IMMIGRANT. The lists of German passengers who arrived Philadelphia have proved quite useful in researching my father’s ancestry but not so much my mother’s. But I believe Jacob Hecker is one of her few ancestors where we can point to such a list and say -- there is his arrival in America.

A Jacob Hecker arrived America on the ship Lydia on 19 Sep 1743. Now I try to be careful when I find a name of an arriving passenger that matches the known name of an ancestor of mine because how do I know it wasn’t simply another man entirely who just happened to share the name? There has to be something additional to be able to say with certainty it was the same man. Sometimes we can be sure because brothers came together and stayed together once in America or a man’s children may have been listed on the passenger lists (most captains didn’t do that, but, especially in the earliest years of reporting, some did).

In Jacob’s case, the “something additional” is an unusual but interesting record that I think provides the evidence that Jacob who arrived in 1743 was Jacob of Lebanon Township, Lancaster County. An advertisement in a Pennsylvania German newspaper dated 16 Jan 1750 says that Jacob Hecker of Quitapahilla is looking for his daughter Charlotta who was indentured six years previous.

The editor of this compilation of newspaper ads added the notation (Lebanon County) to the transcription of these ads. The original ad would not have said Lebanon County since it didn’t exist until 1813 when it was carved out of Dauphin County. (Dauphin, in turn, had been sliced out of Lancaster County in 1785.) However, the name Quitapahilla would clearly have indicated where Jacob lived, was no doubt a reference to what is still called Quittapahilla Creek today and fairly exactly pinpoints Jacob’s home as being then in Lancaster County but in the part that would later become Lebanon. (Jacob may have lived in or near Annville, PA where his 7G-grandson, Matt Rinehart and his family, lives today.)

So, we know from the ad that this was indeed our Jacob Hecker since we know our Jacob lived in what would become Lebanon County and, in fact, had a daughter named Charlotta. And I think we can surmise one more thing from the ad about Jacob. Since many indentures were done at the docks by arriving passengers to pay someone’s passage, I believe the circumstances were that Jacob had just arrived America when he indentured his daughter. An arrival date of late 1743 would be just about right and so the fact that his name, exactly, was on the September 1743 passenger list, I believe, proves that Jacob who arrived in 1743 was our Jacob.

In July 1770, Frederick Heiser petitioned the Berks County Orphan’s Court that he and Jacob Heckert had been appointed guardians of the children of Gottlieb Thorm and that Jacob had the “effects” in his hands. Frederick requested an accounting.

In Sep 1773, Agnes Magdalena wife of Jacob Henning and daughter of Gottlieb Thorm, deceased, late of Tulpehocken Twp states that Jacob Henning will now be her guardian (she is above 14) taking over from Frederick Weiser and Jacob Hecker who have declined to act longer.

There is one possible reason though to question whether Jacob who arrived in 1743 was our Jacob. Jacob could not sign his name -- he made his mark. Passengers arriving Philadelphia had to sign an oath and his mark as made on that oath has been preserved. In addition, we have his mark as made on his will -- or, in fact, a facsimile presumably of his mark as made by the registrar of wills who copied Jacob’s will into his recorded wills book.

I wish it was the case that the two marks matched -- but they are different, enough so that for me to posit that both were the same Jacob, I have to assume either he evolved his mark over time or the registrar did a poor job when attempting to imitate it. Either way, I have to allow that another conclusion is that it was not our Jacob in 1743.

For now, I think it was our Jacob and he evolved the way he made his mark.

Jacob Hecker (or Heckert) lived in Lebanon Township, Lancaster County -- the area that later became Lebanon County. I think it is proven that he had a daughter Charlotta who was our ancestor and so there is no question that Jacob was our ancestor too. Charlotta married John Hamscher and many people believe she died young and John married second a woman named Lydia. Any number of records name Lydia as John’s wife or widow

• When John Hamscher died in 1785, his widow Lydia was to be appointed administrator of his estate but renounced in favor of her son Barnet.

• When Barnet Hamscher petitioned the Northumberland County Orphan’s Court to partition the lands of John Hamscher deceased in 1785, he stated that John left a widow Lydia.

• And perhaps most intriguing, John’s son Jacob moved to Louisiana where he baptized a child and the church baptism record there said that Jacob was the son of John Hamsher and Liddie Hecker from Germany.

So not only is the obvious conclusion that John’s second wife was named Lydia, it also seems clear that she was Lydia Hecker -- and for that reason many people claim she was Charlotta’s sister, another daughter of Jacob -- but the truth is there is no proof of that theory whatsoever.

On 5 Mar 1775, Jacob Hecker of Lebanon Township, Lancaster County wrote his will that then proved 15 Apr 1775. He mentioned wife Agnes to whom he basically left everything except a few small monetary grants to his children: “son Michael and Anna Maria Charlotta and Barbara”.

Further along in his will, Jacob referred to his “four mentioned children.” Now, thinking that Jacob said, in fact, he had four children, even though he seemed only to have named three, I have spent a fair amount of time trying to determine how to resolve this apparent inconsistency and whether there is “wiggle room” to believe that Jacob also had a daughter named Lydia.

• Was there a comma missing? Lack of punctuation was a definite problem in old documents. Was Charlotta’s name really Anna Maria Charlotta -- certainly a mouthful of a name? Maybe Jacob was saying Michael, Anna, Maria Charlotta and Barbara. In that case, all that would be left to do would be to show that Anna and Lydia were one and the same person and it could be argued Lydia existed.

• Was there a transcription problem when Jacob’s will was copied by the Registrar of Wills into the big book where wills were recorded? I have seen one other instance where a man had daughters named Maria Catharina, Rosina and Eva Catharina and when the actual will was transcribed into the Recorder’s book the words “Catharina, Rosina and Eva” were omitted -- so even though the testator said he had nine children only seven were named. Was that the case here? Was that mouthful of a name -- Anna Maria Charlotta -- a clue that the recorder corrupted something somewhere when he transcribed it?

But then I came into contact with a man named Kevin Hampshire and in conversations with him, I came to see that that latter phrase in Jacob’s will might probably have been meant to say “my aforementioned children” -- it still begs the question of Anna Maria Charlotta’s mouthful of a name and it doesn’t prove that Jacob only had three children -- but it takes away the apparent contradiction that he said he had four children and only named three.

Kevin, in his thoroughness, even noticed a symbol of some kind between the word “four” which ended one line in Jacob’s will and “mentioned” which started the next line and that symbol could well have been meant to accomplish what today we use a hyphen for -- to connect the two words, strengthening the case that Jacob was saying afore-mentioned.

And I also learned from Kevin that Jacob’s daughter Barbara went on to marry David Herbster and I saw in Herbster records that they refer to Barbara as Anna Maria Barbara. So did Jacob simply write Anna Maria Charlotta and Barbara -- meaning, to him, Anna Maria Charlotta and Anna Maria Barbara? Or did the Herbster researchers think that was the case and that’s why they called her that? I don’t know but it is an interesting fact if that were her name.

Kevin and I discussed a timeline of events and there does seem to be a time up to which John’s wife was uniformly called Charlotta or Anna Charlotta and thereafter Lydia. And there was perhaps a gap in the age of his children -- according to Barnet’s petition to the Northumberland County Orphan’s Court -- at least he had older and younger children. Then again, so did most men who died at a certain age -- some of his children would be of age and others still minors.

We also discussed the oddity that in that same Orphan’s Court petition, the name of Barnet and George’s sister was transcribed as Pebbey. Pebbey? Her name was really Barbara and a nickname for Barbara might well have been Bobbey -- but not Pebbey -- and so we discussed that maybe this family had a habit of corrupting nicknames -- and from that discussion sprang the idea that Charlotta, over time, evolved her name to Lotta, Lottie, Liddie, Lydia. The last step in that sequence seems a big leap -- since Lydia was an actual girl’s name, not a nickname -- but it is now what I have come to believe.

In any event, there is no doubt that Jacob had a daughter named Charlotta, possibly Anna Maria Charlotta, and we also know that John Hamscher had a wife named Charlotta, or Anna Charlotta -- it has to be the same woman. Because Jacob Hecker and John Hamscher were clearly connected and the son-in-law relationship of the two seems well established:

• In 1762, John Hamscher gave land to the Trustees of Grubben Church just as Jacob Hecker had seven years previous.

• In 1764, John Hamscher and wife Anna Charlotta took a mortgage on 91 acres in Lebanon Township, Lancaster County. This land was sold by the guardians of the estate of Gotlieb Thorm, one of whom was Jacob Hecker. Later, after Jacob died, naming a daughter Charlotta in his will, the executors of Jacob’s estate indicated that John Hamsher had satisfied the terms of the mortgage. (Note that 1764 is well after the birth of George Hampshire, whose tombstone gives an approximate year of birth of 1755, and Barnet who was George’s older brother.)

• Then on 11 May 1768, John Hamsher of Manchester Township, York County had recorded that he signed a series of notes guaranteed by Jacob Hecker of Lebanon Township, Lancaster County to Ludwig Wisang for the purchase of land in Manchester Township.

From his will, we know that, at the time of his death, Jacob’s wife was named Agnes. But we also know he married her in 1745 and so she was not the mother of Charlotta, for sure, nor, I suspect, his other children. Unfortunately, the name of Jacob’s first wife is not known. She must either have died before he left Germany or maybe this was a real instance of a person who died at sea.

Maybe Jacob left Germany with his whole family intact intending for that to remain the case and maybe his wife’s untimely death en route was the reason Jacob determined to put daughter Charlotta out for indenture. I am obviously speculating about that but I suspect someday I’ll see that speculation become “etched in stone” when it is picked up by some sloppy genealogist who will capture the idea but omit the fact that I was only guessing about things.

I believe she either died before he left Germany or maybe was a real instance of a person who died at sea.

Jacob married Agnes Bohrman on 25 Mar 1744, widow of George possibly Poorman. We know she was maiden name Doerr from her 6 Oct 1740 marriage to George. This marriage was shortly after Jacob arrived America.

I think this was a second wife for Jacob and not the mother of any of his children. According to several Internet Family Trees, she married multiple times, at some point to Huber, then on 6 Oct 1740 to George Poorman then after he died in 1741 to Jacob Hecker in 1744.

I found a 1746 Lancaster Orphan’s Court proceeding whereby Jacob Hecker and Agnes his wife, late Agnes Poorman widow of George, petitioned to have George’s estate settled. And on 2 Jun 1746, Agnes now wife of Jacob Hacker was appointed guardian for Christopher and Peter, sons of George Poorman.

The date of Agnes’ marriage to Jacob Hecker is documented as March 1744 but I believe must have been 1744/45 (i.e. it was 1744 on the Julian calendar then in use but, from a timing standpoint, would make more sense if it was 1745 as the soon to be adopted Gregorian calendar would state it). My logic is that if Jacob arrived in September 1743, it would be surprising that he found his way to Lancaster County and met and married Agnes in just six months. He might well have been in a hurry with young children to raise, but that seems amazingly quick.