Gummere Family of the USA

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Gummere Family of the USA


Background

The Church of the Brethren was founded in 1708 in the town of Schwarzenau near Bad Berleburg, Wittgenstein, on the Eder river in Westphalia, Germany, when Alexander Mack, a native of the Palatine and some followers met to study the bible and worship together. Having come to the conclusion that triple total immersion, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, in flowing water was of great importance, they went down to the Eder and baptised each other. They became popularly known as Dunkards or Dunkers.

Their new religion attracted a lot of interest and soon people began to convert from the Protestant Reform Church which attempted to wipe out the new sect by persecuting its members. Many of the Brethren fled to Krefeld on the Rhine. Hearing of the religious freedom in William Penn's new colony in America twenty families, some 120 people, set sail. They arrived in Philadelphia in 1719 and settled in Germantown. One of the familes was that of Johannes Gömere and his wife Anna Koch.

The Brethren believed in a simple life, non-resistance and a refusal to bear arms. They met in unadorned meeting houses and sat on backless benches. Members were not allowed to take an oath. Their dress was similar to the Quakers with the men wearing broad-brim hats, coats with no lapels, and untrimmed beards. The women wore white caps inside the house, and bonnets outside, simple, high-necked, longsleeved dresses, and cape for when it got cold. Jewellery was forbidden.

The names Johannes and Anna Gömere was anglicised to John and Anne Gummere. In the early records a wide variety of spelling variation is found - Gomery, Gommery, Gumre etc.

Please follow the links to the pages about Johannes and Anna Gömere/Gummere and some their descendents:-

Johannes and Anna Gömere/Gummere   (c1670-1738)

John Gummere II (c1705-1783)

Samuel Gummere (1749-1825)

John Gummere III (1784-1845)

Samuel James Gummere   (1811-1874)

Francis Barton Gummere (1855-1919)

Richard Mott Gummere (1883-1969)

There are many descendents of John and Anna Gummere, of which the direct line above are a few. In fact all with the surname Gummere in the United States today descend from them. If you need information on other Gummere lines please contact me.

If I have something wrong I would greatly appreciate being corrected, or if you have something to add to the story then please email me .

References:-
A Mural History of the Church of the Brethren, published by Camp Alexander Mack, Milford, Indiana, 1953
The Brethren, The Schwenkfelders, and Other Plain People, on the Pennsylvania-Dutch website at http://www.horseshoe.cc/pennadutch/
URL=http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~gomery/gummere.html
Last revised: 6 October 2006
© Linda Hansen 2006