♂Peter Gingerich

Peter Gingerich (1749 – 1829) was a Pennsylvania German yeoman of East Hanover Township, Lebanon County, who farmed on the Swatara Creek and left an estate divided among ten children by what each had already received from him, so that three of his sons, Michael, John and Peter, had drawn so much during his lifetime that they inherited nothing. He was the third great-grandfather of Ora Emogene Walrath (1925–2014) by two separate lines of descent, both through his probable daughter Cattarina Gingerich (1793–1861).

Early life

Peter Gingerich was born in 1749 at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, a son of Michael Gingrich (1700–1785); no record names his mother. He was settled on his own land well before his father died: Michael’s will of July 1784 recites “a deed of release to my son Peter Kingery for the Tract of Land whereon he now lives in Hanover Township”, 220 acres on the Swatara Creek. His brother John Gingerich (1720–1818), who farmed in Annville Township, named Peter’s son as an executor of his will in 1818, as “John Gingerich son of Peter Gingerich”, to tell the nephew from the uncle.

Marriage and family

He married Magdalena Shank (1752–1837), a daughter of Michael Shank of Conestoga Township, Lancaster County, by February 1777, when her father’s heirs settled his land by a deed that names “Peter Gingerick of Hanover Township … and Magdalena his Wife”. Their eldest son, Henry, is said to have been born the next month.

Ten heirs are named in the settlement of his estate: Henry, Elizabeth, Anna Mary, Christian, Catharine, Magdalena, Jacob, Michael, John and Peter. Catharine, the wife of John Kuntz, is in all likelihood Cattarina Gingerich, who married John Kunz in 1811. Elizabeth married a neighbor, Michael Seltzer: the census of 1810 lists a Michael Selter a few lines from Peter Gingerich, and Peter’s land later adjoined his.

The will

Peter Gingerich made his will on 23 December 1823, describing himself as a yeoman of East Hanover township “being old and infirm”, and signed it with his mark. He gave “my beloved Wife Magdalena” the use of the household goods “for and during her life or as long as she remains my widow”, with half of the dwelling house, kitchen, cellar and spring house, and left his plantation to his son Peter, who was bound by a separate agreement of the same date to supply her with a yearly maintenance. The rest was to be “equally divided between all my Children, first deducting from each such sums of money and articles which I have paid delivered and advanced”. He named as executors “my trusty Friends” Henry Heilman and Henry Mark.

The will also says that his wife Magdalena held money, bonds and notes “which she got from the Estate of her late husband Abraham Steiner” and had brought to him, and left them to her to dispose of as she pleased. In August 1806 the Lancaster County Orphans’ Court had named “John Gingrick and Magdalena Gingrick (late Magdalena Steiner)” administrators of Abraham Steiner of Rapho Township, and $712 of his estate was ordered distributed. Magdalena Shank was Peter’s wife by 1777, so if the Steiner widow is the Magdalena of the will, Peter had married a second time; the records do not say which Gingrich the widow married, and the question is open.

A codicil of 1 September 1828 re-priced the plantation: earlier surveys had given it 249 acres, but a new one found only 190, so Peter canceled the price set in the will and had his son pay $21.20 an acre instead.

Death and estate

Peter Gingerich died in 1829 at East Hanover, and his will was proved on 16 December that year. His son John seems to have died the same year, leaving a widow, Barbara, and eleven children, for whom the Lebanon County Orphans’ Court appointed guardians in August 1830.

Henry Heilman, the surviving executor, and Adam Mark, the administrator of the late Henry Mark, filed their account in June 1835, and the estate was settled at the August Term. Each of the ten children was entitled to $231.86, less whatever “the Old man’s books” showed had been advanced to him or her. Seven received what was left, from about $3 to about $181. The other three, Michael, John and Peter, were “charged in the old man’s books, with sums so large as to extinguish their said money”, and received nothing. The seven signed a release in November 1835, the two married daughters through their husbands, Michael Seltzer and John Kuntz, and the unmarried Anna Mary and Magdalena for themselves.

A Magdalena Gingrich of East Hanover, evidently his widow, died intestate by 29 June 1837, when letters of administration on her estate went to Michael Seltzer and Peter Gingrich, Peter’s son-in-law and son.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his probable daughter Cattarina Gingerich (1793–1861) and her husband John Kunz (1786–1865), and divide among their children: one through their son Samuel Kunz (1825–1904) and his son Thomas Koons (1855–1938), the other through their son Jacob John Kunz (1814–1866) and his daughter Magdalena M. Koons (1852–1923). The lines meet again when Thomas Koons married Magdalena M. Koons on 24 December 1876 in Henry County, Indiana, both probable descendants of Peter Gingerich; their daughter Mary Magdalene Koons (1885–1977) was the mother of Ora Emogene Walrath. John Kunz’s will, dated 29 July 1864, names a son Jacob as one of his executors; that this Jacob is Jacob John Kunz rests on a family letter of 1916 and on the two men living in the same county.

John Kunz was himself a grandson of Peter’s brother John Gingerich, through his mother Anna Maria Gingerich (1767–1846), so, if she is his daughter, Cattarina married her first cousin’s son.

Notes

The family record and the family card

The family record gives Michael Gingrich’s death as April 1785 at Lancaster. A typed family card from a compilation of Lancaster County Mennonite records gives Peter the same years, 1749 to 1829, names his father as Michael Gingrich and his wife as Magdalena Shenk, and lists only four of the ten children, with dates for three: Henry born on 13 March 1777, Elizabeth on 18 November 1783 and John on 16 May 1786. The card gives John’s death as 1830 and his wife as Barbara Steiner; an index of Lebanon County estates shows letters of administration on the estate of a John Gingerich of East Hanover granted to Barbara and Henry Gingerich on 28 November 1829, so he had died by then.

Places

East Hanover lay in Dauphin County until Lebanon County was formed in 1813, so the county changed around him without a move. The codicil gives the plantation’s neighbors as Michael Selter, Nicholaus Boork and others, and its line as running to the Swatara Creek.

The marriage

No record of the marriage is known. The family record gives 1777, the year of Henry’s birth. The deed of Michael Shank’s heirs was made on 10 February 1777 and recorded at Lancaster only in the summer of 1786, so it shows Magdalena already Peter’s wife a month before Henry was born.

Cattarina

The 1835 settlement does not call Catharine Kuntz his daughter, and no other record names Cattarina’s parents. The identification rests on her given name, on her husband’s name, John Kuntz, who signed the release for her, and on the family record.

The Steiner widow

The court entry of 1806 names her fellow administrator as John Gingrick, but a widow often administered with a kinsman of the dead man, so it does not show whom she had married. Abraham Steiner’s estate was taken in hand in 1806, nearly thirty years after Magdalena Shank first appears as Peter’s wife, so the two are unlikely to be one woman; an online profile, citing a family history of 1999, marries Magdalena Shank first to Abraham Steiner, which the dates do not support. If Peter’s widow of the will was the Steiner widow, Magdalena Shank died before 1823, and the 1837 estate may be the second wife’s: the estate index does not say which Magdalena it was.

His mother

His father’s will gives his wife “Magdaleane” “whatsoever I have received with her at the time I was married”, which points to a late marriage, and a will of 1789 made by a widow of her name in Lebanon Township names only Sherick children and grandchildren. She can hardly have been the mother of children born from about 1720 to 1749. An online family tree, and DNA-match suggestions drawn from such trees, give Peter a mother named Magdalena Folk or Foulk; no record supports the surname.

Other men of the name

A Pennsylvania tax list of 1779 and 1780 names a Peter Gingrich with 200 acres, a horse and a cow, beside two Michaels, a Christian and a John senior and junior of the same surname, but the page does not name its township, so it is not certain that he is this man. A Peter Gingerich on the Lebanon Township tax lists of 1750 and 1755 was an older man of the name, since this Peter was born in 1749, and a second Kingery family nearby, that of Jost Kingery, had sons named John and Peter of age by 1776.

An online family tree merges him with several other men of the name, among them a Peter Gingrich still living in 1830 and another who fathered a daughter in 1861; East Hanover had Peter Gingriches in several generations.