We were refugees once, too. Palentine Jacob Kobel (1682-1731) came to America in 1710 in fight for survival

Leaving Palatinate for America. Courtesy Mainz University

Jacob Kobel (1682-1731 of the Palatinate, New York, and Berks County, Pennsylvania By Shirley J. Turner, Certified Genealogist Posted 1709 – 1732 by cd1136795

On 16 November 1755, during the French and Indian War, a tragedy, one among many of that era, occurred in Bethel Township of Berks County, Pennsylvania.  It was called the Kobel massacre.  There are several versions of this story, because, as in any tragedy witnessed by several different people, the facts are seen from different perspectives.  This article is an attempt to coordinate the various accounts and identify which Kobel of those living in Berks County at the time was the victim of this massacre.

As a background to this story, it is necessary to go back to a man named Jacob Kobel/Cobel/Koble who arrived in America sometime in the early summer of 1710.  His name is found on a list of “poor Palatines who arrived at St. Cathrin’s (England), June 11th, 1709, taken at St. Catherines’s and Debtford, June 15.”  It is believed that Jacob Kobel and family were among the 4,000 Palatines who embarked on 10 ships prepared to sail to New York on Christmas day of 1709.  But they were detained on board the vessels until Easter of 1710 “awaiting convoys to protect them against the French men of war.  Seventeen hundred of these four thousand emigrants died before arrival at their destination.”  The rest landed at Nutten (now Governor’s) Island, New York about 10 June 1710.

(The German Palatines were early 18th century emigrants from the Middle Rhine region of the Holy Roman Empire, including a minority from the Palatinate which gave its name to the entire group. The “Poor Palatines” were some 13,000 Germans who migrated to England between May and November 1709. Their arrival in England, and the inability of the British Government to integrate them, caused a highly politicized debate over the merits of immigration. The English tried to settle them in England, Ireland and the Colonies. Many reasons have been given to explain why so many families left their homes for an unknown land. Knittle summarizes them: “(1) war devastation, (2) heavy taxation, (3) an extraordinarily severe winter, (4) religious quarrels, but not persecutions, (5) land hunger on the part of the elderly and desire for adventure on the part of the young, (6) liberal advertising by colonial proprietors, and finally (7) the benevolent and active cooperation of the British government.” )

From the English list of Palatines, we learn certain facts about Jacob Kobel.  He was 27 years old in 1709 and a miller; he had a wife and a 6-month-old son; and he was a Catholic.  Information which has come to this author traces Jacob’s lineage to an Albrecht Kobel, b. ca. 1385, baptized at Wenger, near the Jungfrau Mountain in Switzerland.  It is said that Jacob Kobel was born in 1682 in Hoffenheim, Sinsheim, Germany, a son of Johann Georg Kobel and his first wife.

Judge John M. Brown wrote a short history of the emigration of Palatines from Europe to America and traced their movements from their arrival in New York harbor until their settlement in Schoharie County, New York.  There is proof that Jacob Kobel was a part of this group.  The New York subsistence list of Governor Hunter for 1710 shows that Jacob Kobel received the following rations:  30 June 1710—New York—4 days—1 adult; 4 August 1710—New York—26 days—2 adults; 4 October 1710—New York—61 days—2 adults; 31 December 1710—Manor of Livingston (N.Y.)—87 days—2 adults;  Because the first ration shows that only one adult received the subsistence, some Kobel researchers have concluded that Jacob’s wife and infant son had died at sea.  This conclusion may have been accurate with regard to the child, but the wife was included in the August ration and thereafter.  History of that time indicates that many of the Palatines who arrived in New York that summer were ill with typhus and had to remain in quarantine until they were well enough to travel upstate.  Either Jacob’s wife or his son, or both, may have been too ill to continue and his wife could not join him until a later date.

(The English transported nearly 3,000 German Palatines in ten ships to New York in 1710. Many of them were first assigned to work camps along the Hudson River to work off their passage. Manor of Livingston was used as a work camp. The Palantines harvested lumber and produced naval stores: timber for masts, turpentine, etc. for the English navy.)

The subsistence lists for 1711 and 1712 show that Jacob and wife were at the Manor of Livingston on the Hudson River.  In the rations for 13 September 1712 a child was included. (This would be our ancestor, Maria Sybilla Kobel, who was born in the camp. Later she would marry Johann Adam Dieffenbach in 1734).  In return for the supply of food the Palatines were obliged to gather tar for her Majesty’s (Queen Anne) many ships.  They were so grateful to her for making it possible for them to reach America that, when she wanted an expedition to march against Canada, they readily volunteered.  As a member of the Hunterstown Camp under Captain Johann Peter Kneskern, Private Jacob Kobel was included in the party of Palatines who volunteered for the expedition to Canada.  They marched north about 16 July 1711, but returned, unsuccessful, in a few months.

(The Reverend Joshua Kocherthal paved the way in 1709, with a small group of fifty who settled in Newburgh, New York, on the banks of the Hudson River. “In the summer of 1710, a colony numbering 2,227 arrived in New York and were [later] located in five villages on either side of the Hudson, those upon the east side being designated as East Camp, and those upon the west, as West Camp.” ^[22] A census of these villages on May 1, 1711 showed 1194 on the east side and 583 on the west side. The total number of families was 342 and 185, respectively.^[23] About 350 Palatines had remained in New York City, and some settled in New Jersey. The locations of the Jersey communities correlate with the foundation of the oldest Lutheran Churches in that state.)

On 6 September 1712 Governor Hunter of New York suddenly cut off the subsistence allowance to the Palatines.  This spelled disaster for these families who were relying upon the rations and who had not been able to plant crops and store food for the winter to come because they had been engaged in working for the Governor.  It meant particular hardship for Jacob Kobel and his wife Anna Maria, for we know that on 20 July 1712, Johann Heinrich Kobel was born to them and he was baptized 3 August by the pastor of the West Camp Lutheran Church.  The baptismal sponsor was Johann Heinrich Schraemmle.  There is evidence that Johann Heinrich already had an older sister. (Anna Maria.)

Sometime that fall about 150 families determined to move to the Schoharie valley.  Accordingly, they sent deputies to negotiate a price with the Indians.  No doubt they had learned of the valley from Indians and others who traveled the 45 trail between the camps on the Hudson River and the valley.  Some of their number may have visited the valley and thought it would be a Garden of Eden for them.  In the fall, several families moved to Albany and Schenectady to be ready to move to Schoharie in the spring.  Some 50 families moved to Schoharie prior to 31 October 1712 and spent the winter in dugouts.  Whether Jacob Kobel was one of them, we cannot say.  Conditions of that very difficult winter were described by their minister, the Rev. Haeger, who wrote: “They boil grass and the children eat the leaves of the trees.  I have seen old men and women cry that it should almost have moved a stone.  Several have for a whole week together had nothing but Welch turnips which they did only scrape and eat without any salt or fat and bread.”

Those who had remained behind in Albany left under the guidance of John Conrad Weiser in March 1713 [/14] and “with sledges they made their way through snow 3 feet deep.  Due to the cold and their half-starved condition the suffering was severe.  Four children were born soon after their arrival.  All the people were in great poverty and would remain so until crops could be planted and brought to harvest.  That spring and summer marked one of the greatest tests of human endurance and fortitude known in the annals of early American colonization.”  Friendly Indians gave potatoes, herbs, and seed to the desperate colonists.  There were about 700 in all and they settled in seven villages named after their delegates who had negotiated with the Indians.

The Hunterstown group of Palatines, under the leadership of John Peter Kniskern, settled in what was called New Heidelberg or Kniskerndorf.  This village was located at the mouth of a creek which was named Cobelskill because Jacob Kobel established a mill at that place.  Present day Cobleskill, New York, is located in the same place.  The Simmendinger Register of 1717 shows that Jacob Kobel and his wife and two children lived in New Heidelberg.  It must be noted that when Simmendinger published the list in 1717, he had already returned to Germany and some time had elapsed, during which Jacob and Anna Maria probably had had other children.  After the Palatines established their homes in the Schoharie and had cultivated their fields and orchards for a period of about 10 years, they were informed that they did not have legal titles to the land.  Governor Robert Hunter of New York said they had taken possession of Schoharie without permission, and, to show his disapproval, he sold their lands to seven wealthy merchants of Albany and Schenectady.

In 1722 several families moved to the Mohawk valley.  Others “got news of the land on Suataro and Tulpehocken, in Pennsylvania; many of them united and cut a road from Schochary to the Susquehanna river, carried their goods there, and made canoes, and floated down the river to the mouth of the Suataro Creek, and drove their cattle overland.  This happened in the year 1723.”  There are only two documentary sources for this Palatine migration — Conrad Weiser’s account and a letter written 13 May 1723 by James Mitchell, a Justice of the Peace at Donegal, Chester (now Lancaster) County, Pa.  Mitchell stated that 15 families “of Dutch come from Albaney and are now settling upp Swattra.”  Not only were some of the Pennsylvania authorities disturbed by such action, although the governor had invited the Palatines to come, but the Delaware Indians of that area were disturbed by the influx of settlers into their territory.  They protested to the government, but to no avail.

Jacob Kobel’s name was not included in the list of original 15 families who moved to Tulpehocken in present-day Berks Co., Pa.  It is possible he may have been one of those who relocated in the Mohawk Valley and did not leave New York immediately.  However, we know he had arrived in the Tulpehocken region by 10 January 1726 [/27] because his name was found on a tax list of Tulpehocken.  Also, in September 1727, his name was on a petition of Tulpehocken settlers who asked the government to build a road from the Lutheran meeting house at Tulpehocken to the Quaker’s Meeting house in Oley.

Jacob built a grist mill in what was later named Plumpton Manor.  It seems to have been land originally owned by Conrad Weiser and was in what is probably the eastern edge of present Womelsdorf, Pa.  In 1737, after Jacob’s death, Conrad Weiser conveyed title of the land where Jacob’s mill stood to Anna Maria, the widow, and she in turn conveyed title to her sons Johannes and Frederick Kobel.  She did not die until 1774 when she was 90 years old.

Jacob Kobel died between 7 August 1731, when he wrote his will, and 16 March 1732 [/33], when it was filed at Philadelphia.  Jacob said he had nine children, but he mentioned only the name of son Henry.  He appointed Gottfried Fidler and Nicholas Schafer as guardians of his minor children.  Conrad Weiser was one of the witnesses to the will.

There has been much confusion about the names of the children of Jacob and Anna Maria Kobel because so many of the children and grandchildren bore the same names.  After studying church and land records of Berks County, this writer believes the following to have been their children:

i. [son], b. in the Palatinate, Germany, ca. 1709; d. on or before arrival in America in 1710.

ii. Maria Sybilla Kobel, b. at East Camp, Livingston Manor, N.Y., between Sept. & Dec. 1710.

iii. Johann Heinrich Kobel, b. at Hunterstown Camp, Livingston Manor, N.Y., 20 July 1712; bapt. 3 Aug. 1712.

iv. Maria Barbara Kobel, b. possibly at New Heidelberg, Schoharie, N.Y., ca 1713-15.

v. Johannes “hans” Kobel, b. probably at Cobleskill, N.Y., 1718-24.

vi. Maria Angelica “Engel” Kobel, b. probably at Cobleskill, N.Y., ca. 1720.

vii. Anna Maria Catherine Kobel, b. probably at Cobleskill, N.Y., ca. 1722.

viii. Friedrich Christian “Gottfried” Kobel, b. in N.Y., ca. 1723.

ix. Jacob Nicholas Kobel, b. probably in Heidelberg Twp., Berks Co., Pa., ca. 1725.

x. Anna Elisabeth Kobel, b. Berks Col, Pa., ca. 1726; confirmed 1744, Christ Church.

 

There also appears to be a story of a massacre involving this family. More on that to come….

 

How did we get here? Jacob Kobel is the father of Maria Sybilla Kobel. Maria married
Johann Adam Dieffenbach in Bucks County, Pennsylvania in 1734. They are the parents of Conrad Deffenbaugh. Conrad and his wife, Mary, were the parents of Solomon Deffenbaugh. Solomon and his wife, Margaret, were the parents of Anthony Deffenbaugh. Anthony was the father of Frank Deffenbaugh. Frank was the father of J.C. Deffenbaugh. J.C. was the father of Clarence Deffenbaugh, who is my grandfather. Whew!