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Subject: Re: Hans Jorg Oswald/Oswalt 1730 question of marriage
Date: 23 Feb 2006 16:13:06 -0700

This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list.

Surnames: Oswald/Oswalt
Classification: Query

Message Board URL:

http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/AgB.2ACI/1314.2.1

Message Board Post:

Hi Fred,
I read your message wih interest, but I differ with your statement that it is well documented that John George married Anna Barbara Dickert. What documentation are you using. to prove this?
John Caloff did indeed married Maria Magdeline "Mary" Dickert. Their children were named Henry and Susan. However, (if I copied it correctly) It is not clear that her sister married John George Oswalt.
I do not see Michael listed as a child of the Oswalt. The copy I made twice on two different visits shows only the Oswalt children as:
Mathias, Martin Mrs Snider, and Mrs. Clckely

"Henry Caloff's Will recorded pg. 204 Will Book E 1807-1818. (Vol. 31 1807-1818 pg. 462)
Henry Caloff -will of his mother- listed his sister, Susan Sifley.
Also listed were:
his mother's sister's Children Martin Oswald, Matthias, Mrs. Snider, Mrs. Clackley
His Uncle Dickart and his children:
Michael
Peter
Christopher Dickart
Mrs. Eve Margaret Folk
Mrs. Hannah Stockman
Mrs. Thomas Raine
The executors were Thomas Raine and Abraham Jones.
It was dated 5/31/1811 and witnessed b Henry?, Marcy C. Kaizer, John C. Donavan.

Roll 31 No 28 Charleston South Carolina
In the Name of God Amen
I Henry Caloff being exceeding sick but of sound mind do make this my last will and Test in manner following that is to say the whole of my property I possess at the time of my death (except my Estate or Property I may be entitled to or have by will of my mother which I hereby give to my sister Susan Sifley and Her Heirs) after Paying all just demands I give and Bequeath to my wife Mary Caloff in her lifetime and at her Death to be divided one half to be at the disposal of my wife in any manner she may in her life time think proper to give of among my relations in the manner following that is to say my half Part to be divided into 15 shares and given as follows, Five Shares between my Mothers Sister children by the Name of Oswald viz. Matthias, Martin, Mrs. Snider and Mrs. Clackley or their Heirs. Six Shares between my Uncle and children viz Uncle Dickart, Michael, Peter, Christopher Heirs Mrs. Folk and Mrs. Stockman and four shares to Mrs. Raine and her Heirs."
The only Michael listed was the child of Uncle Dickert. As listed above in the will
These Dickert children were:
Michael
Peter
Chrisopher
Mrs. Folk (Eve Margaret Dickert who married John Folk)
Mrs Stockman (Hannah Dickert who married George Stockman)
Uncle Dickert's name was Michael and the Michael listed was his child.


Another reseacher and I have been corresponding concerning this question. (Suzanne) She and I both wrote to Mr. Carol Nichols who wrote her back and she passed it on to me in this email....
" Hope, Just to keep you updated.....

Thought you might want to have a copy of the source Dr. Carl Nichols sent me on the Dickert family. He plans to notify the SC Palmetto Genealogy Assoc of the correction for Anna Barbara Dickert ie>that she married an "Unknown" Oswalt ...until further documentation can be found.

Also, he will notify them that a further search for documents must be done to determine the wife of Hans Jorg Oswalt 1730.
..

Susanne "

Harriet Imrey agreed that something was not correct in the previously stated statements in the email, 'The Frick and Nichols lists get updated on a frequent basis, and posted at www.palmettoroots.org, listed under "German Settlers". Carl Nichols and I both enjoy those good puzzles regarding marriages, children, etc.--have been batting-around Leitners, Beards, Geigers and Weavers for years now. Maybe he'll look into the Oswald-marriage issues as well. Carl and I have different collections of references. He sends me info re plats and deeds, I send him info re land petitions and militia lists. The petitions sometimes include information not available elsewhere, since a number of those did not proceed to a plat or grant. But the amount of acreage will still show who was married or single by when.

Two of the three Dickert girls appear to have documented marriages. The 5 Jan 1753 land petition of John Yearloff/Yearloft (sic) stated that he had arrived on the ship Upton, married Mary Ticket (sic) who had arrived on the Cunliffe, had settled on Camping Creek, requested 100 acres on the Bounty. So that accounts for Mary Magdalene Dickert. Her husband's name must be a mistranscription of Karloff, given the Caloff spelling used by their son Henry in his Charleston documents. Susannah is also accounted for, since she was buried in Charleston in 1805 along with her two husbands Jacob Wirth and Thomas Harris. Wirth had to have been the first one (despite the absence of dates on the gravestones). He was born in ~1737, per 5 Oct 1753 petition of his father Jacob Writh (sic). Jacob Sr., with wife and 5 children, had arrived on the snow Ann. His petition did not result in a plat or grant, which often meant that he died shortly after arrival. Four of the children, includin!
g Jacob, applied for their 100-acre Bounty grants in 1759-63. Jacob didn't run out that one either! (At least, no extant plat, grant, Memorial or Quit-Rent payment.) But he ran the 150-acre warrant on the Santee (in Craven Co) which he requested on 5 Feb 1765. Sounds like a recent marriage, at about the right time for Susanna Dickert (b. ~1741) to have married. Supportive-evidence for "first-husband status" is that Jacob Wirth and Michael Dickett (sic) witnessed a deed together in Charleston on 4 &5 Dec 1766. Susannah's daughter by Thomas Harris was Mary Dickert Harris (23 Nov 1776 - 5 Sep 1833), born in Charleston. Young Mary's husband Thomas Raine was executor of the Henry Caloff will--the Charleston branch of relatives kept sticking together over time.

That leaves only Anna Barbara Dickert to be the mother of the Oswalt heirs of Henry Caloff. Anna Barbara was born ~1736, per the 7 Nov 1752 petition of father Peter Fickkart/Tickkart (sic). Did she marry George or Mathias Oswalt? The 23 Mar 1753 petition of John Oaltwall (sic) says that John George was born ~1730 and Mathias was born ~1732. Either would be around the right age for marrying Anna Barbara Dickert. The normal thing for settlers to do was to apply for a grant following a marriage in order to get the extra 50 acres--not everybody did that, and certainly not immediately. John Geo Onsald (sic) applied for a 150-acre Bounty grant on 1 Mar 1757, did not process it, but it shows that he was married by then. Mathew Oswald applied for a 100-acre Bounty grant on 6 Dec 1763, showing that he was single at that time. On 2 Mar 1773, there was another batch of Oswald land petitions: three regular headright grants for Michael (150 acres), Christopher (150 acres) and Mat!
hias (250 acres); also five 100-acre Bounty grants for Michael, Edinger, Catherina, George, and Christopher. The Bounty grants were the only ones that got processed (the fees for the headright grants must have been prohibitive for all of the brothers; George apparently didn't even petition for one).

Anna Barbara Dickert was well into marriage-age by 1755, so presumably married somebody-or-other by then. There was a shortage of women on the frontier, plus a high rate of recycling-of-spouses, so there weren't a lot of single women living with their parents for much after age 20. John George Oswalt was married at the time of his 1757 land petition; Mathew was unmarried at the time of his 1763 petition. Would Anna Barbara Dickert have waited until after 1763 (age 26) for a first marriage? That's possible, but doesn't really fit the sociology of the time-and-place. The evidence of the land petitions (and the differentiation of Bounty from non-Bounty) tends to suggest that John George was her husband, but that's a long way from proof!

What could those repeat-entries for the Oswalts in 1773 possibly mean? Legally, people got only one shot at a Bounty grant, available only to immigrants recently arrived from Europe (with no intervening residence in a different colony). The rules were changed in mid-1755 (now a head-of-household got 100 acres, everybody else got 50). Then changed again in 1761--now any European-born person could get a Bounty grant in his/her own name, even if the Bounty had already been paid to their parents at the initial settlement. Also, the land office was being closed permanently in Apr 1773, so this was the last chance for either Bounty or headright grants.

Mathias already had a Bounty grant issued in 1765, so he wasn't eligible for another one. He applied for 250 headright acres, so had a wife and four children by then. Since he was single in 1763, he couldn't have raised any children old enough for their own grant by 1773. Christopher hadn't previously applied for a Bounty grant, so asked for 100 acres for himself, then another 150 headright-acres for 3 family members; ditto for Michael. George asked for his 100 acres on the Bounty. If he applied for headright acreage for a family, the record was not entered in the Council Journal. The Bounty grants were the only ones run out and granted.

Who were Catherina and Edinger Oswalt? They'd have to be children over age ~16 of somebody who was married before 1756 or so. "Old John" had no children younger than 17 when he arrived, so their mother wouldn't have been haven't any more little Oswalts. But a new (and younger) wife could have done so. There is some evidence that he actually did have precisely two more children shortly after arrival in SC. Watch the acreage-discrepancies in this land petition of 20 May 1754:

The Petition of John Osworld humbly setting forth That the Petitioner had a warrant (on the Bounty) for 300 acres of Land which was surveyed and the Plat returned into the Surveyor Generals office where it now remains. Your Petitioner meeting one Wordlin who proposed to let your Petitioner have Land on Little Saludy if he would let him have the Land surveyd on his warrant & £80 current which he readily gave him but hath since found that there is no title to the said Land. Your Petitioner prays that the Surveyor General may direct a Survey for his said Warrant on Little Saludy in Lieu of the former Survey and that he may have a grant for the same. Cha's Town, the 20th of May 1754. John Osworld.

Upon consideration of the said Petition it was ordered that the Surveyor General issue a Precept for the Survey of 400 acres prayed for notwithstanding any former Survey thereon in 6 months and on the Bounty and that the Surveyor General do not pass the 300 acre Plat above mentioned without a Special order from his Excellency the Governor.

It wasn't unusual for people to swap warrants prior to the issuing of a grant, or for plats to get misplaced in the Surveyor General's office. But the new one was awarded on 4 Jun 1759 in the amount of 400 acres. Must have been another two children by the time of the petition, otherwise he wouldn't have qualified for that much land. He didn't get around to filing his Memorial on it, but Christopher did that on 2 Aug 1769 (meaning that he'd inherited it as eldest son under the intestacy laws). On the same day, George memorialized 68.75 acres of that same tract and Michael memorialized 68 acres of it. A 1/6 share of 400 acres comes out to 66.7, so that's about as close as one can get to an even division among 6 children. Curiously, neighbor Mathias Grapps/Craps also memorialized 50 acres of that land on the same day. A purchase from Christopher? Or had he married an Oswald daughter or widow? No evidence either way! His 1775 will (as Krebbs) mentioned land previously !
owned by Mathias and Christopher Oswalt, left to his widow Anna Barbara (there's that name again!). She sure wasn't Michael's widow (he witnessed the will), nor was she the widow of Mathias (who was alive through at least 1790).

I have a habit of tracing the genealogy of pieces of land, moreso than of people. Of course, for farm families that comes down to much the same thing!

Harriet Imrey"
In another email, Harriet wrote,
"
In a message dated 12/13/2005 7:11:45 PM Eastern Standard Time, writes:
I see a few more discrepancies! The parish records for Peter Dickert list a daughter Catherina born in 1749, but she didn't survive the voyage--it is not possible that her father overlooked her when naming his four (not five) children, requesting land on their behalf, etc.

Susannah Dickert most certainly did not marry Hans Jacob Schneider, who was over 20 years her junior. The Snider and Weaver families of SC and Tuscaloosa AL have collected extensive documentation from both locations. Their multi-g Susannah Oswalt Snider was born in ~1765, died in 1835 in Tuscaloosa, when her pony slipped off an icy bridge. You have to wonder why a 70-year-old lady was out riding in the ice! (Tuscaloosa doesn't even have much of that.) But it was emphatically not a 93-year-old Susannah Dickert Snider riding through a blizzard. The Sniders and Weavers have lots of Oswalt relatives, but are unaware of any Dickert relatives other than Susannah's mother (whom they believe to be Anna Barbara, and wife of George Oswalt). The little Sniders included both a George and a Mathias, so the names aren't much of a clue. But two of the Snider boys (John and Mathias) named a son Mathias/Matthew, didn't name a son George."

I believe that more work is needed to determine which Oswalt did indeed married Anna Barbara. Don't you agree?

I hope to come to SC soon and do some searching. Maybe something will turn up to make this marriage clearer. Let's keep each other informed on what we find.

If I am wrong in what I perceive, please let me know. I would like documentation on this marriage, also. Look forward to hearing from you soon. I just wanted to make sure that you were aware of what Mr. Nichols found and said.
Hope

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