FOUNDING MOTHERS AND FATHERS -- BELLS AND VOGELERS

WHERE DID THEY COME FROM?

Where did they come from? How did they get here? These were the questions put to my Great Niece Desirae to investigate and report upon over the past Christmas holiday. What about the Bells? This was the question repeatedly put to me to investigate and report upon by my Mother some five years ago. Desirae, I understand, handed in her report on time. Mine is long overdue, and still incomplete.

The Scarcity of Records

We do not yet have direct documentary evidence either as to the place of origin or as to the time and route taken by the first known Bell ancestors who arrived in colonial Maryland sometime between around 1750 and 1756. No corroborated ship arrival lists or emigration documents have been found for Peter Bell (1736-1778) and Anna Elizabeth Vogeler Bell (1741-18??). Elizabeth's father and mother, Johann Friederich Vogeler, may be the same person who shows up in one of three ship arrival lists for Philadelphia, but Vogeler is a common name and corroborative evidence must still be found to tie him to one of the possibilities.

An abundance of indirect and circumstantial evidence points to the lower Rhine region as the probable European home of the Bells. One of their grandchildren, a German speaking Lutheran Minister, wrote in a short biography published in the History of the Maryland Synod that Peter Bell came from Alsace. Another descendant and usually accurate genealogist, Herbert C. Bell, wrote in The History of the Leitersburg District that Peter Bell's brother, Anthony Bell, "learned his trade in Weisbaden," an area located on the lower Rhine close to the region known as Alsace. He also said, "Captain Peter Bell was probably a native of Germany and emigrated to America in early manhood. Definite information regarding his personal history begins with the year 1767, when he purchased from Peter Shiess a tract of 248 acres, part of the larger original survey called All That's Left, to which he gave the name of Bell's Choice." Even today, a sign marks the boundary to Bell's Choice about 100 yards from the little bridge that crosses the Antietam Creek on the Mason-Dixon line that still defines the border between Pennsylvania and Maryland.

Clues from other Bell Immigrants

Another indirect way of narrowing the possible European origin makes use of the frequency of a surname appearing in the tax records, church registers (kirchenbuch) and other documents. One problem encountered when using this method arises from the changing and variable orthography of the time. In the colonial Maryland records, Peter and Anthony variously appear as Bella, Beala and Beil in addition to Bell. Other possbilities include Behler, Beiler and Bellerin among others. We cannot rule-out the possibility that Bell came into use in the colonies as the English equivaent for the German word for Bell, i.e. Klinger. However, the German word closest to Bell comes from the Latin root shared with the English word belicose, and suggests a military origin.

Another narrowing approach makes use of well-researched genealogies of other German-speaking Bells. Beginning in 1709, several substantial waves of German-speaking farmers emigrated from the entire length of Rhine Valley from its headwaters in Switzerland to the lower regions in present day France and Germany. That 1709 group included at least one family bearing the Bell name; however that group, after a stay in a refugee camp near London, settled in the Schoharie region of present day New York. They suffered greatly at the hands of English governors wishing to exploit them as indentured servants for the purpose of harvesting tar and pitch from trees for use as ship stores. These Germans negotiated separately with the Iroquois to resettle on their lands, fought in the French and Indian Wars and many were massacred, including several of the Bells among them. Conrad Wiser lead a large party of the surviving German Lutherans out of New York to resettle in Pennsylvania. At least one of the families associated with Wiser eventually settled near Frederick, Maryland and was a charter member of the same church that may be associated with Johann Frederick Vogeler. However, no direct connection between Wiser and Peter and Anthony Bell has surfaced.

Another German speaking Bell family turns up in the resettlement of Nova Scotia after the English deported the Hugonauts, poetically immortalized by Longfellow's Evangeline. That line of German speaking Bells, carefully researched and documented by Winthrop Bell in his, does not appear to connect to the Anthony and Peter Bell line.

The Bell name and variants also appear in family lines from Scotland, Ireland and England, families who also settled in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia as well as North and South Carolina. Some bad genealogical research by Fielder Beall, frequently cited and copied, arbitrarily assigned Peter and Anthony to an English Bell family which had settled many years earlier in the Sommerset area in the Maryland Tidewater region.

Why Did the Bells Leave Alsace?

We can speculate about Peter and Anthony's reasons for leaving their homeland based on the extensive research on the several waves of German-speaking immigrants who left the Rhine Valley for the Americas before, during and after they appeared in Maryland.

The region suffered the scourges of war, famine and religious strife for most of the 17th and early part of the 18th century. Naturally, the vast amounts of inexpensive unsettled land, promises of religious toleration and freedom from the ravages of war and also military conscription attracted many immigrants, a large number of which had to sell themselves as indentured servants for a period of seven years or more to pay for their passage to America. Some immigrants came as part of organized religious groups, and these immigrants generally
had some capital assets resulting from inheritance and acquired wealth.

Each of the successive waves of German speaking immagrants to America in the first half of the 18th Century resulted, in part, from a combination of promotions by the Proprietors and land speculators seeking to promote immigration for the settlement of the frontier. Of course, every wave sent letters back to their homelands, and this too, fostered further emigration.

German Speaking Arrivals through Baltimore and Annapolis

Although some connection may yet be found between the Schoharie Bells and Peter and Anthony, more likely Peter and Anthony came directly from their homeland on the lower Rhine to Maryland through the port of Annapolis or the Port of Baltimore. No 18th Century ship lists survive from the emigrant arrivals through these Maryland Ports, but other documents from the time attest to several vessels of German-speaking families arriving in the 1750's. Williams and McKinsey in History of Frederick County Maryland concluded from an examination of entries fround in the Colonial records at Annapolis that 1060 German emigrants arrived by that route between 1752 to 1755. "The ship Integrity arrived at Annapolis Sept. 18, 1752 from Cowes, J. Coward, Master, brought according to the record the baggage of 150 Palatine passengers. September 19, 1753, the ship Barclay, J. Brown, Master, landed 160 Palatines at Anapolis. The ship Friendship, from Cowes, land 300 Palatines at Annapolis, November 18, 1753 and 450 on January 16, 1755." Vol. 1, p. 7.

I examined a microfilm copy of these port records at the Maryland Historical Society in January 2008. Many other ship arriving at Annapolis refer directly to numbers of indentured servants and convicts arriving from Cowes, not just baggage, but indivudals are not named. We know that individuals arrived with their baggage in some cases, for example, Mr. Christopher Bartholomew Mayer, ancestor of Charles F. Mayer, a president of the B&O Railroad Company, made famous nationally and eternally by the Monopoly board game. He came on the ship Patience Capt. Hugh Steel, Master, arriving at Annapolis on October 4, 1752, bearing a letter dated London July 9th, 1752 from Caecilius Calvert, one of the proprietors of Maryland, to Benjamin Tasker. By separate letter of the same date, Calvert commends to Tasker "a number of Palatines" which he "desires you will give such necessary assistance to these people on their arrival to forward them to Manockesy [one of the variant spellings of Monocacy] (which I understand is in Frederick County) or where else the shall want to go to settle within the province, as in your power, and that they may be accommodated in a proper manner. But the charges attending any such service to them must be done in the most moderate manner in respect to the Proprietor and to answer their requisites necessary to their service. The increase of people being always welcome, your prudence would have supplied this letter in a kind reception of them; nevertheless as particular occasions may require your favour, I conclude my recommendation of them, in giving all possible satisfaction relating to the manner and place they shall chose to settle in Maryland."

Whether the Bell's were on this ship or another one, they found a welcome when they arrived in Maryland. They were welcomed because of their reputation as industrious farmers, tradesmen and artisans to a new land that needed and appreciated their skills and cpacity for hard work. I will conclude this first chapter on the Bells at this point, and let the reader reflect on what learning, if any, the history of the Bells arrival teaches for our current national debate on imigration.