Wikimedia® Commons image  -Ingelheim 1645by the 17th Century engraver Matthaus Merian  the elder.

Friedrich Schweickhart
    Christened  June 1,1727 in Nieder-Ingelheim,
Rheinhessen, Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany,
now Ingelheim am Rhein, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany

by Iris Teta Eubank Wagner
4th great-granddaughter 

During the twenty years following Friedrich's arrival in Pennsylvania, his surname Schweickhart evolved, likely through cultural interchange in the areas where he lived in Lancaster and Cumberland Counties.  Swiss settlers and settlers from Northern Ireland were well established in Rapho Township in Lancaster County, where Frederick's first land record in 1752 in Pennsylvania is found on the Rapho Township Warrantee Map.   The warrant is in the name of Frederick Swygart.   The first evolutionary change to his name was then spelled Swygart, which  indicates a Swiss influence.  Tradition comes to us through Frederick's daughter Sarah Swagerty O'Haver, that Frederick married a daughter of a Swiss physician.  This physician may have been a member of the family of late seventeenth century immigrant  Dr. Heinrich Zimmerman. 

Frederick likely sold his  land in Rapho Township in 1762 then headed west across the Susquehanna to settle on unwarranted land in Cumberland County.   His name is written as Suagert on the first tax list in 1763 Fermanagh Township.  His surname is written Sweikert on a 1767 application to warrant land.   The 1768 survey of that tract reads Swekart.   On subsequent surveys in Cumberland County where his name appears, it is written Swegart, Swagart,  Swagarty, and Swagerty in 1769.

Frederick's eldest daughters were baptized as Maria  and Elizabeth Schwigerty at St. Michael's Evangelical Lutheran Church in Pfoutz Valley, the oldest settled area in Cumberland County.   On Tax Lists during the 1770's and on Revolutionary War records, the name is most often written Swagerty, with slight variation. 

From Friedrich's immigration  in 1749 through his death in Tennessee in 1803, this narrative, to be in four parts, will include copies of original documents, book and periodical references, and in the absence of documents, discussion of circumstantial evidence and possible theories in context with historical background.  

This first narrative will discuss Friedrich Schweickhart in Germany.  Second, Frederick Swagerty of Lancaster and Cumberland Counties, Pennsylvania contains land records, tax records,  and Revolutionary War service records, and a few clues to family relationships. 

In Appreciation:
I thank those cousins I'm fortunate to know, or have known, and with whom I shared ideas and research :  My good friend and cousin, the late Dr. Paul Thomas Miller, a descendant of either Frederick or Abraham's son, Thomas Swagerty, who immigrated with his family to Arkansas in the 1820's.  Thomas Swagerty was one of three commissioners who founded and surveyed Benton County, Arkansas, in the late 1830's;  Mary Swaggerty Slowey, whose lineage comes through Claiborne Swaggerty who lived in Knox County, Tennessee;  Todd Layman, close cousin from the lineage of Frederick's son James Swagerty, Sr., who lived in the Swagerty House on Clear Creek in Cocke County, Tennessee;   Dixie Richardson, from  Frederick's son Benjamin Ailor Swagerty who  moved from Tennessee to Indiana in the 1830's ; Marguerite White Williams, also from James Swagerty, Sr. ; Annice Graddon Eberle, daughter of Lora Swagerty Cook, and who corresponded through the years with her aunt and first cousin, Fanny Swagerty Eubank and William Eubank .  . . . . . Iris T. Wagner

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The family of Abraham Schweickhart, born 1690, of Nieder-Ingelheim,
sons Frederick Wilhelm and Abraham

Mary Swaggerty Slowey is a cousin and researcher of Friedrich Schweickhart's genealogy.  Several years ago she discovered there were city records of an Abraham Schweickhart family of Nieder-Ingelheim.  I looked more closely and found the source to be a book of area  family genealogies based on church records, The Families of Nieder-Ingelheim and Frei-Weinheim, by Rolf Kilian and Franz Weyell. 

         Abraham Schweickhart, the elder  
Abraham Schweickhart was born in December, 1690.  He was a city official for the town of Nieder-Ingelheim. He died in 1740.  He had a first wife, but she is not named in the city records.  There are three children named in the record :
      Elizabetha,born April 4, 1720,  baptized on April 7, 1720.
         Anton, born January 22, 1722, died March 11, 1728 
(Anton, named for grandfather, Anton Schweickhart, born in 1658.)
         Johan George, born August,  1724.  
Abraham married his second wife in 1725 - Maria Elizabeth Litzerich was widowed in 1722, after the death of her husband Johannes Litzerich of Grofs-Winterheim, a small village near Nieder-Ingelheim. 
Abraham and Maria had three children :
      Friedrich Wilhelm was baptized June 1, 1727
      Anton, baptized July  13, 1731
         Abraham, baptized October, 1733
        Catharina Elizabeth, baptized March 14, 1736. 
In addition to his own name, Friedrich Wilhelm, these family given  names are the same that Frederick Swagerty gave to several of his older children : Maria, Elizabeth, William, Abraham, and Catherine.

There is in the record of the descendants of Friedrich Schweickhart's daughter, Sarah Swagerty O'Haver, the given name Frederick William.  Sarah's son James Kobler O'Haver had a son named Frederick William O'Haver, born 1837 and died in 1864 in Carlisle, Indiana.  Sarah  inherited the Schweickhart Family Bible, which she later carried to Indiana where the O'Haver family moved between 1820 and 1830.  The present owner of the Bible is unknown.

Schweickhart Traditional Occupation
In trying to piece together information from family documents over many generations, it's helpful to note a similarity of occupation that follows through in generations of a family's history. 

Early Schweickhart families are found in the vineyard and wine industry - brewer, distiller, inn keeper, occupations that require a knowledge of the wine industry.

On the 1780 Tax List of Industries for Fermanagh Township, in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, the immigrant to Pennsylvania, Friedrich Schweickhart (Frederick Swagerty) is paying taxes as the owner of a Distillery. 

The Family of George Schweickhard

(left) George Schweickhard was born in Birlenbach, Bas Rhin, Alsace, France, in 1825.  His father, Jean Daniel Schweickhard, was born into a family who had lived for generations in Wingen and Climbach, Alsace - both towns two to three miles from the Alsace border with Germany.   George Schweickhard immigrated to New York in 1836.  Later, in 1855 he bought a brewery in Wauwautosa, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 

From Wisconsin writer Jerold Apps book, Breweries of Wisconsin :

Schweickhard had come to Milwaukee from Buffalo, New York, with the idea of starting a farm.  However, as his family had been brewing for hundreds of years in Muehlhausen, Alsace, he could not pass up the brewing opportunity. 

 Schweickhart's son-in-law Adam Gettelman later bought the company, and Gettleman descendants operated the brewery until 1971, when it was sold to the Miller Brewing Company.

Peter Goettelmann was Adam Gettleman's father.  He emigrated from Hesse-Darmstadt and moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin :  In Milwaukee the Goettelmann family merged with the aristocratic Schweickhard family from Alsace, leading to the establishment of the A.Gettleman Brewing Company in 1871 on the site of the original Schweickhard brewery.
ancestry.com - Public Member Tree by Susan Farrar. Permission given use of photo and biographical information.

Archbishop Schweickhardt  
Eastward a few miles beyond Mainz on the Main River is the city of Aschaffenburg (map, below), where a Renaissance castle was built between the years 1605 and 1614.   The castle was built for Johann Schweickhardt von Kronberg.

Johann Schweickhardt von Kronberg (above) Archbishop of Mainz
Artist : Gerhard Bruck.
Med.: Pen,& ink wash                
Sold by Christies -
London, 2007. Lot 81

From the Christies record:
Johann Schweickhardt von Kronberg was Archbishop Elector of Mainz from 1604 to 1626.  The See of Mainz was the most powerful in Germany, and brought with it the position of Archchancellor, most senior of the three spiritual Electors of the Holy Roman Empire.   Schweickhardt was therefore Archbishop-Elector during the Defenestration of Prague and the Bohemian Revolt (1618), and was a significant figure in the crises following the death of the Emperor Matthias II (1557-1619) during which Catholic and Protestant factions disputed the succession and precipitated the Thirty Years War.  We are grateful to Dr. Norbert Suhr and Mr. Gernot Frankhauser of the Landesmuseum, Mainz, for identifying the sitter and the associated print.
      
Surname Schweickhardt
By scholarly historical accounts, the surname Schweickhardt originated in Switzerland during the 1200's, around the area of Konstanz,  near the head of the Rhine River in the Alps (map below).   The surname is found during the Middle Ages as an hereditary surname of variant spelling, and is found in church records in south Germany. 

Historical Atlas by William R. Shepherd
                         Rhine Valley in the Years 919-1125
This early map of the Rhine River Valley, shows the area of Constance (Konstanz), Switzerland. The river turns north at Basel, continuing north to Strasburg and on to Mayence (Mainz) and Ingelheim, in Franconia.  This historical route of the Rhine River is likely the route traveled by individuals named Schweickhardt from the early 1200's through the 18th century.  Evidence shows they were among the vintners and brewers at Muehlhausen, Alsace. 

Wars of Religion-in-Transition
The devastating and long-lasting conditions caused by the wars of religion-in-transition depopulated entire regions, as people fled from one area to another to escape invading armies and marauding bans of vagrant and mercenary troops. 

Rhein-Hessen lost between one-third and two-thirds of its population.   There were eight-million fatalities during The Thirty Years War, lasting from 1618 to 1648.  The State religion became Lutheranism.  Some Catholic and Reformed groups did continue in Hessen-Darmstadt.

Imperial History of Nieder-Ingelheim
The modern city of  Mainz (Mayence on the early map, below) is located on the map where the Rhine River curves west.  Nine miles west of Mainz is the present town of Ingelheim am Rheim which was created  in recent years by the consolidation of the small towns of Nieder-Ingelheim and Ober-Ingelheim. These two villages share an imperial history that reaches back to the time of the Emperor Charlemagne, who built his KaiserPfalz castle at Ingelheim between 774 and 788. 

Perry Castaneda Map Collection, University of Texas; Historical Atlas by William R. Shepherd

(above) Portion of  the Map of the Carolingian Empire in 814, the year of Charlemagne's death. The map  shows Charlemagne's Ingelheim just west of Mayence (Mainz), which was an important imperial location during the Middle Ages until the 15th, and into the 16th centuries.

Schweickhart families, like others in the regions of the Upper and Lower Palatinate and Alsace, undoubtedly fled from, or were caught up in, the political wars and wars of religion lasting several centuries and The Thirty-Years War (1618-1648).  The devastating and long-lasting conditions caused by the wars, depopulated entire regions as people fled from one area to another to escape invading armies and marauding bands of vagrant troops. 

After the religious wars were over, the Schweickharts likely brought their expertise in vineyard growth and wine-making to the Ingelheim/Mainz area in the late 1600's, to restore the abbey vineyards left fallow after the wars.As the area became open to citizen settlement in the war-free late 17th Century, these two small villages began to develop.  Ingelheim, the town of KaiserPfalz became known as Nieder-Ingelheim.  The 17th century illustration of the town of Ingelheim is at the top of this page.

The Coat of Arms of Ingelheim (right) The Coat of Arms of  the historical  town of  Ingelheim,  carries the KaiserPfalz Castle insignia. The old imperial location of Ingelheim eventually became the town of Nieder-Ingelheim. 
                                            
Friedrich Schweickhart of Nieder-Ingelheim is the Emigrant aboard the Ship Dragon, bound for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Shown below is a page of signatures of male immigrants who arrived at Philadelphia on the ship Dragon, September 26, 1749, took the Oath of Abjuration and Allegiance, and qualified for Naturalization.   The signatures of  Johanes N. Ross and Friedrich Schweickhart appear on the Dragon's passenger list.  An enlargement of the two names are super-imposed over the over-all list.

 Johanes Ross [Johann Rooss] arrived at Philadelphia on the Ship Dragon, September 26, 1749 ;  the name following his in the ship list is Friedrich Schweickhart.  Johanes Ross signed with a mark; Friedrich Schweickhart signed his own name with a fine hand.
 (Number 137 C, the Oath of Allegiance and Abjuration,  from Strassburger and Hinke, Vol.2) 

Jerry H. Collins genealogy on Rootsweb : A man named J. Nikolaus Roos was the father of Anna Maria Roos, born 1760, who lived and died in Nieder-Ingelheim, and married Johann Matthias Hartkopf.  Their daughter, Maria Amalia Hartkopf married Anton Schweickhardt.  This Roos/Schweickhart reference indicates a  connection between these two families.  Evidently, Roos families and Schweickhart families are connected in Nieder-Ingelheim.

The Oppenheim List
An article by German genealogist Friedrich Krebs, with translation edited by Donald Yoder, references several emigrants from the Oppenheim area, who received permission to emigrate in 1749, and two male emigrants who are said to have gone "secretly" to America.  

Gone "secretly" to America ?
Friedrich, and his family, would have expected Friedrich's name to appear on a military conscription list, for he would  have been nearing his 22nd birthday in May, 1749, perhaps a recent graduate in his advanced studies.  Perhaps the Roos family, too, was concerned for Johannes in respect to the conscription list.  Their families may have been so concerned that they gave each of the young men money for the trip down the Rhine..  When the authorities were made aware that the young men had gone, they termed it "secretly." 

Friedrich's brother, young Abraham Schweickhart 
Young Abraham Schweickhart, who was baptized in October of 1733 in Nieder-Ingelheim, would have been age fifteen at the time the Dragon set sail from Rotterdam, and not over age sixteen when the ship arrived at Philadelphia.  Only males over sixteen were required to sign the oath.  If the Captain's List A would be available today, it may reveal that Abraham, being a minor,  was in Friedrich's care aboard the ship, if indeed Abraham was ever on the ship.  It is indicated by the Nieder-Ingelheim record that Abraham may had a deformity of one of his legs.  As difficult a journey as it must have been, a disability would have made the five to six-month trip much harder to endure.  Young fifteen-year-old Abraham may never have left his family in Nieder-Ingelheim.  Knowing his brother Abraham would have been exempt from the conscription law, because of his disability, Friedrich may have taken his younger brother's identity in order to escape the conscription law.
From Krebs and Yoder, Item 19, p78
Johann Rooss and Abraham Schweickart from Niederingelheim  went "secretly" to the  New Land, and their property was confiscated.

Frederick's father, Abraham Schweickhart,  died in 1740 when Friedrich was age thirteen, and probably heir to a portion of his father's estate, which would have been devised to pay for Friedrich's education.  By the spring of 1749, Friedrich wanted a life other than that of the military. The assets which were confiscated may have been Friedrich's  portion of his inheritance from his father's estate.    The legacy would have been held in trust by his mother, or the probate court of Abraham Schweickhart, the elder.

Evolution of  Surname : Schweickhart   
During the twenty years following Friedrich's immigration to Pennsylvania in 1749, his surname Schweickhart evolved, likely through cultural interchange in the areas where he lived in Lancaster and Cumberland Counties.  Swiss settlers and settlers from Northern Ireland were well established in Rapho Township in Lancaster, where Frederick's first land record in 1752 in Pennsylvania is found on the Rapho Township Warrantee Map.   The warrant is in the name of Fredrick Swygart. The spelling of his name indicates a Swiss influence.

The Move to Cumberland County
Frederick sold the Rapho Land in 1762 and headed west across the Susquehanna to settle on unwarranted land in Cumberland County.   His name is recorded as Suagert on the first tax list for Fermanagh Township in 1763.  His name is written Sweikert on the 1767 application to warrant land, and have it surveyed.   The 1768 survey of that tract is recorded as Swekart.   On subsequent surveys in Cumberland County where his name appears, it is written Swegart, Swagart,  Swagarty, and Swagerty.  
Frederick's eldest daughters were baptized as Maria  and Elizabeth Schwigerty at St. Michael's Evangelical Lutheran Church in Pfoutz Valley, the oldest settled area in Cumberland County.   On Tax Lists during the 1770's and on Revolutionary War records, the name is most often written Swagerty, with slight variation.

                                                          Research, Original Narrative  & Website © Iris Teta Eubank Wagner 2009/2017

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Sources for Proof of the Swagerty family narratives and Genealogies :

Genealogical Helper : article by Sidney Jackson of Dallas, Texas.  Published in the May-June issue, 1982, p68

Dr. G. L. Ridenhour, Land of the Lake : A History of Campbell County, Tennessee, LaFollette Publishing Company, Inc., LaFollette, Tennessee, Copyright 1941, by Dr. G. L. Ridenhour, p. 8.

Ralph Beaver Strassburger and William John Hinke, Pennsylvania German Pioneers, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 ( the signature edition, p466) of the Ships' Lists, Pennsylvania German Society, 1934.