For those of you receiving this newsletter for the first time this month let me tell you that this newsletter is from the Mower Family History Association which has been been in existence since December 1989. We write a monthly newsletter to interested family members to keep everyone informed on the genealogical research progress we are making on the Mower line. Let us know if you want to continue to receive it as we are "culling" our memberships lists to save postage. All of us tie into the Mower line through Henry Mower Sr., son of Michael Mower. This association has been extensively involved in research for the last 18 months investigating the descendants and ancestors of Henry Mower Sr.
The research is conducted by several family members and a professional genealogist, who is hired by funds contributed each month by family members like you. Our researcher is Jim Petty, former head genealogist at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. Jim is working specifically researching the origins of the Mower family and we are getting closer to locating where the Mowers (Maurers) came from in Germany. A report from him is enclosed.
The research in the states on the Mowers is being done by my wife and myself. We are tracing Mowers in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia--all of them ancestors and relatives of Andrew Maurer (Mower) who lived 1752-1813. Andrew is the father of Michael Mower.
Now since several dozen of you are getting this newsletter for the first time this month, let me tell you about the progress we have made during the month of March and April: My wife, Tedi Jeen, and I spent our Spring Break from school at the Family History Library in Salt Lake researching the Maurer line. We logged 43 hours that week at the FHL and came home with a basket full of photocopies, materials and information which we have since been digesting.
We have found several items of interest to the Mower family. We have now proved through documented evidence that Andrew Mower (Maurer) lived in Virginia near his sister, Anna Margaret (Maurer) Brill at or near the village of Lovettsville, Virginia. There they attended two churches during the 1780's. The first church they attended was the St. James Church. Those records written in original German script. What would have been unreadable for us 1 year ago was now readable because Tedi Jeen has taught herself during the last 10 months to read German script. She doesn't understand German, but she can tell me what the letters are and I can understand German, so between both of us we can read and understand this very difficult writing. We had to work 35 hours before we discovered the old script written church record on the last day we were at the library. We then spent a very interesting and difficult 8 hours translating parts of this record. The results made our entire trip worthwhile!
We discovered that Andrew Mower moved during the 1780's to Loudoun County, Virginia and lived near Peter Mower who appears to have been an older brother. We have not proven as of this date that Peter is an older brother, but we strongly suspect it. Peter was the person who sponsored the christening of Andrew's child, Sarah, when both families lived in Bucks County, Pennsylvania an attended the Nockamixon Lutheran Church. We located a new church established near Lovettsville, Virginia and Peter Mower (Maurer) was the presiding elder of this church. Peter and Andrew Mower both appear in Loudoun County on the 1787 State Tax List of Virginia. Peter appears to have more property than Andrew.
One of the first things that happened when a group of Germans got enough of them together to form a church out on the frontier (this area was wilderness in 1787), was for everyone to bring their unchristened children in for baptism, and those needing confirmation (which usually occured at age 14) were brought in for confirmation.
One of the first entries on the list of baptisms is Johann Conrad MAURER, son of Andreas and Margaretha MAURER. He was born in 1786 and the christeni ng took place in 1789. This is a "lost child" to us---by that I mean to say that we had no idea that this child had ever lived. He was obviously dead 24 years later when Andrew Mower wrote his will, because Andrew named his living heirs at that time. The census records indicate that the child was probably still living in 1800 when the family had moved from Maryland to Bedford County, Pa, but no further record of Johann Conrad exists which we have found.
This also makes us feel great about finding Anna Catharina MAURER christened in 1791 in the Lovettsville, New Jerusalem Church, daughter of Andrew and Margaret. We found her last month and suspected she was Andrew's daughter, but couldn't link them to our Andrew. Well, now we can. The linking evidence is that Andrew's sister (Anna Margaret Maurer BRILL) also attended these churches. This makes two more children of Andrew's which we can add to his family since our research began.
Of great interest to us in the St. James Church record was the record of John EMICH and wife Anna Maria EMICH---this is Anna Maria (Brill) AMICK. We were not surprised to find them there, because the records are full of Brills and we know that the Brills lived there. Her father, Christopher Brill, attended the New Jerusalem Church. We also found Michael EMICH who married Molly Mower. We found Samuel Mower, and many other Mowers on this record. (All names were spelled Maurer because this is the German spelling and this record was written in German as I mentioned.) It could be that the Amicks migrated to Loudoun Co., Virginia with the Maurers and we may find the father of John Amick in eastern Pennsylvania. This is a great lead for us. We had other successes at the library which we should also mention.
We were successful in finding 2 grandchildren, and 1 great grandchild of Mahala Mower. Mahala was the daughter of Henry Mower Sr. who stayed in Bedford Co. Pa and did not move to Nauvoo with her father. The 3 children we found died in infancy and were not recorded on any census records. We knew that they had lived because their respective mothers had recorded on the 1900 Census that they had given birth to so many children and so many were living. Thus by going back and searching out the cemetery records we were led to find these 3 children. That in itself was enough to make this trip worth while. We thought this was great!