Person:Jean Michelet (1)

The Mickleys, descendants of Huguenots, driven from France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 1685, settled at Deux Ponts, then part of the German Empire. The name was corrupted and variously written, Miquilet, Muckli, etc., and finally anglicized into Mickley. The family name in Germany is Michelet. John Jacob Mickley, born in Germany, in 1697, landed at Philadelphia in 1733, married Elizabeth Barbara Ulrich, and settled in Whitehall township, then in Bucks county, now Lehigh, where he died, 1769. He left three sons and two daughters. The eldest son, John Jacob, settled in South Whitehall, John Martin, the second, in Adams county, 1794, and John Peter, the youngest, in Bedminster township, Bucks county, 1784. They left numerous descendants now found living in twelve states. The two younger sons served in the Revolutionary war and John Jacob, the elder, had charge of the transportation of the Liberty Bell from Philadelphia to Allentown, where it was concealed while the British held that city. The family, in this country and Germany, have held honorable places in the various walks of life, in the professions, business, etc. In time of war the descendants of John Jacob have always served their country, two were soldiers in the Revolution, three in the War of 1812, and 15 on the Union side in the Civil War, one being an officer of the Navy.

John Jacob was also know as Jean Jacques Michelet. He was listed on the passenger list as Johan Jacob Mueckli, age 22, and signed his name that way when he took the oath of allegiance. John was single as the time and first lived with a cousin, Jacob Levan, in Oley, Berks Co, PA, and farmed the land. Serveral years later he moved to Whitehall Twp and became one of the first settlers of that part of Northampton Co. This is now part of the town Egypt and became part of Lehigh County when that county was formed in 1812. He bought land from Adam Deshler in Whitehall Twp on December 14, 1761 and the town of Mickleys developed on this original tract. He was naturalized on 9 August 1761 at Northampton Co. PA

Jean Jacques Michelet changed his name to John Jacob when arriving from Rotterdam, Holland on the ship Hope of London, arriving in Philadelphia on 27 August 1733.

From “Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania,” pp. 173-174, an account of Indian massacres perpetrated in October 1763:“[At the farm of John Jacob Mickley] they encountered three of his children, two boys and a girl in a field under a chestnut tree, gathering chestnuts. The children’s ages were: Peter, eleven; Henry, nine; and Barbary, seven; who, on seeing the Indians, began to run away. The little girl was overtaken not far from the tree by an Indian, who knocked her down with a tomahawk. Henry had reached the fence, and, while in the act of climbing it, an Indian threw a tomahawk at his back, which, it is supposed instantly killed him. Both of these children were scalped. The little girl, in an insensible state, lived until the following morning. Peter, having reached the woods, hid himself between two large trees which were standing near together, and, surrounded by brushwood, he remained quietly concealed there, not daring to move for fear of being discovered, until he was sure that the Indians had left. He was, however, not long confined there; for, when he heard the screams of the Schneider family, he knew that the Indians were at that place, and that his way was clear. He escaped unhurt, and ran with all his might, by way of Adam Deshler’s to his brother, John Jacob Mickley, to whom he communicated the melancholy intelligence. From this time Peter lived a number of years with his brother John Jacob, after which he settled in Bucks County, where he died in the year 1827, at the age of seventy-five. One of his daughters… [stated] the fact, related by her father, that the Mickley family owned at that time a very large and ferocious dog, which had a particular antipathy to Indians, and it was believed by the family that it was owing to the dog the Indians did not make an attack on their house, and thus the destruction of their lives was prevented. John Jacob Mickley and Ulrich Flickinger, then on their way to Stenton’s, being attracted by the screams of the Schneiders, hastened to the place where, a short time before, was peace and quietness, and saw the horribly mangled bodies of the dead and wounded, and the houses of Marks and Schneiders in flames. The dead were buried on Schneider’s farm.”

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1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2} Minnie F. Mickley, The Geneology of the Mickley Family of America.
2. ↑ ^2.0 2.1 Miller, Linnea, Records of Egypt Reformed Church 1734-1807: Lehigh County, PA (http:/ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usge.