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