Charles Springer of Cranehook-On-The-Delaware His Descendants and Allied Families by Jessie Evelyn Springer

Charles Springer of Cranehook-on-the-Delaware His Descendants and Allied Families By JESSIE EVELYN SPRINGER ACKNOWLEDGMENTS For help on Springer research grateful acknow ledgment is extended to Mrs. Courtland B. Springer of Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, Mrs. Louise Eddleman, -Springfield, Kentucky, Mable Warner Milligan, Indian apolis, now deceased; the allied families, Gary Edward Young; John McKendree Springer, now deceased; Thomas Oglesby Springer and Lucinda Irwin, deceased; and Mary, Raymond and Theora Hahn. Much material has been secured from genealogies previously pub lished on the Benedicts, Saffords, Bontecous, and others, brought down to date by correspondence or interviews with Cora Taintor Brown, Springfield, Illi nois; Evelyn Safford Dew, Newark, Delaware; Isabell Gillham Crowder Helgevold, Chicago; John Harris Watts, Grand Junction, Iowa, and Glenn L. Head, Springfield, Illinois Charles Springer of Cranehook-on-the-Delaware His Descendants and Allied Families by Jessie Evelyn Springer OUR HERITAGE FORWORD Sarah John English has said "Genealogy, or the history of families, is not a service to the past gener ations, or a glorification of the dead, but a service to the living, and to coming generations." A study of those who gave us life can help us understand what makes us tick, and help us tolerate ourselves and each other. As this is the story of the heritage of four Springer sisters - Mary Springer Jackson, Florence Springer Volk, Carolyn Springer Dalton, and Jessie Springer, spinster, it seems best, to the writer, after much de liberation, and some trial and error, to begin with the Springer line, introducing the other ancestral lines at the appropriate places; but like the original plan, to be gin with the immediate ancestors and work back to where the immigrant ancestor came to this country, it has its difficulties, too, chiefly involved with the bewildering habit the early families had of duplicating names in many generations, often with no dates of birth, death, and marriage; the fact that the early census records paid scant attention to spelling, and the dividing of counties since colonial days has made it difficult to locate the families in some cases. The information has been secured through interviews with relatives, from local histories, from records kept in family Bibles and church records, census records, state archives, and much help from various cousins, and is as correct as the sources. Many people have expressed the fear that if they in vestigate the heritage that is theirs they may find some body hanging on the family tree. I have found no com ments in my research to cause embarrassment, and much to love, and where there are public records about our ancestors by their contemporaries, the tone has been respectful or commendatory, in spite of the fact that there were positive characters among them who must have had enemies. Evidently their virtues out weighed their faults. It remains for us, their legacy to the world, to pass on the same kind of record. Edwardsville, Illinois, September 28, 19 59 Jessie Evelyn Springer CHARLES SPRINGER OF CRANEHOOK-ON- THE-DELAWARE HIS DESCENDANTS AND ALLIED FAMILIES INDEX Page I. Charles I and Maria Hendrickson o . • • • 0 I Charles II and Margareta Robinson o • • • • 29 III. Char le s Springer III and Susannah Seeds o o • o • e O O O O O O 0 39 IV. Revolutionary War Recordsjl Charles and John Springer 0 0 e O O O 0 49 V. John Springer I, Sarah Ann Butler and Elizabeth Ingram . o • • o 0 0 0 0 0 53 VIo John Springer II, Susan Sage and E 1i z ab e th Byrd o o • • • • • • • o • • o 6 7 VII. William McKendree Thompson Springer and Margaret Barber o • 0 o o o • o • 0 • 0 • • o o o 12 5 VIII. Thomas Wentworth Springer and Florence Benedict ....... o ••• 137 IX. Charles Laurens Benedict and Julia Lusk ................ 167 . 1 INDEX Page X. Early Benedicts and Allied Families in New England . • • • • • • 183 XI. Later Benedicts and Allied Families • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 205 XII. Safford and Allied Families . • • • • • • • 217 XIII. Early Lusks in the East. • • • • • • • • 233 Pioneer Lusks in the West e e e O O e • • 236 XIV. The Gillham Family in America • • • • • 271 xv. Early Heads and Allied Families o . 289 Henry Head and Descendants in Illinois . • • • • • 298 XVI. Ancestors in the Carolinas . 315 . 11 I CHARLES SPRINGER and MARIA HENDRICKSDOTTER The first of our Springer ancestors to arrive on the shores of America had no intention of founding a family in a new world. He was Charles, or in Swedish, Karl Christophers son Springer, of Stockholm, Sweden. His father, Christopher Springer, was an official at the Swedish court, and in addition to other duties in financial lines, he drew a salary as a musician. He was a naturalized Swede, although he was originally German. He was married three times, first to Alma Dorothea Jacobie, by whom he had a son, Lorentz; second to Henrietta Stulcenrauch, by whom he had a daughter, Christina, who lived in Riga, now in the Russian zone. The third wife was Beata Salina, the eldest daughter of Dr. Baltzar Salinus, court physician to King Carl X. The family home was opposite the east gate of the Sancta Clara Lutheran Church, which the family at tended. Christopher bought this property in 1637, and Lorentz, the eldest son, lived there until his death, and is buried in Sancta Clara churchyard. Concerning Charles as a child and school boy in Stockholm, history is silent, but there are records that show that for his higher education, he was sent first to Riga, where he may have lived with his half sister, Christina .. By the time he was eighteen, ar rangements had been made for him to go to Johan Leyonberg, Sweden's minister in London, and to live in Leyonberg's home. What happened there is told in a letter to his mother, dated June 1, 1693, from "Pennsellvania on the Delaware River". "When I was in London, and was of a mind to journey home to Sweden. having learned the English speech and writing and reading. I was kidnapped and against my will taken on board an English ship, carried to Virginia, and sold off like a farm animal .... and held in very slavery for five years together. "My wo-k was unspeakable. In the summer it was extra ordinary hot during the day, and my work was mostly in the winter, clearing land and cutting down the forest and making it ready for planting To bacco and the Indian grain (corn) in the sum mer. I had a very hard master. But now - to God be praise, honor, and glory! - I have overcome it all. "When I had faithfully served out my time I heard, accidentally, that there were Swedes at Delaware River, in Pennsellvania • • • o and . I made that difficult jour ney· of about four hundred miles. And when I got there -I beheld the Old Swedes, and they received me very kindly. " The year of his kidnapping was 1678, and allowing five years of servitude, the approximate year when he reached the colony on the Delaware was 1683 or 1684. but the date is narrowed by his statement in the same letter that when he had been there about a year and a half, he had married Maria Hindrichsdotter (Hen drickson) onDecember 27, 1685. His time mayhave been up late in 1683; and at that period there were no roads through the forests, only foot trails, which doubtless made the journey of four hundred miles an arduous one. He says further that he had bought two planta tions, and had crops and livestock which provided him and his family - three little girls at the time he wrote, with a fourth child on the way - with a good living; and that he was the reader in the Swedish congregation, References: "Cranehook on the Delaware", Jeanette Ecknlan, for the Delaware Swedish Colonial Societyo Documents in the possession of Mrs. Courtland B. Springer, Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. 2 which had no pastor. He said he read from the Scrip tures, and from a book of Swedish sermons, with prayer and the singing of hymns. He asked his mother to send a Bible, and two hymnals and manuals.. He added that 1693 was the fourth year he had so served the congregation. He signed this letter, "Karell Christopher sson Springer", and this may have given rise to the mis taken use of Christopher as a middle name for him, which seems to be wholly unjustified. In all the many papers he signed for the church, and all personal legal papers, he signed himself Charles or Carl Springer, never using "Christopher''. The tract of land known as Oak Hill was purchased by Charles Springer some time before 1699. The Lan caster Turnpike built through the Oak Hill farms prob ably followed the early cart road to Christina and later to Wilmington which was traveled by Charles Springer and his neighbors a The plantation on which he and his family lived was in Christiana Hundred. There need be no confusion between the name of the settlement, Christina, apparently a neat arrangement of farms, some large, some small, and the District, Christiana Hundred. In all the early settlements they divided the land into Hundreds, supposed to be an area that could furnish one hundred fighting men - it was so in Mary land too. It seems unlikely, however, that there was redistricting to allow for fluctuation in population. In 1698 he served as forester to the Governor of Mary land. At another point in his letter to his mother he says, "Moreover, I have two plantations that I have bought, and on one of them I live, and plough and plant, sowing all kinds of seed during the year.

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