WEISS, Matthias
Birth Name | WEISS, Matthias 1 |
Gender | male |
Events
Birth | Feb 15, 1709 at Mulhausen, Germany |
Death | Nov 4, 1795 at Bethlehem, Northampton County, PA |
Burial | Bethlehem Moravian Cemetery |
Attributes
Identification Number |
Families
Married | Wife | FIRNHABER, Maria Margaretha Catharina |
Marriage | May 27, 1743 at Frankfurt am Mayn, Germany | |
Narrative | 2 CSTA C129 | |
Children |
WEISS, Maria Catharina WEISS, Mathias WEISS, Johannes WEISS, Mathias |
|
Married | Wife | NEUMAN, Regina |
Marriage | 1756 at Bethlehem, Northampton County, PA | |
Children |
WEISS, Johann George WEISS, Paulus |
Narrative
GodÕs Acre
Came to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in 1743 with the 'First Sea
Congregation' from Herrnhaag, Germany via Holland. He became
Bethlehem's first dyer (listed as a chemist) and no doubt the
forest furnished his dyes.
From January 1744 to March 1747 they lived at Nazareth, Pa. in
the Whitefield House.
Following closely after the first purchases of land by the
Church in the present Northampton County, Pennsylvania, in the
year 1741, two colonies were organized in Europe, which are
known as the 'First' and 'Second Sea Congregations,' followed by
four at later dates... There were four vessels, the Catherine,
Little Strength, Irene, and Hope, owned by the Church and afloat
at different dates, and their crews, with but few exceptions,
were members of or connected with the Church. For the
transportation of the colony organized in Germany for peopling
the settlements on the Nazareth tract, and known as the 'Second
Sea Congregation,' the Little Strength was purchased in England,
and Capt. Nicolas Garrison appointed her Master. Late in August
of 1743, she was dispatched to Rotterdam where the colonists
were taken on board, and on Septemeber 17 sailed for New York,
where she arrived after a passage of eighty-seven days. Matthias
and Margaret C. Weiss were colonists aboard this ship.
Naturalization: 13 Mar 1762, Pennsylvania Naturalizations
2 SOUR S9
2 SOUR S24
1 HIST The Moravian Church
1 HIST
1 HIST The Moravian Church traces its origins to followers of John Hus,
the Bohemian martyr who was burned at the stake in 1415, and
dates its formal beginning from 1457, when one group of the
Hussites took the Latin name of Unitas Fratrum, or Unity of the
Brethren*. Persecuted for many years in central Europe, in the
17th century they were reduced to meeting in secret and handing
down their faith to their children as part of the family
tradition. Under the influence of Christian David, and inspired
by the pietist movement, a group of families moved from Moravia
to Saxony in 1722, where they found refuge on the estate of a
young Lutheran nobleman, Count Nicholas von Zinzendorf, and
founded a religious village which they named Herrnhut
("protected by the Lord"). The church was formally reorganized
there in 1727. In 1735 an American settlement and mission to the
Indians was begun in Georgia, but was abandoned after five years
because of irreconcilable differences with the local government.
Settlements in northeastern America were begun in 1740, and the
congregation town of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was founded in
1742. It remains the church headquarters today. In the 1740s and
1750s the church brought several shiploads of settlers to
Bethlehem and the other congregational communities, the
so-called "Sea Congregations", who assembled in Europe and
traveled together to America.
Source References
1. | GEDCOM File : Robert G Nohavec Confidence: Normal |