Benjamin Emmert born a British subject on February 28, 1772 in Berks County, Pennsylvania, British Colonial America to Catherine Gunckel, age about 22, and Leonard Emmert, age about 27. He was probably the eldest of nine children.
THE ANCESTORS
Benjamin's branch of the Emmert family came to America from Bavaria in 1732 when his grandfather, Johann Jorg Friedrich "George" Emmert (1718-1796), stepped off a small ship named ‘Loyal Judith’ in colonial Philadelphia. George and his wife, Eve Maria Graff, became naturalized British subjects in 1751, but then disavowed the king in 1778 when George pledged allegiance to the State of Pennsylvania before Judge Peter Spycker in Berks County.
Benjamin's father, Leonard Emmert, was born to George and Eve Maria in Bethel Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, British Colonial America in about 1745. He married Catherine Gunckel in Berks County, Pennsylvania, on April 1, 1771, when he was 26 years old.
YOUTH
Benjamin and his brother, Leonard, were born in the years just before the American colonies declared their independence from Great Britain.
In August 1776 Benjamin's father left his wife and two sons in the care of friends and family to join up with Capt. John Lesher in the Berks County Militia. It is believed that Leonard Emmert served until he was wounded and discharged from further service obligation in 1777.
After the war, Benjamin's parents had seven more children.
In the 1780s Leonard and Catherine turned away from Lutheranism in favor of the much newer German Baptist Brethren Church. Leonard was effectively disinherited by his father, and this change in religious devotion seems to have been the reason.
ADULTHOOD
Benjamin married Ann Maria Harbaugh, daughter of Revolutionary War veteran Captain Yost Harbaugh (1741-1831), in Pennsylvania in about 1796. A daughter, Catherine, was born on May 14, 1797, in Pennsylvania.
By the spring of 1798 Leonard Emmert had moved his family to Washington County, Maryland to join other Brethren faithful settling there. Leonard purchased a 410-acre tract named 'Delemere', and he and his sons started building a home and farm outbuildings.
Within a year Leonard Emmert was given charge of a small log-bodied church house built on his land at Oak Ridge.
Benjamin and his small but growing family went along to Maryland too. A son, Joseph, was born there to Benjamin and Anna on April 1, 1799. Eight more children would follow.
Benjamin's mother died sometime between March 1801 and August 1804. Her mortal remains were laid to rest in the yard of the small church at Oak Ridge, thus starting the Emmert Graveyard on the Delemere property.
Benjamin's father passed away before September 9, 1804 at about the age of 59. His body was laid in a grave next to Catherine on Oak Ridge.
Benjamin was appointed co-executor of his father's will along with his brothers Leonard, John, and Michael. But while many fathers at this time would have adhered to the old ways and passed down all their lands to the eldest son, Benjamin received no land by direct devise.
A controversy raised by Benjamin's brother, John, resulted in a negotiated agreement between all the heirs that was not signed until June 1805. For Benjamin's part, he received an additional 24-pound annual payment, but still no land. Although as we will see, he would do very well in life nevertheless.
LEAVING THE MANOR
On November 28, 1809 Benjamin purchased from Mathias Springer's heirs a 180-acre tract of land and various improvements. The property lay about halfway between Benevola and Funkstown, along Antietam Creek and along the wagon road that would become the National Road (also known as the Cumberland Road), America's first major government-sponsored highway.
As the crow flies, Benjamin's new home lay just a few miles northeast of Emmertsville and his family's Dunker church. However, Benjamin seems to have become more attached over time to the Brethren congregation at Beaver Creek. We do not know if this is evidence of a growing family rift, or simply a matter of convenience given the poor roads and bridges at the time.
Sometime before 1814, but after the Potomac Company proposed in 1811 to build a series of locks along Antietam Creek to aid navigation, Benjamin built a dam and proposed a canal to circumvent "Cheney's Falls," a series of steep rapids in Antietam Creek alongside his land. It is unclear how much progress he made on the idea.
Benjamin's brother, John, died in May 1820 when he was just 42 years old and leaving a widow and nine children. Benjamin and his brother, Joseph, were named co-executors in John's will which was itself a model of modernity, giving John's widow, Nancy, ownership and control of all the marital property.
BUILDING A HOME
Probably in preparation for building what would become known as the Cool Hollow House, Benjamin had his land re-surveyed for a new patent entitled "Emmert's Home" (filed September 5, 1821).
With the ambitious building program that followed, Benjamin eschewed the bucolic rough-hewn limestone character of his family's two farm homes at Emmertsville. Instead, Benjamin built his house of brick and wood in a "restrained example of early 19th century Federal/Greek Revival" style. The house still serves in 2020 as a private home, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
At about the same time that finishing touches were being applied to the Cool Hollow House, an 1824 Hagers-Town newspaper article announced the completion of the "Turnpike Road between Hagerstown and Boonsborough" and the opening of the Tollgate House next to the Emmert home.
During these years, and in addition to managing a large farm operation, it is said Benjamin owned a one-half interest in the Roxbury Mill which was one of the largest distilleries of its day. Benjamin reportedly farmed wheat and rye on his property which he shipped in bulk to the mill less than a mile downstream Antietam Creek from Cool Hollow.
OPPOSING SLAVERY AS A TENET OF FAITH
It is believed that a large tree in front of Benjamin's house identified it as a waystation on the Underground Railroad. We know the system was active in western Maryland, and we know Benjamin's Brethren faith was doctrinally opposed to slavery.
This may also suggest a rift in the immediate family insofar as Benjamin's son, Joseph (1799-1853) held an enslaved 11-year-old boy in 1850 according to that year's slave census. And that may help explain why Joseph was evidently not a beneficiary of Benjamin's will.
MANY WENT WEST
Beginning in the late 1830s, many Marylanders began looking West for new opportunities. The entire region west of the Rockies was owned by either Mexico or Great Britain, and much of land west of the Mississippi River was still the province of Indian nations, trappers, and traders. Nevertheless, the prospect of Government land at the rate of $1.25 per acre drew many settlers to Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin.
Those who stopped off in Benjamin's dooryard to bid their farewells surely included Benjamin's nephew, David Emmert (1804-1857), who went on to found and booster the town of Mount Carroll, Illinois.
Another emigrant stopping off at Cool Hollow was probably Benjamin's brother, Joseph (1782-1862), who had become an ordained Brethren minister at the new Manor Church in Emmertsville. Joseph and a son-in-law had ridden horseback to Illinois in 1842, then returned to organize a wagon train to Illinois in the spring of 1843. Joseph would become the patriarch of a large community of Emmerts in Lee County, and was the founding minister of the Rock River Brethren Church in Franklin Grove, Illinois.
O DEATH
The last known child of Benjamin and Ann was a daughter, Liddey, born on February 13, 1821. The baby would live only until October, and was buried at the Beaver Creek Cemetery.
Benjamin's wife passed away on August 2, 1831 at the age of 57. Some days before her death, and just as hopes for her recovery were being entertained, she reportedly spoke: "Do not matter yourself with my recovery, for it is not the Lord's will that I shall again be restored to my family, and let his will be done." Ann's body was buried at the Beaver Creek Cemetery near baby Liddey's grave.
Scarcely a month after Ann's passing, Benjamin's son, John, passed away at the age of 21. The dual obituary in the Hagerstown Torch Light & Public Advertiser of September 22, 1831 lamented Ann Maria's passing, then went on to recount how young John "went to bed in perfect health, on the evening of the 18th and on the next morning he was a lifeless corpse. An apoplectic fit suddenly cut him off in the prime and usefulness of life." John was also laid to rest at Beaver Creek Cemetery.
Another grave was opened at Beaver Creek Cemetery when Benjamin buried his daughter, Catherine, who had died on April 5, 1840, at the age of 42.
Benjamin's daughter Susannah passed away on June 27, 1848, in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, at the age of 42. She had been married to Jacob Baker Price, a descendant of one of the early pioneers of the Brethren church in America. Susannah was buried in Pennsylvania where she had lived all her married life.
On August 3, 1850 the federal census enumerator found a death-depleted household at Cool Hollow House that included only the 78-year-old widower Benjamin, his 48-year-old widowed daughter Mary (Emmert) Williams, Mary's 21-year-old daughter Catherine, and 14-year-olds Sarah Conrad and George W. Gray whose relation to the Emmerts is uncertain.
Benjamin left this life on June 13, 1851. His mortal remains were laid to rest near his departed wife and children at the Beaver Creek Cemetery. An intricate but unostentatious headstone marks his grave.
◘ ◘ ◘
Researched by P. A. White, JD
2020 for @NewWorldAncestry at Shorewood, Wisconsin – All Rights Reserved
Subject’s relation to author: 3rd great-granduncle
See also https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/LCF9-3KS
THE ANCESTORS
Benjamin's branch of the Emmert family came to America from Bavaria in 1732 when his grandfather, Johann Jorg Friedrich "George" Emmert (1718-1796), stepped off a small ship named ‘Loyal Judith’ in colonial Philadelphia. George and his wife, Eve Maria Graff, became naturalized British subjects in 1751, but then disavowed the king in 1778 when George pledged allegiance to the State of Pennsylvania before Judge Peter Spycker in Berks County.
Benjamin's father, Leonard Emmert, was born to George and Eve Maria in Bethel Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, British Colonial America in about 1745. He married Catherine Gunckel in Berks County, Pennsylvania, on April 1, 1771, when he was 26 years old.
YOUTH
Benjamin and his brother, Leonard, were born in the years just before the American colonies declared their independence from Great Britain.
In August 1776 Benjamin's father left his wife and two sons in the care of friends and family to join up with Capt. John Lesher in the Berks County Militia. It is believed that Leonard Emmert served until he was wounded and discharged from further service obligation in 1777.
After the war, Benjamin's parents had seven more children.
In the 1780s Leonard and Catherine turned away from Lutheranism in favor of the much newer German Baptist Brethren Church. Leonard was effectively disinherited by his father, and this change in religious devotion seems to have been the reason.
ADULTHOOD
Benjamin married Ann Maria Harbaugh, daughter of Revolutionary War veteran Captain Yost Harbaugh (1741-1831), in Pennsylvania in about 1796. A daughter, Catherine, was born on May 14, 1797, in Pennsylvania.
By the spring of 1798 Leonard Emmert had moved his family to Washington County, Maryland to join other Brethren faithful settling there. Leonard purchased a 410-acre tract named 'Delemere', and he and his sons started building a home and farm outbuildings.
Within a year Leonard Emmert was given charge of a small log-bodied church house built on his land at Oak Ridge.
Benjamin and his small but growing family went along to Maryland too. A son, Joseph, was born there to Benjamin and Anna on April 1, 1799. Eight more children would follow.
Benjamin's mother died sometime between March 1801 and August 1804. Her mortal remains were laid to rest in the yard of the small church at Oak Ridge, thus starting the Emmert Graveyard on the Delemere property.
Benjamin's father passed away before September 9, 1804 at about the age of 59. His body was laid in a grave next to Catherine on Oak Ridge.
Benjamin was appointed co-executor of his father's will along with his brothers Leonard, John, and Michael. But while many fathers at this time would have adhered to the old ways and passed down all their lands to the eldest son, Benjamin received no land by direct devise.
A controversy raised by Benjamin's brother, John, resulted in a negotiated agreement between all the heirs that was not signed until June 1805. For Benjamin's part, he received an additional 24-pound annual payment, but still no land. Although as we will see, he would do very well in life nevertheless.
LEAVING THE MANOR
On November 28, 1809 Benjamin purchased from Mathias Springer's heirs a 180-acre tract of land and various improvements. The property lay about halfway between Benevola and Funkstown, along Antietam Creek and along the wagon road that would become the National Road (also known as the Cumberland Road), America's first major government-sponsored highway.
As the crow flies, Benjamin's new home lay just a few miles northeast of Emmertsville and his family's Dunker church. However, Benjamin seems to have become more attached over time to the Brethren congregation at Beaver Creek. We do not know if this is evidence of a growing family rift, or simply a matter of convenience given the poor roads and bridges at the time.
Sometime before 1814, but after the Potomac Company proposed in 1811 to build a series of locks along Antietam Creek to aid navigation, Benjamin built a dam and proposed a canal to circumvent "Cheney's Falls," a series of steep rapids in Antietam Creek alongside his land. It is unclear how much progress he made on the idea.
Benjamin's brother, John, died in May 1820 when he was just 42 years old and leaving a widow and nine children. Benjamin and his brother, Joseph, were named co-executors in John's will which was itself a model of modernity, giving John's widow, Nancy, ownership and control of all the marital property.
BUILDING A HOME
Probably in preparation for building what would become known as the Cool Hollow House, Benjamin had his land re-surveyed for a new patent entitled "Emmert's Home" (filed September 5, 1821).
With the ambitious building program that followed, Benjamin eschewed the bucolic rough-hewn limestone character of his family's two farm homes at Emmertsville. Instead, Benjamin built his house of brick and wood in a "restrained example of early 19th century Federal/Greek Revival" style. The house still serves in 2020 as a private home, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
At about the same time that finishing touches were being applied to the Cool Hollow House, an 1824 Hagers-Town newspaper article announced the completion of the "Turnpike Road between Hagerstown and Boonsborough" and the opening of the Tollgate House next to the Emmert home.
During these years, and in addition to managing a large farm operation, it is said Benjamin owned a one-half interest in the Roxbury Mill which was one of the largest distilleries of its day. Benjamin reportedly farmed wheat and rye on his property which he shipped in bulk to the mill less than a mile downstream Antietam Creek from Cool Hollow.
OPPOSING SLAVERY AS A TENET OF FAITH
It is believed that a large tree in front of Benjamin's house identified it as a waystation on the Underground Railroad. We know the system was active in western Maryland, and we know Benjamin's Brethren faith was doctrinally opposed to slavery.
This may also suggest a rift in the immediate family insofar as Benjamin's son, Joseph (1799-1853) held an enslaved 11-year-old boy in 1850 according to that year's slave census. And that may help explain why Joseph was evidently not a beneficiary of Benjamin's will.
MANY WENT WEST
Beginning in the late 1830s, many Marylanders began looking West for new opportunities. The entire region west of the Rockies was owned by either Mexico or Great Britain, and much of land west of the Mississippi River was still the province of Indian nations, trappers, and traders. Nevertheless, the prospect of Government land at the rate of $1.25 per acre drew many settlers to Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin.
Those who stopped off in Benjamin's dooryard to bid their farewells surely included Benjamin's nephew, David Emmert (1804-1857), who went on to found and booster the town of Mount Carroll, Illinois.
Another emigrant stopping off at Cool Hollow was probably Benjamin's brother, Joseph (1782-1862), who had become an ordained Brethren minister at the new Manor Church in Emmertsville. Joseph and a son-in-law had ridden horseback to Illinois in 1842, then returned to organize a wagon train to Illinois in the spring of 1843. Joseph would become the patriarch of a large community of Emmerts in Lee County, and was the founding minister of the Rock River Brethren Church in Franklin Grove, Illinois.
O DEATH
The last known child of Benjamin and Ann was a daughter, Liddey, born on February 13, 1821. The baby would live only until October, and was buried at the Beaver Creek Cemetery.
Benjamin's wife passed away on August 2, 1831 at the age of 57. Some days before her death, and just as hopes for her recovery were being entertained, she reportedly spoke: "Do not matter yourself with my recovery, for it is not the Lord's will that I shall again be restored to my family, and let his will be done." Ann's body was buried at the Beaver Creek Cemetery near baby Liddey's grave.
Scarcely a month after Ann's passing, Benjamin's son, John, passed away at the age of 21. The dual obituary in the Hagerstown Torch Light & Public Advertiser of September 22, 1831 lamented Ann Maria's passing, then went on to recount how young John "went to bed in perfect health, on the evening of the 18th and on the next morning he was a lifeless corpse. An apoplectic fit suddenly cut him off in the prime and usefulness of life." John was also laid to rest at Beaver Creek Cemetery.
Another grave was opened at Beaver Creek Cemetery when Benjamin buried his daughter, Catherine, who had died on April 5, 1840, at the age of 42.
Benjamin's daughter Susannah passed away on June 27, 1848, in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, at the age of 42. She had been married to Jacob Baker Price, a descendant of one of the early pioneers of the Brethren church in America. Susannah was buried in Pennsylvania where she had lived all her married life.
On August 3, 1850 the federal census enumerator found a death-depleted household at Cool Hollow House that included only the 78-year-old widower Benjamin, his 48-year-old widowed daughter Mary (Emmert) Williams, Mary's 21-year-old daughter Catherine, and 14-year-olds Sarah Conrad and George W. Gray whose relation to the Emmerts is uncertain.
Benjamin left this life on June 13, 1851. His mortal remains were laid to rest near his departed wife and children at the Beaver Creek Cemetery. An intricate but unostentatious headstone marks his grave.
◘ ◘ ◘
Researched by P. A. White, JD
2020 for @NewWorldAncestry at Shorewood, Wisconsin – All Rights Reserved
Subject’s relation to author: 3rd great-granduncle
See also https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/LCF9-3KS
Benjamin Emmert born a British subject on February 28, 1772 in Berks County, Pennsylvania, British Colonial America to Catherine Gunckel, age about 22, and Leonard Emmert, age about 27. He was probably the eldest of nine children.
THE ANCESTORS
Benjamin's branch of the Emmert family came to America from Bavaria in 1732 when his grandfather, Johann Jorg Friedrich "George" Emmert (1718-1796), stepped off a small ship named ‘Loyal Judith’ in colonial Philadelphia. George and his wife, Eve Maria Graff, became naturalized British subjects in 1751, but then disavowed the king in 1778 when George pledged allegiance to the State of Pennsylvania before Judge Peter Spycker in Berks County.
Benjamin's father, Leonard Emmert, was born to George and Eve Maria in Bethel Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, British Colonial America in about 1745. He married Catherine Gunckel in Berks County, Pennsylvania, on April 1, 1771, when he was 26 years old.
YOUTH
Benjamin and his brother, Leonard, were born in the years just before the American colonies declared their independence from Great Britain.
In August 1776 Benjamin's father left his wife and two sons in the care of friends and family to join up with Capt. John Lesher in the Berks County Militia. It is believed that Leonard Emmert served until he was wounded and discharged from further service obligation in 1777.
After the war, Benjamin's parents had seven more children.
In the 1780s Leonard and Catherine turned away from Lutheranism in favor of the much newer German Baptist Brethren Church. Leonard was effectively disinherited by his father, and this change in religious devotion seems to have been the reason.
ADULTHOOD
Benjamin married Ann Maria Harbaugh, daughter of Revolutionary War veteran Captain Yost Harbaugh (1741-1831), in Pennsylvania in about 1796. A daughter, Catherine, was born on May 14, 1797, in Pennsylvania.
By the spring of 1798 Leonard Emmert had moved his family to Washington County, Maryland to join other Brethren faithful settling there. Leonard purchased a 410-acre tract named 'Delemere', and he and his sons started building a home and farm outbuildings.
Within a year Leonard Emmert was given charge of a small log-bodied church house built on his land at Oak Ridge.
Benjamin and his small but growing family went along to Maryland too. A son, Joseph, was born there to Benjamin and Anna on April 1, 1799. Eight more children would follow.
Benjamin's mother died sometime between March 1801 and August 1804. Her mortal remains were laid to rest in the yard of the small church at Oak Ridge, thus starting the Emmert Graveyard on the Delemere property.
Benjamin's father passed away before September 9, 1804 at about the age of 59. His body was laid in a grave next to Catherine on Oak Ridge.
Benjamin was appointed co-executor of his father's will along with his brothers Leonard, John, and Michael. But while many fathers at this time would have adhered to the old ways and passed down all their lands to the eldest son, Benjamin received no land by direct devise.
A controversy raised by Benjamin's brother, John, resulted in a negotiated agreement between all the heirs that was not signed until June 1805. For Benjamin's part, he received an additional 24-pound annual payment, but still no land. Although as we will see, he would do very well in life nevertheless.
LEAVING THE MANOR
On November 28, 1809 Benjamin purchased from Mathias Springer's heirs a 180-acre tract of land and various improvements. The property lay about halfway between Benevola and Funkstown, along Antietam Creek and along the wagon road that would become the National Road (also known as the Cumberland Road), America's first major government-sponsored highway.
As the crow flies, Benjamin's new home lay just a few miles northeast of Emmertsville and his family's Dunker church. However, Benjamin seems to have become more attached over time to the Brethren congregation at Beaver Creek. We do not know if this is evidence of a growing family rift, or simply a matter of convenience given the poor roads and bridges at the time.
Sometime before 1814, but after the Potomac Company proposed in 1811 to build a series of locks along Antietam Creek to aid navigation, Benjamin built a dam and proposed a canal to circumvent "Cheney's Falls," a series of steep rapids in Antietam Creek alongside his land. It is unclear how much progress he made on the idea.
Benjamin's brother, John, died in May 1820 when he was just 42 years old and leaving a widow and nine children. Benjamin and his brother, Joseph, were named co-executors in John's will which was itself a model of modernity, giving John's widow, Nancy, ownership and control of all the marital property.
BUILDING A HOME
Probably in preparation for building what would become known as the Cool Hollow House, Benjamin had his land re-surveyed for a new patent entitled "Emmert's Home" (filed September 5, 1821).
With the ambitious building program that followed, Benjamin eschewed the bucolic rough-hewn limestone character of his family's two farm homes at Emmertsville. Instead, Benjamin built his house of brick and wood in a "restrained example of early 19th century Federal/Greek Revival" style. The house still serves in 2020 as a private home, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
At about the same time that finishing touches were being applied to the Cool Hollow House, an 1824 Hagers-Town newspaper article announced the completion of the "Turnpike Road between Hagerstown and Boonsborough" and the opening of the Tollgate House next to the Emmert home.
During these years, and in addition to managing a large farm operation, it is said Benjamin owned a one-half interest in the Roxbury Mill which was one of the largest distilleries of its day. Benjamin reportedly farmed wheat and rye on his property which he shipped in bulk to the mill less than a mile downstream Antietam Creek from Cool Hollow.
OPPOSING SLAVERY AS A TENET OF FAITH
It is believed that a large tree in front of Benjamin's house identified it as a waystation on the Underground Railroad. We know the system was active in western Maryland, and we know Benjamin's Brethren faith was doctrinally opposed to slavery.
This may also suggest a rift in the immediate family insofar as Benjamin's son, Joseph (1799-1853) held an enslaved 11-year-old boy in 1850 according to that year's slave census. And that may help explain why Joseph was evidently not a beneficiary of Benjamin's will.
MANY WENT WEST
Beginning in the late 1830s, many Marylanders began looking West for new opportunities. The entire region west of the Rockies was owned by either Mexico or Great Britain, and much of land west of the Mississippi River was still the province of Indian nations, trappers, and traders. Nevertheless, the prospect of Government land at the rate of $1.25 per acre drew many settlers to Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin.
Those who stopped off in Benjamin's dooryard to bid their farewells surely included Benjamin's nephew, David Emmert (1804-1857), who went on to found and booster the town of Mount Carroll, Illinois.
Another emigrant stopping off at Cool Hollow was probably Benjamin's brother, Joseph (1782-1862), who had become an ordained Brethren minister at the new Manor Church in Emmertsville. Joseph and a son-in-law had ridden horseback to Illinois in 1842, then returned to organize a wagon train to Illinois in the spring of 1843. Joseph would become the patriarch of a large community of Emmerts in Lee County, and was the founding minister of the Rock River Brethren Church in Franklin Grove, Illinois.
O DEATH
The last known child of Benjamin and Ann was a daughter, Liddey, born on February 13, 1821. The baby would live only until October, and was buried at the Beaver Creek Cemetery.
Benjamin's wife passed away on August 2, 1831 at the age of 57. Some days before her death, and just as hopes for her recovery were being entertained, she reportedly spoke: "Do not matter yourself with my recovery, for it is not the Lord's will that I shall again be restored to my family, and let his will be done." Ann's body was buried at the Beaver Creek Cemetery near baby Liddey's grave.
Scarcely a month after Ann's passing, Benjamin's son, John, passed away at the age of 21. The dual obituary in the Hagerstown Torch Light & Public Advertiser of September 22, 1831 lamented Ann Maria's passing, then went on to recount how young John "went to bed in perfect health, on the evening of the 18th and on the next morning he was a lifeless corpse. An apoplectic fit suddenly cut him off in the prime and usefulness of life." John was also laid to rest at Beaver Creek Cemetery.
Another grave was opened at Beaver Creek Cemetery when Benjamin buried his daughter, Catherine, who had died on April 5, 1840, at the age of 42.
Benjamin's daughter Susannah passed away on June 27, 1848, in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, at the age of 42. She had been married to Jacob Baker Price, a descendant of one of the early pioneers of the Brethren church in America. Susannah was buried in Pennsylvania where she had lived all her married life.
On August 3, 1850 the federal census enumerator found a death-depleted household at Cool Hollow House that included only the 78-year-old widower Benjamin, his 48-year-old widowed daughter Mary (Emmert) Williams, Mary's 21-year-old daughter Catherine, and 14-year-olds Sarah Conrad and George W. Gray whose relation to the Emmerts is uncertain.
Benjamin left this life on June 13, 1851. His mortal remains were laid to rest near his departed wife and children at the Beaver Creek Cemetery. An intricate but unostentatious headstone marks his grave.
◘ ◘ ◘
Researched by P. A. White, JD
2020 for @NewWorldAncestry at Shorewood, Wisconsin – All Rights Reserved
Subject’s relation to author: 3rd great-granduncle
See also https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/LCF9-3KS
THE ANCESTORS
Benjamin's branch of the Emmert family came to America from Bavaria in 1732 when his grandfather, Johann Jorg Friedrich "George" Emmert (1718-1796), stepped off a small ship named ‘Loyal Judith’ in colonial Philadelphia. George and his wife, Eve Maria Graff, became naturalized British subjects in 1751, but then disavowed the king in 1778 when George pledged allegiance to the State of Pennsylvania before Judge Peter Spycker in Berks County.
Benjamin's father, Leonard Emmert, was born to George and Eve Maria in Bethel Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, British Colonial America in about 1745. He married Catherine Gunckel in Berks County, Pennsylvania, on April 1, 1771, when he was 26 years old.
YOUTH
Benjamin and his brother, Leonard, were born in the years just before the American colonies declared their independence from Great Britain.
In August 1776 Benjamin's father left his wife and two sons in the care of friends and family to join up with Capt. John Lesher in the Berks County Militia. It is believed that Leonard Emmert served until he was wounded and discharged from further service obligation in 1777.
After the war, Benjamin's parents had seven more children.
In the 1780s Leonard and Catherine turned away from Lutheranism in favor of the much newer German Baptist Brethren Church. Leonard was effectively disinherited by his father, and this change in religious devotion seems to have been the reason.
ADULTHOOD
Benjamin married Ann Maria Harbaugh, daughter of Revolutionary War veteran Captain Yost Harbaugh (1741-1831), in Pennsylvania in about 1796. A daughter, Catherine, was born on May 14, 1797, in Pennsylvania.
By the spring of 1798 Leonard Emmert had moved his family to Washington County, Maryland to join other Brethren faithful settling there. Leonard purchased a 410-acre tract named 'Delemere', and he and his sons started building a home and farm outbuildings.
Within a year Leonard Emmert was given charge of a small log-bodied church house built on his land at Oak Ridge.
Benjamin and his small but growing family went along to Maryland too. A son, Joseph, was born there to Benjamin and Anna on April 1, 1799. Eight more children would follow.
Benjamin's mother died sometime between March 1801 and August 1804. Her mortal remains were laid to rest in the yard of the small church at Oak Ridge, thus starting the Emmert Graveyard on the Delemere property.
Benjamin's father passed away before September 9, 1804 at about the age of 59. His body was laid in a grave next to Catherine on Oak Ridge.
Benjamin was appointed co-executor of his father's will along with his brothers Leonard, John, and Michael. But while many fathers at this time would have adhered to the old ways and passed down all their lands to the eldest son, Benjamin received no land by direct devise.
A controversy raised by Benjamin's brother, John, resulted in a negotiated agreement between all the heirs that was not signed until June 1805. For Benjamin's part, he received an additional 24-pound annual payment, but still no land. Although as we will see, he would do very well in life nevertheless.
LEAVING THE MANOR
On November 28, 1809 Benjamin purchased from Mathias Springer's heirs a 180-acre tract of land and various improvements. The property lay about halfway between Benevola and Funkstown, along Antietam Creek and along the wagon road that would become the National Road (also known as the Cumberland Road), America's first major government-sponsored highway.
As the crow flies, Benjamin's new home lay just a few miles northeast of Emmertsville and his family's Dunker church. However, Benjamin seems to have become more attached over time to the Brethren congregation at Beaver Creek. We do not know if this is evidence of a growing family rift, or simply a matter of convenience given the poor roads and bridges at the time.
Sometime before 1814, but after the Potomac Company proposed in 1811 to build a series of locks along Antietam Creek to aid navigation, Benjamin built a dam and proposed a canal to circumvent "Cheney's Falls," a series of steep rapids in Antietam Creek alongside his land. It is unclear how much progress he made on the idea.
Benjamin's brother, John, died in May 1820 when he was just 42 years old and leaving a widow and nine children. Benjamin and his brother, Joseph, were named co-executors in John's will which was itself a model of modernity, giving John's widow, Nancy, ownership and control of all the marital property.
BUILDING A HOME
Probably in preparation for building what would become known as the Cool Hollow House, Benjamin had his land re-surveyed for a new patent entitled "Emmert's Home" (filed September 5, 1821).
With the ambitious building program that followed, Benjamin eschewed the bucolic rough-hewn limestone character of his family's two farm homes at Emmertsville. Instead, Benjamin built his house of brick and wood in a "restrained example of early 19th century Federal/Greek Revival" style. The house still serves in 2020 as a private home, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
At about the same time that finishing touches were being applied to the Cool Hollow House, an 1824 Hagers-Town newspaper article announced the completion of the "Turnpike Road between Hagerstown and Boonsborough" and the opening of the Tollgate House next to the Emmert home.
During these years, and in addition to managing a large farm operation, it is said Benjamin owned a one-half interest in the Roxbury Mill which was one of the largest distilleries of its day. Benjamin reportedly farmed wheat and rye on his property which he shipped in bulk to the mill less than a mile downstream Antietam Creek from Cool Hollow.
OPPOSING SLAVERY AS A TENET OF FAITH
It is believed that a large tree in front of Benjamin's house identified it as a waystation on the Underground Railroad. We know the system was active in western Maryland, and we know Benjamin's Brethren faith was doctrinally opposed to slavery.
This may also suggest a rift in the immediate family insofar as Benjamin's son, Joseph (1799-1853) held an enslaved 11-year-old boy in 1850 according to that year's slave census. And that may help explain why Joseph was evidently not a beneficiary of Benjamin's will.
MANY WENT WEST
Beginning in the late 1830s, many Marylanders began looking West for new opportunities. The entire region west of the Rockies was owned by either Mexico or Great Britain, and much of land west of the Mississippi River was still the province of Indian nations, trappers, and traders. Nevertheless, the prospect of Government land at the rate of $1.25 per acre drew many settlers to Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin.
Those who stopped off in Benjamin's dooryard to bid their farewells surely included Benjamin's nephew, David Emmert (1804-1857), who went on to found and booster the town of Mount Carroll, Illinois.
Another emigrant stopping off at Cool Hollow was probably Benjamin's brother, Joseph (1782-1862), who had become an ordained Brethren minister at the new Manor Church in Emmertsville. Joseph and a son-in-law had ridden horseback to Illinois in 1842, then returned to organize a wagon train to Illinois in the spring of 1843. Joseph would become the patriarch of a large community of Emmerts in Lee County, and was the founding minister of the Rock River Brethren Church in Franklin Grove, Illinois.
O DEATH
The last known child of Benjamin and Ann was a daughter, Liddey, born on February 13, 1821. The baby would live only until October, and was buried at the Beaver Creek Cemetery.
Benjamin's wife passed away on August 2, 1831 at the age of 57. Some days before her death, and just as hopes for her recovery were being entertained, she reportedly spoke: "Do not matter yourself with my recovery, for it is not the Lord's will that I shall again be restored to my family, and let his will be done." Ann's body was buried at the Beaver Creek Cemetery near baby Liddey's grave.
Scarcely a month after Ann's passing, Benjamin's son, John, passed away at the age of 21. The dual obituary in the Hagerstown Torch Light & Public Advertiser of September 22, 1831 lamented Ann Maria's passing, then went on to recount how young John "went to bed in perfect health, on the evening of the 18th and on the next morning he was a lifeless corpse. An apoplectic fit suddenly cut him off in the prime and usefulness of life." John was also laid to rest at Beaver Creek Cemetery.
Another grave was opened at Beaver Creek Cemetery when Benjamin buried his daughter, Catherine, who had died on April 5, 1840, at the age of 42.
Benjamin's daughter Susannah passed away on June 27, 1848, in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, at the age of 42. She had been married to Jacob Baker Price, a descendant of one of the early pioneers of the Brethren church in America. Susannah was buried in Pennsylvania where she had lived all her married life.
On August 3, 1850 the federal census enumerator found a death-depleted household at Cool Hollow House that included only the 78-year-old widower Benjamin, his 48-year-old widowed daughter Mary (Emmert) Williams, Mary's 21-year-old daughter Catherine, and 14-year-olds Sarah Conrad and George W. Gray whose relation to the Emmerts is uncertain.
Benjamin left this life on June 13, 1851. His mortal remains were laid to rest near his departed wife and children at the Beaver Creek Cemetery. An intricate but unostentatious headstone marks his grave.
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Researched by P. A. White, JD
2020 for @NewWorldAncestry at Shorewood, Wisconsin – All Rights Reserved
Subject’s relation to author: 3rd great-granduncle
See also https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/LCF9-3KS
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