Person:Ernst Menge (1)

Ernst Christian Menge was probably born in Soedel, Hessen, Germany. He was the youngest son of a church elder and stocking maker named Johann Ernst Menge and his wife Anna Catharina Ries. In 1754, he emigrated with at least two brothers (Joh. Henrich and Johannes) and possibly a sister (Anna Margertha), arriving in Philadelphia on the ship Edinburgh on 30 Sep 1754.

Ernst first married Catharina Klockner, who was a widow of a tavernkeeper named Johann Georg Ernst. She had several Ernst children, and then had two more children with Ernst Menge, one of whom survived: Catharina Menge, born in 1766. However, the mother Catharina died shortly after childbirth in 1766, and Ernst Menge then remarried to Maria Magdalena Summers later in 1766.

Ernst applied to operate a tavern in Sussex, New Jersey in 1776 shortly before the Revolution began. There is record that he gave supplies to Washington's Continental Army while the Revolution was in progress, and he served as a juror on several sedition trials.

By the time Ernst made out his will in 1805, he was using the Anglicized name of Ernest Man. He died in 1813 at the age of 81.