Signature of Nicholaus Kachelriess
The first documented Kachelriess in America was Nicolaus Kachelriess, who arrived on September 27, 1737 at the Port of Philadelphia, aboard the ship "Snow Molly" which left from Amsterdam, Holland and sailed to America via Dover, England.
This Nicholas is most likely the progenitor of the North American Kachelriess Family, but there is no proof this is so. Kachelriess was anglicized into Cocklerees, Cocklereese, Cocklreas, Cocklereece and in NC, TN, and IN many from this line became Reece, Reese, or Rees -- in a family who apparently could not agree to the spelling of their surname.
There were 95 "Palatine" passengers aboard the Snow Molly. (All passengers may or may not have actually been from Palatine, Germany. It was a common practice to record all passengers from one originating point, which simplified record keeping.) All male passengers over the age of 16 (there were 31) were listed by the ship's captain, John Howell. The other 64 passengers would have been females (all ages) or males 16 or under.
There were no other Kachelriess immigrants listed on this voyage; however, it is not known whether or not Nicolaus came to American alone, or with a wife and young family -- or other male relatives under 16 years of age, who would not have been recorded. (Source: Ralph Beaver Strassburger: Pennsylvania German Pioneers, Vol. I, page 173-174 )
A Nicholas Cochelrise is recorded on the 1737 Philadelphia County, PA Census, and appears to be the same Nicholas who arrived on the Snow Molly. At this point he disappears from PA -- and it seems possible that he died shortly after arriving in America, since he doesn't surface again anywhere (that I've found).
To date, no documentation has been discovered that reveals the name of the father of Tabalt and Michael Cocklereece, but it is possible that Nicholas was their father. (It is believed that the given named "Tabalt or Tabolt" is a misspelling of another unknown name, probably Theobold, Theobald or Theobaldus, an 18th century German given name.)
Consider the following:
First mention of Cocklereece in North Carolina is in 1769 Tax Census records for Granville County, NC indicate Tabolt's son (who is mentioned in Mythias Myars' March 1770 Will) indicate Mythias/Mathias was born before 1749, since only males over the age of 16 were recorded. If at least 16 when his son was born, Tabolt would have been born before 1733.
In the Will of Mythias Myars, March 1770, Myars/Miars mentions his "sons" Michael and Taball Cocklereese, and Taball's son Mythias Cocklereese.
A 1753/1754 land transaction for a Mathias Myars (the stepfather to the two Cocklereese boys, who were about 19 and 21 then) is the first record of Mathias Miers/Myars in NC: Granville County Deeds, Patent Book 14, page 5, (abstract 2474) transaction dated 4/26/1754; Mathias Miers purchases 400 acres in Granville County on both sides of Skelton Creek; Witnesses Jno Haywood, Sher Haywood; SCC Benford Dickens, Griffin Nunary; Wm Churton, Surveyor.
Michael is probably the elder of the two since he inherited the largest portion of Mythias Miars estate in 1770.
Based on a possible 1752 birthdate for Mythias, son of Tabolt, and because he appears to be named for Mary's second husband, Mythias/Mathias Miers/Myars, it is plausible that the father of Tabolt and Michael died before 1752. Bridging the two generations, I believe that Michael and Tabolt were probably born between 1733 and 1735.
If born in 1735, Tabalt would have been 31 at the time of Mythias Myars death in 1770, and a toddler in 1737. Likewise, Michael, if born in 1733 would have been 33 in 1770, and toddler in 1737. Both Michael and Tabalt could have been born in Amsterdam, Holland. This is important since it establishes that a connection between Nicholas, Michael and Tabalt is possible.
It appears that both of Mary Kachelriess's sons (Michael and Tabalt) COULD have arrived on the Snow Molly; however, there is one problem -- a published genealogical paper (National Genealogical Society Quarterly, September 1951) which indicates Johannes Kachelriess, who is known to be the son of Michael, was born in 1760 in Holland -- 23 years after the 1737 arrival of the Snow Molly -- and also 6 years after Mythias Miers 1754 Granville Grant. Because of the source (NGSQ), the birth year and place are assumed to be reliable facts, but the author is dead, and the supporting documentation is unknown. In addition, no census records indicate John/Johannes was foreign born. I believe the reference to a birthplace was actually for Michael, John's father.
In America, the name Cocklereece has been found to be an "Anglicized" version of the German surname Kachelriess (in German records of the Friedens Church in Gibsonville, NC). Present-day Kachelriess descendants in Germany say Kachelriess is a VERY rare German name which originates in a small area in northern Bavaria. Most Kachelriesses come from or near Unternesselbach, Mittelfranken, Bayern (Bavaria, Germany), which is northeast of Stuttgart and northwest of Nuremburg. The majority of the Kachelriess records I have found at the LDS Library in SLC, (there are quite a few in the Brenner Collection) originated in this area.
Passengers On the 1737 Snow Molly who appear in early Tax Records:
Johann Lenhart Wulffart
1737 WILLFORT JOHN LENOARD Philadelphia County PA Philadelphia PA
Early Census Index
Georg Simeon Christ
1737 CHRIST GEORGE SIMON Philadelphia County PA Philadelphia PA Early Census Index
Nicolaus Kahelries
1737 COCHELRISE NICHOLAS Philadelphia County PA Philadelphia PA Early Census Index
Georg Friederich Wollenweber
1737 WOLLENWEBER GEORGE FREDR Philadelphia County PA Philadelphia PA Early Census Index
Excerpts from Carolina Cradle (Robert Ramsey, 1964 )
The German Migration
Pages 146 - 151
Beginning in 1690 and continuing throughout the first half of the eighteenth century large numbers of Germans emigrated from the Rhenish Palatine and other areas of the Rhine Valley. Destructive wars, religious persecutions, and extravagant accounts of the promised land of America (widely circulated by agents of ship companies and firms speculating in colonization schemes) encouraged thousands of Rhinelanders to cross the Atlantic.
The War of the League of Augsburg (1689-97) and the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-14) provided the principal reason for this migration. The winter of 1688-89 was exceedingly severe in Europe, and it was during that winter that the Rhenish cities of Mannheim, Heidelberg, Worms, and Speyer were destroyed or damaged by the contending armies. Nearly five hundred thousand Germans were driven from their homes into the snow.
In 1707, the struggle over succession to the Spanish throne brought new destruction to the left bank of the Rhine. Once again countless numbers were rendered homeless, providing impetus for mass emigration involving thousands of Rhinelanders .
Chiefly through the efforts of William Penn and the Quakers, the migration of these people was directed toward Pennsylvania. Penn himself was half Dutch, his mother having been a native of Holland, and he made a number of preaching expeditions to that country and to Germany. George Fox, the founder of the society of Friends, had also been to Germany, and large numbers of the early emigrants from western Germany were not only encouraged by the Quakers but also partially financed by them.
Benjamin Furly, an Englishman by birth, became Penn's chief continental agent for the sale of his lands. To encourage settlement of Pennsylvania, Furly caused to be printed a German and Dutch translation of an English pamphlet entitled "Some Account of the Province of Pennsylvania in America" (London, 1681).' This was followed by "A Description of the New Found Province of Pennsylvania in America" (Hamburg, 1694). As a result of this advertising campaign, thirteen German families from Krefeld sailed for Philadelphia in 1683.
During the next twenty years, German immigration was slight. It has been estimated that only two hundred settlers and their families arrived during this period, most of whom located at Germantown.' After 1702, however, the flow of immigration greatly increased. The new arrivals pushed into the country west of Philadelphia, leaving the Quakers in undisturbed possession of that city.
Adding to the rapid accumulation of Germans in Pennsylvania was a substantial group from the Hudson Valley of New York. These Palatines, brought into New York in 1708 to provide labor for an ill-fated naval stores industry, traveled down the Susquehanna at the invitation of Pennsylvania's Governor Keith and settled in northern Philadelphia County between 1723 and 1728.
By the middle of the eighteenth century, as a result of the simultaneous growth of the English, Scotch-Irish, and German population, desirable land had become quite scarce in Pennsylvania, and the cost of farm land rose prohibitively. By 1750, according to Gehrke, the number of Germans in Penn's colony reached seventy or eighty thousand, nearly one-half of the total population in 1752, Michael Schlatter, a leader in the Reformed Church, estimated the German population of Pennsylvania at ninety thousand.
The three chief denominations among the Pennsylvania Germans were the Lutherans, led by Henrich Melchior Muhlenberg; the German Reformed, led by Michael Schlatter; and the United Brethren (or Moravians), under the leadership of Nicholas,Count Zinzendorff.
As the Lutherans had a great leader in Muhlenberg, so the German Reformed congregations found an organizer in Michael Schlatter. Most of the Palatines probably belonged to the German Reformed Church, which was akin to the Lutheran, but followed reforms instituted by Calvin and Zwingli. They were very close in their religious doctrines to the Presbyterians.
When Schlatter arrived in September, 1746, he found only four preachers of the Reformed Church in Pennsylvania, while the number of communicants was approximately fifteen thousand.
Between 1725 and 1734, Reformed Churches were established in Philadelphia, Lancaster, and upper Bucks counties. By 1748, the congregations in Philadelphia and Berks counties included Philadelphia, New Goshenhoppen, Falckner Swamp (New Hanover), Bern, Cacusi, Dunkel's, and Tulpehocken. In Lancaster County were Muddy Creek (East Cocalico Township), New Providence (Strasburg Township), Seltenreich, Lancaster, Quittopahilla, and Millbach (the last two in present-day Lebanon County). In northern Bucks County were Egypt, Great Swamp, and Tohickon.
The earliest Lutheran settlements were established before 1730 at New Hanover (near Germantown), Philadelphia, and Trappe (New Providence). The Moravians under Zinzendorf reached Pennsylvania in 1738 and 1739 ' settling chiefly in the Lehigh Valley of northern Bucks County." There were an estimated one thousand Moravians in Pennsylvania by 1762.
In New Jersey, the earliest German settlements occurred in 1714, principally located in present-day Hunterdon, Somerset, Morris, Bergen, and Essex counties. Approximately three hundred different German names existed in Jersey by 1762.
There were few Germans in Maryland before 1725 The most important settlement in that colony was established in the Monocacy Valley, where an estimated one hundred fifty taxables made up the settlement in 1747 .2' The southwestern corner of Pennsylvania's York County was included in this colony. Many of these Monocacy Valley settlers landed at Baltimore between 1725 and 1735, while others reached the area by traveling along an Indian trail extending from Wright's Ferry on the Susquehanna to the Monocacy near the point where it crosses the Maryland-Pennsylvania border.' This trail followed the Monocacy River for a time, then went westward through South Mountain at Crampton's Gap and continued on to the Potomac. The first group of these German pioneers settled near present-day Creagerstown.
Fifty-two licenses were issued between 1733 and 1736 to settlers desiring to take up land west of the Susquehanna along Codorus Creek. Most of these pioneers were Germans.
As early as 1732, Jost Hite (Heit) of Monocacy entered the Shenandoah Valley and realized that the way was open for German expansion southward . By 1735, he had established a prosperous German settlement on Opequon Creek near the Bryan Quaker colony.' At the same time, more than fifty German families were settled on nine plantations in the southeastern part of present-day Rockingham County, Virginia." Winchester had German inhabitants as early as 1738; Woodstock by 1740.
By 1750, favorable reports reached the Germans regarding the fertility and cheapness of land in the Granville district of North Carolina (already being populated by Scotch-Irish from the Shenandoah Valley). The successful Moravian settlement at Wachovia in 1753 greatly encouraged the southward movement of other Germans living in Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Many Germans moved to Carolina after 1750, and the southward movement came into "full swing" by the time Spanzenberg's United Brethren unloaded their wagons at Bethabara.
Most of the German settlers in the forks of the Yadkin and along Second Creek in Rowan County originated, as has been described, in Pennsylvania. They were members of the Lutheran and Reformed churches, but their number was insufficient to erect a meetinghouse for the sole use of either denomination." Although evidence is lacking, they are believed to have built a temporary church on Jacob Volenweider's land for the use of both groups, It was known as the "Hickory Church" and subsequently crumbled into ruin.
There seems little doubt that the fundamental cause of German migration to the Carolina frontier was the increasing scarcity of desirable land in Pennsylvania. One has but to travel across the central part of Lancaster County to realize that the German settlers, who entered Pennsylvania in large numbers a decade before the Scotch-Irish immigration, acquired most of the fertile land in the county. The land in Donegal and Drumore was far less desirable.
These facts assume great importance in the light of the physical characteristics of Rowan County, for the evidence in this living in the region in considerable numbers prior to the arrival of the Germans. A type of soil known as Cecil clay, which is heavily concentrated in the well-watered region settled by the early Scots, is one of the strongest soils of the county. It is especially well-suited to the production of corn, wheat, oats, rye, clover, and grasses-the chief crops of the first settlers. It is highly productive and has a higher average value per acre than any other soil in the county." On the other hand, the land in southeastern Rowan consists largely of Iredell, Alamance, or Appling loam. Though suitable for the raising of grain, this soil is considerably less productive than Cecil clay. Gehrke, Fisher, and Hammer have written convincingly regarding the agricultural efficiency of the German pioneers. It is inconceivable that the Germans would have settled in the southeast had the clay soil been available. It is noteworthy, too, that virtually all of the creeks in the county have English rather than German narnes. This evidence added to that revealed by the court records warrants the conclusion that the Scotch-Irish were the first settlers in what is today Rowan County. Although a few Germans were among the first settlers, it seems clear that general Teutonic immigration did not begin until after 1752.
Sources
R. B. Hardison and R. C. jurney, Soil Survey of Rowan County, North Carolina (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1915), pp. 23-25, 47.
Carl Hammer, Rhinelanders on the Yadkin: The Story of the Pennsylvania Germans in Rowan and Cabarrus (Salisbury, N.C.: Rowan Printing Co., 1947),
Sydney George Fisher, The Making of Pennsylvania: An Analysis Of the Elements of the Population and the Formative Influences that Created One of the Greatest of the American States (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1909),
Julius F. Sachse, "Benjamin Furly," The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 85 vols. (Philadelphia: publication fund of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1877-1961), XIX, 286-87.
Rufus M. Jones, Quakers in the American Colonies (New York: Russell and Russell, Inc., 1962), p. 522.
William H. Gehrke, "The German Element in Rowan and Cabarrus Counties" (unpublished master's thesis, University of North Carolina, 1934),
A. B. Faust, The German Element in the United States, With Special Reference to Its Political, Moral, Social and Educational Influence, 2 vols. (New York: Steuben Society of America, 1927), 1, 122-23.
William J. Hinke, "Reformed Church Records of Eastern Pennsylvania Arranged Chronologically and According to Counties," Publications of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania, 22 vols. (Philadelphia: Edward Stern and Co. [and other publishers], 1895-1961), XIII, (nos. 1-2), 90-92.
Dieter Cunz, The Maryland Germans, A History (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1948), p. 67.
Bernheim, History of the German Settlements and of the Lutheran Church in North and South Carolina, From the Earliest Period the Colonization of the Dutch, German and Swiss Settlers to the Close of the First Half of the Present Century (Philadelphia: Lutheran Book Store, 1872)