Who's who in Husum

Who’s Who in Husum: 

Husum, formerly part of Friesland, homeland of the Frisians and a mixture of Angles and Saxons and Dutch, later the Duchy of Schleswig, sometimes Danish and this and that, and now a seaport in northern Germany.

Husum, Google earth, North Sea

Abel, Duke of Schleswig and King of Denmark

He was the son of Valdemar II and brother to Eric IV. In 1250, Eric was murdered while a guest at Duke Abel's residence at Schleswig. Abel took his Eric’s throne after swearing an oath he had nothing to do with the death.

Abel ruled for a year and a half. Hearing that the peasants in Frisia, led by Sicko Sjaerdema, refused to pay the tax levy, he led a punitive expedition and was killed by a wheelwright named Henner on Husum Bridge.

People said, "Abel af navn, Kain af gavn" Abel by name, Cain by claim.

Jan Franz Van Husum

Jan was born in 1608. We may assume that for most of his life, he simply went by the name of Jan, or if further clarification was necessary, Jan, son of Franz. Jancalled himself as a seafaring man. We do not know for certain what fish he caught, but we can guess. As early as 1610, there  were reports of whales off the coast of Spitsbergen. Russians, Basque, French, English, and Dutch ships all vied for the trade. English and Dutch ships were often made up of North Frisians, who were known for their skills at sea.

The whale they hunted for was the bowhead whale, one that yielded large quantities of oil and baleen.

But this is idle thought, what we do know is this.

In 1634, a devastating flood, known as the second Grote Mandränke struck the Frisian coast, destroying the island of Nordstrand and much of Husum. After the flood, Jan would depart for Amsterdam. We know that he married his wife Volkjie there. She too was caught up in the devastaition of the flood, as she lived on the island of Nordstrand with her parents and sister.

Once married, Jan and Volkjie sailed for America.

Theodor Storm

 
Theodor Storm, a 19th century writer who called Husum, “the grey town by the sea.”

Die Stadt (1851)

Am grauen Strand, am grauen Meer Und seitab liegt die Stadt; Der Nebel drückt die Dächer schwer, Und durch die Stille braust das Meer, Eintönig um die Stadt.

On the grey sand, on the grey sea, Besides which lies the city, Press the mists heavy on the roofs, And in the stillness the sea roars, With one sound around tow.

The Marriage of Valentine Von Huss (Vanhooser) and Maria Barbara Zerwe (Zerbe)

[Notes on spelling. Spellings differ by language. The Reverend Stoever was German and chose to spell the name "Von Huss" instead of Van Huss or Vanhooser. Maria Barbara went by her middle name Barbara, a practice of trying to trick the devil. The last name "Zerwe" instead of "Zerbe" suggests that the name was pronounces like the French Servier, a name that appears on the French side of the border. Valentine was also variously called Velten and Felty. My advice to those looking up genealogy is to try various spellings.] 

The Wedding

Valentine Von Huss and Maria Barbara Zerwe were not well-to-do, like Sir William Pepperrell and his family. Most likely, the wedding was a simple affair with family and friends.

It is three days before Christmas, 1746, and the wedding day.

Let us join the families of Valentine Von Huss and Barbara and Catrina Zerwe and John George Meyer as they make their way to the tiny church at Tulpehocken for a double wedding, to be presided over by the Reverend Casper Stoever, America's first ordained Evangelical German Lutheran Minister.

Nearby Indian Fort on Mill Creek

Records of Rev. John Casper Stoever : baptismal and marriage, 1730-1779 (page 61)

The ceremony took place at Christ Little Lutheran Church in Tulpehocken, Pennsylvania. It was officiated by the Reverend Casper Stoever. Our minister was, like the bride's family, German, both from the Palatinate Region, and that is probably why the groom's name appears as "Von" rather "Van". The date recorded is December 22nd, 1746. The names: Valentine Von Huss and Maria Barbara Zerwe (Zerbe).

Two sisters are wed

Two weddings took place that day. The other being the wedding of Barbara's sister Catrina to John George Meyer.

The Zerbe Family

Barbara’s father was Johannes Jacob Zerbe, and her mother, Maria Catherine Leick (Lauk). Separatel;y, they came to America sometime prior to 1718, arriving in an English ship. They left Germany's Palatinate Region because of recurring French invasions, and famine came with war. With promises of religious freedom, they sailed up the Hudson River arriving at New York's Livingston Manor.

[The commercially and mercenary minded English transported Palatinate Protestants to the British-American colonies out of a need for pine tar. Pine pitch some called it, a necessary naval store the British desperately needed to keep their ships afloat.]

There they met and married, and all their children were born there (1718 until 1725).

Indentured Servants

The couple endured seven year at East Camp, Livingston Manor, a period that fits nicely with the idea that they signed emigration contracts as indenture servants. These contracts provided that "seven years after they had forty acres a head given to them.” "East Camp" and "West Camp" on opposite sides of the Hudson River were established residences for the new colonists.

Pennsylvania and Land

There is no record that Jacob and Catherine received their 40 acres a head of the more than 160,000 acres that then made up Livingston Manor. Instead they joined dozens of other Zerwes who settled in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvana and the area around Tulpehocken Creek. 

Coincidentally they became neighbors of the family of Daniel Boone. Indeed the Lutherans who built their church at Tulpehocken had by 1727 petitioned the officials in Philadelphia "for a road to the high road at the Quaker Meeting House near Boone's Mill at Oley."

First Tulpehocken Church


Secondary source for marriage.

 http://www.pagenweb.org/~lebanon/records/stoevermarriages.txt