Meet the Family: Episode 3- Jacob and Christiana Steiger

John Stephan and Gertrude Steiger’s son Jacob (1719-1777) and Leonard and Elizabeth Spare’s daughter Christiana (?-?) were married in 1746.[1]  Jacob and Christiana are our first ancestors in the Styer line to be born in America.

Methacton Mennonite Meetinghouse

One tangible legacy of our Styer/Steiger ancestors is the Methacton Mennonite Meetinghouse. In 1739, three years after the death of John Stephan Steiger, Jacob and his mother, Gertrude, donated 32 perches of land for the construction of a Mennonite Meetinghouse and cemetery. The Steigers were joined by their neighbor, Henry Rittenhouse, who donated another 32 perches which together still form the property of the Methacton Mennonite congregation in Worcester Township.

As mentioned in a previous blog, tradition states that part of the 32 perches donated by the Steigers included the family cemetery where John Stephan Steiger was buried. Although the gravestones of J.S. and Gertrude are lost, we can safely infer that when we visit the Methacton Mennonite cemetery, we are among the remains of these immigrant ancestors. Until 2017 when it was destroyed by a great storm, the Methacton Cemetery was home to the mighty “Methacton Oak” which is thought to date from the 1630s. One might imagine that it shaded generations of Styers as they strolled the grounds of the cemetery, visiting the resting places of their forbearers.

Move to Whitpain

Jacob farmed the old Steiger farm in Worcester township until 1768 when they sold the property and moved to the adjacent Whitpain Township, Near Blue Bell, PA. The Steigers purchased 284 acres of ground and part of it remained in the family until about 1886.[2] A family tradition has recorded about the Whitpain Farm concerning Jacob and Christiana’s son Leonard, our next direct ancestor.[3] Supposedly, Leonard was born the very same night they moved into the house in 1768. In 1931, when the Spare Book was written, the Whitpain farmhouse still stood as part of an enlarged 1808 home on the property. It also references a stone-gabled barn which bears a date of 1792 which is purported to have a stone cut out in the shape of a bust of George Washington. I have not completely identified or visited this property yet to see if any of this survives, although I am fairly certain that the property in the following link is the modern-day Steiger/Styer property in Whitpain township where our ancestor Leonard was born: https://www.whitpaintownship.org/DocumentCenter/View/306/775-Morris-Road-PDF Another project for another day!

Jacob Steiger only lived nine years after the move to Whitpain. He passed away in 1777 and is buried in the Methacton Cemetery. He is buried close to the great Pennsylvania German pietist printer, Christopher Sower (Sauer) Jr. who was a business rival of Benjamin Franklin and whose estate was confiscated by the state during the Revolution when he refused to take a loyalty oath on religious grounds. Sower is best known for helping his father, Christopher Sr., to print the first European language Bible in the Western Hemisphere at the family print shop in Germantown. His grave also lies near a modern grave marker for his brother-in-law, Melchior Wagener, who married his sister Gertrude.

Faith Friction

The records are at odds regarding the faith situation of this Steiger generation. Christiana was from a solidly German Reformed background and was probably taught the Heidelberg Catechism by her parents from young womanhood. It is recorded that Jacob’s family was probably Mennonite, further supported by the fact that he and his mother donated land for the local Mennonite congregation. Jacob is buried in that cemetery. Both the Pink Book (information taken from the Biographical Annals of Montour and Columbia Counties) and the Spare Book agree that Jacob was a minister, but the Pink Book says he was Lutheran or Reformed and the Spare book claims he was a Mennonite.  If he really was a minister, my assumption was that it was Mennonite, because in order to be a Reformed or Lutheran Pastor at that time, one would have to attend seminary training in Europe. He could have been an elder or deacon in one of the other denominations, but not a minister. However, the Mennonites frequently chose their ministers by drawing lots and required no seminary training. Therefore, if he was a minister, it is likely that he was a Mennonite.

Another piece of evidence for the Mennonite side is the fact that their sons, Henry, Stephen, and John are all recorded as paying fines rather than show up for the government-required militia drills during the Revolution, a common practice among the pacifist Mennonites.[4] Stephen, like other prominent pacifists, was even hauled in front of the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety to determine his loyalty to the Revolutionary Cause. He was exonerated of treason and escaped the penalty of having all his property confiscated, which was the usual punishment as in the case of Christopher Sauer/Sower Jr. mentioned above.

It appears that the frenetic religious landscape of early Pennsylvania expressed itself within Jacob and Christiana’s marriage. “Christiana Steier” was a baptism and conformation sponsor for a girl in the Boehm’s Reformed[5] (Now UCC) church in Blue Bell.[6] After Jacob’s death at age 58, the records concerning Christiana have been scanty. We know by Jacob’s will that she was entitled use two rooms in the Whitpain home with a payment of 18 pounds sterling, a cow, and ten bushels of wheat per year. I have not been able to find her final resting place. Was she buried with her husband in the Methacton Cemetery? Or was she buried in Boehm’s Reformed Cemetery (Which is very close to the Whitpain Styer farm)? Or did she get remarried and end up buried somewhere else? Did she go to live with one of her children and end up buried wherever they were? Her final resting place, like much more about her life, is a mystery.

Descendants

Jacob and Christiana had the following children:

Susanna (1747-1750)- Jacob is buried next to her in the Methacton Cemetery.

Stephen (b. 1750-1811)- married Dorothy Ellis; lived across the road from Boehm’s Reformed Church. They later moved to Delaware.

Mary (1753-1812)- never married.

Henry (1755-1811)- inherited the Whitpain farm and became the wealthiest man in Whitpain Township; never married. [7]

John (1758-1816)- married Tacy Conrad (the first of several “Tacys” in our family!). She was a descendent of the original Germantown settlers and was a Quaker. There are still many Quaker Styers in Montgomery and Bucks county today.[8] John Styer built the stone barn mentioned earlier in the blog. Their daughter, Tacy, married Daniel Pastorius, a descendent of the original Francis Daniel Pastorius who led the very first Germans to Pennsylvania in 1683.

Jacob (1762-1791)- married a woman named Elizabeth; was a tanner by trade, buried at Methacton. [9]

David (1765-1825)- married Elizabeth Creger (1779-1873), buried at Methacton. David purchased the farm of his cousin David Wagener (son of Schwenkfelder pioneer, Melchior and Gertrude (nee Steiger) Wagener) after Wagener became embroiled in the religious fervor created by prophetess Jemima Wilkinson’s religious activities in the region in the late 1700’s.[10] The Pink Book says David had a twin, who was named Spare. He died in 1791. I will dedicate a later blog to the Wilkinson phenomenon after I have done some more reading on the topic.

Leonard (1768-1843)- born in the Whitpain home, married Mary Tyson; our direct ancestor and the subject of a later blog.

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[1] Pink Book, p. 16.

[2] Spare Book, p. 150.

[3] Spare Book, p. 144.

[4] Spare Book, p. 146.

[5] Reverend John Philip Boehm, who we discussed in the Leonard and Elizabeth Spare episode is buried in the floor of this church.

[6] Spare Book, p. 144.

[7] Spare Book, p. 147.

[8] Spare Book, p. 147.

[9] Spare Book, p. 164.

[10] Spare Book, p. 165. Several Wageners and an Anne Styer were converted by the “Public Universal Friend” Wilkinson and moved with her to a community in Upstate New York. Subject of a later blog edition

The next blog will concern Mary Tyson Styer’s ancestry which connects our family to some of the original PA Dutch families who settled in Germantown in the seventeenth century. See you next time!