*[Du musst viele Apfel essen.] [Das ist gesund.]
In a recent discussion with a Baumgartner/Baumgardner/Bumgarner descendant, I had to consult my notes. There were some points which I might relate here. Frederick Baumgardner was baptized as Johann Frederick on 5 June 1706 in Schwaigern. He was the son of Hans Jacob Baumgartner and Catherine Willheit. She was the sister of Johann Michael Willheit, the early Virginia immigrant. Frederick had a brother Gottfried who settled in Pennsylvania.
(Brothers did not always settle in the same state. Another instance of brothers in different states is Wilhelm Hofman who settled in Pennsylvania and who did not join his brothers John and Henry in Virginia.)
Frederick Baumgardner arrived at Philadelphia on 19 September 1732 on the ship Johnson. The particular style of the ship, determined by its size and rigging, was a “pink”. So it would not be unnatural to say Frederick arrived on the pink Johnson. The name of the ship though was just Johnson”. Some reports say that the captain sold Frederick as an indentured servant, but this does not hold water because Frederick obtained land in the Great Fork of the Rappahannock River in 1736. For this to be possible, his servitude, if any, would have had to be very short. Most probably he was not indentured.
The land in Virginia (see Virginia Patent Book 17, p.122) has been plotted and was adjacent to Peter Weaver. The descriptions of the land that Weaver and Baumgardner had changed from time to time and it looks as though they did some horse trading of land.
Frederick married Catherine whose maiden name is unknown. On 28 January 1743 he was naturalized along with Peter Fleshman, whose son Robert later married Frederick’s daughter Dorothy. Frederick’s will was dated 8 September 1745 in Orange County. He left 100 acres to each of his four sons and to Dorothy the value of her share. The administrator was Catherine. She married John Deer (Hirsch). There was a sixth child, Eve, born posthumously. The four sons repatented their father’s land and found that it contained 993 acres, not the 400 of the original patent.
The spelling of the name followed the typical pattern of having several variations. Eventually, many members of the family spelled it Bumgarner. Many of these moved to southwestern Pennsylvania.
*[You must eat many apples.] [That’s healthy.]
(21 Mar 07)
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.