When you hear the name Henry Huffman, you are apt to think of the Henry who was the brother of the 1714 John Huffman. They did have the same name, but they lived in different localities. Henry, brother of John, lived in the Robinson River Valley. He arrived in America in 1743. The other Henry Huffman lived in the Little Fork, and I believe is sometimes called the Little Fork Huffman. He is the one we will talk about this time.
His full name was Hans Henrich Hofmann and he was christened on 22 Sept 1712. When he was 22 years of age, he came to Virginia (in 1734). He was from Bockseifen, a very small village about two miles north of Freudenberg. My map does not indicate that it has a church, and in the Eighteenth Century it was in the parish of Freudenberg, so we have another immigrant from Freudenberg. Several of the people in the Little Fork would have smiled had you said Freudenberg to them.
Henry had a younger brother, who came later in 1737. This brother, Matthias Hofmann, became a Moravian and lived in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He came on the ship Nancy, which also brought Joseph Coons. Since the Moravians were not established until several years later, it is not clear how Matthias became aware of them and reached the decision to throw in his lot with them. Whenever the Moravian missionaries came to Germantown or to the Little Fork, they brought a message of greeting to Henry Huffman from his brother.
Hans Henrich Hofmann, to use his baptismal name, married Anna Margarethe of Seelbach, on 4 June 1734. They too must have left almost immediately for American for they landed in Philadelphia on 23 Sept 1734. (Actually, by the standards of that time, they made good time.) Henry Huffman died in 1783 in Culpeper County. His wife appears in the tax rolls until 1792/3. The first year in which Henry appeared in the Virginia records was in 1741, when he was administrator of John Huffman of Orange County. This John seems to be a cousin of Henry who came later. By 1764, Henry was on the tax rolls with 950 acres of land. He was at the time a Lieutenant in the Militia.
Henry left a will in which the children Tillman, John, Henry, Harman, Elizabeth (married to John Young), Catherine, James, Mary, Elsbeth (distinct from Elizabeth), Alice, Susanna, and Eva.
Freudenberg, which has been mentioned often in the recent notes, is pictured on this Web Site. (To see the pictures, go
freudenberg.html" target="_blank">
here
. If you are ever in the neighborhood of it (i.e., in the Siegen area), you should pay a visit to see it and to photograph it. Sgt. George said once that it was his favorite village in Germany.
(04 Dec 02)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.