Jacob L. Essig and Anna Kemp

My Great, Great Grandfather, Jacob L. Essig had an adventurous life.  After spending his youth and young adulthood in Germany he left his homeland and traveled to America.  During the course of his life he changed his homeland, his citizenry, his religious affiliation, and he eventually witnessed history in the Civil War.

Jacob was born in Wurtemburg, Germany in 1818.  His early life is mostly unknown to us, but we do know that he was of the Lutheran faith and he immigrated to America in 1848 at the age of 30 probably after enduring the hardships brought on by the poor economic conditions and political unrest in Europe at that time.  He settled in Berks County, Pennsylvania, an area perhaps reminiscent of his homeland.  

He soon thereafter met a woman named Anna Kemp who was a member of a large German Catholic family that was native to Pennsylvania.  It was probably his wish to marry Anna that spurred him to convert from his Lutheran faith to that of Catholicism in 1848.  Reverend Augustine Bally baptized him into "the true Catholic and Apostolic faith" on New Year's Eve of that year.  Less than 2 years later, Jacob and Anna were wed by Father Bally, the ceremony being witnessed by Anna's older brother Daniel and his wife Mary at the Most Blessed Sacrament Church.  The couple were older than most newlyweds of that time, Jacob was 32 and Anna was 36 years old and they lived in a house down the street from the Mennonite Church in the town.  This house still stands today at the location shown on the 1876 map of Churchville.

Over the next decade, the Essig's had three children, Augustine, Mary, and finally William in May of 1856.  In the fall following this last child's birth, Jacob went to Reading and  took the oath of allegiance to the United States, finally becoming a U.S. citizen.  He did not know it at the time, but this allegiance would soon be put to the test.

The Civil War erupted in 1861 and in the Fall of 1862, Jacob Essig and 24 other men from Father Bally's congregation were drafted into the Army, being ordered to Reading to join the newly formed 167th Pennsylvania Drafted Militia.  He served for nine months as a Private in Company G of the Regiment.  During his time in the service, he was stationed mainly in Suffolk, Virginia and saw action at least once, participating in a perilous artillery fight with a Confederate unit from General James Longstreet's Division.  Jacob may have also become ill during this time in the Army, because he spent part of his term of service at the Hampton Hospital near Yorktown. He may have come down with typhoid fever after one of several outbreaks in the Suffolk camp.

After his service in the Army, Jacob returned to his family in Churchville and continued making his living as a carpenter and later as a farmer.  He and Anna raised their children in reverence to the Church, their boys spending some of their time learning Latin and having prayer recitation with Father Bally at the Rectory.

In later years, William and Augustine would move to Reading, Pennsylvania to find work and to start their own families.  Anna Essig passed away in 1888 at age 74 and Jacob continued to live in the house with his daughter Mary who had never married. She took care of her father for a number of years after he began to suffer from arthritis and general debility.  Jacob passed away in 1908,  just short of his 90th birthday.