Samuel Boehm 1715-1797

They called them "Palatines."  They spoke mostly the German of their Swiss ancestors mixed with the English needed for commerce and trade.  They were Mennonites and lived together on the largely wild frontier of the American colonies ordering their society in accordance with their understanding of the Bible.  They lived apart from the society around them, seeking to be self-sufficient and self-sustaining so they could live according to God's word.

Samuel Boehme was probably born in 1715 into one of the Mennonite communities in the Rhineland Palatinate, where they had fled from Catholic oppression in Switzerland.  There was a large Mennonite community in Kircheimbolanden, north of Mannheim in modern Germany.  Was Samuel born there?  Did his journey to America start there and pass through Holland?  Likely as it may be, records available to us today cannot confirm all the details for us.

At any rate, Samuel was the first "American" of our family, having arrived in Philadelphia on a Dutch ship from Rotterdam on October 27, 1738, in the company of many others likely to have come from Mennonite communites in Germany.  However, arriving in the British colony of Pennsylvania, a youth of 23, he was sure to have found food, shelter, and work in the Mennonite communities of the colony centered around Lancaster.  But since we know he had a family in the community that lived in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia by no later than 1750, we know he moved on quickly, like so many immigrants, seeking his own fortune in the new lands.

Samuel was married to Elizabeth Funk, the daughter of the elected leader and minister of the 40-or-so family Mennonite community that moved into the valley of the Southern Fork of the Shenandoah river.  I haven't yet found record of their date of marriage, but the advent of their first offspring, Magdalena, in 1742, seems to indicate a marriage by 1741 if not before.  Did Samuel accompany the Mennonite band from Lancaster into Virginia as a single man, or had he already met and courted Elizabeth by then?  I'm still looking for the details.

Between 1742 and 1758, Samuel and Elizabeth established a farm on the land he had purchased along the East Hawkbill Creek, near the present day town of Ida in Page County, Virginia.  While raising crops and animals, hunting and fishing for their own subsistence, they brought into the world the first six of their children.  After Magdalena in 1742, Jacob was born in 1745, Reuben in 1748, Mary in 1750, Elizabeth in 1753, Barbara in 1755, and Daniel in 1758.  Throughout this time, they struggled at first to live with Indians in the area, then to fight them off, before ultimately pushing them out. 

The politics of the world swirling around them were as challenging as anything we see today.  Alternately, the French, occupying the Mississippi Valley and the territories to the north and west of Virginia, and then the British, allied with various of the Indian tribes to attack colonial settlements in "the west," of their day.  Many pioneer families were attacked and often wiped out by Indian raids.  The history of the era is full of violence, and no doubt the men and boys of the community were handy with musket and tomahawk as a matter of survival.  It was in the midst of these frequent conflicts that Samuel and Elizabeth strove to raise a family and establish a farm and their fortune.

By 1758, the Indian raids became so bad that the entire Mennonite colony decided to remove to Lancaster and ask for help.  In this same era, the Governor of Virginia sent out expedition after expedition to drive back and ultimately defeat the Indian tribes in the region and beyond.  A notable event of this period was the commission of one George Washington for his first military endeavors to combat the Indians raiding colonial settlements.  We know Samuel and family were among the group that returned to Lancaster to avoid Indian attacks after the murder by Indians of the Haldeman family in the Shenandoah Valley, because of his signature on a letter to the Mennonite community in Holland asking for help in the face of this challenge.

Samuel and Elizabeth had their last two children, Martin, born in 1762 in Frederick, and Regina, born in 1767 in Strasburg.  By then the family had lived in Maryland for a time while the Indian problem was dealt with, and moved to new lands west of Strasburg when they returned to the Valley.  It appears that the family's homestead around Ida passed into the hands of Samuel's sons Jacob and Daniel when the family returned to Virginia or shortly thereafter.  The two of them are shown in land records and further dealings related to the first farm the family established.

Samuel died in 1797 and is likely buried in the Boehm Cemetery along Route 55 between Strasburg and Lebanon Church, although there is no marker identifying his grave.  Elizabeth died in 1803 and is buried in the oldest grave in the Boehm Cemetery (photo to follow).  This means they were in their 60s as the American Revolution was in progress. 

I don't know that Samuel and Elizabeth were among the "Patriots," the "Tories," or among the 'indifferent' that just wanted to be left alone.  But they were born subjects of a German prince in the Palatinate, lived much of their lives as British subjects in a remote colony, and died free citizens of the American Republic.  I do know that Samuel voted for George Washington for the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1758.  So I like to think of him as a Patriot.