Sometime around 1720, John Philip Boehm and a group following the German Reformed faith settled closely together in Swamp, New Hanover, and built a church. The congregation exists today, Falkner Swamp UCC, the earliest German Reformed church in America.
Listings of arriving immigrants were not kept in Philadelphia until 1725, but the identities of the first settlers here can be determined by noting early church deacons and officers and also petition signatories for roads, deeds and such documents. A name that frequently appears on the earliest of such lists, spelled variously, is Sebastian Reifsnyder.
Sebastian Reifsnyder (Reiffsnider, Reiffschneider, Reifschneider) was born 22 January 1696 in Worms/Pfalz, Germany. He died 24 April 1755 and is buried with his wife Susannah (1698-1758) at Falkner Swamp Reformed.
The first settlers such as Reifschneider, Schneider, Antes, Geiger and others whose names appear in early New Hanover history bought land in 100-acre parcels from John Henry Sprogell. Sprogell was the real estate tycoon who purchased the whole “Frankford Tract” for only 500 pounds. This tract of 22,300 acres today comprises the townships of Upper Hanover, New Hanover, both Upper and Lower Pottsgrove and most of Pottstown.
Sebastian Reifsnyder (1) (the numbers indicate generations after arrival, No. 1 being the emigre) in 1724 bought a 100-acre parcel on, now appropriately named, Reifsnyder Road. He died intestate leaving a son John (2) to whom the properties descended. Of John Reifsnyder we know little. One of the earliest schoolmasters at Falkner Swamp was a John Reifsnyder, which may have been he. By will dated 14 March 1758, John (2) devised his properties to his son, Sebastian (3), and Sebastian (3) is a central character of our story.
Sebastian (3) was a Revolutionary War veteran and is buried behind New Hanover Lutheran Church; his headstone reads (in translation):
“Sebastian Reifschneider / whose sleeping body awaits here the / resurrection was born in the year 1743 and / fathered, in the state of holy matrimony, 11 / children, 6 sons and 5 daughters, died the / 9th of September 1813, his age 70 years.”
His wife Ursula is buried nearby. Her headstone reveals that she was born in 1739, died in 1793, and was the mother of seven children. Sebastian then had four children from a second marriage, and it’s with this second marriage and those children that our story concentrates. His second wife, Catherine, is buried at Jordan Lutheran Church, South Whitehall Township, Lehigh County. How she got there is an interesting story.
Mary Redline, a researcher and author from Lehigh County, wrote an article titled “In Search of ‘die kleinen Pfarrer,’ Joseph Doring and George Wartman, the ‘Little Ministers’ of Lehigh and Berks County, 1814-1837.” According to the article, these two Lutheran ministers were unique in that they shared a charge. A “charge” was the several churches that a minister would serve. These two ministers worked as a team. Little is known of their work except their “home base” was Jordan Lutheran Church; and, most interestingly, they were “sons of the congregation” of New Hanover Lutheran Church.
This is their story. Sebastian’s (3) wife Ursula died in 1793. The Doring family (also spelled Dering, Doering, Daring, Dehring and Derringer) at that time owned a large plantation just east of Fagleysville. In 1793, Jacob Doring died at age 30 years, leaving his wife Catharina (nee Eckelman, b. 1766 in New York City, d. 1844) with three boys, one of whom was Joseph Doring. Joseph Doring eventually became half of the Doring-Wardman duo of Lutheran ministers referred to earlier. Sometime about 1797, the widow Catherina Doring remarried the widower Reifsnyder (3). They had four more children. The last three were girls: Hannah, Susanna and Lidia.
Another prominent family in New Hanover in the 18th Century was Wardman (Wartmann, Warthman, Wortman, Wortmann, Wardman). You don’t have to go far to find them. “Wardman” is chiseled in the sandstone block directly over the front door of the New Hanover Lutheran Church erected 1767. This is Adam Wardman, who arrived 1731 aboard the ship Samuel with his wife Elizabeth and two children. His son Matthias and wife Anna Catherine Geyer had 12 children, one of whom was George Wardman, born 29 November 1793 and who became a Lutheran minister and partner of Doring.
George Wardman and Joseph Doring were childhood neighbors in Swamp. They must have known each other and probably were friends. Doring was confirmed at New Hanover Lutheran in 1807. Also in his class was Israel Wartman, George’s younger brother. The families apparently were well acquainted. At a 1794 Ministerium, Matthias Wartman (George’s father) and Sebastian Reifschneider (3) (Hannah’s father) of New Hanover are named under “delegates who brought written credentials.”
George Wardman married Hannah Reifsnyder, daughter of Sebastian (3) and Catherine, his second wife, widow of Jacob Doring, which meant that Wardman’s mother-in-law was the mother of his friend and partner Joseph Doring. And because Catherine Reifsnyder was Doring’s mother, they were brother’s-in-law. Surely an odd (and complicated) relationship.
Mary Redline researched exhaustively yet could uncover few details of the work of Doring and Wardman. They were referred to as die kleinen Pfarrer – “the little ministers.” Perhaps they were short in stature and were literally small. Why they settled at Jordan Lutheran Church is a mystery unless that area needed a minister at the time they were ordained. Nine churches in that vicinity seem to have been served by them in their 22-year tenure, the closest to New Hanover being Huff’s Church, no date given.
After Sebastian’s death, Catherine Reifsnyder moved to the vicinity of Jordan Lutheran. She lived until 1844 and is buried there.
At his death in 1813 Sebastian (3) left an estate of well over 3,000 pounds. Being a farmer in those days must have been a profitable enterprise.
The terms of Sebastian’s will left Catherine a relatively wealthy woman. It said in summary: to my wife Catherine, household goods, and 500 pounds yearly during widowhood. The will goes on to leave sons John (4), Jacob, Abraham and David 300 pounds each; daughter Catherine 100 pounds; daughter Elizabeth, wife of Abraham Dotterer, 108 pounds; daughter Magdalena, wife of Nicholas Swoyer, 145 pounds, and daughter Catherine to have interest of 200 pounds, and after her decease divided among children equally; to the children of daughter Magdalena 145 pounds, 10 s, and finally to daughters Hannah, Susanna and Lidia 300 pounds each when they reach the age of 18.
George Wartman died in 1837 and is buried at Jordan Lutheran Church. His marriage in 1823 was blessed with six children, two of whom died in childhood. What became of his partner Doring after he was bereft of his partner is somewhat a mystery. In 1838, a complaint from the church council made reference to disorderly conduct on the part of the congregation. Doring was replaced and subsequently moved to Ohio where he died.
The Historian is produced by the New Hanover Historical Society. Call Robert Wood at 610-326-4165 with comments.