BULLETIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY MONTGOMERY COUNTY PENNSYLVANIA JVORmSTOWJV S2HERY PU B LI5 H ED BY TH E SOCIETY AT IT5 BUILDING DEKALB STREET NORRISTOWN.PA. SPRING, 1962 ^ VOLUME XIII NUMBER 2 PRICE $1.50 The Historical Society of Montgomery County OFFICERS Hon. David E. Groshens, President George K. Brecht, Esq., Vice-President Hon. Alfred L. Taxis, Jr., Vice-President Dr. Edward F. Corson, Vice-President Eva G. Davis, Recording Secretary Mrs. Earl W. Johnson, Corresponding Secretary Mrs. LeRoy Burris, Financial Secretary and Librarian Lyman a. Kratz, Treasurer TRUSTEES Kirke Bryan, Esq. Robert C. Bucher Harry L. Christman Mrs. H. H. Francinb Donald A. Gallager, Esq. Herbert H. Ganser Hon. David E. Groshens Kenneth H. Hallman Nancy P. Highley Arthur H. Jenkins Hon. Harold G. Knight Lyman A. Kratz William S. Pettit Robert R. Titus Mrs. F. B. Wildman, Jr. SI i u Norristown from the south side of the Schuylkill, looking north on Swede Street, 1834. THE BULLETIN of the HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY Published Semi-Annually — Spring and Fall Volume XIII Spring, 1962 Number 2 CONTENTS Mark Mintzer, Revolutionary War Patriot ..James Elverson Hough 71 Genealogy of Mark Mintzer James Elverson Hough 81 The Beginning of the Mintzer Family in Montgomery County Jane Keplinger Burris 120 A Teadier: Inspiration and Legend Elizabeth Brett White 123 Notes and Documents on the Sesquicentennial of Norristown as a Borough 1812-1962 128 Reports 161 PUBLICATION COMMITTEE Mrs. LeRoy Burris John F. Reed Mrs. Earl W. Johnson Dr. William T. Parsons, Chairman Copyright, 1962, by The Historical Society of Montgomery County 69 Mark Mintzer, Revolutionary War Patriot (1709-1781)* James Elverson Hough I am indebted to Mrs. William M. Hain and her sister, Miss Ella Hicks, of 1533 West Louden Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, great- great-great-granddaughters of Mark Mintzer, for their kindness in furnish ing some of the data used in this account of Mark Mintzer's life. For tunately, ^ese ladies had in their possession, numerous documents, family Bibles, and Mintzer family papers, all of which were made available to me, and without which it would have been most difficult, if not impossible, to have achieved the little that has been accompli^ed. These documents, papers, and Bibles are now in my possession, having been given to me by Miss Ella Hioks upon tile death of her sister, Mrs. William M. Hain. The modern spelling, MINTZER, has been used generally, with few exceptions, by the Mintzers since about 1775. The original spelling of the name was MUNSER, witii the following variations which I found in old Philadelphia Church Records, Probate Court Records, Deeds, private papers of the Mintzer family, Revolutionary War Records, etc., etc., as follows: MINSER, MINCER, MUNSTER, MUENSTER, MUENTZER, MENSER, MENCER, MINZER, MUNZER, MINSTER, MINSOR AND MUNSOR. J. E. H. Mark Mintzer was born in Basle (Basel) Switzerland in 1709. His parents, whose names are presently unknown, al though his father's name is said, on good authority, to have been Mark Mintzer also, were Palatines. They went to Switzerland to escape the religious persecutions then rampant in their native land. According to a notation in the Carey Bible owned by Boxanna Rein Mintzer, Mark Mintzer's daughter-in-law and wife of Adam Mintzer 1st, Mark Mintzer's parents brought him to this country in 1720, when he was eleven years old. Where he and his parents lived when they arrived in Philadelphia County is not definitely known, but there is a strong probability that they resided in or near Germantown. *Read before the Society, Nov. 19, 1960. Mr. Hough, of West Orange, N. J., is a direct descendant of Mark Mintzer. 71 72 BULLETIN OP HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY Of Mark Mintzer'a youth or early manhood, nothing is known. The first we learn of him is that on June 12, 1734, he married Sarah Snyder and in 1741 he was living "near German- town," where several of his children were born.^ About the year 1750, if not before, he moved into "Northern Liberties" and built his home near what is now Second and Callowhill Streets, where several other of his children were born: "Born near Philadelphia, in Father's home, about one mile from town."® He was a public carter and owned fifteen horses some of which he gave to his sons Adam and Joseph, setting them up in the carting business.® He also operated a lumber yard or a "board yard" as it was then called, and sold articles used for building purposes. His busings was a prosperous one. He was held in high esteem by his neigh bors and had the reputation among his fellow citizens of being a person of great energy and probity. It was said that being highly industrious, he quietly attended to his own concerns. Thus he lived with his wife and a numerous family of sons and daughters. The Archives of the Moravian Church of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, have the recoils of births and baptisms of nine of his twelve children, all of whom were baptized in the Moravian Church by a Moravian or a Reformed Minister. The other three were baptized in St. Michael's Evangelical Lutheran Church at Fifth and Arch Streets. By the time the hostilities attendant upon the outbreak of the War of the American Revolution made themselves felt in Philadelphia, most of his children had married, but they lived close to the old homestead, some of them building their homes on land bought from or given to them by their father. At this point, let me digress for a moment about the neigh borhood of Northern Liberties in which Mark Mintzer lived and died and in which some of his descendants were living as late as 1875. I now refer to those months of the years 1777 and 1778, during the occupancy of Philadelphia by the British and Hessian ^Archives of the Moravian Church, Bethl^em, Pa. "Ibid. "Pennsylvania Archives, Third Series, XIV, 394, 405, 648; XV, 87, 362, 499; XVI, 196, 516-68; XVII, 72. MARK MINTZER, REVOLUTIONARY WAR PATRIOT 73 troops. There are several references in Mintzer documents to a stream running through the Mintzer property and emptying into the Delaware River called "Pig's Run." This was a corruption of "Pegg Run," which is plainly discernible on the maps of "Northern Liberties" of 1750, 1760, 1777, 1778 and 1795. This stream flowed in an easterly direction paralleling Callowhill Street on the north side, its source being near Callowhill Street and the Ridge Road. It emptied into the Delaware River running under Pool's Bridge on First Street. This stream was imme diately behind or to the south of the British encampments and fortified works, which extended from the Delaware River west to the Schuylkill River. I have a photostated copy of a map entitled: "A Plan of the City and Environs of Philadelphia in 1778 with the Works and Encampments of His Majesty's Forces under Command of Lieutenant General Sir William Howe K. B." This map shows with striking clarity the disposition of the encampments and fortified works from the Delaware to the Schuylkill Rivers. Quite obviously, the British Line was immediately to the North of Mark Mintzer's property, probably running through some portion of it. Numerous British regiments, composed of Guards, Light Dragoons, Fusiliers, and the 4th, 27th, 28th and 40th regiments of Infantry were quartered to the immediate west and north of Second and Callowhill Street. It is not too difficult to visualize the position of these troops in the neighborhood, with the Bar racks at 3rd and Tamany Streets, and another BarraclK occupy ing the entire block from Brd Street, west on Race Street to 4th Street; from Race Street north on 4th Street to Vine Street; east on Vine Street to 3rd Street and south on 3rd Street to Race Street. Finally, the presence of a Regiment of Hessians, or Germans on the north side of Callowhill Street, west of Fifth Street, would seem to complete the picture and set the stage for the story that follows. And now let me return to the subject of our short history, Mark Mintzer. Having taken the oath of allegiance to the British King, he was a British subject. It is said that he supplied the bricks, lumber and other material with which St. Michael's Evan- 74 BULLETIN OF HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY gelical Church was built. He was a deeply religious man, but had become sorely troubled at the numerous unjust acts and repres sive laws that Parliament had imposed upon the American Colonies. At the outbreak of the Revolution in 1775, Mark Mintzer was some sixty-six years old. Perhaps it was his age that earned him the name by which he was best known: "Old Mark Mintzer." He threw in his lot with the American cause, which almost cost him his life and did cause him great sorrow, hardship, loss of his possessions, and confinement to prison. Thus, at a time when most men of his age would have retired from their labors, it appears that Mark Mintzer was doing everything within his power to actively and, it would seem, in his subtle way, to ag gressively assist his fellow patriots in their determination to gain their independence. There are numerous traditions about Mark Mintzer's activi ties in the War of the American Revolution. Some of them, upon investigation, were' found to be true. Others had some basis in fact. Most, however, were the figments of someone's fertile imagination. Rev. George A. Mintzer, of sainted memory, a priest of the Protestant Episcopal Church, Diocese of Pennsylvania, who was the great-grandson of Mark Mintzer, wrote a letter addressed to his son, Frederick Mintzer, probably in 1857.