New Findings from Leistadt!

In 1722, the community of Leistadt compiled a list of all of the property (house plots and fields) held by members of the community. This Morgenbuch was periodically updated as property changed hands, through inheritance or sale. The information it contains is remarkable and has led to many important discoveries. Each of these discoveries will be explored further in later posts, but here is a summary of what I have learned so far:

1. Matthes Bruch’s wife was NOT a Freyermuth, as I had suspected. The Leistadt and Kallstadt Church Books show that the Bruch and Freyermuth families were closely connected across generations, leading me to suspect that Matthes’s wife was from that family. I was wrong. The families are indeed connected, but that was because two previously unknown children of Matthes and Anna Catharina married Freyermuths (more on that in a minute). The Morgenbuch would list property held and inherited by women, but there are no such records in Anna Catharina’s case, leading me to conclude that she, like her husband, was NOT from Leistadt and had immigrated there in the 1690s.
2. Matthes and Anna Catharina had a daughter named Maria Elisabetha. The Morgenbuch describes property acquired by Johann Georg Freyermuth by right of his wife, Maria Elisabetha, who, the Morgenbuch explicitly states, was born Bruch. Georg Freyermuth was the son of the Schultheiss and may have become the Schultheiss himself had he not died in the late 1730s. Maria Elisabetha remarried, and when she died, her age shows that she was born about 1698, which nicely aligns with when we think Matthes Bruch arrived in Leistadt from Ellweiler. This marriage is the primary reason the Bruch and Freyermuth families were so close.
3. Matthes and Anna Catharina had a son named David. The Morgenbuch was compiled in 1722, after Matthes Bruch had died. So instead of listing the property he held, it lists the property his heirs inherited and divided amongst themselves. It shows Andreas, Matthias… and David. David never appears in the Leistadt Church Book, but he does appear in the Church Book of Freinsheim Reformed when he was confirmed. Andreas was also confirmed there. I had noticed the David Bruch in Freinsheim before but, since he appears no where in the Leistadt records, assumed he was part of the Bruch family there. David was born about 1712. That David was Matthias’s younger brother has some significance, as will be discussed more in a bit.
4. We know the location of Matthes Bruch’s house. The Morgenbuch lists all of the house plots in the village relative to one another. It is like putting a puzzle together. In doing so, it is clear that the Bruch house was located just east of the site of the Leistadt Rathaus that was built in 1750. The house that stands on that site today is certainly heavily-renovated and I do not know if any part of it dates to when the Bruch family lived there.
5. We know the rough location of the Bruch lands. The exact locations are hard to determine, but Matthes Bruch had about 6 acres of land scattered in various plots mostly to the north of the village. These are all vineyards today.
6. Georg Freyermuth bought the Bruch house and Matthias’s land before he emigrated. Matthias sold all of his land to his brother-in-law Georg Freyermuth before he left Leistadt. This is how he raised funds for the trip. It’s not clear when Georg bought the other heirs’ share of the house.
7. David Bruch emigrated to Pennsylvania and is the David Bruch on the ship Virtuous Grace in 1737. As soon as I saw David Bruch in the Morgenbuch I suspected he was the David Bruch on the 1737 ship. Then, I discovered an entry from 1748 where Anna Catharina, daughter of Wilhelm Freyermuth, inherited land after her father died. This record stated that she was the wife of David Bruch and that they were in Pennsylvania. David was part of the same group of people that left the area in 1737 that included Tobias Böckel, Anna Catharina Bruch’s godson. Böckel and the others boarded the ship St. Andrew that arrived in Philadelphia two days after Virtuous Grace, which suggest the emigrants traveled to Rotterdam together but got on different ships. Johann Georg Freyermuth also bought David’s land before he left. Did David originally intend to travel with his older brother? Did his marriage to Anna Catharina Freyermuth, which must have occurred in 1736 or 1737, delay his plans by a year?

When I was in Leistadt some twenty years ago, I walked past the site of the Bruch house and I hiked past some of the fields the family once held without realizing it. Fortunately, Leistadt retains its agricultural character and these lands have not been built on too much.

The origins of Anna Catharina requires more research, but I suspect that she was not from one of the villages near Leistadt, but came from father away.

David Bruch’s immigration to Pennsylvania raises many questions. Did he leave descendants? Is he the ancestor of the Bruch family that shows up in the records of Falkner Swamp Church in the 1770s (the name David repeats)? Did he ever see his older brother in Pennsylvania? Would he have known what happened to him?

Much more to come on these topics…stay tuned!