Day 91

That great story I told you about the DeHavens last Friday - forget it. The man (PhD or not) who wrote the book in 1912 skated around a lot of details and settled on writing a nice fable rather than researching his information.

I arrived at the Montgomery County Historical Socity at 9:15 this morning. By 9:30, I had 6" of manila folders full of DeHaven materials to read. In the first packet was a five page dissertaion on why Mr. Ross's book was inadequate and undocumented. His information didn't align with tax records, probates, census data, or land deeds. Mr. Ross was correct in that DeHavens came to Montgomery County, PA and he spelled the name correctly but the loan to the US government came from a DeHaven brother-in-law (a Hughes) not from the modest DeHaven coffers. So here is the well-documented scoop (should have known the first attempt was too easy).

Everet in der Hoffan/Hoof came to Germantown, Philadelphia in 1698 from Mulheim/Ruhr - Northrhine/Westphalia. With him came his wife Elizabeth Schlphower (Lisebiet Schibbauerr) and four sons - Gehard, Herman, Peter, and William and dauhter Annecken. They came from the same town in Westphalia as the founder of Germantown. The in den Hoffs were farmers and laborers (cordwainers, weavers, tanners) of modest means. As the family learned English, the surname was variously spelled - In ten Hoffe, inden Hoven and finally, dropping the "in" - DeHaven. In 1710, Everet purchased land about 30 miles out in Whitpain township, Montgomery County and moved to the country.

Son Peter and his first wife Sidonia Levering had - yes - 12 children. The eldest was Edward. On many of the family charts, Edward is simply listed as "born 1712" and "settled in Kentucky" (the chart I saw last Friday and several more today). However, tax records have Edward living in Whitpain Township in 1760 with his wife Margaret and six children. I have eliminated other Edwards in the third generation. Gerhard had a son Edward but he died about the same time as his father and had no children. Herman also had a son Edward but Herman died in 1752 - five years before our Kentucky Edward was born so Herman's Edward would have been significantly too old to fit the known timeframe. I can find no Edwards at all in generation 4.

What I hope to find is that Edward (b. 1712) is the father of Edward (b. 1757 in PA) and is one of the six children noted on the tax rolls. (They were not listed in any document I read during my 7 hours.) I believe it is this Edward Jr. who (hopefully) moved to Westmoreland Co.,PA (my Thursday destination), married Rebecca Johnson/Johnston and move to Kentucky. More on the saga as the week progresses.

The photo is of the commemorative gravestone for Peter DeHaven (7 g grandfather - we hope). His grave and that of his 2nd wife are in the Broehm's Reformed Church Cemetery in Blue Bell, PA. The old gravestones are virtually impossible to read.