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Descendants of Johann Henrich Haeger




Generation No. 1


1. REV. JOHANN HENRICH4 HAEGER (HENRICH3, JOHANN2, GERHARDT1 HUEGER) was born 1644 in Antzhausen, Nassau-Siegen, Germany, and died 1737 in Germantown, Fauquier, Virginia. He married ANNA CATHARINE FRIESENHAGEN 03 December 1678 in Siegen, Nassau-Siegen, Germany, daughter of JACOB FRIESENHAGEN and ANNA DRESLER. She was born May 1663 in Freudenberg, Nassau-Siegen, Germany, and died Aft. 1737 in Germantown, Fauquier, Virginia.

Notes for REV. JOHANN HENRICH HAEGER:
SOURCE: Willis Miller Kemper, Genealogy of the Fishback Familiy in America: The Descendants of John Fishback, The Emigrant, With an Historical Sketch of His Family and of the Colony at Germanna and Germantown, Virginia, 1714-1914. Library of Congress, Washington, DC, CS71.F5325 1914. pp31-40. [p31] "By far the most important man in this colony was its pastor, John Henry Haeger. As so many people in the record are descended from him he is entitled to considerable notice. The Protestant church in Siegen, and all the Protestant churches in the neighborhood are German Reformed, not [p32] Lutheran churches. Connected with the Siegen church, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, was a Latin school; and connected with this school, first as teacher and then as assistant principal from 1678 or earlier to 1703, was a man who was long the leader and teacher in this colony. This man was Rev. John Henry Haeger, born at Antzhausen, September 25, 1644. He was the son of Henry Haeger, the school master at Antzhausen, a village about 5 miles due east of Siegen and one of the 27 villages of the parish of Netphen. Antzhausen was in the Catholic part of the county, and during some of the troubles between the two faiths, about 1652-4, Henry Haeger moved with his family to the northwest
of Siegen into the Protestant part of the county. John Henry Haeger studied theology and on September 25, 1678, his thirty-fourth birthday, was appointed the third teacher in the Latin school at Siegen. Under the date of December 3, 1678, the following appears on the record of the Siegen School: 'The worthy and
learned Mr. Henry Haeger of Antzhausen was married to Anna Catharine, daughter of Jacob Friesenhagen, late Mayor of Freudenberg.' Freudenberg is about six miles a little northwest of Siegen. This union lasted more than fifty-four years, for the wife was living when Mr. Haeger made his will in April, 1733. He seems to have dropped the John from his name in later years, and was known
as Henry; and we will Anglicize his name to Hager.
"Twelve children were born of this marriage; we are interested in the third, John Frederick, born 1684, baptized the 18th Sunday after Trinity (September 28), 1684.
"4th. Elizabeth, b. 1687.
"9th. Agnes, b. 26 Nov., 1697.
"11th. Anna Catharine, b. 15 May, 1702.
"Henry Hager became assistant rector at Siegen in 1689 and so continued till 1703, when the following entry appears on the church records: 'On the 21st of January 1703 Rev. Mr. Schmidt was appointed as conrector in the place of Rev. Mr. [p33 -- plate of title page of book translated by Henry Haeger ("Courtesy of Presbyterian Historical Society") appears opposite. Translator is cited as "HENRICUM HAEGERUM, der Lateinischen Schul in Siegen Con Rectorem."] Hager, whom the most noble prince wished to transfer and promote to the pastorate of Oberfischbach.' The map will show this village about three miles west of Siegen.
"Hager did not spend all his time in teaching: for in 1690 he translated from French into German, at the request of Count William Morrice of Nassau-Siegen, a cousin of King William III of England, and published at Herborn, the 'Story of Rev. Jacque Pineton de Chambrun,' court preacher at Orange in France, of William III. Because of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, and the consequent persecutions of the Protestants, de Chambrun was arrested and imprisoned, and with many other of his co-religionists suffered great hardships. He finally escaped and made his way to Holland, where he was protected by William of Orange, later King of England. He there wrote in French an account of sufferings of himself and his fellow-Protestants, and it was this work that Henry Hager translated into German in 1690. A copy of it is still one of the cherished relics of the Latin School, now the Gymnasium at Siegen. The writer has a photograph of the title page. A reproduction of it appears on an adjoining page. Hager seems to have pleased the prince by his work, and was later rewarded by a promotion to the pastorate
at Oberfischbach.
"Here he remained for some time, but was ill for a while, and in conseqence obtained permission for his son John Frederick, who had been licensed to preach in 1708, to assist him. In 1711 he was suffering from a rupture, and on February 16, 1711, he handed in his resignation, and on April 13 received an honorable dismissal. He lived in retirement at Oberfischbach until July 1713. [Footnote: For complete details with reference to the life of Henry Hager, see an article by Rev. W. H. Hinke in The Journal of the Presbyterian Historical Society, Vol. II, Nos. 1, 2 and 3.]
"Hager's fourth child, Elizabeth, married either in Germany or in England, it is yet uncertain which, John Jacob Rector. He was an important man in the colony, and was one of the [p34] elders of the congregation while the colony was at Germanna. He went to Germantown, but seems to have died soon after the colony went there, before 1729, for the Germantown land was set off to Elizabeth Rector, illegally of course. She had one son born at Maidstone in England and another born in this country. She seems to have married again, a man named Marr. Here was exactly the same situation as happened in the Spilman-Gent family later referred to. But there was a tragedy in the Gent marriage, for the pleadings recite that 'Gent has been a runaway from this colony for many years,' leaving poor Mrs. Spilman with the entire care of her Spilman and Gent children. Mrs. Marr made some kind of compromise with her
Rector children, for she transferred one hundred acres of the Germantown tract to her eldest Rector child, to whom it belonged under the law. Apparently Marr died comparatively soon, for the tradition is that in her later years Mrs. Marr marred a prominent and wealthy citizen of Culpeper, Col. John Finlason, and
that after the first Mrs. John Fishback died, she took her niece Elizabeth Fishback, then a baby (perhaps also the other daughter, Anna Catharine) and raised her. Quite possibly this had something to do with the early marriage of Elizabeth Fishback to John Peter Kemper, for the marriage took place when
Elizabeth was 15 years 6 months and 24 days old; and also with the marriage of Anna Catharine Fishback to her cousin Mrs. Marr's son, John Rector.
"John Frederick Hager the third son of Henry Hager had applied to the English government to be sent to the New World, as pastor of some of the Palitinate colonies, which the English government was planting in America. England was attempting to make of these Germans, communicants in the church of
England, and refused to send Hager as a Reformed minister, so he was ordained in the Church of England December 20, 1709, and is 1710 went to New York as a Church of England minister. The colony and the proselyting were failures. The colonists left their lands and their new religion, [p35] after several years, and after many thrilling and unfortunate experiences finally drifted over into
Pennsylvania, and Hager was later known as a Reformed minister.
"We do not know, but it is more than likely that the adventures of the son in America prompted the father, although then sixty-nine years of age, to think of America, and his neighbors, de Graffenreid's Virginia colony of iron-workers, just at that time starting for America, gave him the opportunity of going; at any rate he made application to "The Society fo the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts" in London to be sent to America as a missionary. Whether he made this application from Oberfischbach, or whether he was with the colony in London at the time, is uncertain, but on October 2, 1713, the following appears upon the minutes of the Society: 'Reported from the committee that they had taken into consideration the petition of Mr. Hager father of the Societies missionary among the Palatines in the Province of New York, to them referred, and they agreed in their opinion that the case of said
Mr. Hager does not properly lie before the Society.'
"No doubt because the man was a German Reformed minister, and refused to be ordained in the Church of England, and the colonists were members of the German Reformed Church. So the old minister was compelled to go with his family to Virginia at his own expense. And go he did, with his wife, and in the colony went also his daughters Elizabeth, and Agnes, and Anna Catharine;
and in April, 1714, this little flock, with its minister, already old, numbering about thirty persons, was set down in the Virginia wilderness." Kemper, pp31-35. What was source of birthdate? Holtclaw, p170, gives chrstening date at 27 Aug 1644.

VOCATION: Pastor of the German Evangelical Reformed Church, and first pastor at the Germanna Colony in Virginia, about 1714. "Born at Anthausen, near Siegen, about 1644, he had taught Latin in schools in that town, and afterwards had served as pastor to various congregations in the district." Germanna:
Outpost of Adventure, p74. He was co-rector of St. Nikolai Church in Siegen, from 1689 to 1703. Germanna Record No. 7, p.66 He was the first German Reformed Pastor in America.

B.C. Holtzclaw, Ancestry and Descendants of the Nassau-Siegen Immigrants to Virginia 1714-1750, 1964. pp8, 31, 169-172. Published by The Memorial Foundation of the Germanna Colonies in Virginia, Inc., P.O. Box 693, Culpeper, VA 22701. p169 "All the descendants of the 1714 colonists, John Fishback and John Huffman, by their first marriages, are also descended from Rev. Henry Haeger and his wife, Anna Catharine Friesenhagen, who also came over in 1714 with their two daughters, later Mrs. Fishback and Mrs. Huffman. Rev. Henry Haeger was born in Antzhausen in the Catholic part of Nassau-Siegen in 1644, and was christened at Netphen Aug. 27, 1644. His father, Henrich Haeger, was the schoolmaster at Antzhausen. Henry Haeger attended the Gymnasium or Latin School at Siegen as a young man, and from there went to the Herborn Paedogogium for further training, being admitted there April 16, 1668. He became a teacher in the Siegen Gymnasium in 1678, and married at Siegen Dec. 3, 1678 Anna Catharine Friesenhagen, daughter of Jacob Friesenhagen, decd., former Mayor of Freudenberg. She was born at Freudenberg May 24, 1663 and was thus nearly 20 years younger than her husband. Henry Haeger continued as a teacher of the third class in the Siegen Gymnasium until 1689, when he was promoted to the position of Conrector, or associate director of the school. He continued to hold this position until 1703, when he was appointed to the pastorate at Oberfischbach. Just before this date he published a book, a translation from the French, which is discussed in the Fishback genealogy. On April 3, 1711 he
received permission to retire from the pastorate because of ill health, but this did not prevent him and his family from leaving Oberfischbach in the summer of 1713, and emigrating to the New World. Henry Haeger's full name was Johann Henrich Haeger (see 'History of the Higher School System of Siegen,
1636-1936,' p. 83, for this and other information about Henry Haeger's academic career). Rev. Henry Haeger died in 1737 in Prince William Co., Va., leaving his property to his wife, Anna Catharine, and to his Fishback and Huffman grandchildren. His wife was still living in 1733, when the will was written,
but it is uncertain whether she survived him." Holtzclaw, p169.

p170 "Henrich Haeger (Johann Henrich Haeger, or Rev. Henry Haeger), b. 1644, d. in Virginia 1737, m. Dec. 3, 1678 Anna Catharina Friesenhagen. They had 12 children, all born at Siegen except the last, who was born at Oberfischbach. Apparently only three of Pastor Haeger's children survived. His family at Oberfischbach, shown in [p171] May, 1708 in a census list of the District of Freudenberg (Siegener Landesarchiv, 16, No. 4), consisted only of himself, his wife, his son Johann Friedrich, and his daughters Agnes Catharina and Anna Catharina, besides a manservant and two maids. His chilrden were:
1. Johann Henrich, chr. the 17th Sunday after Trinity, 1680; godfather, Herr Hans Henrich Klingspor.
2. Johann Jacob, chr. the 9th Sunday after Trinity, 1682; godfather, Johannes Heger (i.e., the father's brother).
3. Johann Friedrich, chr. the 18th Sunday after Trinity, 1684; godfather, Monsieur Johann Friedrich Prume', bachelor. Johann Friedrich Haeger matriculated July 5, 1703 at the Herborn Paedagogium, and on Feb. 14, 1708 he was examined by the Consistory in Siegen and licensed as a preacher. On Dec. 20, 1709 he was appointed by the Bishop of London to go with the Palatinates to America. He married at Arnsberg (?) Nov. 15, 1715 Anna Rosebach (?), and died in the winter of 1721 or the spring of 1722 in the colony of New York, leaving a widow and two children, who lived at Albany, N.Y. ('Siegerland,' 1934, p130ff, which gives the above information).
4. Elsbeth, chr. Oculi Sunday, 1687; godmother, Elsbeth, Martin Seelbach's wife (i.e. the mother's sister, Elbeth Friesenhagen Seelbach). This child died in 1693 and was buried May 23, 1693.
5. Johannes, chr. the 6th Sunday after Trinity, 1689; godfather, Johannes Hermann. [p172]
6. Anna Maria, b. Nov. 11, 1692 and chr. the 255th Sunday after Trinity; godmother, Margareta, wife of Tillmann Strauch.
7. Johann Moritz, b. Mar. 17, 1695 and chr. the 1st Sunday after Easter; godfather, Johann Moritz Walrabe, counselor at law (?). This child d. Mar. 28, 1695.
8. Johannes, b. Aug. 20, 1696 and chr. the 12th Sunday after Trinity; godfather, Mayor Johannes Driesbach of Siegen. This child d. Sept. 3, 1696.
9. Agnes, b. Oct. 26, 1697 and chr. the 22nd Sunday after Trinity;
godmother, Agnes, wife of Jost Seelbach; she m. in Virginia ca. 1714/15 John Fishback, the 1714 colonist, as his first wife (see Fishback genealogy).
10. Johann Henrich, b. April 27, 1700 and chr. Jubilate Sunday; godfather, Johann Henrich Lange, Mayor of Siegen. This child d. May 11, 1701.
11. Anna Katharina, b. May 15, 1702 and chr. Rogate Sunday; godmother, Anna Katharina Wertenbach; she m. in Virginia Nov. 7, 1721 John Huffman, the 1714 colonist, as his first wife (see Germanna Record No. 3).
12. Johann Jacob, b. 1704 at Oberfischbach and chr. Nov. 30, 1704; godfather Johhann Jacob Becker of Siegen, 'my deceased sister's son' (written by Rev. Henry Haeger himself, then pastor at Oberfischbach). This child d. July 21, 1705." Holtzclaw, pp170-172.

1733 WILL: Prince William County Virginia Will Book C 1734-1744. Abstracted and compiled by John Frederick Dorman 1956 pp. 25-26.
Page 108 - Will of Henry Hager 10 Apr 1733
" Henry Hager, minister of the Word of God among the Germans at Licking Run in Prince William Co. Va. being sick and weak.
Unto my loving wife Anna Catharine all my estate, goods, chattles whatsoever to her during her Natural life. Unto my grandaughter Anna Catharine Fishbach one cow and calf. After the decease of my wife Anna Catharine I will and ordain that all my estate, goods.& chattles whatsoever be then divided amongst my seven grandchildren - Anna Catharine Fishbach, John Frederick Fishbach, Elizabeth Fishbach, and Henry Fishbach, Agnes Hoffman, Anna Catharine Hoffman and John Hoffman.
I do hereby revoke and make void all other and former wills and testements by me heretofore made.
      H. Hager
      Verbi Dei Minister
Wittness:
Jacob Holtzclaw
Johann Jost, Minister
Johannes Campes

Transcripts sent by Mike Peters, npeters102@aol.com

See Also: "Germanna: Outpost of Adventure 1714-1956," Germanna Record No. 7, Published by The Memorial Foundation of the Germanna Colonies in Virginia, Inc., Box 693, Culpeper, VA 22701.

1733 BURIAL: He is buried in the Germantown cemetery, near what is now Crockett Park in Fauquier County, Virginia.


More About REV. JOHANN HENRICH HAEGER:
Burial: Unknown, Germantown, Fauquier, Virginia
Christened: 27 August 1644, Netphen, Siegen, Nassau-Siegen, Germany

More About ANNA CATHARINE FRIESENHAGEN:
Christened: 24 May 1663, Freudenberg, Nassau-Siegen, Westfalen, Prussia

More About JOHANN HAEGER and ANNA FRIESENHAGEN:
Marriage: 03 December 1678, Siegen, Nassau-Siegen, Germany
     
Children of JOHANN HAEGER and ANNA FRIESENHAGEN are:
  i.   REV. JOHN FREDERICK5 HAEGER, b. 1684, Nassau-Siegen, Germany; d. 1721, Siegen, Nassau-Siegen, Germany.
  Notes for REV. JOHN FREDERICK HAEGER:
Chr. 9 Oct 1680 according to LDS Ancestral File.


  More About REV. JOHN FREDERICK HAEGER:
Christened: 1684, Nassau-Siegen, Germany
  ii.   ELIZABETH HAEGER, b. 1687, Siegen, Westfalen, Prussia; d. May 1693, Siegen, Westfalen, Prussia; m. (1) JOHN JACOB RECTOR; d. Unknown; m. (2) MARR; d. Unknown; m. (3) JOHN FINLASON; d. Unknown.
  More About ELIZABETH HAEGER:
Burial: 23 May 1693, Siegen, Westfalen, Prussia
Christened: 02 March 1686/87, Siegen, Westfalen, Prussia
  iii.   ANN MARIE HAEGER, b. November 1692, Siegen, Westfalen, Prussia; d. Unknown.
  More About ANN MARIE HAEGER:
Christened: 11 November 1692, Siegen, Westfalen, Prussia
  iv.   JOHANN MORITZ HAEGER, b. March 1694/95, Siegen, Westfalen, Prussia; d. March 1694/95, Siegen, Westfalen, Prussia.
  More About JOHANN MORITZ HAEGER:
Burial: 28 March 1695, Siegen, Westfalen, Prussia
Christened: 17 March 1694/95, Siegen, Westfalen, Prussia
  v.   JOHANNES HAEGER, b. August 1696, Siegen, Westfalen, Prussia; d. September 1696, Siegen, Westfalen, Prussia.
  More About JOHANNES HAEGER:
Burial: 03 September 1696, Siegen, Westfalen, Prussia
Christened: 20 August 1696, Siegen, Westfalen, Prussia
2. vi.   AGNES HAEGER, b. 26 October 1697, Siegen, Nassau-Siegen, Germany; d. 1725, Germantown, Fauquier, Virginia.
  vii.   JOHANN HENRICH HAEGER, b. April 1700, Siegen, Westfalen, Prussia; d. May 1701, Siegen, Westfalen, Prussia.
  More About JOHANN HENRICH HAEGER:
Burial: 11 May 1701, Siegen, Westfalen, Prussia
Christened: 27 April 1700, Siegen, Westfalen, Prussia
  viii.   ANNA CATHARINE HAEGER, b. 15 May 1702, Siegen, Westfalen, Prussia; d. Unknown; m. JOHN HOFFMAN, 07 November 1721, Siegen, Westfalen, Prussia; d. Unknown.
  More About ANNA CATHARINE HAEGER:
Christened: 15 May 1702, Siegen, Westfalen, Prussia

  More About JOHN HOFFMAN and ANNA HAEGER:
Marriage: 07 November 1721, Siegen, Westfalen, Prussia
  ix.   JOHANN JACOB HAEGER, b. November 1704, Oberfischbach, Siegen, Westfalen, Prussia; d. July 1705, Siegen, Westfalen, Prussia.
  More About JOHANN JACOB HAEGER:
Burial: 21 July 1705, Siegen, Westfalen, Prussia
Christened: 30 November 1704, Oberfischbach, Siegen, Westfalen, Prussia

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