TEETS
The
TEETS family in Preston County and adjacent areas dated back to 1788 when
Michael "Old Mike" Teets made a settlement in what is now the Glade
Farms Community. At 17 years of age he came to Philadelphia with his father
Johannes Tiets, and other family, as immigrants from Holland. He arrived on the
Ship Peggy on October 16, 1774, Capt. James Abercrumbie, from Rotterdam, last
from Gosport (on the channel) England.
Johannes Tiets was born about 1698.
1.
TEETS, Michael, Jr. m. Margaret Miller-
The story told by descendents was that Michael and 5
sons made a settlement at what is now Glade Farms about 1788. (He drowned in
Cheat River about (1830), near St. Joe. He is buried on an island at the mouth
of Muddy Creek. (William Lindsey Teets said this was the case rather than 1850
based on information from Michael III, who was born in 1828 and was only two
years old at the time.) For more on Margaret Miller see MOPTON'S HISTORY OF
PRESTON COUNTY, W.VA. at page 474.
2.
TEETS, George m. ?
Their children were (1) Henry Teets (1810-1883); (2)
Daniel Teets; and (3) daughter,
believed to be Betsy.
3.
TEETS, Andrew, m. Catherine J. Ringer
Their children were (1) Samuel Teets, m. Catherine
Van Sickle; (2)
Lewis Teets, m. Nancy Fearer; (3) George Teets, m.
Elizabeth Rodeheaver; (4) Elizabeth
Teets, m. John Taylor and a daughter who did not
marry. (See attached note: Andrew aka
Abraham
4.
TEETS, Adam, m. Elizabeth Mosser.
The old Levi Teets Farm, about 1 mile East of
Clifton Mills, Grant District, contains a graveyard of 14 headstones, 24
unmarked. And better known as the old Cuppett Farm.Children: (1) Levi Teets, m.
Elenora Dull & Scottie Virginia Wilson;
(2) Nancy m. Adam Romesberg of Pa; (3) Kate-Pa.; (4) Barbara, m. Michael
Baumgardner of Pa.; (5) Mary, m. Jackson Collier;(6)Lucinda (single) (7) David,
m. Elizabeth Meyer; and (8) Alpheus went to Illinois. History).
The
Mossers came from Lancaster Co, Pa., soon after the Revolution and settled near
what became Selbysport, Md.Nicholas Mosser, head of the family was a German
Immigrant reaching America (port of Philadelphia) a little earlier than the
Revolution. He came to Maryland accompanied by sons, Christian, John and
Nicholas. John a solider in War of 1812 settled after the war at Clifton Mils
and Jacob, son of Christian, settled near Rockville about 1847. ADAM TEETS was
also a soldier in the War of 1812, a member as well as his brother, Michael,
Jr. of
1-
TEETS, John M. (1819), m. Elizabeth Sisler whose mother may have been an Indian
and (2) Louisa Dewitt Cook. (Children:
see attachment)
2.
TEETS, Samuel, m. Elizabeth Hawk-
3,
TEETS, Harrison (2/12/1821-9/18/1898), m. (1) Sabra (h) or (Sarah) Wolfe
(2/13/1824-
7/15/1882) 2nd Amelia Wolfe,
9/28/1884) Children: (1) Michael (1848-1898) (2)
Amos, (3) Willie, (4) Maggie.
4.
TEETS, Michael, II or III-(5/17/1828), m. Isaabelle or Elizabeth Dull. See
Attachment.
5.
TEETS, Margaret (1812-1891), "Peggy" m. Jacob Sisler. Children: see
attachment.
6.
TEETS, Elizabeth (1818-1845), m. Daniel Martin.
7.
TEETS, Nancy- m. Jesse Casteel
8.
TEETS, Susan or Susana (circa 1816) m. Henry Harrison Kelly- Children: (1) Luther, (2)
Perrie, (3) Henry, (4) Maggie
(5) Anna (blind).
CHILDREN
OF MICHAEL TEETS, II OR III SON OF MICHAEL JR.
TEETS,
Michael II or III, (5/2/1828-7 /7 /1902) m. Approx. 1848 by Rev. Daniel Keefer
Isabella
or Elizabeth Dull-(10/1828-9/1905)-buried in Taylor Cemetery Her parents were
Jacob Dull about (1803) and Mary Stucky about (1806). He was a weaver and about
age 20, a gun burst ruined his left hand and wrist. They moved in about 1845 to
the Tannery near Terra Alta, WV- Buried at St. Peters Church Cemetery 4 miles
NW of Bruceton Mills, WV. He was killed at age 20, by the gun burst. See Dull
History and attachment.
1.
TEETS, John Edmund-(8/21/1849) m. Amanda Ann Kelley-moved to Pittsburgh and
never
heard from again.
2.
TEETS, Jacob Franklin-0/26/1851) m. Eva Catherine Dodge
3.
TEETS, Martin Luther-(12/29/1853) m. ?
4-
TEETS, (Lydia) Joanne-(11/23/1856) m. Joseph Feather
5.
TEETS, Thurmon Jerome-(11/25/1857) called TJ-
6.
TEETS, Michael McClellan-(10/19/1862) m. Rachel Catherine Hardesty and Mollie
Strawser.
7.
TEETS, Wilbert Ellsworth (12/17/1864) m. Ida Dodge & Ella Williams.
8.
TEETS, Berlinda (Malinda) Ann (10/8/1867-1940) m. J. Thomas Dodge•
9.
TEETS, Sidney Ellen (1/16/1869) m. George W. Dennis
10.
TEETS, Harrison Greely (7/2/1872)-1/24/1959) m. Mary Magdalene Harned (7/23/1868-
3/3/1959) "Mollie"
11.
TEETS, Sylvester-died in infancy
GENEALOGY
OF DESCENDANTS OF MICHAEL TEETS, JR.
-
Michael
Teets, Jr., son of the Pioneer, Michael Teets, (1719 -d. about 1803) an
immigrant from the Netherlands (Holland) whose family lived in the vicinity of
SNEEK, Province of Friesland, in or near the village of Lisppenhuizen in 1680,
at which time on BRUCH TAEKES (spelling of the surname thus is from early historical records of
the Sneek Monthly Meeting of the Society of Friends (Quakers) appears to have
been the head of that family. In 1638, October 28, a party of six, five males
and one female listed under the surname of TEACKS arrived at port Philadelphia
aboard the Ship BILLENDER THISTLE, of Philadelphia, George Houston Commander,
from Rotterdam but last from Cowes in England. The names listed with age given^
on the Ship's Passenger list (original documents in Pennsylvania Historical and
Museum Commission, Harrisburg) and the qualification List in records of old
Philadelphia Courthouse where these immigrants (then listed as imported
foreigners) took and subscribed to the Oath of Allegiance are as follows:
-
Name Age Birth Year
Woldrich
Teacks
56 1682
Bans
Georg (Uriah) Teacks
40 1698
Jacob
Teacks 27 1711
*Michael
Teacks
19 1719
Petter
(Peter) Teacks 14 1724
(Aniess
(Probably Ann Eliza
28 1710
*-Nothing
can be taken for granted in genealogy; it is not an exact science, like
mathematics, it is said that nothing is more constant then change, and nothing
more changeable than people. Without going into the interesting
"ologies" involved in all of that, let us just record that, after
four years of research in historical volumes and records in museums, libraries,
archives both state and national, a considerable volume of evidence has been
assembled related to the background of the TEETS family, together with the
organization of what we commonly refer to today as a Family Tree Climbing one's
Family Tree can be interesting, -time consuming, controversial? frustrating due
to language barriers and the influence of etymology and Philology in language
development not to mention the dialectical phenomena involved in varying
localities and environment. Besides all that, it can be expensive. Then there
are family traditions, and these usually have some very definite basis
although, after being repeated through a few generations, names, and dates unless recorded, become
confused. It is much like a game that is sometimes played, where a number of
people are seated in a room and at the head of the line one sentence is given,
the idea being -to have each person then repeat, one after the other,
whispering,-what the previous person heard. In a group of ten or more, it is
sometime quite amusing to compare the last version of the sentence with the
original statement. This after a few minutes. Consider something like this
across a period of time of nearly 300 years and through some nine or ten
generations. Add to that the fact that in our early colonial history,
church records in some sections, particularly those settled by people of German
descent like eastern Pennsylvania and areas of New Jersey, were largely in
German script, while public records were recorded usually by English officials
putting into English as best as they could the sounds made by German speaking
people, or Holland Dutch, Swede, French Huguenots and so on. Records were
handwritten and hand copied and those copying had to interpret what was before him and -then in his handwriting, leave
copy for another. The chances for errors is obvious. And then today, consider
one trying to find in all of this, certain individuals who came to this country
long before there was a United States, known as his ancestors, and again the
element of Unconsciously making history instead of finding it; assuming facts
based on only such evidence as appears conclusive and one has the reason for
the statement: Nothing can be -taken for granted in genealogy.
Since
surnames are passed from one generation to another only by the males of
families, names of wives are all to infrequently not included. A FATHER is recorded as having the following
children and then comes the names of a number 8 or more, or less. In some
instances dates of birth are given, in others only explanation that "the
order given is not necessarily that of the order in which they were born, but
believed to be about right." There were many second marriages in families,
due to high fatality rate among mothers at childbirth in our early history and
conditions? there were instance of children being taken into families and
"raised as their own" and so listed as sons and daughter, without any
further records being available. With the family surnames we know today as
TEETS, we find it spelled TEATS TEETS, and TEETZ, even today, in communities
within a few miles of each other. In Pennsylvania communities like YORK COUNTY,
we find Hollam Township for instance, where old records are filed for surnames
spelled TEETS, DEBTS, DIETZ, etc., all in one file, because that is where all the Teets, Deets,
Dietz's lived during the transition period when settlers from the old
Philadelphia-Germantown and even New Jersey areas were following the migration
westward through Lancaster County, into York, some following the Great Valley
down into Maryland and going from Maryland back into Pennsylvania, into old
Bedford County's Brothers Valley Township, and then westward as fast as the
rightful owners. The Indians could be driven out and settlers have some
reasonable chance of security in their homes and on their farms as those were
cleared. The forbearers of those TEETS people were among those, and in some
places their surnames have been spelled TEETS, or TEATS, or DIETS or DIETS, or
DEETS or DEATS, even spelled Teetz and Tietz.
In examining the records of the family in early New Jersey records, old
Deeds, church records, etc. one finds the same experience. That branch appears
to be a bit earlier in reaching American,--three men, apparently brothers,
(quoting from Early Germans of New Jersey- Theo. F. Chambers-Trenton, N.J.
Library, at page 322 where the sub-heading in the genealogy section reads:
DEATS or TEATS we read: There are three of this family who might be brothers,
ADAM, CHRISSTIAN AND JACOBUS. The name is spelled Dietz, Ditx, Deates, Deals,
and Teats. We also found the surname spelled Tieds and Teets, the later in the
genealogy of the "Creoter, Crater or Creator" family (which seems to
also have had variant spellings) where one Morritz, married Maria Margaret
Teets, b. 746, July 9; d. 1800, Feb. 19.
There
is but little if any doubt, that there early Dietz's and Deats's and Teat's and
Tieds's and Teets's—are all of HOLLAND DUTCH origin and related at various
distances. We find evidence that some of these found their way right along with
the "Dutch" migration westward, while many others stayed on in both
New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania. A report we have from the Library of Congress
research in the NEDERLAND ADELSBOOK-the hague, 1928-39—that states frequent
references are made to TEATS and TETS—but not TEETS. Apparently the Roman ae
form is still used by members of the family still residents in the Netherlands,
or Holland, as it is called in common usage. Since the ae takes the long o
sound, the transition to double o is understandable and pronouncing ETS without
our et sound, one also has TEETS.
Nowhere
in the New Jersey research did we find a Michael TEETS or TEATS, or DIETZ, r
DEATS. After almost three years, however, through the Somerset County
Genealogical and Historical Society, we found through some very splendid
cooperation of Eber Cockley of Meyersdale, MICHAEL DIETZ, found in tax list
Brothers Valley Township, Bedford County, Pa. 1774-75-76. We back tracked then
to York, found quite a few Dietz's some Teats and some Teet's but no Michael.
It was then we had some research done at the Pennsylvania Historical Society in
Philadelphia, where a lead took us to the Library of The Church of the
Brothern, Elgin, 111., where in a three-volume work by Strassburger and Kinks
we were able to obtain photostat copies of pages of Ship's Passengers arriving
at port of Philadelphia, 1729-1808, with records of imported foreigners taking
and subscribing to Oaths of Allegiance (or affirming) and Oatts of Abjuration.
In
that study we found not only one but THREE MICHAELS with surnames spelled in
one of the variants mentioned in the New Jersey genealogy, and similar to those
both in York and Bedford County Records, viz:
1.
Johannes Tiets age 50 arrived
Philadelphia Oct. 25 Michael Tiets age
17 1774.. This look like father and son
and our first impulse was to conclude, this is it: but rather than making
history to meet heart's desire, we sent for the records of those on the Ship
Patience and Margaret Capt. John Govan, from Rotterdam, but last from Leith in
Scotland....(List 123 B)—giving the old Philadelphia Courthouse records of
oaths of allegiance and abjuration of Imported Foreigners—we found that the
books, PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN PIONEERS— also contained a printed listing, but also
facsimile prints of the original signatures of those who could write, some at
the borderline of illiteracy, some making their X with a clerk doing the
writing (and some of the clerks were obviously not gifted penman) and some if
not most, using German script. Studied under a reading glass we tracked the
list, (the originals of these documents that are in the Pennsylvania Historical
Museum Commission in Harrisburg, Pa. and in what appears to be the same
handwriting on two lists (123-b and 123-c) it is unmistakably:
1.
Jonas Dietz
2.
Johannes Michael Dietz
We
had to conclude that, since these fellows knew how to write and spelled their
name DIETZ,- this wasn't the Michael we were looking for, although his age 17,
was certainly near that of the man we sought, based on estimate of his age by
the number of children claimed for him in MORTON'S HISTORY OF PRESTON COUNTY,
and incidents connecting him with the time in which he, lived. Vie also had to
consider the possibility that, while in Holland, members of the family were
TEAKS, originally, perhaps those what got over into Germany Deutchland got
their surname spelled with the D sound instead of the T sound, and DIETZ, it
became. (2) MICHAEL TIETZ is listed as a passenger on the ship Peggy Capt.
James Abercrumbie, from Rotterdam but last from Gosport, England, arrived port
of Philadelphia, Oct. 16, 1754. This man was the only one aboard by that or
similar surname. On arrival, the Passenger List notes "Sick on
Board." The other two lists, in same handwriting, probably that of a
clerk, the same entry appears: "Sick on board. Looking up the attached
Doctor's Certificate or Medical Inspector's report, which reads: "The
medical inspector's report on the 108 male passengers on the Ship Peggy reads
as follows:"
.
"Sir according to directions we have carefully examined the State of
Health of the Mariners and Passengers on board the Ship Peggy Capt.
Abercrumbie, from Rotterdam and found a few of them in a low weak condition,
but no disease amongst them which we apprehend infectious.
Tho.
Graeme
Th.
Bond
To
His Honor
The
Governor Endorse: 15th October 1974
Further
examination of this Passenger List showed eleven men "sick on board: and
so all were so recorded on the courthouse lists. It should be noted here that,
in 1729, with the great influx of immigrants from the "The
Palatinate"—no differentiation between Highland Dutch (Germans) and
Lowlander Dutch—the Pennsylvania Assembly enacted regulations which required
among other things that Captains of the transport ships engaged in the traffic
provide the port authority at Philadelphia with a complete passenger list of
all males 16 years of age or older, females if the head of family; others
reported by number as freights. All males 16 or over were required to take and
subscribe to the oath of allegiance and abjuration in the Court of Record for
the port.
Captains
of Sea Going Ships were of course so instructed and in compliance usually
designated one of the ship's officers, usually a Mate, to handle this
responsibility. Some did a splendid
job, painstakingly to the point in some instances of listing the names of every
passenger with name and age for men, women and children. Some with less talent
were like the Mate who in signing his report spelled his official title as
"Mete" For most of them, trying to spell German names in English
amounted to an impossible assignment, a complete and baffling puzzle. The
Michael Tiets listed on board the Ship Peggy, was apparently a bachelor; no
clue to his age or what became of him or further evidence that his name was
Dietz, rather than as spelled by the ship's officer.
(3)
This constitutes the group shown on the first page with names and ages, and the
only names that come near being within the old family tradition that...there
were five brothers that came over from Holland and settled in Virginia. Even
so, much is left desired as to fact in the tradition as it comes to us through
the generations since 1738, yet as a usual thing there is basis of fact
surrounding these long, handed down traditions. In the list of TEACKS (Teakes
was spelling used in Quaker Meeting Records of 1680) the oldest is 56, youngest
14. It is possible and might be well suggested that of this group.
Woldrich
age 56 and Hans Georg 40, were brothers; that Jacob was a son of Woldrich and
Anless his wife; Michael 19 and Petter (Peter) son of Hans George.
Pending
some further research both in possible Pennsylvania and Virginia records, we
are inclined at this time to accept this Michael as the immigrant who in his
late 60's made the settlement at what is now the Glade Farms community, just
southwest of present site of Markleysburg, near the Twin Churches on the
highway (WV. 26) at junction of the Mountaindale - Friendsville Road, therefore
the Pioneer listed in Pennsylvania German Pioneers. MORTON'S HISTORY OF PRESTON
COUNTY, W.VA. -- in its genealogy section at page 474 Lists the children of the
Pioneer Michael Teets, Sr. and listed previously in this paper.
MILITARY
RECORD: Men were drafted for military service during the Revolution in
Pennsylvania, between the ages of 19 and 52 There was not central government
then, and each of the 13 colonies had its own regulations. Hence, the method of
raising levies of soldiers in one colony was not the same in all, out the
efforts were coordinated by the Continental Congress. That and the Army of
Washington's known as The Line was in fact THE REVOLUTION. There were a great
number of citizens who remained loyal to the King of Great Britain, known as
Tories. The George Teets who name and records were spelled by others; public
and militia officials at various periods appear to be the same individual.
Note: attached sheets of Teets who served in War of 1812 and Civil War that are
of record in the Preston County History.
MOSSEPS
came from Lancaster Co., Pa., soon after the Revolution and settled near what
became Selbysport, Md. Nicholas Mosser, head of the family was a German
immigrant reaching America (port of Philadelphia) a little earlier than the
Revolution. He came to Maryland accompanied by sons, Christian, John and
Nicolas. They settled after the war at Clifton Mills and Jacob a son of
Christina, settled near Rockville about 1847. Adam Teet’s wife was Elizabeth
Mosser.
WOLFE
Members of the Wolfe family, also descendants of German immigrants, were numerous
in old Lancaster County, Pa., several of them coming from there to Brother's
Valley Township in Bedford County. From there, some of the Wolfe family members
came westward to settle in what is now Fayette Co.. Pa., east or Uniontown,
along the headwaters of Sandy Creek
which runs south through the Glades by that name in what is now Preston
County, and empties into Cheat River. It is though that this might have
influence Old Mike Teets in his later years of also making his GLADE FARMS
SETTLEMENT.
LEWIS-BENSON Elizabeth Benson was a daughter of James and Sarah Lewis Benson. James was a son of William Benson, a weaver by trade of near Winchester, Va., who settled on Beaver creek in Sandy Creek Glades (near old Morgan's Glade) in 1793- The Daniel Lewis who was killed by Indians in one of the last two raids in 1788n what is now Preston County, at the mouth of Green's Run on Cheat River, near Kingwood, is thought to have been a brother of James Benson's wife. An account of this may be found in TABLELAND TRAILS, Vol. I No. 4-Special Preston