Hans Peter, son of David and Verena Mertz, was baptized 28 Dec 1717 in Alsace. He arrived America in 1733 on the same ship as his parents, sister Christina and brother Nicholas. He was later listed with David and Nicholas as a founder of the Longswamp Church.

I consider David Mertz to be my immigrant Mertz ancestor. When I was developing my system of using a hierarchical designation code to structurally link every Mertz or Martz back to their “original American Mærtz ancestor”, I initially thought I would start this line with David who I would designate “D” and then his sons would be numbered D1 and D2 and I would build out from there.

But to be sure, his teenage sons Nicholas and Peter, his only sons who survived to adulthood, came with him, and were also immigrants. So I have chosen instead to denote Nicholas with the single letter code “N” and Peter with the single letter code “P”. It is justified since the sons were also immigrants but it is justified also because it better aligns their descendants — those with three character or four character designations — by the timeframe in which they lived. Therefore, Peter is designated P. (The “D” code is not necessary and is not used.)

In 1761, prominent citizens of Longswamp petitioned to have Longswamp officially recognized as a township in Berks County. Among the 26 signers were Jacob and Peter Mertz. That had to have been Hans Peter and his nephew John Jacob, the latter in a way representing his father Nicholas, recently deceased.

There is a citation in the very early records of the Jordan Reformed Church that on 20 Apr 1740, the Rev John Justus Jacob Birkenstock baptized three children including one of Peter Mertz and wife. This is an interesting citation. I am not aware of any but one Peter Mertz of this era, mine (Hans Peter), in this area; he was about 20. The wife was not named. And I have no clue who the child may have been, as Peter's known children seem to have been born later -- although I do not know their exact birth dates.

However, it is not unreasonable to think the father at this baptism may, in fact, have been Hans Peter. The history of that church describes a situation where a lot of different small congregations existed in the hinterlands of Berks County at that time with none of them well organized and certainly none with a permanent or even regularly scheduled pastor though they may have been served by a traveling minister. Or, maybe people (e.g. Peter) traveled some distance to find a church service from time to time. It is noteworthy that a founder of the Jordan Church was Abraham Votring, Hans Peter’s uncle. So he did have some connection there.

Peter and his male descendants to 1850 are covered in the Mærtz Hierarchical Project:
https://www.mertzgenealogy.com/names/peter_mertz_family_p.pdf

IMMIGRANT. I actually consider his father John David my immigrant Mertz ancestor, but Peter made the trip too as a teen-age boy.

Peter died before the 1790 Census. However, he was listed in the 1779 Pennsylvania Septennial Census, a resident of Longswamp Township where we also find his sons: Abrm single, Jno, Nichs, Peter Jr. and Philip.

In 1786, the Longswamp list was the same except that Abrm was no longer single.

There is an Alsace church record giving a 28 December 1717 baptism for Peter, son of Hans David and Verena. But Hans Peter was reportedly 13 3/4, according to the captain’s list of passengers, on arrival in America in late Sep 1733 indicating a birth date of about December 1719, a discrepancy demanding some analysis -- was that a typo or did the first Peter die and a second son was given the same name (not unheard of)?

I have discussed this at some length with Justin Houser, a fellow descendant of Hans Peter, who, like me, is a careful and analytical researcher. Justin and I agree that the best guess is that the captain probably wrote 15 3/4 for Hans Peter and it was mis-transcribed.  The idea that a 5 was mis-read as a 3 is easily within the realm of the possible.

The captain definitely liked his fractions and used them for ages of any number of children -- but 15 3/4 would be especially important. Had Peter been 16, then taking the loyalty oath would have been required. We also think the 3/4 is quite compelling. Had Peter been born, say, a week or two before his baptism, 3/4 would have definitely pertained.

The other explanation cannot be totally ruled out -- that Hans Peter I died soon after his baptism and Hans Peter II was born in 1719, about exactly two years later, and baptized in what has been called the gap years when there seem to be a number of missing baptisms. But for David at least, we don't know of any missing baptisms.  

In any event I believe that my ancestor Hans Peter was born about Dec 1717.  

Peter died in 1787, his exact date of death is unknown but his will was probated 7 Aug 1787.

His very brief will raises as many questions as it answers. "Estate...shall be sold...distributed in equal shares...except my son John Mertz's Philip and Gertraut shall have 30 pounds beforehand....Executors: Peter Mertz Jr. and Nicholas”. It mentioned no wife so presumably she had pre-deceased him. It clearly mentioned son John who had also pre-deceased him. It mentioned two of John's children -- Gertraut and Philip -- but not the others. It named Peter Jr. and Nicholas as Executors though didn’t specifically say they were his sons. And I am certain Peter had quite a number of additional sons and daughters that got no mention whatsoever.

So the question was how to identify all of Peter’s children and have the kind of solid genealogical evidence of things to know they were, indeed, his children. And it turns out, a lot of evidence could be found by a thorough analysis of the records of the Longswamp Reformed Church.

In 2002, I had an email conversation with an aspiring professional genealogist named William J Zehner. At my request, he looked into whether it was possible that the Philip Mertz named in Peter’s will could possibly be the same Philip Mertz who died at Freeburg around 1803. Peter’s (very brief) will mentioned a son John and apparently a minor grandson Philip. Zehner concluded that indeed the Philip in Peter’s will was absolutely his grandson. But he then cited the Longswamp Reformed baptismal record of that grandson Philip, son of Johannes, at which the sponsors were Philip and Eva Mertz and suggested therefore that Philip (the one married to Eva) was the uncle of the Philip being baptized -- he and Johannes were no doubt brothers.

This caused me to go back and study more closely the baptismal records of Longswamp Reformed involving Johannes and Philip and Peter Jr. and you indeed get the sense that they were brothers based on the number of times that one stood as sponsor for the child of one of the others. Moreover, I concluded that the pattern was so strong of standing for each other among all the siblings (male and female) among that generation of Longswamp Mertzes that no other conclusion was possible -- they were siblings most often but at most first cousins. And when I then realized that I knew the names of every one of Nicholas’ children, the conclusion that any others had to be Peter’s children was inescapable. If I think of David as Generation I, his sons Nicholas and Peter (and daughter Christina) as Generation II, then while none of the baptisms of the Generation III brothers and sisters were recorded, they were obviously the parents as the Generation IV children came along, whose baptisms were recorded, beginning with the birth of Conrad, son of John Jacob (son of Nicholas), in 1760.

In total, there were over 75 such baptisms where one or the other parent was a Mertz (including married daughters) and in the majority of these, a Mertz stood as sponsor. The strong sense of family is totally apparent. When a sibling did stand as sponsor, then the second sponsor was often his or her spouse or in some cases, when both sponsors were said to be single, they sometimes were a couple who would later marry. There really is a lot of intelligence that can be gleaned from analysis of baptism records.

So what resulted was a list of all the names in the Longswamp records of what had to be the Generation III Mertzes. And when I then compared them to the Orphans Court records after Nicholas died naming all his children, I realized, by the process of elimination, that I had a pretty complete list of Peter’s children -- the ones not otherwise accounted for.

For example, we know there was a Philip Mertz in Longswamp closely associated with John and Peter Jr. and since we know Philip was not the son of Nicholas -- and no other Longswamp Mertzes were siring children in the year Philip was estimated to have been born -- the logic is that Philip too was Peter's son.

There is a memorial for Peter on find-a-grave. I did not create it but I now maintain it. It suggests that he was buried at Longswamp Reformed which he might have been — or he instead might have been buried on his farm.

From my study of Longswamp records, I have inferred that Peter had three daughters: Barbara, Maria and Elizabeth. I cannot rule out that there were others.

About Barbara, there can be no doubt. After Peter died, Henry Fegely petitioned the Orphans Court that his wife Barbara (deceased) was Peter's daughter and so her children were rightful heirs.

Another daughter, I think, was Maria. This Maria Mertz was named only once in the records of Longswamp Reformed because she moved away soon after her marriage, so I never recognized her from that single mention as a person I needed to identify -- I just thought she must have been either the other Maria Mertz of the day or someone whose name had been corrupted. I now know she was a unique person and like her siblings, I now know that since she was an adult by about 1760 and not a daughter of Nicholas, she must have been a daughter of Peter.

What came to my attention, from find-a-grave, was that the wife of a man named Adam Zehner was Mary, born Mertz. Immediately, that name rang a bell. William Zehner was the professional genealogist I had met long ago when I was first exploring the “two Philips” theory (since proven). It turns out he is a descendant of Adam and Maria which explains his interest in the Mertz family.

And then I remembered two baptisms I had seen at Longswamp Reformed.

12 Sep 1758. The two sponsors at that baptism were Adam Zehman and Maria Mertz. That, in my opinion, was Adam Zehner and his soon to be wife Maria Mertz.

8 Apr 1764. Adam Hener and unnamed wife baptized son David. I think this was Adam Zehner and I think the birth date matches what people say is true about David Zehner, his son. The sponsor was David Mertz, Maria’s brother I think.

I also think Peter had a daughter named Elizabeth because I think there were at least four women named Elizabeth Mertz living in Longswamp Township by about 1765. Nicholas had a known daughter Elizabeth who according to Orphans Court records married Lawrence Schollenberger before about 1763. He also had a known daughter Maria Elizabeth who later married Nicholas Klein. John Jacob had a known daughter Elizabeth born in 1762.

However, starting in 1776, the name Elizabeth Mertz began to appear frequently as a sponsor for various baptisms, many for grandchildren of Peter. She was once listed with Peter Fegely as another sponsor and later Peter Fegely and wife Elizabeth appeared as sponsors for other Mertz baptisms. And once Elizabeth Mertz was listed as a sponsor with Conrad Drescher -- this also for a baptism of a grandchild of Peter. Later, when Conrad Drescher and wife Elizabeth baptized children, Peter's sons stood as sponsors. All the evidence points to the fact that Peter, too, had a daughter named Elizabeth.

The problem is sorting out which Elizabeth married Peter Fegely (Voegele) and which married Conrad Drescher. Because -- and only because -- Conrad and Elizabeth appear as a married couple in 1776 whereas Peter and Elizabeth first appear as a married couple in 1779 -- and because I believe Peter's children were born earlier than the 1762 known birth of John Jacob's Elizabeth, I have placed Conrad Drescher as husband to Peter's daughter Elizabeth (whose entire existence is basically assumed rather than known for a fact) and Peter Fegely as husband of John Jacob's daughter Elizabeth whose existence at least is fact (she was baptized at Longswamp).

I may not be right about the husbands, but I do think the fact of this extra Elizabeth is correct.

Using the aforementioned technique of analyzing the records of the Longswamp Reformed Church looking for anyone named Mertz who was named as a sponsor, parent or child AND specifically identifying those adults who were obviously born in, say, the 1740-1760 period, what I call Generation III in America AND then differentiating those that were the known sons of Nicholas — a list of Peter’s sons was logically deduced.

They were: Peter, David, Johannes, Philip, Jacob, Nicholas and Abraham.

Note that using this logic-based process, I came up with the names of seven sons. When later I found a letter from Philip D Mertz (Peter’s great-grandson) stating that his grandfather was one of seven brothers, I felt that all my analysis was validated.

It was Peter's impending death in 1787 that seems to have triggered the mass migration of his sons and nephews to Northumberland County. Philip, Jacob and David appear to have left in 1785 before Peter's death, the others probably just after.

I believe the name of Hans Peter’s wife may forever be unknowable. I have studied every record involving the early Mertz pioneers of Berks County and I know of no document that gives her name, not even a given name, let alone a surname. There is no tombstone, no wife was mentioned in Peter’s will, and they baptized their children before anyone was keeping records. (Or in any event, such records have been totally lost if there ever were any.)

Now that doesn’t keep amateur genealogists on Ancestry.com from copying one from another trees that say his wife was Johanetta Girardin (Sheridan). Many say she was the mother of all of his children. I do not know exact birth dates for any of Peter’s children but there is evidence that the several oldest were born in the early-to-mid 1740’s.

I do not know the original source of the idea that Peter’s wife was Johanetta. In all of the trees and books I have looked at where that is given as her name, I have never seen any real source cited for this knowledge.

But it is interesting that there was a woman named Johanetta Girardin. She was born in Alsace 17 Oct 1728, about eleven years after Peter’s birth nearby. And she did come to America, but therein lies the problem. Jacob Gerradin and his family including Johanetta arrived America 15 Sep 1748.

So it is possible that Peter did marry Johanetta but she could not have been the mother of at least his older children. And being possible doesn’t make it so, there is absolutely no evidence for the idea that he ever married Johanetta.

Baptisms at Longswamp Reformed began to be recorded in about 1760, though the church book starts by listing several children each of several apparently important church members back to about 1750. There were three, what I call, catch-up records for Jacob Mertz and wife Magdalena, Peter’s nephew. There were none for either Peter or his brother Nicholas.

However, the Longswamp records are better than some in that they almost always list the sponsors at those baptisms. And my observation is that typically one or the other of the sponsors had some close relationship to one or other of the parents. So you would think — since Peter lived to 1787 — that he may have been a sponsor at any number of baptisms of his grandchildren. Of course, any mention of Peter Mertz after, say, 1765, might have been the younger Peter, born about 1745.

And that’s what makes the 1761 baptism of Peter Bollinger, son of Heinrich and Elizabeth so interesting. The sponsors were “Peter Mertz, Catharina Mertz” written exactly in that form. I would think it was Hans Peter so that makes me wonder who Catharina Mertz was. Nicholas did have a daughter named Catherine but I believe she had died by 1761 and in any event she was most certainly married by that time. No one else had a daughter or wife who was eligible that I know of. So who was this Catharina acting as sponsor?

The confusing thing is the form of how the two names were stated. Sometimes, the form of stating the sponsor’s names was, for example, Philip and Eva Mertz or Philip Mertz and wife Eva -- in both cases it was clear it was a married couple standing as sponsors. And there are only a very few examples where it was written in the form Peter Mertz, Catharina Mertz and yet I think it was a married couple.

So this may be a clue -- nothing more than that -- that perhaps his wife, perhaps first wife (?), was named Catharina.

In any event, until a long lost family bible emerges that no one knew about or until some discovery of long lost earlier church records is found or some other obscure piece of evidence, I maintain -- NO ONE KNOWS HER NAME.

Obviously, I would be keenly interested in any new evidence which might shed more light on any of this.