This family never became large. Many Swiss migrants disliked Germany and found the opportunities lacking. The children or grandchildren of these migrants, disconnected from their homeland, often migrated again. So it was with Heinrich Zumbrun, person #8 in the genealogy below.

1. Founder of the Zumbrunnen family in Baden-Württemberg, Germany

Around the early-to-mid 1600s, two Zumbrunnen men appear to have lived in the Baden-Württemberg region of Germany (at the time, this was the Duchy of Württemberg, a part of the Holy Roman Empire) which was immediately to the north of Switzerland. They were likely born near the end of the Thirty Years’ War. The war devastated this region of Germany. When the war ended, many migrants were needed to rebuild. There’s no evidence the family has early roots in Germany, so the unknown founder was likely a Swiss emigrant who came at the end of the war or the beginning of the rebuilding process.

His children were:
  +  2  i.   Johann Zumbrunnen was born about 1645.
  +  3  ii.  Johann Heinrich Zumbrunnen was born about 1648.

2. Johann Zumbrunnen(Son of Founder) was born about 1645. His name is attested to on both children’s marriage certificates.

His children were:
  +  4  i.  Johann Peter Zumbrunnen was born about 1678 and died about 1727 naer Crailsheim, Baden-Württemberg about age 49.
  +  5  ii. Balthasar Zumbrunnen was born in Walthann.

 
3. Johann Heinrich Zumbrunnen(Son of Founder) was born about 1648. His name is known from the marriage certificates of his children. The ages of his children suggest he was likely a younger brother of Johann Zumbrunnen.

His children were:
  +  6  i.  Johann Jacob Zumbrunn was born about 1690.
      7  ii. Anna Catharina Zumbrunn was born about 1690. Anna married Johann Melchior Eckstein on 11 Jun 1713 in Marbach, Neckarkreis, Württemberg.

4. Johann Peter Zumbrunnen(Son of Johann, Founder) was born about 1678 and died about 1727 near Crailsheim, Baden-Württemberg about age 49. He married Anna Ursula Schens, daughter of Georg Schens, on 26 Aug 1715 near Crailsheim. Anna Ursula was born about 1683, died in 1756 about age 73, and was buried on 26 Dec 1756 near Crailsheim.

Children from this marriage were:
  +  8  i.   Heinrich Zumbrun or Johann Heinrich Zumbrunnen was born in 1717 near Crailsheim, immigrated to Berks County, Pennsylvania, in 1754, and died before 1799 in Pennsylvania or Maryland.
  +  9  ii.  Johann Georg Zumbrunnen was born about 1720 near Crailsheim.
     10  iii. Anna Maria Magdalena Zumbrunnen or Magdalena Zumbrunn was born on 5 Feb 1724 near Crailsheim. A Magdalena Zumbrunn was the sponsor of a baptism at her brother’s church in Berks County, Pennsylvania, suggesting that she may have immigrated with her oldest brother, or followed him a few years later.

 
5. Balthasar Zumbrunn(Johann, Founder) was born near Crailsheim. Marriage records of his children say that he worked as a tailor. Balthasar married Barbara Enzlöhners on 1 May 1722 near Crailsheim.

Children from this marriage were:
      11  i.  Catharina Barbara Zumbrunnen was born in 1722. Catharina married Johann Georg Schörrler on 16 Jun 1750 in Speyer, Bavaria.
      12  ii. Georg Michael Zumbrunn was born about 1727, died on 18 Aug 1728 about age 1, and was buried on 19 Aug 1728 near Crailsheim.

Balthasar next married Anna Barbara Hofmann on 5 Aug 1734 near Crailsheim.

Children from this marriage were:
      13  i.   Georg Michael Zumbrunn was born in 1736. Georg married Regina Stechhöfer on 4 Dec 1785 in Ansbach St Johannis, Bavaria. No known children.
  +  14  ii.  Johann Georg Zumbrunn was born in 1739 in near Crailsheim, died on 26 Apr 1806 at age 67, and was buried on 28 Apr 1806 in Kirchberg (Oa. Gerabronn), Württemberg. Birth years suggest he was a twin.
      15  iii. Johann Christian Zumbrunn was born in 1739. Johann married Anna Maria Brand on 16 Dec 1768 in Ansbach, Bayern, Deutschland. No known children.
 
 
6. Johann Jacob Zumbrunn (Johann Heinrich, Founder)was born about 1690. Johann married Anna Judith Grampp daughter of Johann Jerg Grampp, on 26 Jul 1711 in Marbach, Neckarkreis, Wuerttemberg.

Children from this marriage were:
      16  i.   Margretha Dorothea Zumbrunnen was born in 1712.
      17  ii.  Anna Elisabetha Zumbrunn was born in 1715.
      18  iii. Johann Jacob Zumbrunn was born in 1717.
 
 

8. Heinrich Zumbrun(Johann Peter, Johann, Founder)was born in 1717 or 1718 near Crailsheim, Baden-Württemberg and died before 1799 in Pennsylvania or Maryland. His full name was Johann Heinrich Zumbrunnen but records suggest he primarily used the name Heinrich Zumbrun.

Heinrich married Maria Eva Lehr, daughter of Sebastian and Anna Lehr, on 22 Apr 1749 in Schwegenheim, Germersheim, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Records suggest she mostly used the name Eva. Eva was born about 1720 in Schwegenheim. She previously had married Johann David Degen who died in 1748. They had one daughter, Anna Barbara Degen.

Heinrich and Eva had three children in Schwegenheim:
      19  i.   Anna Dorothea Zumbrunn was born on 22 Jan 1750 in Schwegenheim.
      20  ii.  Johann Andreas Zumbrunn was born on 31 Oct 1751 in Schwegenheim, died on 20 Aug 1753 in Schwegenheim, at age 1, and was buried on 21 Aug 1753.
  +  21  iii. Apollonia Zumbrunn was born Nov 1753 in Schwegenheim, died on 18 Oct 1821 at age 67, and was buried in Ladiesburg, Frederick County, Maryland.

In 1754, Heinrich and Eva left Schwegenheim, traveled to Rotterdam, and sailed to Philadelphia aboard the ship “Brothers.” They arrived in Philadelphia on 30 Sep 1754, where ship records list Heinrich as 36-years-old and in good health. Genealogies saying Heinrich died in 1754 are erroneous. Heinrich and Eva had three or four children in America. The last known record of Heinrich comes in 1761 when he receives payment from the estate of Johann Leicht, administered by Balthasar Ream and Anna Catherine Leicht. A Balthasar Ream also traveled to America on the ship “Brothers.”

They had four more children:

  +  22  iv.  Johann Zumbrun was born in the 1750s. A very muddled oral history suggests he could have been born on the ship. He died in 1819 in Taneytown, Carroll, Maryland.
      23  v.   Catharina Zumbrun was born on 1 Dec 1755. She was baptized 19 Dec 1755 at Zions Moselem Lutheran Church in Berks County, Pennsylvania. Sponsors were Balthasar Ream and Anna Catherine. (This appears to be the same Balthasar Ream, mentioned above, who traveled on the ship Brothers.) It’s unknown what became of her.
      24  vi.  Anna Dorothea Zumbrun was born on 8 Feb 1759. She was baptized 18 Mar 1759 at Zions Moselem Lutheran Church in Berks County, Pennsylvania. Sponsors were Johann Wolfgang Mohring and Anna Maria. (Johann Wolfgang Mohring also immigrated to America on the ship “Brothers.”) It’s unknown what became of her. She appears named after her older sister who likely died young.
      25  vii. Anna Elizabetha Zumbrun was born on 7 Dec 1760. She was baptized 29 Mar 1761 at Zions Moselem Lutheran Church in Berks County, Pennsylvania. Sponsor was Andreas Frey. It’s unknown what became of her.
 
 
9. Johann Georg Zumbrunnen(Johann Peter, Johann, Founder) was born about 1720 near Crailsheim. He married Maria Elisabetha Kayser on 23 Mar 1756 in Mariäkappel, Württemberg, Deutschland.

The child from this marriage was:
  +  26  i. Anna Barbara Zumbrun was born on 26 May 1760 and died on 11 Nov 1824 at age 64.
 
 
14. Johann Georg Zumbrunn(Balthasar, Johann, Founder) was born in 1739 near Crailsheim, baptised 10 Jan 1740, and died on 26 Apr 1806 at age 67, and was buried on 28 Apr 1806 in Kirchberg (Oa. Gerabronn), Württemberg, Germany. Johann married Anna Magdalena Balbach on 2 May 1781 near Crailsheim. Anna was born on 7 Jun 1745 in Weikersweiler, died on 13 Nov 1818 at age 73, and was buried on 1 Dec 1818 in Gerabronn, Kirchberg u. Oa, Württemberg.

The child from this marriage was:
      27  i. Johann Michael Zumbrunn was born on 4 Mar 1783 in Kirchberg, died on 28 Feb 1854 at age 70, and was buried on 2 Mar 1854 in Wiesenbach, Württemberg. Johann married Eva Magdalena Weinbrennerin on 27 Apr 1819 in Gerabronn, Kirchberg u. Oa, Württemberg, Deutschland. Eva was born on 2 Oct 1774, died on 20 Jan 1849 at age 74, and was buried on 22 Jan 1849 in Wiesenbach, Württemberg.
 
 

21. Apollonia Zumbrunn(Heinrich, Johann Peter, Johann, Founder) was born in Nov 1753 in Schwegenheim, baptized 25 Nov 1753 in Schwegenheim, died on 18 Oct 1821 at age 67, and was buried in Ladiesburg, Frederick County, Maryland.

Apollonia married Christian Schmidt. Christian was born in 1754, died on 15 Sep 1825 at age 71, and was buried in Ladiesburg, Frederick County, Maryland. Their burial place in Ladiesburg is no more than half a mile from the farm of her brother Johann, suggesting they moved to Frederick County together. They gradually anglicized their name from Schmidt to Smith.

Christian and Apollonia appear as sponsors for a number of baptisms at the Rocky Hill Grace Lutheran Church in Frederick: Elisabeth Roesler on 27 Nov 1785, Maria Fuchs on 24 Aug 1788, Abraham Ernst on 8 Sep 1793, Abraham Lock on 24 Sep 1794, and Thomas Eder on 24 Sep 1797.

The names of Christian and Apollonia’s children are established in the probate records of Christian’s estate in 1825.

Children from this marriage were:
      28  i.   Elizabeth Smith was born on 4 Oct 1780, died on 11 Mar 1816 in Ladiesburg, Frederick, Maryland, at age 35, and was buried in Ladiesburg. Elizabeth married John Rheam, son of George and Catherine Ream, on 27 Mar 1812 in Frederick County, Maryland. John was born on 7 Nov 1787 died on 25 Jun 1853 in Carroll County, Maryland, at age 65, and was buried in Union Bridge, Maryland.
      29  ii.  Mary Smith was born on 26 Nov 1792, died on 30 Sep 1863 at age 70, and was buried in Johnsville, Maryland. Mary married Henry Repp. Henry was born on 12 Oct 1792 in Maryland, died on 13 Jul 1874 at age 81, and was buried in Johnsville, Maryland.
      30  iii. William Smith died before 1825. Christian’s will says that William has died and gives his share of the estate to William’s (unidentified) children.
      31  iv.  Solomon Smith was born about 1780 in Maryland. Solomon married Margaret Ream, daughter of George and Catherine Ream. Margaret died on 3 Mar 1824 in Ladiesburg, Maryland.
      32  v.   Phillip Smith was born about 1780 in Frederick, Maryland and moved to Kentucky.
      33  vi.  Susanna Schmidt was born on 4 Dec 1788, died on 10 Apr 1839 at age 50, and was buried in Ladiesburg, Maryland. Susanna married Jacob Repp on 13 May 1811 in Frederick County, Maryland. Jacob was born on 8 Aug 1785.
      34  vii. Samuel Schmidt was born on 6 Dec 1790 in Frederick County, Maryland, and died about 1827 in Frederick County, Maryland, about age 37.
 
 
22. Johann Zumbrun (Heinrich, Johann Peter, Johann, Founder) was born about 1755 and died in 1819 in Taneytown, Carroll, Maryland. His name is said in many genealogies to be Johann Heinrich Zumbrun, although I haven’t yet found a record proving this.

In 1783 Johann purchased a 10-acre farm in Frederick County, Maryland named “Shoemaker’s Lot.” He also acquired farms named “Brotherly Love,” “Brooks Discovery on the Rich Lands,” “Brooks Second Discovery on the Rich Lands,” “Ebon Forest,” “Neglect” and “Watson’s Delight.” At his death, his land holdings totaled about 250 acres. He was a deacon at the Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church in Taneytown, Maryland. He appears in the 1790, 1800 and 1810 Census.

Johann married Maria Elizabeth Angel daughter of Philip Charles Angel and Juliana Reneker, in 1773. Maria was born on 6 Oct 1754 in Frederick County, Maryland, and died on 21 Jan 1821 in Taneytown, Carroll, Maryland, at age 66. She appears in the 1820 Census as “Widow Zumbrun.”

Johann was the only son of Heinrich who lived to adulthood. He is the ancestor of nearly all Zumbruns and Zumbrums (and some Zumbrunns) living in America today. He had 10 children, with Zumbrun (m, nn) descendants coming from just four: Henry, George, David and Jacob.

Children from this marriage were:
      35  i.    John Zumbrun was born in 1775 and died in 1824 in Frederick, Maryland, United States at age 49. John married Catharine Stimmel. Catharine was born on 25 Jun 1777, died on 25 Jan 1846 in Greenville, Darke, Ohio at age 68, and was buried in Darke County, Ohio. His widow moved the family to Darke County, Ohio in about 1833. He has many living descendants, but none named Zumbrun.
      36  ii.   Charles Zumbrun was born in 1776 and died after 1840. Charles married Rebecca Rheam, daughter of George and Catherine Ream on 12 Mar 1821 in Frederick County, Maryland. Rebecca was born on 13 Aug 1793. He married relatively late in life, and appears to have had no children.
      37  iii.  Henry Zumbrun was born on 25 Jan 1783 in Frederick, Maryland, died on 4 Apr 1857 in Darke County, Ohio, at age 74, and was buried in Montgomery County, Ohio. Henry married Susanna Ream, daughter of George and Catherine Ream. Susanna was born on 28 Mar 1779 in Frederick County, Maryland, died on 6 Apr 1840 in Montgomery County, Ohio, at age 61, and was buried in Montgomery County, Ohio. Henry and Susanna have a very large number of Zumbrun descendants who largely live/lived in Ohio and Indiana. One branch of their descendants adopted the spelling Zumbrum.
      38  iv.   Mary Magdalena Zumbrun was born in 1784 in Maryland, died before 1870, and was buried in Schellsburg, Bedford County, Pennsylvania. Mary married Jacob Hiteshew. Jacob was born in 1780 in Frederick County, Maryland, died in 1840 in Napier, Bedford County, Pennsylvania, at age 60, and was buried in Schellsburg, Bedford County, Pennsylvania. They have a large number of living descendants.
      39  v.    George Zumbrun was born on 24 Aug 1787 in Frederick, Maryland, and died on 30 Oct 1865 in Kuhns Trotwood Cem, Madison, Ohio, United States at age 78. George married Susanna Myers, daughter of John George and Anna Maria Myers, on 6 Jun 1815. Susanna was born about 1792 in Maryland. They have at least some descendants.
      40  vi.   Elizabeth Zumbrun was born on 31 Dec 1790 in Fredrick Co, Maryland, died on 28 Sep 1868 in Clyde, Sandusky, Ohio, at age 77, and was buried in Clyde, Sandusky, Ohio. Elizabeth married Daniel William Rife on 8 May 1811 in Frederick County, Maryland. Daniel was born about 1786, died on 11 Oct 1841 in York Twp, Ohio, about age 55, and was buried in Clyde, Sandusky County, Ohio. For now, I’m not sure if they have any living descendants.
      41  vii.  David Zumbrun was born on 1 Oct 1791 in Taneytown, Frederick Co, Maryland, died on 2 Mar 1863 in York County, Pennsylvania, at age 71, and was buried in Hanover, York County, Pennsylvania. David married Elizabeth Myers, daughter of John George and Anna Maria Myers. Elizabeth was born on 19 Nov 1794 in Carroll County, died on 22 Oct 1872 in York County, at age 77, and was buried in Hanover, York County, Pennsylvania. David and Elizabeth have a very large number of descendants. Many largely lived around the area of York, Pennsylvania.
      42  viii. Jacob Zumbrun was born on 13 Jul 1793 in Taneytown, Frederick, Maryland, died on 13 Sep 1868 in Taneytown, Frederick, Maryland, at age 75, and was buried in Taneytown, Carroll County, Maryland. Jacob married Margaret Cornell on 30 Oct 1815 in Frederick County, Maryland. Margaret was born on 16 May 1794 in Maryland, died on 16 Jan 1852 at age 57, and was buried on 18 Jan 1852 in Taneytown, Carroll County, Maryland. Their children mostly lived in Maryland and Nebraska. They had many descendants, some of whom use the spelling Zumbrunn.
      43  ix.   Daniel Zumbrun was born on 20 Sep 1795 and died before 1800.
      44  x.    Juliana Zumbrun was born on 7 Oct 1802 in Taneytown, Frederick, Maryland, United States,(122) died on 26 Jun 1879 in Taneytown, Frederick, Maryland, at age 76, and was buried in Taneytown, Carroll County, Maryland. Juliana married Gideon Hiteshew on 12 Dec 1820 in Frederick County, Maryland. Gideon was born in 1794 in Maryland, died on 9 Apr 1865 at age 71, and was buried in Taneytown, Carroll County, Maryland. They had at least some descendants.
 
 
26. Anna Barbara Zumbrun (Johann Georg, Johann Peter, Johann, Founder) was born on 26 May 1760 and died on 11 Nov 1824 at age 64. Anna married Johann Friederich Munz. Johann was born on 7 Sep 1760 and died on 15 Apr 1826 at age 65. They lived in Honhard, Germany. She was the first cousin of Apollonia (#21 above) and Johann (#22). If they kept in touch with any relatives in Germany, she would have been their closest Zumbrun relative, possibly the only first cousin on the paternal side of their family.

Children from this marriage were:
      45  i.   Johann Michael Hofmann was born on 22 Jul 1787 and died on 30 Aug 1817 at age 30.
      46  ii.  Georg Friedrich Munz was born on 13 Jan 1793.
      47  iii. Katharina Barbara Münz was born on 25 Dec 1802.

Sources
More information on the sources used in this genealogy are available here.

• Known Records of Heinrich Zumbrun and Maria Eva Lehr
• The Zumbrunnen Family in Lutheran Church Records in Baden-Württemberg
• The Last Will and Testament of Johann Zumbrun
• The Passenger List and Records for the Ship “Brothers”
  

Beginning in 1716, the church kept a detailed handwritten record of attendees at church services. The first list here seems to be people who took communion at the Epiphany service.

In the early 1700s, a small Zumbrunnen family was living in Baden-Württemberg, the German state just to the north of Switzerland. This post is an overview of the records pertaining to this family found in the church book of the Lutheran Parish Waldtann, located outside the town of Crailsheim, Germany.

This book includes baptisms, marriages, deaths, and church attendance. The attendance records begin in 1716 and almost immediately there are at least four different Zumbrunnens in the church books: Johann Peter (Petrus) Zumbrunnen, Anna Ursula Zumbrunnen, Balthasar Zumbrunnen and Barbara Zumbrunnen.[1]

The handwritten records can be very hard to read. The surname appears to be written variously as Zumbrunnen, Zumbrunnenin, Zumbrunn, and Zumbrunnin. (German-speakers in this region added “-in” to women’s surnames in this era). Sometimes there’s a space after Zum and sometimes not. Later in the records, they tend to favor the shorter spellings. These records support the theory that the family was originally named Zumbrunnen and that this branch truncated the spelling in the early 1700s.

The records contain detailed attendance lists that appear to be the people who took communion at the major holidays like Advent, Pentecost, and so on.

Balthasar and Barbara appear to have been in the front row for attendance at Pentecost in 1726. Note her name appears to be written as Zumbrunnenin and she’s identified as a widow.

In 1729, for the first time, we find a new name in these records: Johann Heinrich Zumbrunnen. Johann Heinrich Zumbrunn was the immigrant ancestor of the Zumbrun family in America. He was married in Schwegenheim, Germany in 1749, but prior to his marriage, neither Heinrich nor any other Zumbrun was listed in their church books. Heinrich’s hometown was somewhere else. These records have finally revealed where.

Joh. Heinrich Zumbrunn on the top line, below him is Ursula Zumbrunn.[2]

In some of his early records you can see his name written pretty clearly as Zumbrunnen, but as the records go on the family shifts toward the spelling Zumbrunn.

The second name on this list from 1732: “Joh. Heinrich Zumbrunnen Serv.”[4]

Heinrich is the fourth person listed on this attendance record from 1732.[5]

The second name on the list: “Johann Georg Zumbrunnen Serv.”[6]

The first is Heinrich’s name in the church records; the second is his signature upon arrival in Philadelphia. While clearly written in different hands, they both write capital H’s that look like G’s or L’s, big swoopy concluding h’s, both write swoops over their u’s, and both insert a space after the Zum.

So what is the relationships of all these Zumbruns? There are enough baptisms and marriages in these records to make sense of it.

• On Aug 26, 1715, Peter Zumbrunn marries Anna Ursula Schens. His father’s name appears to be Johann and hers George. (p 588 of 1216 on the microfilm)
• On May 1, 1722, Balthasar Zumbrunn marries a Barbara. Her last name is illegible to me. (p. 723 of 1216)
• On Aug. 22, 1722, Catharina Barbara Zumbrunnen, daughter of Balthasar and Barbara Zumbrunnen is baptized.(p. 647 of 1216)
• On Feb. 5, 1724, Anna Maria Magdalena Zumbrunn, daughter of Peter Zumbrunn and Anna Ursula Zumbrunn is baptized. (p. 648 of 1216)
• In 1727, Ursula Zumbrunn is identified as a widow. I haven’t found a burial for Peter but he also doesn’t appear in attendance anymore.
• On Feb. 10, 1727, Georg Michael Zumbrunn, son of Balthasar and Barbara Zumbrunn is baptized. (p. 651 of 1216)
• On Aug. 18, 1728, Georg Michael Zumbrunn, son of Balthasar Zumbrunn, dies. He is buried on Aug. 19, 1728. (p. 755 of 1216)
• In 1729, Johann Heinrich Zumbrunn first attends services with Ursula Zumbrunn.
• In 1732, Johann Georg Zumbrunn first attends services, sometimes sitting with Heinrich.
• On Aug. 5, 1734, Balthasar Zumbrunn’s wife is identified as Anna Barbara Hoffman. Two possibilities from this record. One is that this is the same Barbara listed on the baptisms. Second, is that his first wife died and he married a second woman also named (Anna) Barbara. (p. 731 of 1216)
• On Aug. 3, 1736, Georg Michael Zumbrunn, son of Balthasar Zumbrunn and Anna Barbara is baptized. (p. 662 of 1216)
• In 1736, Catharina Barbara Zumbrunnen first attends services (we know from her baptism that she would be about 13 or 14).
• In 1737, Maria Magdalena Zumbrunn first appears with Ursula Zumbrunn. (Magdalena would be about 13)
• On Dec. 1, 1739, Johann Christian Zumbrunn, son of Balthasar Zumbrunn and Anna Barbara is baptized.
  (p. 665 of 1216)
• In a nearby German church called Mariäkappel, there’s a record from March 23, 1756 of Johann Georg Zumbrunn marrying Maria Elisabetha Rescher. His father is identified as Johann Peter Zumbrunn.
• Anna Ursula Zumbrunnin dies at age 73 and is buried on Dec. 26, 1756. (This makes her year of birth approximately 1683).

The church book has a lot more material that’s completely unindexed (several hundred pages, at least). There might be earlier church books too. The church archive in Stuttgart, where these records are kept, would almost certainly have more information. But the above records are enough to mostly untangle two family units:

• (Johann) Peter Zumbrunnen (d. 1727) and Anna Ursula Schens (b. 1683-1756)
  1. (Johann) Heinrich Zumbrunnen (b. abt 1717)
  2. Johann Georg Zumbrunnen (b. abt 1720)
  3. Magdalena Zumbrunn (b. Feb. 5, 1724)
• Balthasar Zumbrunnen and Barbara/Anna Barbara Hoffman
  1. Catherine Barbara Zumbrunnen (b. Aug. 22, 1722)
  2. Georg Michael Zumbrunn (b. Feb. 10, 1727, d. Aug. 18, 1728)
  3. Georg Michael Zumbrunn (b. Aug. 3, 1736)[7]
  4. Johann Christian Zumbrunn (b. Dec. 1, 1739)

I could not find a baptism record for Heinrich but his family was attending church in Waldtann by 1715, and so if he was born in 1717 as these records (and his immigration records) suggest, then he was born in Crailsheim, Germany.

Some Questions for Further Research

• What other information can be deciphered from these handwritten and un-indexed records?
• Are there other records from Crailsheim, Germany and Baden-Württemberg during this period and earlier that might tell us more about what the family was up to during this period?
• How many Barbara Zumbrunn’s are there? Did Balthasar’s first wife Barbara die, and then he married Anna Barbara? Or is this the same woman? Was there a third “widow Barbara” who was perhaps from an earlier generation?
• What’s the relationship between Balthasar Zumbrunnen and Johann Peter Zumbrunnen. Two relationships seem likely: either that Balthasar was a brother of Peter (who was much younger or lived much longer), or that Balthasar was Peter’s older son.
• Are there other ties between this Lutheran Parish Waldtann and the Lutheran Church in Schwegenheim or the Zions Moselem Lutheran Church that Heinrich attended in America?

Footnotes
1)The attendance records have not yet been indexed, so you cannot search them with a text query. They are available on Ancestry.com if you have a paid subscription to the international records. The originals are at the State Church Archive in Stuttgart. There are four or five different church books that have been digitized into a single file on Ancestry.com. The church attendance records in Waldtann, referred to throughout, begin on page 150 of the Waldtann Church Book (page 799 of 1216 on the digitized microfilm.)

2) I don’t know what this abbreviation “Serv” means. This is page 836 of 1216 on the microfilm.

3) Here’s a useful guide to German church book handwriting. Two letters that are helpful to study are the “H” which looks more like an English “L” or “G” and the German “u” which was typically written with a swoop over it. You can often distinguish Zumbrunnen from Zimmerman because Zumbrunnen will have two swoops, and Zimmerman will just have a single dot.

4) This is from page 853 of 1216 of the microfilm.

5) This is from page 845 of 1216 of the microfilm.

6) Page 848 of 1216 of the microfilm.

7) It was common at the time, when a child died in infancy, to give a subsequent child that same name, like with the two Georg Michael Zumbrunns here. Heinrich Zumbrunn and his wife Eva Lehr also gave two daughters the name Anna Dorothea Zumbrun, after the first died young.

Zumbruns don’t seem to believe they’re Cherokee Princes, but I’m aware of three oral traditions about the family in the 1700s. What follows are the legends I’ve found, and an analysis of their accuracy.

The Shipwrecked Boy

A genealogy of the Zumbrun family compiled by Merle Rummel includes the following story:

Many years ago a man and his wife, and a son eight years old, left Germany for America. They were shipwrecked and went down at sea except for the small boy who was rescued and brought to America and reared by a Quaker family. In some generations down there was a son named Henry. He grew to manhood and married Susan Ream. To them were born four sons and one daughter: Jacob, George, John, Henry and Elizabeth. Henry and Elizabeth were twins.

As to the authenticity of the Zumbrun name: at this point it is a guess. Was it the name of the 8 year old boy or the name of the Quaker family who reared him?

There was indeed a Henry Zumbrun married to a Susan Ream, but the rest of this story appears to be pure legend. In fact, the grandfathers of Henry Zumbrun and Susan Ream both immigrated to Philadelphia aboard the same ship! The records of the Ship Brothers, say that Heinrich Zumbrun was 36 when he arrived and Balthasar Reim was 40. The ship docked (without sinking) on September 30, 1754. Both men were certified in good health upon landing in Philadelphia.

Both Balthasar and Heinrich soon began attending the Zion Moselem Lutheran Church. Although women weren’t in ship records, Heinrich’s wife Eva also made (and survived without sinking) the journey, for she appears with Heinrich in church records on both sides of the Atlantic. Balthasar and Heinrich’s friend Wolfgang Mohring also arrived aboard the same ship at the age of 23. A friend of Wolfgang’s later married Heinrich’s son, Johann. These were close knit families for several generations with extensive proof showing they didn’t drown.

No birth record has been found for Johann so it’s theoretically possible that he was adopted. But the rest of the story is all-but-impossible. Shipwrecks were news making events and there’s no evidence of a shipwreck in this time frame. (There were apparently only four or five immigrant shipwrecks in the entire 1700s.)

Heinrich, Eva, Balthasar and Wolfgang quickly settled in Berks County, about 75 miles inland from Philadelphia, so it’s unclear how they’d end up adopting a shipwreck survivor. Finally, they were all Lutherans, both before and after arriving in America. Johann was Lutheran too, baptizing all his children at, and serving as a deacon for, the (German-speaking) Trinity Evangelical Lutheran church.

If Johann was adopted, it wasn’t after a shipwreck, nor was he adopted by Quakers. Like the distant Cherokee ancestors, this was probably simply a bedtime story told to amuse children, by someone who didn’t know any (actually quite interesting!) stories about the Zumbrun immigration.

The Zumbruns were both Germans and Swiss?

Some families seem to have been told the Zumbruns were German and some Swiss and some both. There may be a good explanation for this seeming contradiction.

Most genealogists have said Heinrich Zumbrun was born in Switzerland in 1718 and that his son Johann was as well, with a birth date typically given for Johann in the 1750s. I believe this is an oral tradition, because I’ve not yet found any records supporting Switzerland as their place of birth. Church records show Heinrich lived in Schwegenheim (part of modern Germany) before immigrating.

While the Zumbruns who immigrated to the U.S. certainly spoke German, the modern country of Germany did not exist at the time. The English called all German-speaking immigrants of the time Germans (or Palatines), even though many were Swiss, some lived under the French, some under the Austrians or Prussians and so forth. The name Zumbrun is certainly of Swiss origin, shortened at some point from Zumbrunnen. In fact, sources exist revealing interesting stories about the very beginning of the Zumbrunnen family in 1209, and stories about the first man named Heinrich Zumbrunnen.

The family of Heinrich’s wife Eva Lehr lived in regions that are part of modern Germany. It would certainly be right to call her a German. But before his marriage in 1749 to Eva, no Zumbruns had yet appeared in the German church records of Schwegenheim. It seems Heinrich only lived in Schwegenheim for a few years. Heinrich likely descends from the Zumbrunnen family of Uri (a Johann Heinrich Zumbrunnen born in Altdorf in 1668 is a strong candidate to be his grandfather).

Thus Heinrich spoke German, married a woman whose family lived for generations in land that is now Germany, and was a “Palatine German” immigrant. But either Heinrich or his very recent ancestors were likely born in Switzerland. (For Johann to have been born in Switzerland too, he would have had a different mother than Eva Lehr, and to have been born before 1749. It’s possible Heinrich was a widower when they married; Eva certainly was a widow). With this backstory it’s not surprising oral history would survive that they’re both Swiss and German.

The Hessian Mercenary

An oral tradition in some lines of the family was that Heinrich’s son Johann Zumbrun came to America as a Hessian mercenary. The Hessians were a mercenary force, hired by King George III, to fight against the Americans and for the British. This oral legend is mentioned in the Zumbrun genealogy compiled by Art Reierson:

David’s father Johounn, during the American Revolution and as passed down in family folklore, was a German Hessian Mercenary.

Note, first of all, that this oral legend completely contradicts the first one. There’s no way that Johann Zumbrun was both an 8-year-old shipwrecked orphan raised by Quakers and a Hessian mercenary. (the Quakers were pacifists!) In fact, I believe both these oral traditions are wrong.

About 75% of Hessian Mercenaries were recruited from a region of Germany (Hesse-Kassel) where Zumbruns are not known to have lived. Researchers believe only about 3,500 Hessian mercenaries ended up staying in the United States, and have identified over 3,000 of them. Johann is not among them.

As mentioned above, Heinrich Zumbrun immigrated in 1754 with friends like Wolfgang Mohring and Balthasar Reimer. Johann married a friend of Wolfgang’s and at least two of Johann’s children married two of Balthasar’s granddaughters. Hessian mercenaries were not recruited from German-speakers already living in America. (Any sort of post-War adult adoption story seems far-fetched.) The story that Johann was a Hessian mercenary appears to be completely wrong.

That said, I speculate that this particular oral tradition contains a kernel of truth. Members of the Swiss Zumbrunnen family really did serve as mercenaries in the 1600s and perhaps into the 1700s (though not for the British). Thus my speculation is that Heinrich Zumbrun could have told his children their ancestors had been mercenaries in Europe, and at some point this was mistakenly conflated with the Hessian mercenaries of the Revolutionary War (possibly because the Hessians may have been the only European mercenaries that his grandchildren knew about).

Some Questions for Further Research

• Is there any evidence of early Zumbrun ties to the Quakers?
• If Johann had been adopted, would there be records?
• Does anyone know of any other oral traditions about the family in Europe or their earliest years in America?

Some Notable Henrys

In the Civil War you will find one Henry Zumbrun in the 152nd Regiment for the Ohio Infantry in the Civil War, and another Henry Zumbrun, who served in the 7th Regiment of the Missouri Cavalry. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC, honors the memory of Sergeant First Class James Henry Zumbrun, a highly-decorated member of the Green Berets, who died in that war on January 10, 1970.

A quick search through readily available records finds Henry Zumbruns who were born in 1783, 1812, 1834, 1841, 1844, 1845, 1860, 1867, 1882, 1891, 1898, 1916, 1925 and 1926. (That includes Henry Zumbrun and Henry Sylvester Zumbrun, the ancestors of most of the Zumbruns living today in Indiana and Ohio.) It’s common as a middle name too. In addition to James Henry Zumbrun, I’ve found a Rock Henry Zumbrun, a Sylvester Henry Zumbrun, at least two different William Henry Zumbruns and two different John Henry Zumbruns over the years. (It’s also my middle name.)

The name Henry begins even before Johann Heinrich Zumbrunn, who married Maria Eva Lehr in Schwegenheim, Germany in 1749 and became the first Zumbrun in America. It begins before he arrived in Philadelphia and signed his name just, Heinrich Zumbrun. (Some records say that his son was also named Johann Heinrich Zumbrun, although most records call his son John Zumbrun or Johann Zumbrun.)

When I started researching the Zumbrunnen family of Switzerland, I quickly discovered the name was particularly common among the Zumbrunnen who lived in the Canton of Uri. Heinrich Zumbrunnen was the bailiff of Livinen from 1469 to 1472. Another Heinrich Zumbrunnen was the church bailiff of Altdorf in the 1500s. His son Johann Heinrich Zumbrunnen was the chief magistrate of Uri from 1621-1623, and again in 1637-1639. He had a grandson named Heinrich Burkhard Zumbrunnen. In the mid-1600s, a Josue Zumbrunnen had a son named Heinrich Zumbrunnen with his first wife, and another named Heinrich Zumbrunnen with his second wife. Yet another Johann Heinrich Zumbrunnen was born in Altdorf in 1668.

The Original Heinrich Zumbrunnen

The Battle of Laupen, as drawn by Diebold Schilling, the author of the illustrated Chronicle of Bern in 1480.

The popularity of the name across seven centuries, seems to owe to the valor of the very first man who held the name. In the late 1200s or early 1300s, Burkhard Zumbrunnen, a Knight in the Order of St. Lazarus, had two sons named Johann Zumbrunnen and Heinrich Zumbrunnen. The younger son Heinrich is the one who would become a namesake across the centuries.

To set the stage, several generations of Zumbrunnen men had devoted their life’s work to building alliances to protect their territories against encroachment from feudal lords (such as Burkhard Zumbrunnen who helped create an alliance with Zurich in the year 1251). While most of Europe at the time was under the rule of various counts and dukes and princes and kings, central Switzerland had achieved a degree of independence. In the early 1300s, many aspiring tyrants, especially the Counts of Burgundy and the House of Hapsburg, dreamed of subjugating Switzerland. This is the era from which the famous story of William Tell emerges.

The city of Bern — today the capital of Switzerland — had been growing in wealth and power and population. This was nettlesome to the likes of the Hapsburgs because Bern was what’s know as a Free Imperial City of the Holy Roman Empire. The burgeoning city answered to the Holy Roman Emperor himself, but not to any intermediate kings or princes or dukes or counts. The Hapsburgs, the Counts of Burgundy and other power-hungry nobles raised a force of nearly 16,000 infantry and 1,000 heavily armored knights and seized the Bernese town of Laupen.

Bern called upon its allies in the mountainous regions of Switzerland. Johann Von Attinghausen, who had succeeded Burkhard as the chief magistrate of Uri, mustered a force of men, including Heinrich Zumbrunnen (who, as it happens, was Johann Von Attinghausen’s third or fourth cousin). In the early summer of 1339, they marched to Bern.

June 21, 1339

The troops of Bern and Uri and their allies in central Switzerland numbered only 6,000 but developed a plan to relieve Laupen despite being wildly outnumbered. On June 21, 1339, they assumed their position on a hill above the town.

A reenactment of the “Hedgehog” military formation
Alexander Z. via Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 3.0

Meanwhile, the infantry forces of the Hapsburg alliance clashed with the forces from Bern. They say the victors write history, and according to the Bernese it was the valor of their men that carried the day. There may be some truth that the men fighting for the Hapsburgs lacked the conviction of the Swiss, who were fighting for their freedom and independence. It may also be that the inferior numbers of the Bernese had duped the Hapsburg alliance into a reckless uphill attack. Either way, the Bernese infantry quickly triumphed and then pivoted to attack the mounted knights.

Suddenly, the knights were no longer trying to penetrate the “hedgehog” of Uri; they were themselves surrounded. Some sources say as many as 80 of the Hapsburg-allied nobles died in the ensuing combat. The battle, at least for a few years, broke the back of the enemies of Swiss independence. The battle forever changed military tactics too, as it was one of the first conflicts demonstrating, against all odds, that a small (but brave and well-organized) infantry could defeat a force of heavily-armored knights. The success of such tactics is why medieval knights ultimately became obsolete.

The conflict was also famous as the first time the white cross, which would become the Swiss flag we know today, was used in battle. The men of Uri and Bern became heroic figures, fighting and dying beneath a common flag to protect each other’s independence. In 1353, Bern formally and permanently joined the Old Swiss Confederacy. Among those who perished in the ferocious combat was Heinrich, beneath the Swiss flag, quite likely holding a pike in that hedgehog formation against a large force of heavily-armored Hapsburg knights.

Monument of the Battle of Laupen, where Heinrich Zumbrunnen fell in battle in 1339.
Dr. Haxer via Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0

Heinrich thus became a war hero back in Uri. His bravery at the Battle of Laupen would certainly have been known to the Zumbrunnen men of subsequent decades who named their sons Henry. Heinrich Zumbrunnen’s brother Johann lived until at least 1360. He was the author of early chronicles about Uri and may have helped build the legend of his fallen brother, though his chronicles have not survived. Johann Von Attinghausen, the leader of the Uri who survived the battle, likely brought back the story of Heinrich’s bravery as well.

Certainly the story of the battle was forgotten in the family at some point, though Heinrich’s name has remained in the Swiss history books. Who knows if the Heinrich Zumbrun, who arrived in America in 1754, had any knowledge of the battle, or if he only knew he’d been named after his father or grandfather.

But whether he knew it or not, he carried the name of a Swiss war hero to America, where it was anglicized to Henry and passed down again countless times so that nearly 700 years later, Heinrich Zumbrunnen’s death in the name of freedom and independence continues to echo through the family.

This is an overview of all the known records pertaining to this couple.

First, church records for a Lutheran Church in Schwegenheim, Germany show a large Lehr family, including a Maria Eva Lehrin, daughter of Sebastian Lehr and Anna Lehrin. In Germany at the time it was common for grammatical reasons to add an “-in” to female’s last names, so Lehrin and Lehr are the same family (as are Zumbrunnin and Zumbrunn).[1]

Schwegenheim is a small town in the Rhine Valley, a region torn apart by nearly a century of war and instability, exactly the sort of place that was a common source of immigrants to Philadelphia in the 1750s. Its small Lutheran Church was Evangelical.[2] The following records are pertinent:

• On August 9, 1745, Maria Eva Lehr married a man named Johann David Degen.[3] The Degens also show up frequently in Schwegenheim’s church records.
• On July 30, 1746, Johann David Degen and Eva have a daughter: Anna Barbara Degen.
• Church records show it was clearly a difficult time in the Rhineland; the records show many young deaths, including on April 25, 1748, for Johann David Degen. He was buried the next day at the age of 30. This death left Eva a young widow with a small child.
• It’s no surprise that Eva would re-marry fairly quickly. Just under a year later, on April 22, 1749, the records at that same Lutheran Church show she married a man from a family that’s never before been in these church records: Johann Heinrich Zumbrunn.

In her marriage to Johann Heinrich Zumbrunn, she is identified only as Maria Eva W. David Degen. Only by tracking down her first marriage do we find the maiden name of Lehr. No Zumbrunns had previously appeared in these church records and it’s clear this was never their home town. Apparently born Johann Heinrich Zumbrunnen, he grew up near the town of Crailsheim, Germany and his family began shortening the name from Zumbrunnen to Zumbrunn in the 1720s and 1730s. An overview of the Zumbrunnen family in Crailsheim is available here.

The church records show that Johann Heinrich and Maria Eva had at least three children in Schwegenheim.

• Daughter Anna Dorothea Zumbrunnin, was born January 22, 1750.
• Son, Johann Andreas Zumbrunn, was born on October 31, 1751.
• Johann Andreas died on August 20, 1753, a bit before his 2nd birthday. Anna Dorothea died that same year at the age of 3.[4]
• Another daughter was born. Apollonia Zumbrunnin, on November 25, 1753. After the birth of Apollonia, the Zumbrunn family disappears entirely from the church records in Schwegenheim, though the records at this church continue on for decades.[5]

When recruiters traveled down the Rhine River to deliver the message about the wonders of Pennsylvania, it’s no wonder the message was appealing, considering the amount of death and sadness Heinrich and Eva must have encountered in their young lives. Heinrich is clearly recorded in the records of the ship “Brothers” that departed Rotterdam on July 31, 1754 and arrived in Philadelphia on September 30, 1754.

A full overview of these ship records is available here: Original Sources: The Passenger List and Ship Registry for the Ship “Brothers”. Heinrich signed his own name using a careful and formal script, showing that he had some degree of literacy.[6]

Immigrants typically left for these voyages in the spring, and traveled via river boats up the Rhine River to Rotterdam. The ship records only contain the names of men, but it’s all but certain that Eva traveled with Heinrich because they appear together in records almost immediately after arriving in Philadelphia. I have found no death records for two of their daughters, so it’s possible that Anna Barbara Degen (by then 7 years old) and Apollonia Zumbrunn (still a baby) also came with them.

Shortly after their arrival in America, Maria Eva Zumbrun is listed in the probate records of Daniel Merbadt of Berks County, Pennsylvania. She owed him 2 shilling and 6 pence, according to probate papers filed on November 16, 1754. I don’t know anything about Daniel Merbadt. The purpose of this debt is unclear. It’s far too small a sum to be borrowing for their journey (which would have cost between 600 and 1800 shilling). Perhaps immigration left Eva and Heinrich financially drained. Perhaps they borrowed some money to travel from Philadelphia to Berks County.

The old stone Zion Moselem Lutheran Church was built in 1761 when records show Heinrich was a member.

Church records show that Heinrich Zumbrun and Eva Lehr had three children baptized at Zion Moselem:

• Catharina, born December 1, 1755; baptized December 19, 1755; sponsors: Balthasar and Catherine Ream
• Ana Dorothea, born February 8, 1759; baptized March 17, 1759; sponsor: Johann and Anna Mohring. It’s not unusual that they would reuse the name Ana Dorothea of the daughter born in Germany. It was common at the time to reuse names of children who died as babies.
• Ana Elisabetha, born December 7, 1760; baptized March 29, 1761; sponsor: Andrew Fry[7]

Heinrich and Eva also had a son Johann Zumbrun, whose birth date is unknown, and who many researchers have presumed was born during the year of immigration.

The birth of Ana Elisabetha Zumbrun is the last appearance of Eva in any records I’ve found. I don’t know when she died. Heinrich appears in one final record that I know about. In 1761 and 1762, Balthasar Riehm (the spelling of this family name continually changes) and his wife Catherine Riehm administered the will of her father Johannes Leicht.

Henry Zumbrun, fourth from the bottom, received 11 shilling from Johannes Leicht’s estate

The records show that Johannes Leicht was a yeoman farmer, that is, one who farmed his own land. He was prosperous enough to have 60 pounds (or 1,200 shilling) of wealth to divide among his heirs after settling his estate. As part of the process of settling the estate, Henry Zumbrun (names are Anglicized in these records) was paid 11 shilling. The purpose of this payment is unknown. It’s not a large sum of money (the paperwork records that Balthasar spent about half as much money, 5 shilling, for “cakes at the funeral”). Still, it seems from this record that Heinrich was owed payment for some sort of labor he’d performed for Johannes Leicht.

This is the last record I’ve found for Heinrich and Eva. The Mohrings and Reams both moved to Frederick County, Maryland, over the next decade. Heinrich and Eva’s son Johann Zumbrun also moved to Frederick by the early 1780s. Johann Zumbrun is in the first Census of the United States in 1790, with an unknown adult man living in his household. It’s thus possible that Heinrich was still alive as late as 1790 and living with his son (he would be 73) but this is uncertain.

To date, there are no known will, probate or burial records for Heinrich or Eva. There are also no known land, tax or court records for Heinrich. This is somewhat strange because such records do exist for the Reams and Mohrings and many other families of the time. If you’re aware of any other records of Heinrich and Eva Zumbrun, please let me know!

Some Questions for Further Research

• What happened to Apollonia Zumbrunn and Anna Barbara Degen? I’ve never found a death or marriage record for either. Apparently children traveled for free on ships like “Brothers,” so they must have come along for the voyage. Did they make it to America? Did they marry there?
• A nearby town in Germany has a Maria Lehr, daughter of a Sebastian Lehr, born on October 13, 1721, but I haven’t been able to view this record yet, so don’t know for certain if it’s the same woman. It’s certainly the right age range, but there seem to be lots of different Sebastian Lehrs.
• Who was Daniel Merbadt?
• When was Johann Zumbrun, who moved to Maryland, born? The timing is right that he could have been born on the ship or almost immediately after arriving in Philadelphia and before settling in Berks County. If he was born ON the ship, it’s quite possible there would be no records. Apparently it was not uncommon for children to be born on the ships.
• Does the custom of adding “-in” to female last names explain why Zumbrunnen was shortened to Zumbrunn? If the Zumbrunnen men moved to the Rhine Valley from Switzerland, they would have found themselves in a culture where their name sounded like a woman’s name. (The birth records in Schwegenheim are for Apollonia Zumbrunnin and Anna Dorothea Zumbrinnin.) Thus Heinrich may have shortened his name to Zumbrunn or Zumbrun so it sounded like a man’s name.

Sources
1) A good overview of naming customs in German at the time. You can see the prevalence of the “-in” suffix in this online list of the marriages at the Zions Moselem Church.

2) The Protestant church in Schwegenheim today has a brief history of the Schwegenheim Lutheran Church in the 1700s.

3) The handwriting is hard to read, but it’s fairly easy to make out Johann David Degen in the middle of the first line and Maria Eva Lehrin at the beginning of the bottom line. His father is identified as Johann Valentine Degen and her father as Sebastian Lehr.

4) In the third line you can see Johann Heinrich Zumbrunn. One especially interesting think is the handwriting. I might be making too much of this, but the records of Heinrich’s signature show the same distinctive swoops above the U’s. Heinrich probably wouldn’t have actually written these church records, but since the other ship passengers don’t use the same flourish, it seems like Heinrich could have picked up this style of writing from his church.

Johann’s birth record:

His death record:

5) Apollonia Zumbrunnin. What happened to her?

6) It’s not surprising Heinrich would have omitted “Johann” when signing ship manifests. The first names of German-speakers in the Rhine Valley and Pennsylvania were their “saint names” or “Christian names” and they typically went by their “middle names.” Thus Johann Heinrich Zumbrunn and Maria Eva Lehr likely would have called each other Eva and Heinrich. And just like today, when prompted for their signature some people provide their middle names and others don’t, with no particular significance necessarily attached to the decision.

7)These records are digitized, in part, on FamilySearch.org. Apparently a microfilm of the originals is held at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia.

A drawing of the Ship Brothers was published in the Pennsylvania Gazette newspaper on 9 Jan 1750

If you’ve researched Zumbrun genealogy much you may have stumbled across some of these ship records, and not totally known what to make of them due to some unusual terminology and the fact they’re often presented without much context. Information about the ship “Brothers” and its voyages is posted in a few places online, but with some errors in the descriptions. This post is meant to explain the full context behind these records.

The ship “Brothers” registered in 1749

“Brothers” was a 110-ton ship, built in Philadelphia. It was co-owned by its captain, William Muir of Borrowstoness, and John Stedman of London, according to the ship registers in the Port of Philadelphia. Stedman, along with his brothers Charles and Alex were prominent shipping magnates in Philadelphia.

The ship submitted several pieces of paperwork each time it arrived in Philadelphia. “Brothers” made the Trans-Atlantic voyage at least 5 times, from 1750 to 1754. On all five journeys the ship sailed from Rotterdam, made a last call at Cowes on the Isle of Wight (to restock supplies and pay various customs) in England and then sailed for America. Departure dates are available from either Rotterdam or Cowes.

In 1750, “Brothers” departed Cowes on June 23 and arrived in Philadelphia on August 24, with 91 men and 271 total pasengers. In 1751, “Brothers” departed Cowes on July 10 and arrived September 16, with 94 men and 246 total passengers. In 1752, “Brothers” departed Cowes on June 24 and arrived September 22, 1752 with 83 men and 245 total passengers. In 1753, “Brothers” departed Cowes on July 30 and arrived September 26, with 91 men and 268 total passengers. In 1754, “Brothers” departed Rotterdam on July 31, called in Cowes, and arrived in Philadelphia on September 30, 1754.

For a narrative account of Heinrich’s journey, read this post:
The Voyage of Heinrich Zumbrun, the First Zumbrun in America

When it first arrived at port, doctors inspected the passengers to make sure they didn’t have any infectious diseases. Sick immigrants had to remain on ship a few days, or go to a nearby hospital (on an island named Fisher Island which no longer exists and is part of the Philadelphia Airport), until they were well enough to enter. The immigrants on the subsequent lists were thus healthy (at least to the eye) upon their arrival in Philadelphia. For its 1754 voyage, “Brothers” was inspected the same day as another ship named “Edinburgh.”

This was the medical certification on September 30, 1754:

We have carefully examined the State of Health of the Mariners and Passengers on board the Ships Brothers & Edinburgh, Capts Muir & Russel and found no objection to their being admitted to land in the City immediately.

To his Honour
The Governour
Tho. Graeme
Th. Bond

For the 1754 voyage all three of the required lists remain (for many other immigrant ships, some or all of these lists are lost).

The first list was compiled by Captain Muir. He was Scottish and so his List A probably gives an idea of what the names sounded like to him. Therefore, for example, “Sombroun” is likely a phonetic spelling of how Heinrich Zumbrun pronounced his name. The captain also listed their ages.

The second and third lists are, in fact, a transcribed list of these men’s signatures that were taken at the Pennsylvania State House immediately after they left their ship. You can see a facsimile of the original signatures here, pages 705-708. The parentheses indicate someone who was illiterate and therefore gave their name to a clerk and signed with their mark or initial.

The first (List B) was an oath of loyalty to England and the second (List C) an oath of abjuration from the Pope and from the Stuart pretenders. (Women and children didn’t have to sign.) This wasn’t a disavowal of the Pope, per se, but rather a list of instructions like that you couldn’t kill someone on the pope’s behalf. I included the full text of the oaths at the very bottom of this post for those curious.

The differences in spelling between List B and List C are largely attributable to sloppy handwriting resulting in different transcriptions. The order of names is just literally the order in which the men walked off the boat and through the clerk’s office. This is sometimes significant; when groups of people traveled together, their leader (often a pastor) went first.

At the top of List C the following information was recorded about the ship:

At the State House of Philadelphia, Monday, the 30th September, 1754
Present: The Worshipful Charles Willing, Esquire, Mayor
The Foreigners whose Names are underwritten, imported in the Ship Brothers, Captn William Muir, from Rotterdam and last from Cowes, did this day take the usual Qualifications. 7 Roman Catholicks. 23 Mennonites. 250 Souls. 210 Freights. 101 Qualified. Palatinate & Mentz.

The “101 Qualified” is the number of healthy men. The “210 freights” is the number of paying adult men and women who made the journey, meaning there was a total of 109 paying customers who were women, sick men or older children. And 250 is the number of total passengers (thus this ship had 40 young children who arrived). Only the adult men were recorded in these lists.

Here are the three lists. The men on board the ship remained in their line.

List B was signatures attached to this (it’s unclear to me whether a process was in place to translate this or if the immigrants were ready to sign anything at this point) Oath of Loyalty to King George II:

We Subscribers, Natives and Late Inhabitants of the Palatinate upon the Rhine & Places adjacent, having transported ourselves and Families into this Province of Pensilvania, a Colony subject to the Crown of Great Britain, in hopes and Expectation of finding a Retreat & peaceable Settlement therein, Do Solemnly promise & Engage, that We will be faithful & bear true Allegiance to his present MAJESTY KING GEORGE THE SECOND, and his Successors, Kings of Great Britain, and will be faithful to the Proprietor of this Province; And that we will demean ourselves peaceably to all His said Majesties Subjects, and strictly observe & conform to the Laws of England and of this Province, to the utmost of our Power and best of our understanding.”

For List C there were two oaths, reproduced verbatim below. The first, an abjuration from the Pope:

I A B do solemly & sincerely promise & declare that I will be true & faithful to King George the Second and do solemnly sincerely and truly Profess Testifie & Declare that I do from my Heart abhor, detest & renounce as impious & heretical that wicked Doctrine & Position that Princes Excommunicated or deprived by the Pope or any Authority of the See of Rome may be deposed or murthered by their Subjects or any other whatsoever. And I do declare that no Forreign Prince Person Prelate State or Potentate hath or ought to have any Power Jurisdiction Superiority Preeminence or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual within the Realm of Great Britain or the Dominions thereunto belonging.

The second of the List C oaths, which was an abjuration from the Stuart pretenders. Even if this one were translated into German, it’s hard to imagine our immigrants having any clue what to make of it:

I A B do solemnly sincerely and truly acknowledge profess testify & declare that King George the Second is lawful & rightful King of the Realm of Great Britain & of all others his Dominions & Countries thereunto belonging, And I do solemnly & sincerely declare that I do believe the Person pretending to be the Prince of Wales during the Life of the late King James, and since his Decease pretending to be & taking upon himself the Stile & Title of King of England by the Name of James the third, or of Scotland by the Name of James the Eighth or the Stile & Title of King of Great Britain hath not any Right or Title whatsoever to the Crown of the Realm of Great Britain, nor any other the Dominions thereunto belonging. And I do renounce & refuse any Allegiance or obedience to him & do solemnly promise that I will be true and faithful, & bear true allegiance to King George the Second & to him will be faithful against all traiterous Conspiracies & attempts whatsoever which shall be made against his Person Crown & Dignity & I will do my best Endeavours to disclose & make known to King George the Second & his Successors all Treasons and traiterous Conspiracies which I shall Know to be made against him or any of them. And I will be true & faithful to the Succesion of the Crown against him the said James & all other Persons whatsoever as the same is & stands settled by An Act Entituled An Act declaring the Rights & Liberties of the Subject & settling the Succession of the Crown to the late Quenn Anne & the Heirs of her Body being Protestants, and as the same by one other Act Entituled an Act for the further Limitation of the Crown & better securing the Rights & Liberties of the subject is & stands settled & entailed after the Decease of the said late Queen, * for Default of Issue of the said late Queen, to the late Princess Sophia Electoress & Dutchess Dowager of Hanover & the Heirs of her Body being Protestants; and all these things I do plainly & sincerely acknowledge promise & declare according to these express Words by me spoken & according to the plain & common Sense and understanding of the same Words, without any Equivocation mental Evasion or secret Reservation whatsoever. And I do make this Recognition Acknowledgment Renunciation & Promise heartily willingly & truly.

The “German” Immigrant Wave

The American colonies in the 1700s were eager to grow their populations to harvest a nearly endless supply of fertile soil. The population of Philadelphia was only about 15,000 to 25,000 in the 1700s, far too few people to take full advantage of the abundance of the New World. A massive immigration of German-speakers of the Rhine Valley (also known as Palatines) to Pennsylvania began in the early 1700s. By the 1750s when Heinrich boarded his ship, over 5,000 German speakers were arriving to Philadelphia each year.

We don’t know Heinrich’s reasons for leaving Europe. In the early 1700s, the first German-speaking immigrants often traveled in large groups of extended families that belonged to the same persecuted religion. But by the 1750s when Heinrich Zumbrun traveled, the immigrants were more likely to be individual families traveling for other reasons. Immigration slowed when periods of war disrupted Europe: 1733′s War of Polish Succession, the War of Austrian Succession in the mid-1740s, the Seven Year’s War beginning in Europe in 1756 (Heinrich got out just in time). Many of the immigrants traveling shortly after these slowdowns were essentially war refugees.

A note on “German”: these immigrants spoke German but the modern country of Germany did not exist at the time. The English called all the immigrants Palatines, though many were not actually from the modern German Palatinate. The regions that today are part of Germany were, in the 1700s, a fragmented patchwork of tiny little territories governed by different counts or princes or bishops, who owed allegiance to the Holy Roman Empire. Many of the “Palatines” were in fact German-speaking Swiss, distinctions that meant little to the English-speakers who ran the colonies.

The early German and Swiss immigrants genuinely thrived in the United States, so word traveled across the German-speaking world about this land of opportunity and religious freedom. Because there were profits to be made, Pennsylvania distributed promotional literature about its colony, and the shipping companies sent recruiters out from Rotterdam to persuade immigrants to make the journey. Recruiters traveled down the Rhine River (the most convenient way to venture deep into continental Europe) and make presentations about the colonies. Many Palatines needed little convincing.

The Journey
Immigrants like Heinrich would leave in the spring or early summer to travel up the Rhine River to Rotterdam. They would stay in Rotterdam a few weeks or months before setting sail. Heinrich’s ship departed Rotterdam on July 31, 1754, and sailed to Cowes, on the Isle of Wight. The ships typically took about a week to reach Cowes and then were there another week to clear the customs house (this was when the ships officially entered the English Empire) and stock up for the journey. Heinrich’s ship likely left Cowes around mid-August.

The journey to the New World typically lasted 6 to 12 weeks, depending on the weather and the conditions of the ocean. You can read a particularly harrowing account of the passage written by a contemporary of Heinrich’s named Gottlieb Mittelberger.

Heinrich’s passage was likely easier, however, as historians now believe Mittelberger both traveled under especially poor conditions on an overcrowded ship, and still exaggerated how bad it was. That said, about 3.8% of German immigrants in this era are estimated to have died on the voyage.

Heinrich’s ship arrived in Philadelphia with 250 passengers on board, so if his journey was average they would have set sail with about 260 passengers, 10 of whom died along the way. The journey was especially hard on children, about 9% of whom died. (While better than Mittelberger’s claim that children “rarely survive,” it would still have been a traumatic journey.)

Assuming a departure from Cowes of August 15, Heinrich’s ship “Brothers” appears to have sailed the Atlantic in under 7 weeks. On September 30, 1754, Heinrich’s ship disembarked in the Harbor of Philadelphia and his life in the new world began.

“Harbor of Philadelphia, seen from New Jersey Shore, based on Scull’s Map of 1754″ (From etching in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania)

The Ship Records
We know Heinrich was on this particular ship because, in 1727, as German-speakers poured into Pennsylvania, the English became wary of the flood of immigrants (a recurring theme in American history), and required captains and the ports to start keeping arrival records. Before getting off the boat, the immigrants underwent a “health certification” to make sure they didn’t have infectious diseases. The certification for Heinrich’s ship reads:

Sept 30, 1754 Sir, We have carefully examined the State of Health of the Mariners and Passengers on board the ships Brothers and Edinburgh, Capts. Muir & Russel, and found no objection to their being admitted to land in the City immediately. To His Honour The Governour Tho. Graeme Th. Bond

Heinrich was healthy enough to leave the ship, and is thus recorded that same day on a handful of lists. (The sick passengers remained on the ship or went to a “hospital” on a nearby island in the Delaware River until well enough to enter Philadelphia.) According to Marianne Wokeck, a historian whose work I drew upon heavily in this blog post, these lists had two motivations:

The first was to appease the Englishmen’s traditional xenophobia to keep track of “different” peoples coming to live alongside them. The second was to establish a genuinely constructive, regulated first step towards eventual full citizenship for non-British immigrants by permitting settlers from places not under British rule to acquire, hold, and sell property.

The captain was required to keep a list that included all his passengers, their occupations, and their former place of residence. Sadly, most captains only followed part of this instruction. Muir only followed the instructions to record the names of adult men (though he also submitted their ages, which he wasn’t required to do; Heinrich gave his age as 36, making him born in 1717 or 1718).

Heinrich’s signature of abjuration from the pope.

Then, the immigrants walked in a line to the Philadelphia State House to sign oaths, of allegiance to the British crown and of abjuration against the pope. Thus we have a copy of Heinrich’s signature written in his own hand, so know he was literate (and that he had better penmanship than most on his ship).

For more information on the ship records, see this related post:
Original Sources: The Passenger List and Registry for the Ship “Brothers”

The Price of Passage
Passage cost between 6 to 10 pounds sterling for adults, while fares for children were half price from ages 5 to 10, and free for those under 5. I’ll present evidence in a future post that Heinrich traveled with at least a wife and possibly two children, meaning that his fare would have been somewhere between 10 and 30 pounds sterling.

This was merely the cost of passage from Rotterdam to Philadelphia. Traveling from his home to Rotterdam, lodging and food in Rotterdam (an expensive city at the time) while waiting to sail, and fees in Philadelphia may have tripled the cost according to some estimates. In total, Heinrich’s journey must have cost between 30 to 90 pounds sterling.

It’s hard to convert currencies across centuries. A converter at this website suggest such a sum today would be around $7,000 to $20,000. Perhaps a better way to think about it is to consider that 1 pound sterling was around 450 grams of silver. A German laborer in the 1750s earned an average of just over 4 grams of silver a day according to data from the Global Price and Income History Group. Thus it would take nearly 100 days of labor to amass just one pound Sterling. It was a considerable sum.

There were three ways passengers made this trip:

1. Those who could afford the trip were welcome to pay up front, and received a discount for doing so. (More precisely, passengers who did not pay up front were assessed additional fees in Philadelphia.)
2. “Free-willers” were those of modest means who arranged with a ship captain or shipping company to repay the trip upon arriving in Philadelphia. Sometimes family members or a religious community could muster the necessary funds; other times they went into debt to the shipping company or its captain.
3. “Indentured servants” were the poorest immigrants who went into debt before leaving home and often had the most onerous contracts to get out of.

I’ve found no record of Heinrich being any sort of indentured servant, so he may have somehow had the means to pay for the trip. Such records can be hard to find, and Heinrich may have begun toiling to repay his debts the day he arrived.

His motivations and means of funding the journey may be lost to time. But we know for certain that on September 30, 1754, Heinrich Zumbrun set foot on American soil after a long and arduous journey, and that because of him, the Zumbruns have been here ever since.

Some questions for further research

• Are there records of Heinrich being an indentured servant or in debt from the voyage? The captain (William Muir) or shipping company (Stedman Brothers) may have had them.
• Were any relatives, friends or associates of Heinrich among the other passengers?
• Are there any records of Heinrich in Rotterdam?
• What happened to the ship “Brothers”? What did it look like?

Sources

• The Flow and the Composition of German Immigration to Philadelphia, 1727-1775 by Marianne Wokeck
• Morbidity and mortality on the North Atlantic Passage, by Farley Grubb
• The Market Structure of Shipping German Immigrants to Colonial America,  by Farley Grubb
• Facsimile of the Signatures on the Ship “Brothers”