| Notes |
- The LeDez Connection and Matthias Baumann
The marriage of Hans Yoder and Anna Rosina LeDee was performed by Paulus van
Vlecq, Dutch Reformed pastor, at Whitemarsh, the church of which Hans Yoder was
a member from the beginning of the church record in 1710. The record reads:
"Johannes Jodder, widower of Fronica Iselmyn, and Anna Rosina LeeDee".
The LeDez family was Huguenot. Since Jean LeDez's deed to his Oley property,
refers to him as coming from Eppstein in the Palatinate, I went one year to
Eppstein, a smallish Palatine town on the Rhine plain near Frankenthal. In the
Frankenthal Archives I went through the records of the French Reformed Church at
Frankenthal, of which the LeDez family were members. I found the birth of Jean
LeDez, June 7,1663, son of Daniel and Marie (Louys) LeDez of Flomersheim.
However, there was no birth record for his daughter Rosina. I finally located
her birth and baptismal record, in the Reformed Church records of the town of
Weinheim on the Bergstrasse, across the Rhine from Frankenthal, whither the
family had fled in 1689 when the French invaded the Palatinate.
Anna Rosina LeDez was baptized March 16,1692, in the Reformed Church at
Weinheim, daughter of Jean LeDez and his wife Rachel Bertram. (On the same page
was the baptism of Johannes Tempelmann, who became a pioneer Reformed minister
in Pennsylvania.) Rosina had a brother Johannes (Jean) baptized July 23,1696,
also at Weinheim. Her mother, Rachel (Bertram) LeDez, died at Weinheim August
30,1698, aged 36 years. In these entries Jean LeDez is listed as farmer
(Hofbauer) on the Schmittburg Hof, a farm within the parish limits of the town
church. After his wife's death Jean LeDez returned to Eppstein/ Frankenthal,
where he served as toll collector for the Palatine government until leaving for
Pennsylvania in 1709.
Jean LeDez evidently settled in Oley as early as the autumn of 1709. Here he was
joined by his friend Isaac deTurk of Frankenthal who had come to New York colony
in 1708. Many years ago my cousin John Joseph Stoudt showed me the original
patent from William Penn to "John ledee", for 330 acres of land "at or near a
Place called by the Indians Oley". The land adjoined Isaac deTurk's tract and
was granted, for 38 pounds, to John ledee, who is described as "late of Epstein
in ye Palatinate of the Rine but now of this Province". The document is dated
1712. On the third day of the third month, called May,1714, Jean le dee, as he
signed his name, sold 110 acres of this tract to Matthias Bowman Of Oley,
Planter. Witnesses at the signing were John Henry Kirsten and Isaac deTurk.
Philip Kuhlewein (1683-1737),Jean LeDez's son-in-law and Hans Yoder's
brother-in-law has been traced to the village Of Lambsheim, not far from
Frankenthal. His connections are equally important for Pennsylvania history, and
I have outlined them in the article,"Emigration Materiels from Lambsheim in the
Palatinate", by Heinrich Pembe, translated and edited by Don Yoder, in
Pennsylvania Folklife,XXIII:2 (Winter 1973-1974),40-48. Philip Kuhlewein was the
son of Hans Theobald Kuhlewein and his wife Dorthea of Lambshein. He was a
member of the Reformed Church, but joined the pietist movement led by Matthaus
(Matthias) Baumann of Lambshein. For this reason he was arrested in 1706, along
with many other townsmen, and forced to clean the town ditches as penalty.
Matthias Baumann was Philip Kuhlewein's brother-in-law, married to Philip's
sister Catharina Kuhlewein. The Baumanns followed the Kuhleweins to Pennsylvania
in 1714, settling near them in the Oley Valley. By 1719 another brother-in-law,
Abraham Zimmermann, who had married Veronica Kuhlewein, emigrated, settling in
Maxatawny, north of Oley. These details and more about this family are available
in my book, Rhineland Emigrants (Baltimore,1981).
The will of Philip "Kalwine", of Oley, husbandman, was proved April 7,1737 and
recorded in Book E, page 363. He mentions his wife Mary and his father-in-law
John "Ladee,"whom he names as his executors. Witnesses were John Bowman, Arnoldt
Euffnagel, and Conrad Cooke.
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