| 2. | i. | LEONARD (DREISCH)2 THRUSH, b. 1733, HESSEN-DARMSTADT, GERMANY. |
| 3. | ii. | JACOB (DREISCH) THRUSH, b. 1742, HESSEN-DARMSTADT, GERMANY; d. 1825, SHIPPENSBURG, PA.. |
| iii. | PETER (DREISCH) THRUSH, b. 1745, HESSEN-DARMSTADT, GERMANY. |
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Notes for PETER (DREISCH) THRUSH: Corresponding with this tradition of five emigrants, we find in Penna. Archives, Series II, Vol. XVII, the names of five persons who came in 1750 within a period of six weeks to America and were qualified at Philadelphia. Proper identification of these five immigrants might confirm the family tradition. J. J. O. Dreish qualified Aug. 15, 1750 J. Jacob Freisch qualified Aug. 24, 1750 J. Leon Reisch qualified Aug. 24, 1750 Joh. Conrad Reisch qualified Aug. 31, 1750 Jacob Frasch qualified Sept. 29, 1750 Inasmuch as the time of passage across the ocean in those days was uncertain and varied greatly, it would not be impossible for these five persons to have left Germany at or -10- about the same time and to have arrived at Philadelphia at different times within a space of six weeks. Jacob Thrush (J. Jacob Freisch) and Leonard Thrush (J. Leon Reisch) came on the ship Brothers, Captain Muir, from Rotterdam last from Cowes. They took the required oath of allegiance in Philadelphia on Aug. 24, 1750 (Series II, Vol. XVII, P. 316). It is known that Jacob Thrush and Leonard Thrush came into the Cumberland Valley in 1750, or very shortly thereafter, and that they settled in Hopewell Township. Regarding the other three named immigrants, nothing is known and their names are given only because of historic interest. Other German families that settled in Hopewell Township and were neighbors of Jacob and Leonard Thrush were the Seavers, Frys, Erickers and others. To the English Magistrates and other officials of the Province of Pennsylvania the German pronunciation of Dreisch evidently was most perplexing and in their attempts to write the name in English, they obviously spelled the name phonetically and wrote in Trush, Frush, Trash, and it was so written for several generations. These variations in the spelling of the name may be found in the tax lists in the Militia Rolls for Hopewell and Lurgan Townships, Cumberland county, during the period of the War of the Revolution and subsequently thereto. By the year 1790 the descendents of Leonard Thrush (Reisch) had adopted the uniform spelling Thrush and under this -11- name the various members are listed in the first U. S. Census taken in 1790. During this same period (1750-1790) the name was spelled in German Dreisch, Reisch, and is so written in German script in the very few family records that are now in existence. One of these records is in an old Bible that was the property of Leonard Thrush, my great grandfather, who was a son of Leonard Thrush, the immigrant. As said before, the family name Thrush may be traced through the German Dreisch to the more ancient Reisch. It would be of much interest, were it was possible, to follow the family relationship through the generations to the original Reisch. That Thrush, Dreisch and Reisch are variations of the same family name is confirmed by family record and family traditions and is in entire harmony with the evolution of similar German surnames. When Chester County was divided in 1729, the western part was organized into the County of Lancaster. The Kittochtinny, North, or Cumberland Valley became a part of the new County of Lancaster and in 1730 this valley was divided into two townships by a line crossing the valley from mountain to mountain at or near Big Spring, now Newville. The northern part was Pennsborough Township and the Southern part was Hopewell Township. In 1741 Hopewell was divided by a line crossing the valley at Shippensburg and the Southern part was named Antrim Township -12- and included within its bounds practically all of what later became Franklin County, Path Valley and Little Cove excepted. Antrim was divided in 1743 and the northern part was named Lurgan Township. These were the political divisions of the Valley until the formation of Cumberland County in 1750. Hopewell Township in 1750 included what is now Hopewell, Mifflin, Newton and Southampton Townships in Cumberland County and Lurgan Township included what is now Lurgan, Letterkenny, Greene and Southampton Townships in Franklin County. There were no permanent white settlements in the Cumberland Valley prior to 1730. In this year twelve families settled at what later became Shippensburg, which is the oldest town in the Valley, and next York, the oldest town west of the Susquehanna River. The first settlers in the valley were the Scotch Irish Presbyterians. They settled at various points in the Valley in such numbers that before 1740 there were organized Presbyterian congregations a Big Spring, now Newville, Middle Spring, Rocky Spring, Falling Spring and West Conococheague. Title to the land was not obtained from the Indians until 1736 or 37. In the meantime permission to settle was issued through Samuel Blunston, Surveyor. These were known as Blunston Licenses, the first of which were issued about 1734 and which gave the holder the right to occupy the land with the privilege of buying the -13- same at a specified price so soon as the Indian title should be extinguished through purchase by Penn's agents. Prior to 1748 very few Germans settled in the Cumberland Valley. In the early settlement of Lancaster County there was considerable friction between the Scotch Irish and German settlers and to avoid as much as possible any further trouble of this nature, Penn issued orders to his agents that, so far as practical, the German immigrants should be diverted to York County and the Scotch Irish into the Cumberland Valley, and for nearly twenty years this policy prevailed. But about the year 1748 the Germans began settling in the Valley and continued to come in rapidly increasing numbers until 1754 or 1755, when the French and Indian War, with its attendant dangers to life and property on the frontier, checked the flow of all immigration into the Valley. Public records show that between the years 1754 and 1762 there were practically no applications for land grants in the Valley, and this is not surprising when it is remembered that during this interval, Indian incursions into the Valley were numerous. Many people were killed and much property pillaged and burned and settlers compelled to seek safety for the time in the several forts and larger centers of settlements. When the Indians were subdued and conditions of life and property became more secure, immigration again began to increase and from 1762 to the beginning of the War of the Revolution, large numbers of Germans settled in the Cumberland Valley. A -14- |
| iv. | RICHARD (DREISCH) THRUSH, b. CUMBERLAND CO, PA.. |
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Notes for RICHARD (DREISCH) THRUSH: onsiderable number of these came direct from Germany or Switzerland, but many others came from Lancaster and Chester Counties and were the descendants of Germans who had settled in these counties one or two generations before. In the matter of taking up land the method of procedure seems to have been for the prospective settler to obtain from the proper authority a grant of a certain number of acres of land in a specified locality. The settler then selected his location, built his cabin and cleared sufficient ground surrounding it to begin cfarming operations, paying little attention to any definite boundary lines. Sometime later, often several years, official survey was made, the boundary lines more or less accurately fixed and a warrent or title deed issued to the settler by the Provincial Government. Some of the settlers living on land granted between 1748 and 1754 did not receive a warrant or title to the same until after the French and Indian War, a matter of ten or more years, because during the War surveying was both dangerous and impractical. The German settlers who came into the Cumberland Valley in 1750 and later were by faith German Lutherans, German Reformed Menonites and German Baptists, and by 1765 the Reformed and Lutheran faith were of sufficient number in the vicinity of Shippensburg to form church organizations. In the biography of John Conrad Bucher, born 1730, died -15- 1780, as given by Henry Harbaugh in "Fathers of the Reformed Church", Vol. 11, P. 113, we read as follows: "From an old baptismal record we learn that he (Bucher) performed regular ministerial acts in Carlisle--which seems to have been his first location--from the year 1763 to 1768; in Middletown from 1765 to 1768; in Hummelstown from 1765 to 1767; at the Falling Spring near Conococheague 1765 to 1768. From 1764 to 1768 he preached and baptised at Bedford, Fort Pitt, Shippenstown, on Susquehanna, Sharpsborough and Coxtown (or Hestertown). Bucher removed to Lebanon in the beginning of the year 1768. John G. Orr, Esq., in a paper read before the Kittochtinny Historical Society entitled "A Sketch of Salem Church, Pleasant Hall, Pa." says incidentally that the "Old Dutch Church" in Shippensburg was jointly organized in 1765 by German Reformed and German Lutherans and that the second Lutheran pastor was Rev. John G. Butler, 1787 to 1797. (See Society Papers Vol. X). Again, in "Fathers of the Reformed Church", Vol. II, Page 285, it is recorded:--"In the minutes of coetus assembled at Reading April 28, 1777, the congregations at Shippensburg, Carlisle, Lower Settlements and Hummelstown made application for the examination of one named Runkle (John William Runkle, B. 1749, D. 1832) in order that he might become their minister. It was resolved that Runkle be examined and if he render satisfactory in this respect, he shall be sent to these -16- congregations as a catechist. The examination was satisfactory and he accordingly was sent to this charge for a year, other ministers having been appointed meanwhile to adminsiter the sacraments until he shall receive ordination." In the History of Dauphin County (1885) it is stated that Rev. John William Runkle was pastor from 1774 to 1778 of the congregations at Hummelstown, Trindle Springs, Carlisle and Shippensburg. Hon. John McCurdy, in his "Recollections of Shippensburg" 1870 (?) says the first "Old Dutch Church" was built prior to 1780 by Lutheran and German Reformed congregations, and that it stood until 1812, when the two congregations jointly built a church on ground now owned by the German Reformed Congregation. This latter piece of ground is at the corner of Prince and Orange Sts. and was jointly used as a burying ground by both congregations and the church building also was used jointly from 1810 to 1846, when the Lutheran congregation withdrew and built a church on the ground where the present Lutheran Church now stands. The German Reformed have held continuous possession of the original plot and recently erected thereon a new and commodious church building, dedicated May, 1925. It seems not possible at this late date to fix the exact time of the organization of the two German congregations, Lutheran and Reformed, at Shippensburg, but it would appear to -17- have been not later than 1765 and it may have been one or two years earlier than this. The land on which the first church building was erected is now known as the "Old Dutch Graveyard." It was secured from Edward Shippen, the founder of the town, by donation. It deeded to the German congregations for "church purposes and as a burying ground," and inasmuch as Edward Shippen first issued deeds in 1763 to those who previously had occupied lots and to purchasers of lots in Shippensburg, and as this ground was just one square from the proposed center of the new town where the rough cast house, that in 1750 and 1751 was used a a Court House, is still standing, it is entirely possible, and indeed probable, that the two German congregations came into possession of this ground as early as 1763, or shortly thereafter, and further it was given to the Dutch congregations which clearly indicates that there was an organization at the time the land was acquired. History records that the Lutherans and German Reformed jointly built a Church on this ground prior to 1780. Both congregations were part of a charge and the Reformed had a regularly appointed pastor as early as 1774, while the Reformed congregation was supplied by ordained ministers as early as 1765, if not a year or two earlier, and in view of all this it would seem entirely probable that the first church building was erected a considerable time before 1780. The necessity for a church building existed as early as 1765 and having the ground, -18- it would seem natural that the erection of a church building would not be delayed for any considerable time. Leonard Dreisch (Thrush) and family were members of the original Lutheran congregation and ever since some of his descendants have been members of the Lutheran congregation in Shippensburg. The following extracts are from a published history of the German Reformed congregation in Shippensburg, now known as Grace Reformed Church, by D. J. Wetzel, Pastor, 1925: "The second church building (in Shippensburg) was erected jointly by the Lutheran and Reformed people. Reference is made to this building in the oldest minutes in our possession, dated 1778. The building was erected, therefore, in 1778 or prior thereto. It was a log church situated at the corner of Queen and Orange Streets. At first only Reformed ministers served this union congregation. Rev. John Conrad Bucher was the first minister, beginning his ministry in 1764. The first Lutheran minister on the field of which I have found record was the Reverand John George Butler in 1788." |
| v. | JOHN (DREISCH) THRUSH, b. CUMBERLAND CO, PA.. |
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