Ebersol Families in America-1727-1937

THE EBERSOL FAMILIES IN AMERICA-1727-1937 Including the Leading Clans Who Spell the Name Ebersole Eversole Ebersol Eversull Compiled and Published by (> REVEREND CHARLES E. EBERSOL, B.A., B.D. 432 South Walnut Street Lansing, Michigan Member. __ of the Institute of American Genealogy Author of "Clippings", "The Four Gospels in One", and "The Bible Made Plain". Printed and Bound by FRANKLIN DEKLEINE CO., LANSING, MICH. 1937 CONTENTS Clan No. Page Our First Ancestors in America ................. 7-8 1 Eversole Faml·11·es . 9-24 2 Ebersole Families ............................. 25-60 3 Ebersole Families 61-98 4 Eversole, Eversull, and Ebersole Families .......·. 99-168 5 Eversole Families .............................. 169-170 6 Ebersole and Ebersol Families ................... 171-218 6 Unclassified Families . ........ 219-222 General Index ................................. 223-281 Future Dates .................................. 282-288 CHARLES E. EBERSOL Introduction We have searched libraries east and west, and also national, state, and county legal and historical records. We have made hundreds of personal calls in several States and gotten many relatives all over America to search cemeteries, family bibles, note-books, old letters, in fact everything for every possible name and date for this big Family B0~k. They have faithfully copied their private family records an~~ .,ent them to me for this book. Now I present them to you in this simplest classified form I know. This record is not com plete, but it should serve as a good foundation for others to build a complete history .of every descendant of the six men who came to America in the eighteenth century. I regret that some were not yet enough interested to answer my requests for their personal records and data. But this is mostly true of those who .spell their name differently from these leading clans given in this book. But here are 10,000 names and 15,000 dates. My file of addresses shows that thousands of our relatives now live in or near a thousand towns in about forty States. I am honoring those who gave me a good record with a • before their names. I would like also to have given more of our family's historical background in Switzerland and in Germany had space permitted. Some of our leading characteristics in common are, Protestant, devout, honest, good church and Sunday School work ers, modest, industrious, farmers, ministers, lawyers, physicians, no drinkers, very few use tobacco, none on relief or in poorhouses, few rich, none ever on a jail list, few divorces, long lived, strong, healthy folk, Republicans. This is our valuable and honorable heritage, a record of which we may all be proud. Our ancestors came to America from Germany, but they were of Swiss descent. While living in Germany they spelled the name in German, "Ebersohl". A Swiss student taking post-graduate work in Harvard wrote recently that he was raised near a village called "Ebersol". He says our name is typically Swiss-German. To quote from his letter, "Ebersol is a lovely hamlet in the Swiss State of Saint Gall. The name means a place where men are hunting for wild boars. Eber-wild boar, and sol-ground or place. There are many families there carrying the name 'Ebersol' ". He says the name "Ebersol" is pronounced in Switzerland, thus: E as in end. The second e as in her. The o is like in odd. This is the usual way we pronounce it in America. This town "Ebersol" is four miles northeast of Butschwil in the Toggenburg District. The people are Protestants and Catholics who raise cattle and make embroideries for a living. There are two other to-wns called "Ebersol" in Switz erland. One is "Upper Ebersol" in the Canton of Luzern on Kilti bach brook, near Hochdorf, ten miles north of Luzern. These 300 people raise cattle, fruit and farm. They have a significant escutch eon,-a bronze point of a lance. We could use this as our family coat of arms. You find in this place, ( dating back to the second so-called "Iron Age"), graves from times immemorial. Near this village, but on a level 130 feet lo-wer, is "Lo·wer Ebersol" with about 150 Catholics. There are also families of Ebersolds living at Zaziwil, Burgdorf, Stalden, and farmers along the Emmanthal River in the Canton of Bern. Our ancestors must have been originally Catholics, some of w horn left that faith to become Protestant Mennonites. They escaped death from religious persecution in Switzerland by fleeing to Wurt temberg and Baden, Germany, about 1690. Some years later, be cause they hated to take an oath, and from fear of being drafted to serve in war, and because they ,vanted to worship God in their own simple way, they made their way down the Rhine River in Germany and each one paid his own ship passage from Rotterdam, Holland, to Philadelphia. At least five of these six men settled at first in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. "German Pioneers" says, "The first ship, of which a record has sur vived, bri~ging a large number of Germans to Philadelphia, was the ship 'America', August 20, 1683. It brought Francis Daniel Pastor ius, the leader of a colony of German Mennonites... On ship 'Con cord' thirteen Mennonite families, ( 33 persons). reached Phila delphia, October 6, 1683. Shortly afterwards, on October 24, 1683, Pastorius founded Germantown, Pennsylvania, with 42 people set tled in twelve homes, most of them weavers, some farmers and tradesmen. These were the 'German Pilgrims' who sought and found freedom of worship in Pennsylavnia." Here we also read that a colony of ten families of Swiss Mennonites who landed at Phila delphia, September 23, 1710, on ship "Mary Hope", settled on 10,000 acres of land near the head of the Pequea Creek in Lancaster Coun ty. Among them ·was Rev. Samuel Guldin and family, a Swiss pietest deposed by church authorities of Bern, Switzerland. He wrote an interesting leter to his friends in Switzerland telling them of his trip and of conditions in America. Our six ancestors ,vho came to America may have been brothers, as the story commonly goes, but it looks like Abraham was an uncle of the others. They all signed their names in German on the boat registers when they landed at Philadelphia. They all spelled their names "Ebersohl", except Jacob who wrote his "Ebersoll". But this means nothing, for in those e·arly days people gave little atten tion to spelling of their names. l\'1ost of our present various spell ings of the name seem to have come from the custom of writing names on Muster Rolls by sound during the Revolutionary War. So I have found the name spelled over thirty ·ways in records and directories ; such as Ebersohl, Ebersol, Eb bersol, Ebersold, Ebersole, Ebersoll, Eversole, Eversu.11. 4 This System of Genealogy Explained The number before each name is the number of the generation in America. The letters take the place of numbers for the children of each family. A star (*) before a child's name indicates that a fuller record of that child is given belffw; immediately, if he is the first child with a star. If he is not the first child of a family with a star, his fuller record will come immediately after the full account of the child above him is brought down to the present generation. To find the father of any child, run back over the left margin numbers until you come to the first generation lower. His grand father will be two numbers lower. For example, the father of 7b is always the first 6 above this 7b. His grandfather is always the first 5 above any 7b you may select on the left margin. I hope you will accept kindly any errors you may find in this book, for I have worked hard and patiently to make it an accurate record. I found some close relatives did not agree on the spelling of some names and on dates. In such cases I used the one I thought was copied from a record. I have tried to spell the family name as each one commonly spells it, even though brothers may not spell it the same. I have done the best I could to link each clan with the proper source in America but because of insufficient early his tory and dates, I have been obliged to leave some clans without this connection. I hope that these clans may yet find sufficient data to leave no gap between them and their first ancestors-in America. May God bless the memory and record of our ancestors through us now living. May God help us carry their good name and achieve ments to still nobler. activities as a goodly heritage for those who follow us. Some Books of Refere nee Colonial Records-Many references Pennsylvania Archives-Hundreds of references Strassburger's Pennsylvania German Pioneers, Volumes I-III Rupp's 30,000 Immigrants in Pennsylavnia, pp. 51, 135, 310, 354 Smith's Mennonite Immigration, 1929 U. S. Census of 1790 Egle, Notes and Queries The Compendium of American Genealogy Memorial of the Ebersol Family, by Amos M. Ebersol. This is a 50-page book printed at Ottawa, Ill., 1879. I am giving a copy to the Newberry Library, Chicago, Ill. This is the only copy for pub lic use. A Suggestion-If you will write the names of your close relatives as you find them in this book, after braces ·by families and genera tions, you will see their relationship at a glance on one big sheet of paper. 5 The First Generation in America The following named six men are all of our ancestors who came from Europe in the eighteenth century.

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