice of the peace named Robert Armstrong) was on September 30, 1814 <ETH> a fourth date. Return to text 3 Catherine was awarded $8 per month commencing February 14, 1871. Return to text 4A civilian who joined in driving the animals on these supply trains was a youngster named John Brown; one wonders if Adam ever met him. Return to text 5Other officers Adam Rickabaugh names in his application for a Revolutionary War pension, besides Colonel McCoy, are Captain John Seeton or Sehorn, Colonel Brown, Captain Reynolds, Captain Michael Reeder, Colonel Abraham Bird, Captain George Preene, Lieutenant Aubrey Keener, Ensign Isaac Gore, Lieutenant George Leath, and Ensign Fred Comer. Many of these men can be identified in lists of Revolutionary War officers or in Shenandoah County records as coming from one part or another of the Shenandoah Valley. Captain Michael Rader was the commander of the militia company in which Henry Rickabaugh was listed during the early 1770s (see below), and Colonel Abraham Bird was also associated with this company. It may also be noteworthy that a George McCoy is another member of that militia company. In addition, there are hints of a relationship between John McCoy of Augusta County, Virginia (possibly the colonel in question), and a Griffith family, perhaps the one to which Catherine {McCoy} Rickabaugh's mother-in-law belonged (see below). This is purely speculative. I have been unable to find at the National Archives a Revolutionary War service record for Adam Rickabaugh. Return to text 6Some sources give the date of this marriage as 1784, but a close examination of the minister's return and other evidence reveals that another couple married about this time by the same man received their license in 1785. Return to text 7The first Griffith property lies to the east of county route 668 today. See slide 010257 for a view of this property. The later Griffith property is just north of county route 669 today. See slides 010249-53 for views of the cemetery, home site, and property. Return to text 8 In his pension application, Adam Rickabaugh claimed to have lived in Lincoln County, North Carolina, from 1792 to 1795; in Stokes County, North Carolina, in 1798; and near Harrisonburg back in Rockingham County, Virginia, until 1801. The records in the last county show, however, that Adam was a taxpayer there from the late 1780s through most of the 1790s and that he sold his property in that county in mid-1798. Perhaps he moved to North Carolina then but got the sequence out of order when he filed for his pension many years later. It is also possible that Adam retained the property in Rockingham County while taking his family to live in North Carolina, where, it should be noted, his son said he was born in 1794. Some sources state that Adam Rickabaugh was one of a group of about forty men who in 1790 and 1791 scouted the part of Ohio that would become Gallia County, at which time Adam trapped beavers with Daniel Boone, but Adam's pension application does not refer to this activity. Adam Rickabaugh may have moved to Rockingham County because it was south of the Fairfax Line, which marked the southern boundary of Lord Fairfax's huge holdings. Many people preferred not to be living on an English lord's estate, and the Rickabaughs may be been among them. The Rickabaughs may have left Virginia for Ohio in part because the former had both slavery and an established church, whereas Ohio never would. Return to text 9Whereas the Griffiths' property is to the east of county route 668, the Rickabaughs' property lies mainly on the west side of that route. See slides 010255-56 and 010258-59 for views of the Rickabaughs' property. 10See slides 010569 through 010576 for views of the Rickabaugh property.In 1792 and 1799, John Rickabaugh was the only tithable in his household (son Adam was born in 1790); he had three horses the first year and two in 1799. As we shall see later, Abraham Vanderpool and his family possibly had lived somewhere on or near this same Muddy Creek during the 1750s, until Indian attacks compelled them to move to a safer area. Return to text 11This man is listed in the Gingerich source book, in the family of Henry Rickabaugh the immigrant (1740), but nothing is shown for him except for his date of birth. Some researchers believe that the Virginia Rickabaughs derive instead from a John Rickabaugh who arrived in Philadelphia aboard a small pink (a type of ship) called Lady on September 29, 1733. This man had four sons, including a Henry who might have gone south in time to sire John and Adam about 1760. Other candidates would include Johannes Reichenbach, who with his wife Catherina arrived aboard the Mary from Rotterdam and Deal on September 29, 1735, and Jacob Reigenbaehr, who came on the Phoenix from Rotterdam and Portsmouth) on September 25, 1751. A family tradition has the Adam Rickabaugh born in 1761 the son of another Adam Rickabaugh of Pennsylvania. One Adam Rickabaugh of Pennsylvania, who like most Rickabaughs of that state lived there his entire life, had it is said fourteen sons, and it is possible that one or more of them went to Virginia. For Henry Rickabaugh's property in Page County, see slides 009967 and 009968. Return to text 12The Lionbergers' property is about two miles south of Luray, Virginia, along what is now U.S. Business Route 340. John Lionberger never received title to this property, it appears. In August of 1756 he wrote to the proprietor asking for one. He stated that he was sickly and would like to settle the matter during his lifetime. (The fact that John sold 224 acres on October 28, 1756, not long before he died, also suggests that his health had failed.) Despite the absence of a title, John's property was successfully divided among his heirs. Return to text 13 If the theory in the text about the Lionberger line is not correct, the Lionbergers may trace instead to one of two men <ETH> father and son? <ETH> named Nicholas Leinberger/Leyenberger who arrived in Philadelphia from Rotterdam and Deal on the snow (a type of ship) Betsey on August 27, 1739, or perhaps to Johannes Leinberger who completed the same journey as a passenger on The Brothers on September 16, 1751. According to oral history, the Funkhouser and Lionberger families were on bad terms, the result of a feud that began at an athletic contest in Trub, Switzerland. The story is suspect, and there is no other evidence to suggest that any feud continued in America (although the two families lived in different parts of the Shenandoah Valley and may not have come into contact with one another.) The story is worth mentioning because much later their offspring (William R. Zink and Sara Elizabeth Rickabaugh) would meet and marry. Some researchers link the Lionberger immigrants with another Lionberger line from Ruderswil, Switzerland. See my notes for the details. Return to text 14Alternatively, Magdalene's father Johan Jacob BS?r may have been one of the two men named Johannes Bair who arrived in Philadelphia in 1728 or the Jacob Baer who arrived there the year before, but we cannot be sure. Other men named BS?r arrived in later years, but I have seen no sign of the arrival of Hans Jagely BS?r. 15These roads do not meet today, but it seems clear from the map that they once came together near what is now Bareville, Pennsylvania, which is where the tavern must have been located. The Horseshoe Road once was the main route between Lancaster and locations in Chester County. Return to text 16Hans married Barbara Hauser after Verena died. Return to text 17One source says Hans died on July 4 of 1659. Return to text 18The case for linking Henry Rickabaugh the Virginian to Henry Rickabaugh the immigrant is largely circumstantial, but it should be noted that the only Rickabaugh male mentioned in Gingerich's source book who cannot otherwise be accounted for is this Henry born in 1735 who is the son of the immigrant born in 1696. There were other Rickabaughs who were not Amish or Amish Mennonites, however. Return to text 19Several generations earlier, in 1602, Hans Thommen, the miller in Zeglingen, vainly protested to the authorities the plans of another Rickabaugh, a cousin of the Rickabaugh line we are exploring, to build a second mill in the town. Thommen said such a mill would destroy the good relationship and friendship between the two families. The mill was built anyway, and evidently Hans was wrong: the families did not become rivals, lasting ones at any rate, since Henry and Barbara were married a century later. Return to text 20I am continuing to use the single spelling of Rickabaugh, but it should be remembered that some of those included in this account spelled their names Rickenbach, Reichenbach, and otherwise. The name Rickenbach derives from a description of the small, twisting streams common in the part of Switzerland where the family originated; the name means "raging" in High German. There may be a connection between the name and the fact that some of the early Rickenbachs were millers. In addition, not all of the Rickabaughs were Amish or Amish Mennonites themselves; the Gingerich source book and others dealing with these two groups frequently include families that extensively intermarried with Amish and Amish Mennonite families. 21There is a well-known Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland, the main feature of a Swiss national park (and, incidentally, the place where Sherlock Holmes met his death). The falls is near the village of Reichenbach, which I have visited. Here the proprietor of a centuries-old restaurant said that the Reichenbach families actually came from Gsteig and Lauenen, which confirms the information that has been contributed to the LDS. Return to text 22Some Amish and Amish Mennonites were imprisoned in Pennsylvania (generally quite tolerant) during the American Revolution because they refused to take a loyalty oath to the new regime or to join the militia and fight for the new country. Return to text 23The German areas included W×rttemberg, Baden, and Alsace. 24Approximately 4,000 Swiss came to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, alone between 1710 and 1750. Return to text 25When this other Henry Rickabaugh left Switzerland for America he sailed directly to South Carolina and settled there, which is why he is not listed among the Palatine Germans who arrived in Philadelphia. Return to text 26A son of the Henry Rickabaugh who immigrated to Philadelphia, Hans Adam, returned to Europe in March of 1749 in order to collect an inheritance left by his grandfather, Adam Thommen, upon the latter's death. When Hans Adam Rickabaugh arrived in Switzerland, he was sent away for the proper documents. Hans Adam, described by one source as a "harmless, even timid young man," was compelled to leave the canton and wait in Germany and the Netherlands until he could obtain the proper documents and return to Switzerland in 1750. Hans Adam's return to Zeglingen (a rare reappearance on the part of someone who had gone off to America) is credited with helping to stimulate increased emigration from that area in the years that immediately followed. Return to text 27For contemporary views of the Philadelphia waterfront and the site of the courthouse in Philadelphia, see slides 010026 and 010027, respectively. Return to text 28The area today is near Shartlesville, Centerport, and Bernville, in what is called the Irish Creek Valley. See the USGS maps for Bernville/Pennsylvania and Strausstown/Pennsylvania for this area of Pennsylvania. Return to text 29The Mennonite house of worship still stands where Route 340 crosses the river en route to New Market. Return to text 30This family name is variously written as Buser or Buserion, as well as Buss. Return to text 31Another source gives the year as 1585. 32Another source gives the year as 1624. Return to text Next Previous | Table of contents Copyright © 2000-03, Donn C. Neal. All rights reserved. neals@shentel.net
Heini Riggenbacher of Zelingen (44 years of age}, Barbara Thornmen his wife (39 years of age) and children (with dates of baptism- not birth dates)
Elsbeth 7/30/1724,
Hans Adam 11/18/1726,
Johannes 10/24/1728.
Jacob 6125/1730,
Margreth 3/1811732,
Heinrich 5/22/1735,
Barbara 10/20/1737,
Anna'11/28/1739
left for America.
He lost his two youngest children on the voyage and his wife at Philadelphia. His son Hans Adam returned to Europe 1749-1750 to collect inheritance from the estate of his grandfather Adam Thommen who had died in 1743. Henry's will: Leacock Township, PA 2/28/1740-3/25/174 L Henry Rickenbach RB + may have been son of Martin and Barbara (Gerber) Rickenbacher of Zelingen Switzerland who appear in the fourth generation of a 10 generation (lineal) genealogy on pages 36-39 of Vol I (1942) of "Archiv fur Schweizerische Familienkunde" published by J.P. Zwieky, Zurich, Switzerland.
Martin Rickenbacher was bern at Zeglingen 12/25/1609, married at Kilchberg, Switzerland 1/19/1692. Martin and Bar-bara (Gerberl Rickenbacher had a son Johannes born at Zeglingen 10/8/1699 who had a son Heinrich married to a Margreth Thornmen who may have been a niece of Barbara Thommen w/o Henry Rickenbach RB +. Martin Riekenbacher son of Hans and Anna (Gysin) Rickenbacher,
Hans born Zeglingen 5/27/1626, married at Kilchberg 12/1/1646, died at Zeglingen 3/12/1711, son of Jakob and Barbara (Widmer} Rickenbacher,
Jacob born Zeglingen 7/2511585, married Kilchberg 4/27/1623, son of Michel Rickenbach.
A photocopy of the above quoted genealogy was sent by Thomas S. Howlandand, Jr., 1315 Lindsay Lane, Meadowbrook, Pa.,49046.
5 d/o Adam Thommen of Zelingen, Switzerland.
From: Table of contents Copyright © 2000-03, Donn C. Neal. All rights reserved. neals@shentel.net
The experiences of two second cousins, both named Henry Rickabaugh, who emigrated from the Zeglingen area five years apart, show the obstacles emigrants typically encountered when they decided to leave Switzerland. The first Henry (not the man from whom Sarah Elizabeth Rickabaugh was descended), from R×nenberg, was granted permission to leave by the district council in 1735 and started off down the Rhine to "Carolina," a term the Swiss sometimes used in referring to America in general.
The law required the district council to give permission before emigrants could leave Switzerland, and so Henry's council investigated why he wished to go to America before giving its reluctant approval. The inquiry noted that a pamphlet was being used to recruit settlers for the Carolinas, but Henry said he was induced to go by conversation, especially with his brother-in-law. Henry Rickabaugh and some of the others who left when he did asked for a waiver of the manumission dues (serfdom still operated in Switzerland) and of the ten-percent tax on property being transported, but this request was refused. In 1739, Henry asked for the release of some money owed to him, but for decades no action was taken on his request.
25 The second man named Henry Rickabaugh departed, along with his family, soon after March 16, 1740, when the same district council granted them permission to do so. This Henry took with him property with a fairly high value, compared with that of others, on which he paid the ten-percent tax. Most of the emigrants traveled down the Rhine to its mouth at Rotterdam, then as now one of Europe's principal ports. This journey would ordinarily take only seven to nine days but probably took the emigrants far longer (perhaps five to six weeks) because of various inspections and payments at the more than two dozen customs houses. Then the travelers had to remain in Rotterdam for some weeks until passage to America could be arranged. This was an economic as well as physical ordeal for the emigrants, all the more because they had to leave much of their capital in escrow with the government back in Switzerland until they could prove they were successfully settled and working elsewhere and would not return home as paupers.
The next stop for emigrants was a week or two in a port in England (typically Cowes on the Isle of Wight), where the captain received official clearance to take the passengers to what was still a British colony. Finally the ship could sail for America, usually destined for one of Philadelphia's sixty or more docks along the west bank of the Delaware River. This arduous ocean crossing typically took eight to ten weeks, never less than seven. It was not uncommon for many of the passengers to die of hunger and privation in their crowded quarters, or to be cheated by the merchants who arranged for passage and provisions, or by the captains who were supposed to make those provisions available. Sometimes survivors were forced to pay the costs of passage for those who had died en route; when they could not come up with the funds, they were sold into indentured servitude. Those unlucky ones joined many others for whom indentured servitude was a certainty: would-be emigrants who lacked the cash to cover the expenses of the journey. These people agreed in advance to repay these expenses of their trip with three to seven years of their own labor or else crossed as "redemptioners" who hoped to make enough money soon after their arrival in order to cover the cost of passage. (Some of the latter failed and had to accept indentured servitude as well.)
Following inspections of the health of the new arrivals and the release of those who could pay their bills the merchants who had made the travel arrangements invited anyone interested in obtaining the services of the newcomers to come aboard the ship and bid for their labor. The buyers negotiated with the immigrants, settling how long the latter would have to work in order to pay off the costs of their passage. The deal made, the merchants received their money and the successful bidders led their new workers away. Freedom to make one's way in America sometimes thus had to await repayment of what it had cost to get there, unless one chose to vanish during the term of indentured servitude. Sarah's ancestor Henry Rickabaugh and his family seem to have had sufficient resources to escape the prospect of indentured servitude in America, but their ocean passage was exceptionally stormy. Many of the provisions were destroyed or lost, along with the cooking kettles. As a result, some of the immigrants starved, and these conditions may account for the deaths of Henry Rickabaugh's two youngest children during the voyage and may have contributed to the death of Henry's wife, Barbara, too, soon after the family arrived in Philadelphia in September 1740.
Henry, suddenly alone in Philadelphia with the six remaining children, subsequently moved to Conestoga, Pennsylvania. The surviving Rickabaughs arrived there suitably enough, by means of a Conestoga wagon on November 4, 1740. Here Henry himself died in 1741, perhaps fatally weakened as well by the terrible ocean voyage. The two youngest children, Margareth (8) and Henry (5), were raised by guardians recruited from the Gerber family, to which the Rickabaughs were related.
26 The process Henry would have undergone when he and his family arrived in Philadelphia further enlightens us about what the Palatine newcomers to America experienced. As emigration from the Swiss and German portions of the Palatine increased during the 1720s, the authorities in Pennsylvania decided they should collect information about how many German and Swiss newcomers they were receiving, as well as ensure that those arriving would become loyal citizens of the colony. Beginning in 1727 ship captains were required to list any adult males 16 years or older, along with their families, and these adult males themselves had to swear an oath of abjuration. They were supposed to be taken in person to the courthouse, found in the middle of High (now Market) Street on the west side of Second Street, immediately upon their arrival in order to take oaths forsaking their previous loyalty, swearing fealty to England and its ruler, and renouncing the Roman Catholic Church.
27 Each immigrant was expected to sign the oaths, or to have the clerk sign for him. Those who were ill upon arrival were expected to complete the process when well again, though many never not. It is thanks to these oaths of abjuration, which were bound in volumes, that we can identify so many Palatine immigrants, for the original lists of passengers prepared by the captains and most of the signed oaths of loyalty have long since disappeared. Even so, the remaining records represent only a fraction of all those persons who arrived in Philadelphia, and of course others arrived in other ports although Philadelphia was the major port of arrival. Like Henry, most of the new arrivals who were not bound to servitude did not wish to remain long in Philadelphia: small as it was (extending only from the river westward to Seventh Street and between a little beyond South Street to about Vine Street), Philadelphia reigned during the 18th century as the largest urban area in America and so was probably far larger than the European villages most of these people had come from. The newcomers generally moved outwards from Philadelphia or whatever other port in which they had arrived and began the process of putting down agricultural roots. The search for cheap, undeveloped land (land that they could own) drove them outward until they found sufficient acreage to support their families and perhaps grow some cash crops, chiefly grain, that would enable the settlers to purchase the few things (gunpowder, sugar, and salt, for instance) they could not produce themselves.
Having selected locations near abundant water, they began to clear the ever-present forests (a few acres a year at best). In time these isolated farmsteads, often two or three miles distant from one another, were turned into thriving agricultural enterprises. In Pennsylvania, the Amish and Amish Mennonites lived amongst one another but kept separate; both were in turn intermingled with Lutheran and Reformed neighbors, usually also of German and Swiss origin. We have already met two such families, Zinks and Funkhousers, and will encounter others later on. Gradually the Susquehanna Valley northwest of Philadelphia filled up. Crossings of that great river were established at Harris's Ferry (now Harrisburg) and Wright's Ferry (now Columbia). When the newcomers reached the Juniata River, geography began to steer them first westward and then increasingly toward the southwest. Rickabaughs were among the first settlers who reached Upper Bern Township of Berks County, Pennsylvania, in 1737; they were known as the "Northkill Settlement." At the time, this area, set in a notch in the Blue Mountains, was the very edge of the frontier.28 Following an Indian massacre in 1757, many of those in the Northkill Settlement retreated. Some of them later returned but others, including a number of the Rickabaughs, moved further south to the eastern part of Lancaster County during the 1760s; here they lived in Honey Brook Township (now in Chester County). Other families settled in an area east and south of Reading, along the Wyomissing Creek in what is now Cumru Township of Berks County, Pennsylvania. A Jacob, John, and Adam Rickabaugh all were part of the latter group, and these Rickabaughs very likely include the children of Henry and Barbara {Thommen} Rickabaugh. Other Amish and Amish Mennonites (particularly the latter) were drawn south across the Potomac River and into the northern reaches of the Shenandoah Valley. Rickabaughs were apparently numbered among them, too.
By the mid-1700s there were Rickabaughs living in Virginia by the 1760s, near Broadway and Tenth Legion in what is now Rockingham County. Around 1760 another Mennonite colony was established on the east bank of the South Fork of the Shenandoah River near Hamburg.29 As we have learned, tax records in Shenandoah County record Rickabaughs (the name is spelled Richebaker) during the 1780s. Thus Adam and John Rickabaugh's forbears had been among the Amish and Amish Mennonites who by the middle of the 18th century had arrived at the northern end of the Great Valley and found it beckoning them southwestward into Virginia and beyond. By about 1810, the Amish and Amish Mennonite tide in Pennsylvania had also flowed westward across most of that state, and soon groups were crossing into Ohio. In both instances the Amish and Amish Mennonites were impelled to migrate partly because they disagreed on some doctrinal matter and decided to strike out on their own and partly in search of fresh land: large families like theirs meant many children who needed acreage to develop into their own farms. When they could, those moving sought out another Amish or Amish Mennonite community to attach to. By the middle of the 19th century Amish and Amish Mennonite clusters had sprung up in a broad band across Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, and even beyond. It is no wonder that Henry Rickabaugh, an orphan living with his Hans Gerber foster family, would be particularly attracted to seeking his fortune in Virginia as soon as he was old enough to leave Pennsylvania <ETH> probably sometime during the late 1740s. Doubtless he trekked south with other Swiss and German Pennsylvanians who also found Virginia beckoning. Top Having identified the probable links between Sarah Elizabeth's father, Henry, and his namesake the Henry Rickabaugh who arrived in America as a child in 1740, we can now turn to the European origins of this interesting family. Henry Rickabaugh the immigrant (1696-1741), said to have been a church caretaker in Switzerland, was probably the son of HANS RICKABAUGH and ELSBETH {BUSS}30 RICKABAUGH. Hans was born in Zeglingen, Switzerland, in 1653 and died in 1719. We know nothing about Elsbeth and her family except that she was evidently born on March 24, 1665. She and Hans were married in Kilchberg, Switzerland, on January 26, 1692. Hans Rickabaugh was the son of HANS RICKABAUGH and ANNA {GYSIN} RICKABAUGH, who were married, also in Kilchberg, on December 1, 1646. The elder Hans lived between May 27, 1626, and March 12, 1711; he was born and died in Zeglingen. We know nothing more about Anna and her Gysin family, except that they may have come from the village of Oltingen. Hans Rickabaugh was an innkeeper in Zeglingen and from 1668 until his death the village's Kirchmeier, which translates as "steward" or "renter" of the church. A good guess is that he had the responsibility for administering the church's extensive property, perhaps leasing it from the church and then renting it out in smaller parcels to those who actually worked the land. Hans was the son of JACOB "MICHAEL JOGGI" RICKABAUGH, born in Zeglingen on July 25, 1593.31 His wife was BARBARA {WIDMER} RICKABAUGH, possibly born about 1591. They too were married at Kilchberg, on April 27, 1623.32 Jacob may have died in 1659. Once again we know nothing more about the female line, except that the Widmer family may also have come from the village of Zeglingen. Jacob's father bore the name MICHEL RICKABAUGH, a man who may have been born in 1550. We do not know the name of his wife. According to one Rickabaugh genealogy, Michel was the son of MARTIN RICKABAUGH, born about 1512. Martin in turn was the son of JACOB RICKABAUGH, who lived between about 1480 and about 1530. Jacob is the first Rickabaugh to be recorded in Zeglingen, having appeared there between 1503 and 1530 after having lived in Basel. Once he arrived in Zeglingen he may have lived in the Gelterkinden region of that town, then in a nearby village bearing the name Rickenbach. Earlier Rickabaughs are know to have lived in the old Roman town of Augusta Raurica near Liestal, where a Henman Rickenback was a miller in 1439, and even earlier in Rhinefelden on the Rhine River <ETH> not far from Liestal <ETH> where a Rickenbach Castle (actually, a bishop's residence) once stood. Here a Rudolfus Rickenbach was a minister in 1305. A Fritzchi Rigkenbach of òberlinger was made a citizen of Basel in 1332 for his role in that city's struggle with Endingen. Next Previous | Table of contents rev. 10/20/03 Notes 1Adam is buried in Row 15, Grave 2 of the cemetery, which is found in the southwest quarter of the southwest quarter of Section 4 in Union Township, Marion County, Iowa. Catherine is undoubtedly the "C" Rickabaugh in Samuel's household on the 1870 census, despite the fact that person is said to be male: she has the right age and state of birth <ETH> and is also "keeping house." 2Two sources, including Catherine herself, cite either September 13 or 30 of 1813; the county clerk, however, reported the date as February 1, 1814. The county's marriage book, though, is said to show the ceremony (conducted by a justice of the peace named Robert Armstrong) was on September 30, 1814 <ETH> a fourth date. Return to text 3 Catherine was awarded $8 per month commencing February 14, 1871. Return to text 4A civilian who joined in driving the animals on these supply trains was a youngster named John Brown; one wonders if Adam ever met him. Return to text 5Other officers Adam Rickabaugh names in his application for a Revolutionary War pension, besides Colonel McCoy, are Captain John Seeton or Sehorn, Colonel Brown, Captain Reynolds, Captain Michael Reeder, Colonel Abraham Bird, Captain George Preene, Lieutenant Aubrey Keener, Ensign Isaac Gore, Lieutenant George Leath, and Ensign Fred Comer. Many of these men can be identified in lists of Revolutionary War officers or in Shenandoah County records as coming from one part or another of the Shenandoah Valley. Captain Michael Rader was the commander of the militia company in which Henry Rickabaugh was listed during the early 1770s (see below), and Colonel Abraham Bird was also associated with this company. It may also be noteworthy that a George McCoy is another member of that militia company. In addition, there are hints of a relationship between John McCoy of Augusta County, Virginia (possibly the colonel in question), and a Griffith family, perhaps the one to which Catherine {McCoy} Rickabaugh's mother-in-law belonged (see below). This is purely speculative. I have been unable to find at the National Archives a Revolutionary War service record for Adam Rickabaugh. Return to text 6Some sources give the date of this marriage as 1784, but a close examination of the minister's return and other evidence reveals that another couple married about this time by the same man received their license in 1785. Return to text 7The first Griffith property lies to the east of county route 668 today. See slide 010257 for a view of this property. The later Griffith property is just north of county route 669 today. See slides 010249-53 for views of the cemetery, home site, and property. Return to text 8 In his pension application, Adam Rickabaugh claimed to have lived in Lincoln County, North Carolina, from 1792 to 1795; in Stokes County, North Carolina, in 1798; and near Harrisonburg back in Rockingham County, Virginia, until 1801. The records in the last county show, however, that Adam was a taxpayer there from the late 1780s through most of the 1790s and that he sold his property in that county in mid-1798. Perhaps he moved to North Carolina then but got the sequence out of order when he filed for his pension many years later. It is also possible that Adam retained the property in Rockingham County while taking his family to live in North Carolina, where, it should be noted, his son said he was born in 1794. Some sources state that Adam Rickabaugh was one of a group of about forty men who in 1790 and 1791 scouted the part of Ohio that would become Gallia County, at which time Adam trapped beavers with Daniel Boone, but Adam's pension application does not refer to this activity. Adam Rickabaugh may have moved to Rockingham County because it was south of the Fairfax Line, which marked the southern boundary of Lord Fairfax's huge holdings. Many people preferred not to be living on an English lord's estate, and the Rickabaughs may be been among them. The Rickabaughs may have left Virginia for Ohio in part because the former had both slavery and an established church, whereas Ohio never would. Return to text 9Whereas the Griffiths' property is to the east of county route 668, the Rickabaughs' property lies mainly on the west side of that route. See slides 010255-56 and 010258-59 for views of the Rickabaughs' property. 10See slides 010569 through 010576 for views of the Rickabaugh property.In 1792 and 1799, John Rickabaugh was the only tithable in his household (son Adam was born in 1790); he had three horses the first year and two in 1799. As we shall see later, Abraham Vanderpool and his family possibly had lived somewhere on or near this same Muddy Creek during the 1750s, until Indian attacks compelled them to move to a safer area. Return to text 11This man is listed in the Gingerich source book, in the family of Henry Rickabaugh the immigrant (1740), but nothing is shown for him except for his date of birth. Some researchers believe that the Virginia Rickabaughs derive instead from a John Rickabaugh who arrived in Philadelphia aboard a small pink (a type of ship) called Lady on September 29, 1733. This man had four sons, including a Henry who might have gone south in time to sire John and Adam about 1760. Other candidates would include Johannes Reichenbach, who with his wife Catherina arrived aboard the Mary from Rotterdam and Deal on September 29, 1735, and Jacob Reigenbaehr, who came on the Phoenix from Rotterdam and Portsmouth) on September 25, 1751. A family tradition has the Adam Rickabaugh born in 1761 the son of another Adam Rickabaugh of Pennsylvania. One Adam Rickabaugh of Pennsylvania, who like most Rickabaughs of that state lived there his entire life, had it is said fourteen sons, and it is possible that one or more of them went to Virginia. For Henry Rickabaugh's property in Page County, see slides 009967 and 009968. Return to text 12The Lionbergers' property is about two miles south of Luray, Virginia, along what is now U.S. Business Route 340. John Lionberger never received title to this property, it appears. In August of 1756 he wrote to the proprietor asking for one. He stated that he was sickly and would like to settle the matter during his lifetime. (The fact that John sold 224 acres on October 28, 1756, not long before he died, also suggests that his health had failed.) Despite the absence of a title, John's property was successfully divided among his heirs. Return to text 13 If the theory in the text about the Lionberger line is not correct, the Lionbergers may trace instead to one of two men <ETH> father and son? <ETH> named Nicholas Leinberger/Leyenberger who arrived in Philadelphia from Rotterdam and Deal on the snow (a type of ship) Betsey on August 27, 1739, or perhaps to Johannes Leinberger who completed the same journey as a passenger on The Brothers on September 16, 1751. According to oral history, the Funkhouser and Lionberger families were on bad terms, the result of a feud that began at an athletic contest in Trub, Switzerland. The story is suspect, and there is no other evidence to suggest that any feud continued in America (although the two families lived in different parts of the Shenandoah Valley and may not have come into contact with one another.) The story is worth mentioning because much later their offspring (William R. Zink and Sara Elizabeth Rickabaugh) would meet and marry. Some researchers link the Lionberger immigrants with another Lionberger line from Ruderswil, Switzerland. See my notes for the details. Return to text 14Alternatively, Magdalene's father Johan Jacob BS?r may have been one of the two men named Johannes Bair who arrived in Philadelphia in 1728 or the Jacob Baer who arrived there the year before, but we cannot be sure. Other men named BS?r arrived in later years, but I have seen no sign of the arrival of Hans Jagely BS?r. 15These roads do not meet today, but it seems clear from the map that they once came together near what is now Bareville, Pennsylvania, which is where the tavern must have been located. The Horseshoe Road once was the main route between Lancaster and locations in Chester County. Return to text 16Hans married Barbara Hauser after Verena died. Return to text 17One source says Hans died on July 4 of 1659. Return to text 18The case for linking Henry Rickabaugh the Virginian to Henry Rickabaugh the immigrant is largely circumstantial, but it should be noted that the only Rickabaugh male mentioned in Gingerich's source book who cannot otherwise be accounted for is this Henry born in 1735 who is the son of the immigrant born in 1696. There were other Rickabaughs who were not Amish or Amish Mennonites, however. Return to text 19Several generations earlier, in 1602, Hans Thommen, the miller in Zeglingen, vainly protested to the authorities the plans of another Rickabaugh, a cousin of the Rickabaugh line we are exploring, to build a second mill in the town. Thommen said such a mill would destroy the good relationship and friendship between the two families. The mill was built anyway, and evidently Hans was wrong: the families did not become rivals, lasting ones at any rate, since Henry and Barbara were married a century later. Return to text 20I am continuing to use the single spelling of Rickabaugh, but it should be remembered that some of those included in this account spelled their names Rickenbach, Reichenbach, and otherwise. The name Rickenbach derives from a description of the small, twisting streams common in the part of Switzerland where the family originated; the name means "raging" in High German. There may be a connection between the name and the fact that some of the early Rickenbachs were millers. In addition, not all of the Rickabaughs were Amish or Amish Mennonites themselves; the Gingerich source book and others dealing with these two groups frequently include families that extensively intermarried with Amish and Amish Mennonite families. 21There is a well-known Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland, the main feature of a Swiss national park (and, incidentally, the place where Sherlock Holmes met his death). The falls is near the village of Reichenbach, which I have visited. Here the proprietor of a centuries-old restaurant said that the Reichenbach families actually came from Gsteig and Lauenen, which confirms the information that has been contributed to the LDS. Return to text 22Some Amish and Amish Mennonites were imprisoned in Pennsylvania (generally quite tolerant) during the American Revolution because they refused to take a loyalty oath to the new regime or to join the militia and fight for the new country. Return to text 23The German areas included W×rttemberg, Baden, and Alsace. 24Approximately 4,000 Swiss came to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, alone between 1710 and 1750. Return to text 25When this other Henry Rickabaugh left Switzerland for America he sailed directly to South Carolina and settled there, which is why he is not listed among the Palatine Germans who arrived in Philadelphia. Return to text 26A son of the Henry Rickabaugh who immigrated to Philadelphia, Hans Adam, returned to Europe in March of 1749 in order to collect an inheritance left by his grandfather, Adam Thommen, upon the latter's death. When Hans Adam Rickabaugh arrived in Switzerland, he was sent away for the proper documents. Hans Adam, described by one source as a "harmless, even timid young man," was compelled to leave the canton and wait in Germany and the Netherlands until he could obtain the proper documents and return to Switzerland in 1750. Hans Adam's return to Zeglingen (a rare reappearance on the part of someone who had gone off to America) is credited with helping to stimulate increased emigration from that area in the years that immediately followed. Return to text 27For contemporary views of the Philadelphia waterfront and the site of the courthouse in Philadelphia, see slides 010026 and 010027, respectively. Return to text 28The area today is near Shartlesville, Centerport, and Bernville, in what is called the Irish Creek Valley. See the USGS maps for Bernville/Pennsylvania and Strausstown/Pennsylvania for this area of Pennsylvania. Return to text 29The Mennonite house of worship still stands where Route 340 crosses the river en route to New Market. Return to text 30This family name is variously written as Buser or Buserion, as well as Buss. Return to text 31Another source gives the year as 1585. 32Another source gives the year as 1624. Return to text Next Previous | Table of contents Copyright © 2000-03, Donn C. Neal. All rights reserved. neals@shentel.net