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SERGIUS

Some descendants of Wernerus Sergius, Pastor of Rückeroth, Neuwied

Throughout these notes we rely almost incessantly on Henry Z. Jones, Jr.’s magisterial Palatine Families of New York (1985), and More Palatine Families (1991).[1] Jones states the parentage of Philip Sergius (no. 2 below) with caution, noting that it is inferred from baptismal sponsorships.

Additional entries from the Reformed churchbooks of Herborn are taken from the online Ortsfamilienbuch Herborn.

We are grateful to Terrance Strater for pointing out a translation error in an earlier version of these notes.

1.   Werner(us) Sergius, Pastor of Rückeroth (now in the Westerwaldkreis) in the Grafschaft of Neuwied, in the Rhineland-Palatinate, born say 1625-30, died before 8 September 1707, supposedly at Nordhofen (now in Westerwaldkreis, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany).[2] As Werner Sergius he is recorded about 1656 in the Reformed churchbook of Bad Schwalbach as a teacher (Lehrer) at Rhens, in the district of Mayen-Koblenz, in the Rhineland-Palatinate.[3] The name of Werner Sargus appears in a list of the pastors of Rückeroth; he was installed there in 1658, succeeding Henrich Eschweiler, and was in turn succeeded in 1674 by Arnold Schnabelius, from Nümbrecht.[4] He is called “the deceased Herr Wernerus Sergius, formerly pastor of Rückeroth” in the 1707 marriage record of his daughter Anna Catharina. There was a tendency — whether due to deliberate preference or simply to convenience — for the seventeenth-century ministers of Rückeroth to be drawn from the graduates of the University of Heidelberg; and the huge gap in its matriculation register from 1632 to 1652, which includes the almost the entire period during which he could possibly have attended, is unfortunate for our purposes.[5] He married (1) on “Whit Tuesday” [i.e. 27 May] 1656 at Langenschwalbach (now Bad Schwalbach), Hessen,[6] Anna Catharina Vieger, who died before 5 July 1668 (the date of his second marriage). Considering that Werner Sergius is attested at Rhens about the time of his marriage, it seems possible — although it is only a guess — that Anna Catharina may have been a daughter of Christian Vieger, burgher, and one of the elders of the Reformed congregation of Rhens.[7] Wernerus Sergius married (2) 5 July 1668 at Herborn, Dorothea Fickhard, born 26 July 1640 at Herborn, died there 15 April 1714, daughter of Hans Jacob Fickhard and Anna Elisabeth ____. Their marriage record calls him a widower.
    Known issue:

(by first wife:)

  1. 2(presumably) Philipp Sergius, born say 1658.

(by second wife:)

  1. Anna Elisabeth Sergius, baptized 16 September 1669 at Herborn, died there (evidently unmarried) 1 February 1738 in the alms-house, aged 69 [actually 68] years, and buried there 3 February following, her burial record calling her a daughter of the late pastor of “Rückerod in Wied” (weiland predigers zu Rückerod im Wiedischen nachgelassene ehliche tochter ist im armenhauß im 69 Jahr ihres alters gantz verkrüpelt, doch christlich verstorben).
  2. Anna Catharina Sergius, born by 1678, alive in 1716. She married 8 September 1707 at Herborn, Hans Jacob Ess, born 1659-60 (aged 49 in 1709), “son of the late Johannes Ess, formerly of Sonthofen in the Augsburg area.”[8] “Hans Jacob Egh” and his wife and one child sailed on Capt. Robbert Bulman’s ship in Holland in 1709. Jacob Ess, husbandman and vinedresser, aged 49 years, and his wife and daughter, aged 1 year, Roman Catholics, were in the fourth party of arrivals in England later that year.[9] Around 9 October 1709, Jac. Ess is recorded as a “Palatine convert from Popery who was admitted to the Lord’s Supper in the Protestant communion at the Lutheran Church at the Savoy in London.”[10] The name of Jacob Ess appears in a list of adult men living at Livingston Manor, New York, in the winter of 1710 and summer of 1711,[11] and he was one of the men of Annsberg, Livingston Manor, who volunteered in the expedition against Canada on 16 July 1711.[12] In Simmendinger’s register of Palatine immigrants settled in New York about 1716-17, the names of Jacob Ess and wife Anna Catharine, of Neu-Ansberg (Hartmansdorf), appear only one entry away from that of Johannes Mühl (i.e. Maul), whose son Christoffel married Anna Catharina’s niece Anna Juliana Sergius, below.[13] Only known child born in Europe:
    1. Maria Catharina Wilhelmina Ess, born 19 July 1708 at Herborn, baptized there 26 July following; no further record found.

2.   Philipp Sergius, of Nordhofen (now in Westerwaldkreis, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany), presumably a son of Pastor Wernerus Sergius and the latter’s first wife, Anna Catharina Vieger, was probably born around 1658, and was still alive in 1710. He married 14 November 1682 at Nordhofen, Maria Elisabeth Andreas, alive in 1710, daughter of Johann Wilhelm Andreas, Oberschultheiß (head census-taker and tax-collector) of Selters in Nordhofen, probably by his wife Juliana ____. Philipp Sergius was at Nordhofen at the time of his marriage in 1682 and at the baptism of his daughter Anna Juliana in 1689. “Philip Sargusch” with his wife and five children were among the sixth party of Palatines preparing to depart from Holland in 1709, the entry for their family on the Rotterdam Lists being next to that of Johannes Maul (father of Philipp Sergius’s son-in-law Christoffel Maul). The Sergius family left for England but for some unknown reason returned to Holland on board the ship John in 1710, at which time it numbered only six persons, the missing member evidently being the daughter Anna Juliana (our ancestress), who Jones surmises had married Christoffel Maul some time during the voyage.[14]
    Among their issue was:

  1. Anna Juliana Sergius, baptized 24 March 1689 in Nordhofen Reformed Church with sponsors Anna Lovisa wife of Hans Peter Hördts at Mogendorf, Maria Juliana wife of Bertram Bergs, and Johann Thi[e]l Scheyer from Selters; she was still alive in 1751. She married probably in 1709-10, Christoffel Maul, of Hanover Precinct (now Montgomery Tp.), Ulster (now Orange) Co., New York, baptized 15 January 1688 at Driedorf, Hessen-Nassau, Prussia, and still alive in 1751, son of Johannes Maul, of Hohenroth near Driedorf, and of New York City, by the latter’s first wife, Anna Juliana Theiss.[15] The first record of Christoffel Maul in America is on the Hunter list of 4 August 1710. He is not found with his step-mother and sisters in the “List of the Palatines remaining at New York City” of 1710, and he had possibly already removed by then to Kingston, where his eldest child was baptized in 1712, and where he was naturalized on 8/9 September 1715. For further details see Maul.

Notes

1. Henry Z. Jones, Jr., Palatine Families of New York, 1710, 2 vols. (Universal City, California, 1985) [hereafter cited as PFNY]; More Palatine Families: Some Immigrants to the Middle Colonies 1717-1776 and their European Origins… (Universal City, California, 1991) [hereafter cited as MPFN].
2. Historie der Pfarrer in der Kirchengemeinde Rückeroth, at http://www.ekg-rueckeroth.de/pfarrer.html.
3. Alexander Ritter, Konfession und Politik am hessischen Mittelrhein, 1527-1685 (Hessische Historische Kommission Darmstadt und Historische Kommission für Hessen, Quellen und Forschungen zur hessischen Geschichte, 153, Darmstadt & Marburg, 2007), 495, citing Evangelisches Pfarrararchiv Bad Schwalbach, Kirchenbücher (copy in Archiv der Evangelischen Kirche im Rheinland, Archivstelle Boppard, Kirchenbücher 13/3): Reformiertes Kirchenbuch (1649-1741).
4. This list is printed on p. 260 of a volume a Nassauische Annalen (Verein für Nassauische Altertumskunde und Geschichtsforschung, Wiesbaden), somewhere between vol. 64 and 66, as appears from a Google Books snippet.
5. Die Matrikel der Universität Heidelberg von 1386 bis 1662, ed. Gustav Toepke, 2 vols. (Heidelberg, 1886). Of the seven known pastors of Rückeroth who served during the seventeenth century, three also served at churches in the Rhineland and consequently have biographical entries in Albert Rosenkranz, Das Evangelische Rheinland: ein rheinisches Gemeinde- und Pfarrerbuch, 2 vols. (1956-1958). Of these three, who happen to be the immediate precursors of Wernerus Sergius, all are known or believed to have attended the University of Heidelberg (for the styles of the names we follow the list in Nassauische Annalen, as above):
  1. Peter Knopeus, von Oberdreis, pastor 1573–1611 [?]. Better known as Peter Knopæus, he was as “Peter Knopeus ” attended the University of Heidelberg. (There is a probable gap in the list after his pastorate.)
  2. Amandus Knopeus, pastor 1627–1631. See Rosenkranz, 2:265. Better known as Amandus Knopeus, he was as “Mantua Knopius, Rückenrodeneis ex comitatu Widdensi” matriculated at the University of Heidelberg on 3 May 1593 [Matrikel der Universität Heidelberg, 2:167], and as “Amandus Knopaeus, Wedensis,” graduated from the Paedagogium of Herborn in 1594 [Matrikel der Hohen Schule und des Paedagogiums zu Herborn, ed. Gottfried Zedler & Hans Sommer (Veröffentlichungen der historischen Commission für Nassau, 5, 1908), p. 452].
  3. Johannes Schellwald aus Beuren [Büren in Cochem], pastor 1651–1655. According to Rosenkranz [2:440] he attended the University of Heidelberg, although we cannot find record of his matriculation. Johannes Schelbaldus, Beurensis, was graduated from the Paedagogium of Herborn in 1614 [Matrikel der Hohen Schule und des Paedagogiums zu Herborn, 619].
  4. Henrich Eschweiler, pastor 1656–1658. Better known as Heinrich Eschweiler, he was born at Hückeswagen, and possibly attended Heidelberg [Rosenkranz, 2:120]. Henricus Eschweiler Hockeswagensis was graduated from the Paedagogium of Herborn in 1609 [Matrikel der Hohen Schule und des Paedagogiums zu Herborn, 555].
  5. Werner Sargus, pastor 1658–1678 [?].
  6. Arnold Schnabelius, von Nümbrecht, pastor 1678–1683. Probably the Arnold Schabelius, Homburgensis, who was graduated from Herborn in 1668 [Matrikel der Hohen Schule und des Paedagogiums zu Herborn, as above, p. 622].
  7. Johann Jakob Muselius von Neukirch, pastor 1683–1725. Johannes Jacobus, Deciensis ex Newkirchen, was graduated from Herborn in 1677 [see Matrikel der Hohen Schule und des Paedagogiums zu Herborn, 598].
6. PFNY 1:604.
7. Christian Vieger, elder, was alive in 1653, as evidenced by August Heldmann, “Die cölnische Stadt Rhens am Rhein in hessischer,” Zeitschrift des Vereins für Hessische Geschichte und Landeskunde 31 (1896): 1-68, at p. 50. Ritter, Konfession und Politik am hessischen Mittelrhein, 1527-1685, as above, p. 444, notes that Christian Vieger, Bürger, was probably the father of Maria Vieger, who married Jakob Rühl, a soldier from Koblenz, and had two sons, Johann (born 2 ____ 1671) and Johann Wilhelm (born 23 July 1674), baptized as Catholics.
8. PFNY 1:217.
9. PFNY 1:217.
10. MPF 331.
11. ”Names of Male Palatines, Above Twenty-one Years Old, in Livingston Manor, N. Y., in the Winter 1710, and Summer 1711,” in I. Daniel Rupp, A Collection of upwards of Thirty Thousand Names of German, Swiss, Dutch, French and other Immigrants in Pennsylvania From 1727 to 1776, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia, 1876), 446-49, at p. 448.
12. “List of Palatine volunteers in Annsberg Haysbury and Queensbury Expedition against Canada,” Annual Report of the State Historian of the State of New York, vol. 2 (1897), 442-45. This edition of the list is preferable to that in E. B. O’Callaghan, Documentary history of the state of New-York, 4 vols. (Albany, 1849-1851), 3:571-72. The origin of the Palatine villages is thus explained in J. H. French, Gazetteer of the State of New York (Syracuse, N.Y., 1860), 245-46, n. 15: “A tract of 6000 acres, forming the present town of Germantown [in Columbia County], was purchased, on the 9th of Sept. 1710, of Robd. Livingston by Gov. Hunter, for the use of these people [the Palatines]. It was designed to employ them in raising hemp and making tar, pitch, and rosin for the royal navy, and they were furnished with provisions and tools…. The enterprise was unsuccessful, and many of the settlers removed to the Mohawk and Schoharie Valleys. In the summer of 1711 a company of 25 men from ‘Hunterstown’ volunteered in the expedition agaiust Canada. In 1725 the tract was granted by letters patent to the inhabitants of ‘East Camp,’ to be divided equally in fee after reserving 40 acres for church and school purposes.”
13. PFNY 1:217. The register, unfortunately rearranged in alphabetical form, is printed in Walter Allen Knittle, Early Eighteenth Century Palatine Emigration: A British Government Redemptioner Project to Manufacture Naval Stores, Ph.D. dissertation, College of the City of New York (Philadelphia, 1937).
14. PFNY 1:603-6.
15. PFNY 1:604.

From the Genealogy Page of John Blythe Dobson
URL = johnblythedobson.org/genealogy/ff/Sergius.cfm
This page first appeared 11 April 2010
Last revised 31 January 2022