A correspondent writes to ask if there is any information that Jacob Barlow married Mary Fleshman, the daughter of Peter Fleshman, the young 1717 immigrant. Jacob is said to be the son of the 1717 immigrant, Christopher Barlow and his wife Barbara. Jacob is known to have married a Mary. They moved to Rockingham County circa 1775, and then on to Kentucky, where Jacob died after 1794.
We know that Peter had children John, Barbara, Robert (or Albertus), Catherine, Elizabeth, and Peter, Jr. The first five of these have appearances in the church records. Peter, Jr., married, first, Winifred Smith, and, second, Hannah, and he is oriented to non-Germanna families. There is no mention of a Mary Fleshman of the correct age in the church records to be a daughter of Peter Fleshman, Sr. The book " Our Families " by Larry Shuck does not give any daughter of Peter, Sr., by the name of Mary. The conclusion is that there was no Mary Fleshman who was a daughter of Peter Fleshman, Sr.
The five children who have appearances in the Communion Lists were sufficient to define who Peter Fleshman, Sr.’s wife was. She was Maria Sophia Weaver (Weber). [This was a most instructive case study and illustrates excellently what can be done in some cases with the Communion Lists at the German Lutheran Church in the Robinson River Valley. This was detailed in Beyond Germanna , starting on page 767 (vol. 13, n. 5 for September 2001).]
The Winifred Smith who married Peter Fleshman, Jr., was the daughter of Isaac Smith and Margaret Rucker. Isaac Smith was of English descent. Many of the descendants in this family became associated with the Germanna citizens who were descendants of Yagers, Yowells, Carpenters, Blankenbakers, Garrs, and Clores.
A source for the claim that Jacob Barlow married Mary Fleshman is said to be the book " The Barlow Story from 1717 ", which was written by Mary Wolf. My correspondent has been unsuccessful in obtaining a copy of work.
If there is any further information on the wife of Jacob Barlow, I would like to learn it.
(26 Dec 05)
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.