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Archiver > NJHUNTER > 2001-04 > 0987660276


From: "Dane Coefer" <>
Subject: [NJHUNTER] Baltis Pickel In Lequear's
Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 23:05:20 -0700


Lisa, Marietta, and the list,

>From Lequear's "Traditions of Hunterdon" originally published 1869-70. Pages 95-6 of
the 1957 reprint:

"We find no record of a church in this area prior to 1749. It may be extant, written in
German. In the present church edifice at New Germantown (Oldwick) is a stone marked
'Zion's Evangelical Lutheran Church, erected in 1749.' The same walls, built at that date
form the building. They are two feet thick and were built to stand for ages. But it is a
wonderful undertaking for such a people as this, in a remote wilderness to erect such an
edifice. And who were these people? Baltis Pickel, Aaron Melick, Kline, Fritz Cramer,
Van Vliet, Dietz (now Deats)***, Hildebrant, Shurts, Kruger, Bartles, &c. Some of them are
the very same men who carried the musket in Spain under the banners of Queen Anne.

"Close to the walls on the east end of the church in New Germantown lie buried the bones
of Baltis Pickel and his wife Catharine. He was born in 1686 and died in 1765, aged 79.
Catharine was born in 1684 and died in 1761, aged 77. These two then came with the
colony in 1710, young and devoted to God and freedom. They accompanied their people
through all their wanderings and saw their temples reared in the land they went out to
inherit, and calmly laid down in their last sleep close by the walls their devotion and
long suffering had helped to rear.

"Baltis Pickel, son of the first Baltis, was born in 1720 ten years after his father and
mother came to America. He grew up amid the first experience of the colony and knew
all of its sufferings. When he accumulated property, after his father's death he gave
$100 to the church. He was an active member, and his handwriting appears in different
places upon the old church record. It is a fair, bold hand, such as the best business man
might be proud to imitate. The Lutherans have always been liberal educators, for
education is a part of their religion. It was because the Roman church then refused the
Bible to the people that Martin Luther cut loose from them and spread the gospel over
the world. When Baltis Pickel died, he was buried at the foot of his father's grave, and
his wife, 'Suffah,' was buried there beside him."

"***Hiram Edmund Deats of Flemington says he knows of no record to attach the Deats
(originally Dietz) family to the New Germantown settlement."

Baltis Pickel researchers might want to visit his family tree online at:

http://www.gencircles.com/users/red12767/1/data/37240.html


Dane Coefer
Ashland, Oregon
Seeking information on Eunice Eura Manners
Alleged mother of James Samuel, Oscar F., and Martha E. Manners

http://www.geocities.com/dane97520/DaneHome.html<br clear=all><hr>Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at <a href="http://explorer.msn.com">http://explorer.msn.com</a><br></p>;

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