Notes for: John George Hendershot

his comes from the Hendershot Researcher's Web Site at Rootsweb:

This is taken from "Hendershot Ancestors Genealogy" Revised 1988 by Wm. E. Hendershott page 4

Origin and Name of the Hendershot Family

The immediate forebears of Michael Hendershot(1674-1749) lived in the Rine Palatinate, but his father Wilhelm had come from the Old Duch of Berg farther north. Wilhelm was among many people, some of them relatives, who immigrated to the war-ravaged Palatinate to redevelop it's farms and towns about 1670. Nothing is yet known of his previous life except that he was a lapsed Catholic. He and his brother-in-law Mathia Krebs, a trained carpenter, tried their hands at various employments, and finally took on the lease for the larger part of a neglected hill-farm of 450 acres names "Naumburger Hof". Wilhelm married a Lutheran girl, Ann Maria Balter, and raised a family of at least eight children, in her religion. They experienced very hard times for warfare and plagues, bad weather and poor crops were normal at the time. Within 15 years Wilhelm died leaving his tough-minded widow to care for their children and run the farm. At this point the French were in power, and the Catholilc religion was in favour. A mixed marriage such as Wilhelm and Anna Maria's became a target for church intervention. Franciscans forcibly removed the four younger children from teh widow's home and placed them in Catholic surroundings until their conversion was achieved.

Michael was the eldest son of this family. In certain parts of Europe in thos days it was the custom for youngest sons to inherit family property. The reasoning was simple and practical, by the time the parents died the elder children would have readed maturity and moved out to earn a living for themselves while the youngest were just reaching that stage of maturity. However the inheritor was required to reach a settlement with his brothers and sisters so that each would receive a payment equivalent to their fair share. Long before this happened to Wilhelm's family howerever Michael had become independent, started his own family and had immigrated in debt to America.

We do not have to search far for reasons that inspired Michael to immigrate. Conditions in his own familiy, split by religious quarreling, the scarsity of good land, extremely bad climatic conditions in 1708-09, and constand threat of armed invasions, all combined to dreive many peopel out. Colonial developers, especially Wiliam Penn, visited the Rhineland singing the praises of America-cheap land, religious freedom, opportunity, etc. It is not surprivsing that thousands of Palatines and their neighbors paked up and left home. Under the sgernal label of "persecurted Protestant Palatine" all sorts of people floked to Rotterdam to England to gain Queen Anne's protection in 1709. Many then were shippedto New Yorke to earn their keep by working on a government project in the Hudson Vally. Michael and his famiily before long found themselves at a pine-tar camp where he seems to have acted as foreman or overseer. The project failed in a year or two and Michael with some friends moved southwest into New Jersey where the Quakers hald land and rented it cheaply to settlers. This is how it came about that the ancestral territory for America decendants is thought of as centered in Hunterdon County, NJ, where he finally put down roots.

ome information says that John was born in Franklin Township in Somerset County, New Jersey.

A lot of the information on John and Catherine Hendershot's children and the history of the family has come from David Goff.

Johann Georg Hendershot's will was probated January 9, 1798 in Greenwich Township, Warren County, New Jersey. As John Hendershot, he leased a plantation of 333 acres of land in West Jersey Society Lands. Johann is said to have returned to Germany in 1749 and collected about 2,000 pounds in English money (which was quite a sum of money in those days) from the estate of Von Hayderschatte. He returned to America on the ship Edinburg from Rotterdam with James Russel as Master. He landed in New York on September 15, 1749. Upon his return, he bought an estate of his own of 400 acres which he named "Ten Schotts." Johann and Catherine were members of the St. James Lutheran (Straw Church) of Greenwich Township, Warren County, New Jersey, where he had also been a trustee. All of their children were baptised there. Variations of the Hendershot name are: Handerschatt, Handerscholtz, Handershot, Hanershot, Hanneshot, Hanneshut, Heiderschatt, Heidershot, Heinsher, Henderschadt, Henderschatt, Henderschid, and Henderschot.

His first wife was Ann Schooley and his second wife was Catherine Bodine.

Full Notes for photo of property.

Shown here are photos of the Settler's Cabin and property where Johann Jacob Hintershied brought his family soon after they arrived in America in the 18th Century. Johann and subsequent children and spouses farmed the sloping land through harsh blowing winters and hot summers. As with many other farmers, their lives must have been difficult at best. The total living area of the original cabin might have been about 750 square feet - about the size of many of today's modern "rec" rooms. It's hard to imagine what it would have been like to raise one's children, perhaps as many as 8 at a time, sharing the original dirt-floor settler's cabin!

Johann George Hinterschied willed the property to his first son, Jacob. He in turn willed the property to his son, Heinrich. Then Heinrich willed it to his son, Frederick. Frederick Hinnershitz was born on the property in 1820 and died there in 1903 and was the last Hinnershitz to live on the original Hinterschied homestead property. After 1903, the Fausts, (who married into the family in 1806 with the marriage of Susanna Hinterschied to Anton Faust) again took up the legacy of family held land from that point on. In the early 1970's, the property became privately owned by persons other than family. The homestead started about 1755, with a dirt floor squatter log cabin, inhabited by Johann, wife Maria and children. In 1768, they were added to the local tax rolls thus becoming official property owners. In 1808, Anton Faust, who married Susanna Hinterschied, added a second section connected to the original log cabin where he and bride Susanna resided until their deaths. Then it was willed to their son Joseph H. Faust. In 1850, a third and final section was added as a place of business and maintained as a gun shop by the Hartman family who had married into the "Hinnershitz" family about that time. The family maintained this scenario for some time. This is still being reseached. Please note that about the time that the gun shop was constructed, the family name seemed to be changing to many unusual forms as children grew, married, and left the area for places like Reading, Allentown, Lancaster, Dauphin County, and other points mostly within a 100 mile radius of the homestead area.

This comes from Frank Hendershot's research:

HENDERSHOT, John in the town of Greenwich (then Sussex county) on 26 Jan 1797 being of sound mind, but weak and sickly in body do constitute this to be my last will and testament. Probated 9 Jan 1798; names his trusty friends Mathias Shipman, Godfrey Kline, and Christopher Mealick administrators and names the following: Nicholas, grandson, son of my son John; Michael, son; Jacob Hendershot, son; to the several children of my son Isaac, deceased to wit; his daughter Elizabeth, to his son Jacob Hendershot, to his son John Hendershot, to his son Michael Hendershot, to his son Isaac Hendershot; Elizabeth Kline daughter..also names her children by Jeremiah Hess; Mary Minegar daughter; Leah Hendershot daughter; Leah Hendershot Insley daughter (previously referred to as my daughter Leah Hendershot; to the children of his son Isaac.. they are to be paid two years after my decease if of age , otherwise ehen they come of age; Sarah Gardner, great grandaughter.