AMREV-HESSIANS-L Archives

Archiver > AMREV-HESSIANS > 2004-05 > 1085659515


From: "Barbara Wiemann" <>
Subject: Isaac Klinkerfuss, Hessen-Hanau Regt. Erbprinz.
Date: Thu, 27 May 2004 08:06:01 -0400
In-Reply-To: <007101c44272$b6f2ffe0$542f9618@hala1.on.cogeco.ca>


Francis Fox's book Sweet Land of Liberty contains interesting details about
Isaac Klinkerfuss which are not readily available elsewhere, so I am
submitting this information to the list. Fox's source of the information
include three depositions given by Isaac Klinkerfuss, Valentine Beidleman,
and Abraham Haynze (Haines) to Robert Levers in March 1782. The depositions
are part of the Records of Pennsylvania's Revolutionary Governments,
1775-1790, record group 27, roll 19, frames 607, 609, and 613, microfilmed
by the PA Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg, PA. Other relavant
frames with correspondence about Klinkerfuss are 605 and 629; correspondence
of Dr. Ledlie to the Board of War appears in the PA Archives, 1st series, v.
9, p. 527. The Historical Society of PA in Philadelphia has Levers' letter
of Apr. 19, 1782, to President Moore.

Klinkerfuss deserted before the German prisoners left Boston for
Virginia; he went into Boston and found work. In May 1779, his employer
recommended Isaac to American General William Heath, who gave Isaac a safe
conduct pass. Unfortunately, Klinkerfuss lost the pass, and he moved 8
miles out of Boston, where he worked briefly, before heading south 300 miles
to Mansfield, NJ, a village just south of Trenton. The trip took 2 months.
However, Isaac had difficulty finding work, so he moved north to
Phillipsburg, NJ, on the Delaware River. He found work with Valentine
Beidleman, at his mill, from August to October 1779. Then he worked for
Beidleman's neighbor Abraham Haines for almost a year. During this time
Isaac met a girl from a neighboring farm and proposed.
At this time Isaac came to the attention of Dr. Andrew Ledlie of
Easton, PA, who was the District Commissioner of Prisoners. [Fox describes
Ledlie as a "patriot whose participation in the Revolution appears to have
been motivated by nothing more than a desire to feather their own nests ...
Despite the highfalutin title, this post ranked low on the scale of
appointments; nonetheless, conniving and malicious incumbents could case
much mischief."] Since Isaac's name did not appear on the list of
parolees, Ledlie concluded that he was a deserter and decided to bring him
to justice.
Ledlie decreed that since Klinkerfuss had no papers, he must post
security or go to jail. Isaac had no security to offer, so he landed in
Easton jail. Haines, Beidleman, and a third New Jersey neighbor went to
Easton and posted 3,000 pounds Continental money as bond to secure Isaac's
release.
Klinkerfuss married in the fall of 1780 and by spring 1781 his wife was
pregnant. Ledlie dvised Klinkerfuss that he could be free if he paid Ledlie
a sum of money. Isaac's friends advised him not to pay the bribe. When
Ledlie learned that Isaac was a mason by trade, he demanded that Klinkerfuss
come to Easton and work for him. At this point, Klinkerfuss obtained a loan
from his friends to pay Ledlie's bribe, but Ledlie refused the money,
telling him that now it was either work for him or go to jail. Klinkerfuss
spent the month of November 1781 working for Ledlie. Before Christmas 1781
the doctor informed Isaac's father-in-law that Klinkerfuss had to quarry 300
or 400 loads of stone for him. Isaac demanded that he be paid for this
work, and the doctor informed Isaac that he was revoking his bond and that
he was returning him to jail (Feb. 1782).
Isaac's friends appealed to Justice Robert Levers, the Northampton
County prothonotary and county lieutenant, so Levers had the jailor bring
Isaac to his office on Mar. 7, 1782 for a deposition. Later that month,
Beidleman and Haines also gave depositions. Ledlie declared that the money
was not a bribe, but payment for medical care for Klinkerfuss' venereal
disease. He also stated that there were five or six other married Hessians
who were desirous of staying in the Easton area.
At the request of Mrs. Klinkerfuss, Levers wrote to General Benjamin
Lincoln, Secretary of the Board of War, reporting that Ledlie beat
Klinkerfuss "in a very cruel manner, making, as it is said, a hole in his
head with a stick Ledlie wears". To William Moore, President of
Pennsylvania, he wrote that "a Hessian prisoner has been cruelly abused
and unjustly confined by Doctor Ledlie..." Mrs. Klinkerfuss was to go to
Philadelphia to deliver the letter personally.
But at this point Ledlie freed Klinkerfuss from jail (about the end of
April) and he returned home to New Jersey and his wife and child.
Thus ends the official Pennsylvania record of deserter Isaac Klinkerfuss.
Interestingly, Klinkerfuss never lived in Pennsylvania, but the
documentation for his activities is in Pennsylvania records.

Barb Wiemann



This thread: