On 23 Jun 1805, as recorded on Northampton County Deed Book A4 page 27, John George Mertz and Elizabeth, his wife, sold a tract of land in Penn Township, Northampton County to Henry Hartman.

There are several things about this deed that strengthen my argument that George had come to Penn Township from Heidelberg. One is that he was called John George as he had been in the previous deed when he borrowed money from John Peter Sr. Eventually, in his Revolutionary War Pension Application, he calls himself (just) George but on his series of Northampton deeds, he was John George.

And Henry Hartman may be another Heidelberg-Penn and Mertz connection. Remember those two baptisms by Henry and Catharina Hartman at Heidelberg Church, the sponsors were Wilhelm Mertz in one case and Philip and his wife Margaretha in the other. And while there were many men named Henry Hartman in Eastern Pennsylvania back then, and therefore I’m not sure it was this one who I think was George’s brother-in-law, if may well have been and would therefore be yet another connection of the Mertz family from Heidelberg now in Penn Township.

Because John George was able to borrow quite a large sum of money from John Peter, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn that his wife was Elizabeth Peter.

In 2015, a man named Caleb Mertz contacted me. He was descended from a John Philip Mertz born in 1797 -- and he knew from a son's death certificate that John Philip had been born in Northampton County -- and later lived in Carbon County. Caleb pointed out that Carbon had been created from what was originally Northampton County in 1843.

I had some familiarity at the time with a younger John Philip of Carbon County since a descendant of his (the younger John Philip) was part of my DNA project. Until I heard from Caleb, I had never really considered the Mertzes of Carbon County. The person in my DNA project matched (at the time) no other Mertz that I knew of and I had no clue where to begin. But after doing a little work on the Carbon County folks, all of sudden a theory began to emerge.

One of the townships subsumed into Carbon County was East Penn Township, Northampton County, originally Penn Township before being split into East and West Penn. And there was a George Mertz of that place in the 1800 (Penn) and 1810 (East Penn) Census who I did not know. For the first time, I began to consider that he might be the George “March” who, like Philip “March”, was a resident of Heidelberg Township in 1790. I was fairly certain “March” was Mertz and George had disappeared from Heidelberg before the 1800 Census. Then, in 1820, George disappeared from East Penn, replaced there it seemed by John Philip Mertz, Caleb’s ancestor.

But what happened to George? At first, I just assumed he had died. But then in 2016 when I decided to try to figure out who the Martzes of Westmoreland County, PA were — where had they come from? — I realized that one of them was a George Martz (who in 1830 was age 60-69) and who just appeared there in 1820. Could it be that the Mertz family that started out in Heidelberg Township was the same family that ended up as the Martz family of Westmoreland, with some of the family having made the move from Heidelberg to Carbon and then staying there and not moving on to Westmoreland?

All of this was initially total conjecture on my part, but I have now gathered enough additional evidence to not just support this assertion but in fact to make a quite convincing case of its merit. There are several additional names of Westmoreland Martzes — William, Nicholas, Carl and a younger George — that are given names of Mertzes once of Heidelberg or (what would become) Carbon County who then disappeared from those places.

George, though, is the key person in this whole story. In 2017, I found his Revolutionary War Pension application, filed when he was living in Westmoreland County, which said he was born in 1761 in Northampton County and that he joined a militia unit that encamped first in Heidelberg and on one occasion marched to East Penn. I believe the fact of its initial encampment in Heidelberg means it was a unit raised largely from that place. And I found it quite compelling that he even bothered to mention a march (not really a long march) to East Penn. Why did that minor detail merit mention?

Now I am the first to admit that this is all somewhat circumstantial evidence. Wouldn’t it have been nice if George had said he was born not just in Northampton County, but in Heidelberg Township? Wouldn’t it have been nice if he gave the names of his parents and sons in his pension application? He didn’t do that. Sometimes all you have is circumstantial evidence.

And then in 2018, I found the land record establishing the connection between the 1732 immigrant George Mertz, his son Philip and Philip’s son George all of Heidelberg. George is designated G1a.

I am certain that Philip Mertz, son of George the 1732 immigrant, should have been present in the 1790 Census of Heidelberg Township. Every mention of him up to then was in Heidelberg and the 1797 deed says he gave his land to his son John George a few days earlier. And he was there in 1800 and 1810, so where was he in 1790? I strongly believe the Philip March listed there was in fact him. A George March was also present in that Census and remember there was a baptism at Heidelberg Church by Georg Mertz of son John Carl born 12 Nov 1788 so it would be expected he was living in the same place, but on his own. But then what happened to George?

I believe he was the George Mertz who then showed up in 1800 in Penn Township, was said to be of East Penn in 1810 and then was reported in Westmoreland in 1820 and 1830 (age 60-69). In his pension application, he mentioned only Northampton and Westmoreland County as places he had lived. But just thinking about 1800, the George Mertz in Penn Township is the only possibility:

• In the 1800 Census, in the whole of the United States, there are only three men named George M?rt? — a wildcard search that will find most alternate or misspellings of the Mertz name. I know exactly who two of them are and the unknown third one was George Mertz of Penn Township Northampton County.
• But I also searched the 1800 Census in Northampton County for every person named George (or obvious alternatives like Geo) and examined any whose name might possibly have been some corruption or mis-transcription of Mertz. There is no other candidate to be George Mertz from Heidelberg.

Now I am always critical of others for just finding a man of the same name as someone they are interested in, but of a different place and just assuming it is the same person. And here I do the same thing — twice.

But in this case, I think what we learn from George’s pension application as well as several other coincidences that either connect all three places, Heidelberg-Carbon-Westmoreland, or at least two of them, all work together to make the case.

• At the Heidelberg Church, George Mertz baptized a son Carl 12 Nov 1788. At the Weissport Church, where the Carbon County Mertz family later worshipped, a Charles (same name as Carl) Mertz and wife Katherine baptized a daughter in 1816. Charles Martz then appeared in time for the 1830 Census in Westmoreland County and later moved to neighboring Armstrong County where in the 1850 and 1860 Census we learn that his wife was Katherine and from those later Census listings, he was born in about 1787.
• A man named Nicholas Mertz was named on an 1808 tax list of East Penn Township, single, the same tax last on which the name George Mertz appeared. Nicholas was never again mentioned in East Penn or Carbon County but a Nicholas Mertz, single was named at an 1809 baptism in Westmoreland County and a Nicholas Mertz born in 1784 whose wife was Amy Walton was the progenitor of one of the large Martz families of Westmoreland County.
• The other earliest Westmoreland pioneer was a William Mertz. He married Mary Walton. Mary was Amy’s sister and both of them were daughters of Boaz Walton. A lot is known about Boaz Walton and one thing that is known is that he came to Westmoreland County from (what would become) Carbon County. This William of Westmoreland was not William of Heidelberg — the one who died in 1808 — but it is part of the coincidences here that he shares that name, a key Heidelberg name.

George is the wonderful glue that ties all the pieces of my theory that the Heidelberg family of Mertzes became the Carbon County line of Mertzes and later the Westmoreland County line of Martzes.

When I first began forming my Heidelberg-Carbon-Westmoreland theory, I sometimes wished for a researcher descended from this family to do some actual research in Westmoreland records and try to learn whatever might be there. In 2017, I sort of got my wish when a descendant informed me of a book on the Westmoreland Martz family by M Melvin Hults. Hults said that George Martz who died there in 1844 had filed for an 1833 Revolutionary War Pension and Hults made some comments about George that I found very interesting and were apparently based on that pension application, so I went and found that original document. The following “facts” come from his pension application.
• George said he was born in Sep 1761 in Northampton County.
• George joined and was later discharged from several different militia units. The initial encampment of each of his various units was always Heidelberg Township. Now militia units in those days were very geographically local organizations. They often have been described not just based on what county they were organized in, but rather what specific township they came from. Sometimes it was two neighboring townships, but again the key thing is how localized each separate militia unit was. So I find the fact that he always seemed to join local Heidelberg units quite compelling.
• George recounts that in one campaign he participated in, they marched from Heidelberg to East Penn Township. I think the fact of his remembering that detail and including it in his application is also quite compelling.
• When asked where he lived when he joined the various militia units and where he has lived since, his answer was “I lived in Northampton County when called into service and resided within the [actual?] borders of that county (it is now subdivided) until the year 1818 when I removed to Westmoreland County.”
• I find the fact that he needed to make reference to the changed county borders in his answer — Heidelberg became part of the newly formed Lehigh County in 1812, and East Penn became part of the newly formed Carbon County in 1843 — compelling. Had he only lived in Heidelberg, he would have referenced the change to Lehigh but he didn’t need to since he had removed to East Penn before Lehigh was formed and then had removed to Westmoreland before Carbon was formed. Very interesting wording.
George Martz in his pension application specifically mentioned Heidelberg Township, East Penn Township and Westmoreland County — he had familiarity with all these places and I believe lived some part of his life in each. He ties everything together.

My whole theory on this family is that George, the 1732 immigrant, had just one son, Philip. And Philip had four sons, well three that survived to have a family of their own, George being one of the three. And then I believe there are eight younger males, born between 1784 and 1810, grandsons of Philip’s about who the key question is who was their father.

For some of the eight, I have some evidence linking the son to his particular father: George baptized a son Carl, the Orphans Court petition said William had a son Jonas, Dewalt in his old age lived with Martin. Another clue is the tick marks in Census that indicate how many sons grouped by age bracket each man had in the relevant years.

And the way I currently link these eight sons to the three fathers is reasonably consistent with the tick marks for William and Dewalt.

The problem is reconciling the tick marks for George in Census — and the four younger males who I think were his sons: Nicholas born 1784, William 1786, Carl 1788 and John Philip 1797. There is no evidence suggesting that any of those four were sons of one of George’s brothers. So, since I believe all four were of the Heidelberg family and since I see no rationale to make them sons of William or Dewalt, I believe they were all sons of George.

• This means that it was only sons of George who ever lived in Carbon County and only sons of George who ever lived in Westmoreland County. There’s a certain elegance to this solution to the puzzle.

But the discordant note is Census tick marks. George only reported two sons in the 1790 Census (why wasn’t it three?) and worse, in 1800, he still reported two sons but both were under the age of 10. (Remember I have searched in vain to find another George somewhere, there wasn’t any one else.)

I can perhaps explain away 1800 by saying John Philip was indeed under 10 and maybe Carl, age 12, was a little mis-reported by two years. And I can also speculate that Nicholas, age 16, and William age 14 were off living on someone else’s farm — it did happen back then that a male of such an age might have been living away (perhaps with a relative or just another neighbor who needed help on his farm).

Then there’s 1810. I believe Nicholas and William were already in Westmoreland County, Carl would have been 21 and perhaps living apart and Philip 13. George had two sons 0-9 and one 10-15. Philip would have been 10-15, who were the two younger ones?

So in summary. The tick marks are consistent with the idea that George had a son Philip born 1797, it is the three older sons for which the tick marks seem inconsistent. 1790 is the largest problem. If George really only had two sons by 1790, which of the three (Nicholas, William, Carl) wasn’t his son and whose son was he? I have no explanation.

For now, I’m going with the idea that Nicholas, William, Carl and Philip were George’s sons but being quite explicit here that something may very well be wrong and I’ll keep searching for more evidence that might explain it.