Chapter 4The Leinbach LegacyChapter 3

At home in Oley

The Leimbachs chose to settle in an area that could be described as the original melting pot. In fact, the word "Oley" comes from the Delaware Indian word "Olink" or "Oleka," which means "hole" or "kettle." The valley is shaped like a bowl and is surrounded by low, rolling hills. It is about seven miles from north to south and four miles from east to west. The hills feed several streams and rivers, including Monocacy and Manatawney creeks and the Schuykill River. The first white settlers to the valley were Swedes. They came as early as 1638. From all available records, the earliest settlers lived in peace among their native neighbors. Soon after William Penn received the charter for his colony in 1681, a flood of immigrants came to Pennsylvania seeking the fulfillment of his promise of religious freedom. Quakers, Lutherans, Catholics, Mennonites, Amish, Reformists and followers of several other sects found themselves drawn to the fertile valley.

Boone's farm

One man who heard about Penn's "Holy Experiment," George Boone III, an English Quaker weaver, sent his three grown children -- George IV, Sarah and Squire -- to America to get the lay of the land in 1712. George IV married his sweetheart, Deborah Howell, in Philadelphia the following year. Sarah married Jacob Stauber (aka Stover), a Swiss Mennonite, in 1714 in Philadelphia.


[ZOOM] Jacob Stauber built this cabin about 1713. It was torn down in the early 20th century. Its exact location on the Leinbach homestead is unknown. (Photo by H. Winslow Fegley. Archived in the Schwenkfelder Library. Published by Philip E. Pendleton in Oley Valley Heritage: The Colonial Years, 1700-1775, p. 114.)
Stauber moved his bride onto his 500 acres along Monocacy Creek, where he had built a log cabin and had begun farming. George IV later bought 400 acres near Stauber's tract. George III immigrated in 1718 and bought a tract of 400 acres in southern Oley (now Exeter Township). He built the first mill in the area. In 1720, Jacob Stauber and George Boone signed a petition for the formation of Oley Township.

In 1723, Sarah Stauber died suddenly, and Jacob left the valley. He had received a grant of 10,000 acres in Virginia (he was probably the purchasing agent for a group of investors) and moved there. He sold 1,500 acres to George IV. He also sold 250 acres, including the log cabin, to "Johannes Leinabah." (This was the first time the spelling was changed, but certainly not the last. For more, see Like Clay and Water.)

George and Sarah's brother, Squire, married Sarah Morgan in 1726. In 1730 Squire bought 250 acres near his father's home. In 1734, the couple's sixth child was born. Daniel would grow up to become the legendary explorer. There is no evidence that the Leinbachs and the Boones interacted very much; they lived several miles from one another. Also, the Leinbachs were Reformed (at first, anyway), and the Boones were Quakers. Both families attended the Moravian synod in John DeTurk's barn to hear Count Zinzendorf preach (more on that later).[15] Squire Boone sold his Oley Valley property in 1750 and moved his family to North Carolina.

Life in Oley

The Oley township was on the edge of the settled lands. Even after the settlers started felling trees and plowing up the soil, Indians still lived there. No violence ever broke out between the natives and the settlers, but in 1728, George Boone III, as justice of the peace, asked the governor for arms and ammunition to protect the inhabitants from the Indians. There is no evidence that the appeal was ever answered, so whatever troubles there were must have been resolved peacefully.

In 1734, according to the earliest assessor's list, the township had 61 landowners, including Johannes Leinabah [sic], who owned 250 acres (see Oley maps). The family had few neighbors. According to Johannes' youngest daughter, Maria Barbara, her father "was a pious and God-fearing man, who made me cling, according to the best of his knowledge, to all that was good. We lived very retired and cut off from the world. My father held home devotions with us children and trained us in singing and prayer."[16]

Chapter 5

Notes

15. Author's Note: In his last years, Daniel Boone lived in Missouri. Among his neighbors were the Zumwalts. John Zumwalt was one of my great-great-great-great-great-grandfathers on my mother's side. Daniel's granddaughter Jemima married John's son Henry.
16. Memoirs of Maria Barbara Nitschmann, nee Leinbach. Addition to the Report of the Congregation of Bethlehem, 1810, translated by William J. Hinke, in collections of Evangelical and Reformed Historical Society, Archives of the United Church of Christ, Philip Schaff Library, Lancaster Theological Seminary, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Cited by Philip E. Pendleton in Oley Valley Heritage: The Colonial Years, 1700-1775. Birdsboro, Pa.: The Pennsylvania German Society, 1994.

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