Person:Theobald Crisler (1)

Theobald Crisler was one of the Early Settlers of Germanna Colony

Early Land Acquisition in Virginia

Acquisition of Land from Virginia Northern Neck Land Grants:

• H-625: Deobald Cristler of Culpeper County, 62 acres in Culpeper County on Robinson River. Surv. Mr. George Hume. Adj. Andrew Garr, Michjael Smith, Cristler's other land. 12 Mar. 1755. Index - Chistler. [Virginia Northern Neck Land Grants, 1742-1775, Vol. 2, Gertrude E. Gray, pg. 84].

• H-627: Deobald Cristler of Culpeper County, 437 acres on South fork of Shannandoah River in Frederick County. Surv. Mr. G. Hume. Adj. Zachary Blancumbaker, Michael Blankcumbaker. 14 Mar. 1755. [Virginia Northern Neck Land Grants, 1742-1775, Vol. 2, Gertrude E. Gray, pg. 84].

Information on Theobald Crisler

Immigrated: 1718 From Germany to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Name: Theobold Fawatt CRISLER

Sex: M

ALIAS: Deobald and Johann /Theobold/

Birth: 18 AUG 1700 in Lambsheim, Palatinate, Germany 1

Death: 18 NOV 1776 in Culpeper Co, VA

Immigration: ABT 1718 Settled in Franconia Twp, Philadelphia Co, PA

Residence: 1736 Orange Co, VA

NATURALIZED: 28 JAN 1741/42 Orange Co, VA

Will: 20 FEB 1776 Culpeper Co, VA

Burial: NOV 1776 ? Probably Garr Mountain, Culpeper Co, VA

Reference Number: 370

Note:

"Theobolt Fawatt Crisler was born in Rotterdam Holland in later 1700 or very early 1701. He came to the Colony of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia and Germantown) with his father, Matthais and two younger brothers David and Michael. They sailed from Rotterdam on September, 1709 on the sloop "SWIFT", and landing at Kingston, Long Island, Colony of New York, in mid-December 1709. It wasa here that the allied family KREUSSLER-KREISLER-CHRISLER of Johann Jacob debarked. The future Chrysler family had decided that the Dutch Reformed Crhuches of New York and that colony suited them better than the frontier, and they subsequently moved north and settled in Schohaire, Montgomery County, NY, Albany, Schnectady, and the Mohawk Valley. Matthais and sons remained aboard and sailed for Philadelphia, landing in late December 1709. The family first settled in Germantown, then 12 miles from the port of Philadelphia. Later Matthias and his two youngest sons moved to their land patent at Madison, leaving Thebolt behind in Philadelphia to work for wages on the waterfront and remained there until 1732. In 1732 he me and accompanied the Garr Family,, immigrants from Bavaria, to Madison County. It was in Philadelphia that he met Rosina Barr who was to become his bride in Virginia in 1736, in Madison, Culpeper County, Virginia.

Theobold was granted naturalized citizenship January 24, 1742

Thebold and his eldest son, Henry, were members of the Virginia Colonial Militia commanded by Patrick Henry. In 1775 Theobold and Henry marched with the Virginia Colonial Militia on Lord Dunsmore's arsenal in Williamsburg where Dunsmore had stored confiscated muskets, ball and powder of the colonists and Colony. Theobold was 75 years of age and Henry was 38. Thebold and Henry returned home in August, 1775 where Thebold died the following year.

Thebold's will is contained in the Culpeper County Will Book "B", page 185 and reads:

"Will of Thebold Cristler, February 20, 1776; November 18, 1776. Wife Rosina Garr Crisler; sons Henry, George, Adam, Michael, Leonard, and David. Daughters Catherine, Dorothy (Crisler) Broyles, Mary (Crisler) Carpenter; Elizabeth (Crisler) Wilhoite, Margaret (Crisler) Clore, Catherine Cristler; etc. Attested to by Michael Souther, Jacob Souther, and Adam Garr."

According to Wm. Neville Crisler's book - Theobolt and his son, Henry, helped freight the great organ for Hebron Lutheran Church across the mountains from Philadelphia. This was the first organ of clarity and distinction in any church in Virginia or the Atlantic Colonies south of New York.

Nr. 617: This is the TWENTY-FIFTH page of John BLANKENBAKER's series of Short Notes on GERMANNA History, which were originally posted to the GERMANNA_COLONIES Discussion List. Each page contains 25 Notes.

Two of the families who came to America through the port of Philadelphia were the Christler family and the Gaar family. The Christler family came first, in 1719, and settled in Franconia Township, in what is Montgomery County today. One of the members of the family was Johann Theobald Christele, aged nine years when he left Germany. (The origins of this family are recounted in "Before Germanna," volume 11.) The Gaar family arrived in 1732 and lived for a short period of time in Germantown, outside Philadelphia.

In 1732, Rosina Gaar was nineteen years old. At this time, Theobald was about twenty-three years old. The exact dates that the families moved to Virginia are unknown. The first record in Virginia for Theobald Christler is a land purchase in 1736. Theobald was the only member of his family to move to Virginia. His father remained in Pennsylvania; in fact, his father's will is recorded in Philadelphia County in 1748.

I have often wondered where Rosina and Theobald were married. Theobald's relocation to Virginia, away from his family, suggests that they may have married in Pennsylvania and moved with her family to Virginia. On the other hand the Garrs are said to have remained in Pennsylvania only a short time. In the "Garr Genealogy," the first child of Theobald and Rosina is given, by the Garrs, a birth year of 1737. More exactly, only one child, Henry, is given a birth year, and he happens to be listed first in the sequence of children. It is possible that the marriage took place in Pennsylvania and that would account for the relocation of Theobald to Virginia. It remains a mystery as to why the Gaars moved to Virginia.

Earlier we reviewed the family of Theobald and Rosina as given by the Garrs. They omitted the daughter Dorothy and added a son Andrew which later historians have corrected. With these corrections, the Garr's list of children agrees with the will of Theobald Crisler. In Virginia, the name was spelled Christler, Crisler, and Crisler.

The origins of the family were probably in Switzerland where the family name is to be found in Canton Bern. The spelling of the name in some German records as Christele even suggests this as the ending "li" or "le" is a typical Swiss ending. Probably the family relocated to Germany from Switzerland in the late seventeenth century when many Swiss and Germans moved into southwest Germany as a part of the repopulation efforts following the destruction of The Thirty Years' War.

Theobald's father, Leonard Christler, married Anna Maria Bender (in America, an equally good spelling of this would be Pender). Johannes Bender, Anna Maria's father, Leonard Christler, and another son-in-law of Johannes Bender, Christian Merkel, sold their property in 1719 and immigrated to Pennsylvania ("Before Germanna

Nr. 618:

In note 587, we looked at the family of Rosina Gaar and Theobald Crisler. To the family as given in the "Garr Genealogy" we added Dorothy (#24), and noted that Andrew was dubious. In this note we look at one of the members of this family, Henry Crisler, son of Rosina and Theobald, who married Elizabeth Weaver. Using the baptismal sponsors for their children, I will show that there is no doubt that Elizabeth was a Weaver. The Hebron Church Register gives seven children from 1762 to 1776, plus an eighth one in 1787. The "Garr Genealogy" gives two more, Benjamin and Mary of unspecified birth dates. In the book it hints that Benjamin was born before the first that is given in the Register. I find this hard to believe as Henry and Elizabeth would surely have brought in their first born for baptism. The book also gives Mary a birth date in the time frame from 1776 to 1787 when the church was not as popular or as well organized as Rev. Franck had left it in 1778. In 1787, William Carpenter, Jr. had taken over the helm and renewed the spirit at the church.

When Henry and Elizabeth brought in Dinah (b. 8 Feb 1762), the sponsors were George Crisler (Henry's brother), Peter Weaver (her brother), Mary Fisher (his cousin, Mary Garr, who married Stephen Fisher), and Elizabeth Weaver (two choices, either her mother or her sister-in-law). This is a traditional set of choices. For Joseph (b. 13 Nov 1763), the sponsors were Stephen Fisher (his cousin's husband), Matthew Weaver (her brother), Elisabeth Willheit (her unmarried cousin). These were heavy favorites of the parents and were used over and over. For Elias (b. 8 Feb 1766), the sponsors were all repeats from those for the first children. For Jemima (b. 6 Apr 1768), a new sponsor is invited, Anna Crisler (sometimes called Magdalena), who is the wife of George. This is also a typical sub-pattern, alternating between husbands and wives. It also occurred with Stephen Fisher and Mary Fisher.

For Anna (b. 27 Oct 1771), another new sponsor is Barbara Carpenter, the mother's sister, who had first married George Clore, who died. Barbara then married Andrew Carpenter. I have not been giving all of the sponsors as I have omitted the "repeaters". For Elizabeth (b. 28 Jul 1774), the new sponsor is Andrew Carpenter, the husband of Barbara. For the namesake, Henry (b. 3 Apr 1776), the choices were all repeats of the previous selections. For Rosina, the after thought, born 10 Jul 1787, there are two new sponsors. One is Barbara Garhert whose identity is a total mystery. It is thought that the last Gerhard left the community some forty years earlier. The other new sponsor is Elizabeth Weaver, for whom there are multiple choices, such as sister-in-law, niece, or nephew's wife (of Elizabeth Crisler).

Henry, the father, came from a large family of eleven children. Yet the only sibling that he asked to be a sponsor is his brother (John) George. Elizabeth (Weaver) Crisler also limited her choices in her family but they were broader than Henry's choices. This limitation in choosing sponsors is typical and is nothing that is unique to the Henry and Elizabeth Crisler family.

Extracts from the Diary of Brother Gottshalf's Journey through Maryland and Virginia, March 5 - April 20, 1748 from the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Series I, Volume 12, pages 62 - 70.

On Page 70 this reference is found:

"On April 6 - March 26 I started early. Matthias Selzer saddled two horses and took me not only across the South Branch of the "Chanador" but even five miles further, so that I could not go astray. The regular road to the upper Germans (sic coming from the valley near "Missinotty" (Massanutten Mountain) is fifty miles, but across the mountain it is twenty miles nearer, hence I went straight across the mountain. It took me more than two hours to reach the top. The people there call this mountain the "blue reach" (ridge). When I was at the foot of the mountain and also half way up it rained, but when I reached the top it snowed very fast.

Footnote at bottom of page 70 referring to upper Germans

"At the end of this diary see Orders of the County Court of Orange, naturalizing certain German Protestants, who were evidently members of Hebron Church, in the present county of Madison. The early deed and will books of Orange and Culpeper show the German family names of Utz, Hernsberger, Crisler, Crigler, Clore and others, who belonged to the same congregation. These people came with the second and third colonies, which located at Germanna in 1717 or later."

From the William and Mary Quarterly, Series I, Volume 26, pages 83- 84:

The German Colony of 1717:

"The constituency of the settlement in 1734-35. Stoever in 1737, while in Germany published a pamphlet on this colony, in which he states that is consisted of 300 souls. He is probably speaking of the time of his departure from Virginia, which was 1734. The number 300 seems to be only a general term. The petition of 1734 referred to above is probably more reliable in giving the number as 62 families and 274 persons. Many of these are the nature increase of the 1717 colony, but there had been undoubtedly a constant stream of new emigrants. In addition to the 20 families of this 1717 colony as given above, I find the following names from patents and court records, of those who were with the settlement in 1734: Carpenter, Crigler, Wayland, Weber, Wilhite, Cobler, Garr, Rouse, Turner, Stolts, Tommas (THomas, Zeuche, Manspeil, and Crisler.

David (Dewald) Christler purchased 418 acres in Orange county from John Trotter, 19 April 1736. Christopher Zimmerman, Leonard Zeiglar, and others were witnesses.

Danel Christler paid one tithe in Orange County, VA in 1736. He is listed as Daywall Cristler among the 1739 Orange County titheables.

From John Blankenbaker's Germanna Notes:

Andrew Garr had two daughters, that we know of, in America; Rosina, who married Theobald Christler, and Elizabeth Barbara Garr, who married Michael Blankenbaker. Apparently, he had another daughter who was born in America. Is this possible? Eva Seidelmann Garr, wife of Andrew Garr, was born in 1689. They came to America in 1732, and letters written to Germany at the end of the year do not mention another member of the family. They do mention that a daughter, besides the two above who came with them, had died in Pennsylvania. In 1733, Eva would have been 44 years old. It is possible that she had another child.

I have to assume this child married Christian "Tivall". In 1751, Andrew Garr had a warrant for land in the Shenandoah Valley. If we assume that this unnamed daughter was still living then when Andrew Garr assigned the warrant to Christian, she might have been about 18 years old. So far, there is nothing impossible in the story. Christian Tivall had the property surveyed in 1752. His wife, the daughter of Andrew Garr, died about this time and Christian felt badly about taking the land from Andrew. I would assume that, if there had been children of Christian and the unnamed Garr daughter, Christian would have kept the land in trust for the heir. Instead, Christian assigned his rights to another son-in-law of Andrew Garr, namely, Theobald Christler. The word "assigned" could be interpreted as either a gift or a sale.

The name Tivall is reinforced as connected with the Gaar/Garr family by another Warrant & Survey.

"Lawrence Garr of Culpeper, 4 Jan 1749/50, 3 Feb 1750, on South Fork Shannondoah. Chain carriers: Tivall & Zacharias Blancumbaker."

I do think the surveyor was confused when he wrote up the survey results. He implied there was a Tivall Blancumbaker but a more correct reading would probably be "XYZ" Tivall where XYZ was most likely Christian. I will add some more to these thoughts in the following notes.

(18 Jul 02)

http://home.comcast.net/~rich4839/p94.htm#i2810

Theobald Fawatt Crisler was born circa 1700 at Rotterdam, Holland.1 He married Rosina Gaar, daughter of Andreas Gar and Eva Seidelmann, circa 1736 at Culpeper Co, VA.1 Theobald Fawatt Crisler died in 1776 at Culpeper Co, Virginia.

Children of Theobald Fawatt Crisler and Rosina Gaar

Adam Crisler

Leonard Crisler

David Crisler

Andrew Crisler

Catherine Crisler

Mary Crisler

Henry Crisler b. 1737, d. 1811

John George Crisler b. c 1745, d. 13 Apr 1818

Margaret Crisler b. c 1750

Elizabeth Crisler+ b. 1752

Michael Crisler b. 17 Dec 1752, d. 29 Nov 1836

Citations

[S298] Jr William Neville Crisler, Genealogy of Kreisler-Crisler. From "Germanna History", Notes:(http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~george/johnsgermnotes/germhs58.html)

Michael Crisler, the son of Theobald Crisler and Rosina Gaar, had married the widow Mary Ann (Thomas) Debolt. Mary Ann Thomas was the daughter of Michael Thomas, the son of John Thomas and Anna Maria Blankenbaker, both of Neuenbuerg. It seems to me that a connection had been carried from Neuenbuerg to America.

1. ↑ Virginia Vital Records, Indexed by Judith McGhan, Gen. Publishing, Baltimore, 1984
   pg. 321.
2. ↑ Germanna Record. (Germanna Foundation).

   http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~george/johnsgermnotes/germhs50.html