More than a dozen potters and their apprentices resided in Rowan County, North Carolina from 1755 through the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Most of the potters resided in the town of Salisbury, a community made possible by a 1755 grant for 635 acres of land issued by the British agents of the Earl of Granville, Sir George Carteret, one of the original Lords Proprietor of the Province of Carolina. Rowan County was formed from Anson County in 1753 and Salisbury was created along the Great Trading Path, a vital American Indian route across Piedmont North Carolina, as the site for the new county’s court house and prison.[1]
Many of the region’s early residents were German Palatines affiliated with the Lutheran and Reformed churches whose families first settled in Pennsylvania following their escape from persecution and economic deprivation in European homelands. They traveled to Carolina down the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road, which had been extended in a southwesterly direction through the Moravian Wachovia settlement (in what is today Forsyth County) to Salisbury.[2]
James Carter and Hugh Forster acquired deeds for Salisbury property in 1755 and became the town’s trustees. The site plan they established was defined by four quadrangles surrounding the intersection of Innes and Corbin (present-day Main) streets, with each quadrangle divided into lots (Figure 1). Soon after the town’s incorporation, Governor Arthur Dobbs described Salisbury as, “just laid out, the courthouse built and seven or eight log houses erected.”[3]
 Figure 1 |
In May 1755 a potter named John Adams purchased a town lot where he presumably established a shop, making him not only one of Salisbury’s original residents but also the first documented potter of European ancestry to bring his trade to North Carolina. While there is no known pottery that can be positively attributed to Adams—or any of Salisbury’s earliest potters—this article presents documentary evidence that may perhaps aid in identifying the work of Salisbury’s and Rowan County’s late eighteenth-century potteries.
Surviving examples of earthenware with strong Rowan County provenances do exist, but none are signed or otherwise identifiable as the product of a specific early Salisbury pottery. The wares these potters produced almost certainly reflected Germanic earthenware traditions as each of the documented potters were either born and trained in Central Europe, born to first-generation immigrant potters from that region, or apprenticed or worked with immigrant potters such as the Moravian Gottfried Aust in Wachovia’s towns of Bethabara and Salem.
Salisbury’s eighteenth-century potters most likely produced lead-glazed earthenware exclusively. Much of their pottery may have been plain ware, either coated with a clear glaze or with glaze tinted by the addition of manganese, copper, or iron oxides. Some of it may have had slip-trailed designs added, or sponged, splashed, or brushed-on applications of colorant applied for decoration.
Artisans such as potters and other tradespeople were almost immediately drawn to Salisbury for its economic opportunities and centralized trade routes. By 1789, thirty-four years after its establishment, Rowan County became the largest county in the state with 20,000 inhabitants.[4] In 1804, Salisbury became the first town west of Fayetteville with a bank and its land values were the highest in the state.[5] The potters documented in this article were integral to that growth. They should be remembered even if their earthenware pots have been broken, buried, or lost to time.
|
Approximate Working Dates |
|
|
1755–1762 |
|
|
1765–1784 |
|
|
1765–1805 |
|
|
1784–1812 |
|
|
1778–1799 |
|
|
1786–1824 |
|
|
1783–1790 |
|
|
1789–1818 |
|
Apprentices |
Approximate Working Dates |
|
Thomas Pasinger (apprenticed to Henry Barroth) |
1777 |
|
Joseph Bowen (apprenticed to George Michael Morr) |
1797 |
|
Jacob Winsler (apprenticed to George Michael Morr) |
1798 |
|
Jacob Barroth (apprenticed to Henry Barroth?) |
1799 |
|
Jacob Kelsiback (apprenticed to Benedict Mull) |
1809 |
|
George Freedle (apprenticed to Thomas Pasinger) |
1824 |
John Adams (Johannes Adam)
born 1729; died 1762; working: 1755–1762
John Adams purchased lot 28 in Salisbury’s southeast town square on 29 May 1755, making him the first documented potter of European ancestry to bring his trade to North Carolina.[6] Adams arrived six months before Gottfried Aust, the Moravian master potter in Bethabara (in present-day Forsyth County), and seven months before the alleged purchase of land in Orange County by Palatine potter Martin Loy.[7]
Adams was born 29 September 1729 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, the first American-born child of Palatine immigrants Johannes Nicolausen Adam (b. ca. 1695) and Juliana Bernhardina Schweickhardt. His parents had emigrated in 1727 from Eichtersheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany on the ship William & Sarah.[8] In Pennsylvania they attended Muddy Creek Lutheran Church in East Cocalico, Lancaster County where their son was baptized Johannes Adam on 8 May 1730.[9]
John Adams undoubtedly learned the pottery trade in Lancaster County from his father. The Eichtersheim Lutheran Kirchenbuch record of Nicolausen Adam’s 1719 marriage identifies him as a potter.[10] At the age of twenty, John Adams married Maria Eva Schmidin (Eve Smith) on 8 April 1751 at Muddy Creek Church.[11] He probably worked as a potter in Salisbury for about seven years, from his arrival in 1755 to his death in 1762.
In January 1762, just months before his death, thirty-two-year-old John Adams acquired 229 acres of land on the waters of Rowan County’s Crane Creek from his brother-in-law George Smith. The tract was defined as a messuage tenement plantation, suggesting that it contained a dwelling house and outbuildings.[12] Letters of administration for the management of Adams’s estate, granted to his widow Eve Adams and brother-in-law George Smith, indicate that he died sometime between April (when he served as a Rowan County juror) and July 1762.[13] The 1820 will of John Adams Jr., who was born in 1752 in Lancaster County, indicates that he resided on his father’s Crane Creek land.[14]
In 1765, the Rowan County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions made George Smith guardian for John Adams’s five minor children (John, Barbara, George, Peter, and Susannah).[15] The same July court received an inventory of John Adams’s estate.[16] George Smith and Eve Adams administered the estate. Eve Adams married Georg Christoph Knortzer (George Christopher Knatzer) before 1767. Eve and her husband, as well as her children by John Adams, are mentioned in her father Peter Smith’s will written in September 1767.[17]
In 1770, orphaned eighteen-year-old John Adams Jr. was bound as an apprentice to Rowan County blacksmith Paul Rousmith for two years, nine months.[18] Adams’s second son, George Adams, was bound in 1774 to James Hendricks to learn the trade of a wheelwright and turner.[19] The third son, twenty-year-old Peter Adams, moved to Boone’s Station, Kentucky in 1779 with his uncle, Jacob Hunter. Following a term of Revolutionary War service, Peter Adams settled in Washington County, Kentucky.[20] He resided there when he died in 1843.[21] It does not seem that any of John Adams’s children worked at the pottery trade.
Michael Morr
born: unknown; died: ca. 1784; working: 1765–1784
Susannah Kinder Morr
born: unknown; died: ca. 1805; working: 1765–1805
The 1762 death of John Adams may have encouraged potter Michael Morr to move to Salisbury. A journeyman potter from Coburg, Bavaria, Morr came to work with Gottfried Aust at the Moravians’ pottery in Bethabara on 15 September 1762.[22] On 11 April 1765 Morr purchased lots 81 and 82 in Salisbury’s east square from John Lewis Beard.[23] The lots were two of four lots previously occupied (without legal title) by the ordinary operator, Jacob Frank. Called the “spring lots,” they were the site of Frank’s spring, still house, and dwelling house.[24]
Morr purchased two tracts of land outside of Salisbury in 1767 and 1768, totaling 490 acres (170- and 320-acre tracts).[25] In each instance, associated deeds identified him as a potter. Morr was one of four trustees who in 1768 purchased Salisbury lot number 67 in the town’s east square on behalf of the community’s German Lutheran Congregation.[26] He also purchased lot number 68 in the town’s west square in May 1768.[27] On more than one occasion, Michael Morr served as a constable for the town of Salisbury.[28] In his will, written on 17 August 1784, Morr mentions a dwelling house in town, a 170-acre tract of land, and a tract of land purchased from Frederick Getcher.[29]
Michael Morr married Susannah Kinder in Rowan County on 1 December 1761.[30] Susannah Morr almost certainly made smoking pipes for the pottery since her husband bequeathed to her, “the mould or Instruments of making pipes.”[31] In 1785, Susannah Morr sold Salisbury lot number 68 to George Smith (perhaps the brother-in-law of potter John Adams).[32] Susannah’s will, written in 1804 and recorded in October 1805, suggests that she outlived Michael Morr by about two decades.[33]
George Michael Morr
born: ca. 1768; died: ca. 1812; working: 1784–1812
Michael Morr’s eldest son, George Michael Morr, also worked in the pottery trade.[34] He was married in Rowan County to Easter (Esther) Earnhardt on 14 January 1789.[35] A year earlier, in 1788, he purchased Salisbury lots 81 and 82 from his father’s estate.[36] On 5 May 1797, ten-year-old Joseph Bowen was apprenticed to Morr by the Rowan County Court.[37] A year later, Morr accepted seventeen-year-old orphan Jacob Winsler as an apprentice.[38] George Michael Morr died on 11 December 1812, suggesting that he may have been working on his own in the pottery trade from around the time of his father’s death in 1784 until his own death 1812. No evidence is known to determine if George Morr’s apprentices, Joseph Bowen and Jacob Winsler, completed their apprenticeships or worked as potters.
Henry Barroth (Johann Heinrich Barroth)
born: unknown; died: 1799; working: 1778–1799
In 1778, Moravian potter Henry Barroth purchased one-half of lot number 7, being the southwest side of the lot, in Salisbury’s south square.[39] A year before, in 1777, he had taken twelve-year-old orphan, Thomas Pasinger, as an apprentice to the potter’s trade.[40] Barroth may have come to Salisbury as early as 1774 to work alongside Michael Morr, or to compete with him for the growing town’s trade.[41] Morr’s son, George Michael Morr, witnessed Barroth’s will in 1799, suggesting a relationship between these two pottery-making families.[42] Barroth’s will also suggests that his own son Jacob may have had an interest in becoming a potter: “to my son Jacob I give all my tools, if it is his pleasure to learn my trade.”[43] Whether or not Jacob ever worked as a potter is unknown, but items in his household, sold after his death 1803, included a pipe mold, potter’s tools, shop wares, a turning bench, bricks, and stone.[44]
Eight years before his move to Salisbury, in 1766, Johann Heinrich Barroth (sometimes spelled Beroth) apprenticed under Salem potter Gottfried Aust.[45] As was so often the case with apprentices, Barroth’s relationship with his master was a troublesome one. At the time it was said:
Beroth has been seriously asked to change his previous and present way of life, because he only causes trouble for himself as well as for others by gossiping about bad things in his master’s house, things of which he has only heard, also through doing nothing, spoiling the work of his master… . He has to be better or he will not be tolerated in this place.[46]
Barroth failed to meet the Moravians’ expectations and he was asked to leave Salem. He did so on 25 March 1774.[47] A year later, on 29 May 1775, he was married in Rowan County to Cristian Hollibo.[48] A Bethania Diary entry dated 20 September 1775 indicates that the married couple, then of Salisbury, visited his brother in Bethania.[49] Henry Barroth’s career as a potter in Salisbury, either as a journeyman or master, may have extended from his arrival there to the time of his death in 1799.
Thomas Pasinger
born: 1765; died: unknown; working: 1786–1824
Regardless of his difficulties with his own master, Henry Barroth must have been an adequate teacher of the pottery trade since his apprentice, Thomas Pasinger, became a master potter himself, taking George Freedle to be his apprentice in Rowan County on 16 August 1824.[50] Following completion of his apprenticeship, Pasinger may have settled south of Salisbury in Mecklenburg County near the Rowan/Mecklenburg county line. This portion of Mecklenburg County became Cabarrus County in 1792. The 1790 Federal Census of Mecklenburg County lists Thomas Pasinger, as do the Federal Censuses of Cabarrus County for 1800 through 1820. Land records indicate that Thomas and Margaret Pasinger owned land on the waters of Irish Buffalo, Coldwater, and Coddle creeks.[51] These properties lie near the route of the Indian trading path that, a few miles northward, traversed the town of Salisbury. Unfortunately, none of these records specifies Pasinger’s trade.
Henry Wenzel (Johann Heinrich Wenzel)
born: 1734; died: 1797; working: 1783–1790
In his 1789 will, Henry Wenzel required that his “children shall continue with my wife until the sons are seventeen years of age at which age they shall get trades.”[52] He goes on to say that, “if any of my sons will learn the pottery trade [he] shall have all my tools & necessaries for the potter’s business & all my glazing.”[53] Wenzel’s 22 September 1797 estate inventory does not contain any items relating to his pottery.[54] This evidence suggests that his son, Jacob, or his stepson Benedict Mull, took him up on his offer to continue his trade as a potter. Another of Wenzel’s sons, Henry, died as a minor.
Born in the Germanic state of Hessen, in 1734, Henry Wenzel (born Johann Heinrich Wenzel) emigrated to Pennsylvania around 1760.[55] Eighteen years later he married Maria Barbara Dewald(t) Moll in Berks County, Pennsylvania.[56] His wife was the widow of Johann Benedick Moll, with whom she had a son, Benedict Mull. The Wenzel family moved from Pennsylvania to North Carolina by 1783 when Henry Wenzel was granted 297 acres on the waters of Rowan County’s Buffalo Creek by the State of North Carolina.[57] Lying near Rowan County’s southern boundary with Mecklenburg County (Cabarrus County after 1792), the land was about ten miles south of Salisbury.
After Wenzel’s death in 1797, and presumably after his mother’s death, Benedict Mull was named guardian of two of his step-sisters, Mary and Barbara Wenzel, in 1811.[58] Four years previous, Henry Wenzel’s 297-acre tract, described as lying on the waters of Schenewoulf’s Creek (Jennie Wolf’s Creek), was purchased by his step-son.[59] Benedict Mull then sold the tract to Jacob Rimer in February 1819. Benedict Mull and his step-sister Barbara Mull signed the deed.[60]
Benedict Mull (Benedict Moll)
born: 1777; died: 1857; working: 1789–1818
It appears most likely that Benedict Mull learned the pottery trade from his step-father, Henry Wenzel. He was working on his own by 1809, when Mull took six-year-old Jacob Kelsiback (possibly a spelling variation of Helsabeck) to be his apprentice to the pottery trade in Rowan County.[61]
Mull was born in Pennsylvania in 1777 to Johann Benedick Moll and Maria Barbara Dewald(t).[62] His father died that same year. Court records about the settlement of the estate of Johann Benedick Moll indicate that his widow married Henry Wenzel in 1778.[63] Henry Wenzel called Benedict Mull his stepson in his 1789 Rowan County will.[64]
In 1792, Benedict Mull was confirmed nearby at Organ Lutheran Church (originally named Zion).[65] [66] He was married to Hannah Pless in Rowan County in 1800.[67] The Mull’s were members of Organ Church, where at least seven of their children were baptized between the years 1806-1816.[68]
Mull moved his family to Union County, Illinois sometime before 1820.[69] His Illinois household in 1840 included one person employed in manufacture and trade, suggesting he may have continued to work as a potter after leaving North Carolina.[70] He married Sarah Gunter (Guner) in Union County in 1847.[71] Ten years later, in 1857, Benedict Mull died and was buried in the Casper Cemetery in Anna, Union County, Illinois.[72]
Stephen C. Compton is an independent scholar and author specializing in North Carolina pottery. He can be reached at [email protected].
[1] James S. Brawley, The Rowan Story, 1753–1953: A Narrative History of Rowan County, North Carolina (Salisbury, NC: Rowan Printing Co., 1953), 9, 15, 18–19.
[2] Hugh Talmage Lefler and Albert Ray Newsome, North Carolina: The History of a Southern State (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1954), 78.
[3] William L. Saunders, ed. The Colonial Records of North Carolina, Vol. V, 1752 to 1759 (Raleigh, NC: Josephus Daniels, Printer to the State, 1887), 355; available online: https://archive.org/details/colonialrecordso05nort (accessed 30 January 2019).
[4] Brawley, 107.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Rowan County Deeds, Book 6, p. 542 (microfilm), State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC. Salisbury was divided into four squares (N-S-E-W). This designation stating that lot 28 was situated in the town’s southeast square is unusual and makes its location uncertain.
[7] Before arriving in North Carolina on 4 November 1755, Aust worked in the Moravians’ Bethlehem, Pennsylvania pottery (John Bivins Jr., The Moravian Potters in North Carolina [Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1972], 17). The 30 December 1755 date for Martin Loy’s arrival in North Carolina comes from Loy family genealogist Dolores Loy Wall. This author has found no record verifying this claim, but an account of Revolutionary War service made by Martin’s son, John Loy, substantiates the claim that the family arrived in North Carolina in 1755. Email correspondence with the author, 3 January 2008.
[8] Ralph Beaver Strassburger, Pennsylvania German Pioneers: A Publication of the Original Lists of Arrivals in the Port of Philadelphia From 1727 to 1808, Vol. I, 1727–1775, edited by William John Hinke (Camden, ME: Picton Press, 1992), 8.
[9] William John Hinke and Frederick S. Weiser, Records of Pastoral Acts at the Lutheran and Reformed Congregations of the Muddy Creek Church, East Cocalico Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, 1730–1790” (Breinigsville, PA: Pennsylvania German Society, 1981), 18 and Sources and Documents of the Pennsylvania Germans, Vol. V (Breinigsville, PA: The Pennsylvania German Society, n.d.).
[10] Annette Kunselman Burgert, Eighteenth Century Emigrants from German-Speaking Lands to North America, Vol. I: The Northern Kraichgau (Breinigsville, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania German Society, 1983), 34.
[11] Hinke and Weiser, 118.
[12] George Smith to John Adams, 20 January 1764, Rowan County Deeds, Book 4, p. 680 (microfilm), State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC.
[13] Jo White Linn, Abstracts of the Minutes of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, Rowan County, North Carolina, 1753–1762, Vol. I (Salisbury, NC: Jo White Linn, 1977), 151.
[14] Will of John Adams Jr., 4 February 1820, Rowan County Wills, Book H, p. 415 (microfilm), State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC; available online: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:37SQ-29C4-499?i=215&wc=32LP-92Q%3A169928201%2C170996801&cc=1867501 (accessed 30 January 2019).
[15] Jo White Linn, Abstracts of the Minutes of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, Rowan County, North Carolina, 1763–1774, Vol. II (Salisbury: Jo White Linn, 1979), 45.
[16] Ibid, 44.
[17] Will of Peter Smith, 19 September 1767, Rowan County Wills, Book A, p. 150 (microfilm), State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC; available online: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:SQWF-N7XR-9?i=159&wc=32L2-16D%3A169928201%2C170955601&cc=1867501 (accessed 29 January 2019).
[18] Linn, Abstracts of the Minutes…, Vol. II, 110.
[19] Ibid, 163.
[20] Membership application of Paul Grundy Adams, descendant of Peter B.F. Adams, National No. 95418, State No. 768, 29 March 1968, Sons of the American Revolution Membership Applications, 1889–1970, microfilm, 508 rolls (Louisville, KY: National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, n.d.); available online with subscription: Ancestry.com, U.S., Sons of the American Revolution Membership Applications, 1889–1970 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA.
[21] Michael L. and Bettie Anne Cook, eds., Pioneer History of Washington County, Kentucky (Owensboro, KY: Cook and McDowell, 1980), 285.
[22] Adelaide L. Fries, ed., Records of the Moravians in North Carolina, Vol. 1, 1752–1771 (Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton Printing Company, 1922), 250; available online: https://archive.org/details/recordsofmoravia01frie/page/250 (accessed 30 January 2019).
[23] John Lewis Beard to Michael Morr, 11 April 1765, Rowan County Deeds, Book 6, pp. 145–146 (microfilm), State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC.
[24] Robert W. Ramsey, Carolina Cradle: Settlement of the Northwest Carolina Frontier: 1747–1762 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1964), 162.
[25] George Laenigen and Jacob Eller to Michael Morr, 2 June 1767, Rowan County Deeds, Book 6, pp. 483–484 (microfilm), State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC and John Mitchell to Michael Morr, 23 July 1768, Rowan County Deeds, Book 6, pp. 589–590 (microfilm), State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC.
[26] John Lewis Beard to Michael Brown, Michael More, Cooper Gunther, and Peter Reed, trustees of the German Lutheran Congregation in the Township of Salisbury, 9 September 1768, Rowan County Deeds, Book 7, pp. 13–14 (microfilm), State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC.
[27] William Temple Coles to Michael Morr, 5 May 5, 1768, Rowan County Deeds, Book 6, pp. 590–591 (microfilm), State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC.
[28] Linn, Abstracts of the Minutes…, Vol. II, 115 and Vol. III, 66.
[29] Will of Michael Morr, 17 August 1784, Rowan County Wills, Book B, pp. 162–163 (microfilm), State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC; available online: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:SQWF-NWGM-9?i=180&wc=32L2-16F%3A169928201%2C170961301&cc=1867501 (accessed 30 January 2019).
[30] This marriage date for Michael and Susannah Morr, and Susannah’s stated maiden name, Kinder, are unverified, though both facts are frequently cited as factual by family historians.
[31] Will of Michael Morr.
[32] Susannah Morr to George Smith, 22 October 1785, Rowan County Deeds, Book 10, pp. 376–377 (microfilm), State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC.
[33] Will of Susannah Morr, 7 November 1804, Rowan County Wills, Book E, p. 97 (microfilm), State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC; available online: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:SQWX-HQPD-9?i=103&wc=32L2-FMC%3A169928201%2C170969001&cc=1867501 (accessed 30 January 2019).
[34] John Morr, another son of Michael and Susannah Morr, was apprenticed at age fifteen in 1790 to Tobias Furrier to learn the trade of a blacksmith. Cited from Larry A. May, “Michael Murr (the Potter)” in Murr Family History, Generations 1, 2, & 3, online: http://vistascape.tripod.com/descmich.htm (accessed 30 January 2019).
[35] George Michael Morr to Easter Earnheart, 14 January 1789, North Carolina Marriages, 1759-1979, online: https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/results?count=20&query=%2Bgivenname%3A%22George%20Michael%22~%20%2Bsurname%3AMorr~&collection_id=1675514 (accessed 30 January 2019).
[36] Rowan County Deeds, Book 11, p. 476 (microfilm), State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC.
[37] Joseph Bowen to George M. Murr, apprenticeship to the potter’s trade, 5 May 1797, Minutes, Rowan County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions (microfilm), State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC.
[38] Jacob Winsler to George Murr, apprenticeship to the potter’s trade, 8 May 1798, Minutes, Rowan County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions (microfilm), State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC.
[39] Adlai Osborn to Hinry Barroth, 6 March 1778, Rowan County Deeds, Book 8, pp. 486–487 (microfilm), State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC.
[40] Thomas Pasinger to Henry Barroth, apprenticeship to the potter’s trade, May 1777, Minutes, Rowan County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions (microfilm), State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC.
[41] Bivins, 56.
[42] Will of Henry Barroth, 6 January 1799, Rowan County Wills, Book D, pp. 152–153 (microfilm), State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC; available online: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:2:77TG-KBXB?i=159&wc=32LX-VZ7%3A169928201%2C170979901&cc=1867501 (accessed 30 January 2019).
[43] Ibid.
[44] Inventory of Jacob Barroth estate sale, 10 June 1803, “North Carolina Estate Files, 1663–1979,” Rowan County, B, Barrot, Jacob (1803), images 2–3, online: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9PGL-NJH?i=1&cc=1911121 (accessed 30 January 2019).
[45] Bivins, 56-57.
[46] Aufseher Collegium Minutes, 16 March 1773, translated by Erika Huber, Anne P. and Thomas A. Gray Library, Old Salem Museums & Gardens, Winston-Salem, NC.
[47] Bivins, 57.
[48] Henry Beroth to Christian Hollibo, 29 May 1775, North Carolina Marriages, 1759-1979, online: https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/results?count=20&query=%2Bgivenname%3AHenry~%20%2Bsurname%3ABeroth~&collection_id=1675514 (accessed 30 January 2019).
[49] Adelaide L. Fries, ed., Records of the Moravians in North Carolina, Vol. 2, 1752–1775 (Raleigh, NC: Edwards & Broughton, 1925), 910; available online: https://archive.org/details/recordsofmoravia02frie/page/910 (accessed 30 January 2019).
[50] George Freedle to Thomas Passinger, apprenticeship to the potter’s trade, 16 August 1824, Minutes, Rowan County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions (microfilm), State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC.
[51] On 28 October 1801 Thomas and Margaret Pasinger sold 150 acres from their Cabarrus County plantation on the waters of Irish Buffalo Creek at the Rowan County line to John Michael Winecoff, Cabarrus County Deeds, Book 4, pp. 208–209 (microfilm), State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC. On 18 October 1809 Thomas Pasinger of Cabarrus County sold 478 acres on the waters of Cold Water and Coddle creeks to Richard Brandon, Cabarrus County Deeds, Book 7, pp. 235–236 (microfilm), State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC.
[52] Will of Henry Wensel, 14 November 1789, Rowan County Wills, Book E, p. 16 (microfilm), State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC; available online: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:SQWX-H76S-9?i=19&wc=32L2-FMC%3A169928201%2C170969001&cc=1867501 (accessed 30 January 2019).
[53] Ibid.
[54] Inventory of Henry Wensel estate sale, 22 September 1797, “North Carolina Estate Files, 1663–1979,” Rowan County, W, Wensel, Henry (1797), images 4–5, online: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9PP4-N9G?i=3&cc=1911121 (accessed 30 January 2019).
[55] Memorial for Johann Heinrich Wenzel, www.findagrave.com, memorial ID 186820645, online: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/186820645/johann-hienrich-wenzel (accessed 30 January 2019).
[56] Alfred Smith, Abstract of Wills of Berks County, Pennsylvania, 1752–1798, Vol. I (Philadelphia, PA: Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania, 1898), 250. This court record reads: “Benedictus Moll – Winsor – June 24 1778 Adm to Barbara Wentzel – late widow of intestate.”
[57] State of North Carolina to Henry Wensel, 10 October 1783, Rowan County Deeds, Book 9, p. 476 (microfilm), State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC.
[58] Guardianship bonds for Mary Wensel to Benedick Mull, 5 February 1811, and Barbary (Barbara) Wensel to Benedic Mull, 5 February 1811, Rowan County, North Carolina, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC.
[59] Jacob Winsel, Ana Mary Winsel, and Sussana Winsel, to Benedick Mull, 22 July 1807, Rowan County Deeds, Book 23, pp. 427–428 (microfilm), State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC.
[60] Benedict Mull to Jacob Rimer, 1 February 1819, Rowan County Deeds, Book 25, pp. 585–586 (microfilm), State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC.
[61] Jacob Kelsipack to Benedict Mull, apprenticeship to the potter’s trade, 6 February 1809, Minutes, Rowan County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions (microfilm), State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC.
[62] Memorial for Benedict Mull, www.findagrave.com, memorial ID 110398710, online: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/110398710/benedict-mull (accessed 30 January 2019).
[63] Smith, 250. This court record reads: “Benedictus Moll – Winsor – June 24 1778 Adm to Barbara Wentzel – late widow of intestate.”
[64] Will of Henry Wensel, 14 November 1789, Rowan County Wills, Book E, pp. 14–16 (microfilm), State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC; available online: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:SQWX-H76S-9?i=19&wc=32L2-FMC%3A169928201%2C170969001&cc=1867501 (accessed 30 January 2019).
[65] “Benedict Mull Family Group Sheet,” posted 21 April 2010, available online with subscription: Ancestry.com, “Benedict Mull Family Group Sheet” posted by user sbcover176 21 April 2010.
[66] The church gained its new name after Johannes Stirewalt (Steigerwaldt) installed a pipe organ in the original log church’s sanctuary. Heinrich Wenzel joined other church members in support of the construction of a stone church building (completed in 1794) to replace the one made of logs. Harry T. Sifford, Organ Lutheran Church, Rowan County, North Carolina, Founded 1745: A Brief History (Historic Organ Church Foundation, Inc., November 1993), 4-5.
[67] Marriage of Benedick Mull (to Hannah Pless), 3 (March?) 1800 (bond date), Rowan County, North Carolina cited from Catherine A. Jackson, An Index to Marriage Bonds Filed in the North Carolina State Archives (Raleigh, NC: North Carolina Division of Archives and History, 1977).
[68] “Benedict Mull Family Group Sheet.”
[69] 1820 United States Federal Census for Union County, Illinois. A Union County historian recorded that Mull was among a group of settlers to that area up to and including the year 1818 (William Henry Perrin, History of Alexander, Union & Pulaski Counties, Illinois (n.p.: O.L. Baskin & Co., 1883), 288.
[70] 1840 United States Federal Census for Union County, Illinois.
[71] Marriage of Benedict Mull to Sarah Guner (Gunter), 23 September 1847 (bond date), cited from Dodd, Jordan, Liahona Research, comp., Illinois Marriages, 1790–1860, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, UT; available online with subscription: Ancestry.com, Illinois, Compiled Marriages, 1790–1860 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA.
[72] Memorial for Benedict Mull, www.findagrave.com, memorial ID 110398710, online: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/110398710/benedict-mull (accessed 30 January 2019).
© 2019 Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts