Family Documents

        
Jacob Goldman was born in the German Palatine; a son of Johann Conrad Goldtmann. His mother's name is unknown. She appears again, and again on New York and Pennsylvania records identified as "Widow Goldman". Conrad Goldtman his wife and five children fled the Palatine for Holland in 1709; were sent on to England Isles of Man in June, 1709; and first appear on Governor Hunter's Lists in New York on July 4, 1710. From New York, Jacob Goldman journeyed to Tulpehocken, Pennsylanva where he married Mary Abigail Brown. Johann Goldtmann's oldest son is listed in the Tulpehocken records as Conrad. Conrad named his oldest son Jacob. Jacob Goldman of Back Creek named his first son John (German Johann), his second son, Jacob, and his third Henry for H. Johann Wagner believed to be connected to this family. Perhaps he had sons named Martin and Conrad who were younger, and it is possible that Klera Hart, wife of the old Charles Hart of Back Creek was Jacob Goldman's daughter.


The Palatine referred to an area around the Rhine River that lay between the land controlled by France and Germany. Its soil was the frequent path of armies and field of battle. The people were open eared to the preaching of Calvin and Luther and early became Lutherans and Reformed Christians. Between the years 1684 and 1713, the area of Palatine was almost constantly in war. The residents were often persecuted because of their protestant faith. The War of Spanish Succession, 1702-1713, completed the destruction of the Palatine. Farm land was laid to waste, villages destroyed, the inhabitants imprisoned, burned at the stake, broken on wheels or drowned.

Thousands of the people of the Palatine region escaped the area during these years. They filled the streets of the cities of Europe. Many found their way to Holland, then across the English Channel to Great Britain. Johann Conrad Goldtmann and Anton Goldtmann were residents of Gundheim in 1698. They were Lutherans, registered in the Churchbooks at Dalsheim. Koenraat Koltman, (Dutch spelling) his wife, and five children were in the sixth party of refugees to reach Rotterdam, Holland in 1709.

The first boat loads of Palatines, from Holland, arrived on England's Isle of Man on June 9, 1709. Finally 13,000 Palatines found refuge in England. The vast horde was alarming. Queen Anne was sympathetic and allowed each ninepence daily for food. Some were housed in one thousand tents taken from English army stores. These tents were pitched on the Surrey side of the Thames. One thousand four hundred were lodged for four months in the warehouses of Sir Charles Cox. Many occupied barns until these were needed for crops.


The first large shipment (3,500) of these people was to Ireland where they became potato farmers. The second large shipment was to the Carolinas. They sailed from England in the early autumn of 1709. The best known migration was with Governor Hunter to New York. Tradition says that the Mayor of Albany, Col. Peter Schuyler, had visited England with five Indian Chiefs, two were said to be Mohicans. The Chief, Etowankaum, saw the homeless Germans. He offered the Queen a tract of land in the Schoharie Valley for them.

Earlier in 1707, sixty-one Luterans from the Palatine had gone to New York under the sponsorship of Lord Lovelace, who paid their passage, gave them tools and promised support for a year. In return they were to work in the pine forests and return the pine tar products to England. The pine tar was used in shipbuilding. They knew nothing of the work expected from them, but 52 persons survived the first winter in New York and they established a village on the west side of the Hudson River, named Neuberg, after a place in the Palatine. Toward the end of January 1710, the largest immigration to America during the Colonial era left the shores of England. Four thousand people were loaded on ten ships. Their numbers crowded the small ships of that day, and 1,700 of the whole number perished on the way. The voyage was longer than usual by reason of heavy storms and contrary winds. From January until after the beginning of June, and for some until July, the weary people were battling their slow way across the Atlantic. The crowded quarters, the foul air, insufficient food, made them the easy prey of disease, so that everyday witnessed the consignment of their dead into the sea. Governor Hunter wrote from New York on June 16, 1710, "I have arrived here two days ago. We want still three of the Palatine, and those arrived are in deplorable sickly condition."

The officials of the town were alarmed by the unhealthful condition of the emigrants. Many had contagious diseases. It was decided to keep them out of the city and to land them on Nutter (Governor's) Island and build huts for them. One of the Palatine ships, Herbert, was cast away to east end of Long Island. Hunter reported that the men were safe but sickly and all the goods were lost. The sojourn of the people on Nutter Island continued through five months, while the Governor was examining and prospecting after the most promising spot for their permanent establishment. While waiting for a report by the surveyor on the land, Governor Hunter issued an order for apprenticing children of the Palatines, which is set down as the first oppressive action of the government towards them. Many of the children were orphans but some had one parent living. There is preserved in the colonial documents a list of 84 these children. No Goldman children are on this list.


Governor Hunter decided to settle the Palatines on lands on the Hudson River. He describes an area of 6,000 acres bought from Robert Livingston. He was confident of an unfailing source of naval stores. The people were settled by the Governor in 5 villages, three of them on the east side of the River. The villages shortly increased to seven. Their names were Hunterstown, Queensbury, Annsbury, and Haysbury, on the east, while Elizabeth Town, Georgetown and New Village were situated on the opposite side of the river. The three villages in the East Camp contained about 1,200 people, among them the number of able-bodied men must have been small. The Palatines were under the indenture of Queen Anne and she expected them to repay her by manufacturing tar and raising hemp. They were said to owe ten thousand pounds sterling, which had been advanced by the Parliment. They were established here in the fall--no work on the pine trees was possible at that time of year. The first job of the people was to house themselves for the winter. The land in this area was covered with pine and was not suitable to farming. The pine was not the type pine that produced commercial quality tar. The soil was thin and rocky. The experiment was a complete failure and an embarrassment to Governor Hunter.

The Palatines were asked by Governor Hunter to fight the French in Canada in 1711. Conrad Goldman of Hunterstown was listed as a soldier. He evidently died in Canada. Widow Goldman was carried on New York's subsistence list in 1710 through 1712. She buried two of her children at sea. In 1712, she is listed with two children over ten and one under ten. Between 1710 and 1712, an infant is added then taken away. Another Goldman baby had died.

The Palatines began to murmur in May that the land the Governor allotted to them was good for nothing and demanded that he send them to "Scorie", as they called the land given by the Mohican Chief. They would rather lose their lives than remain where they were. Their cries were compared to the Israelites and the Governor acted as the Pharaoh refusing to let them go. Hunter tried to convince them that the Schoharie was to far from civilization--"they would be compelled on that frontier to labor as the Israelites did of old, with a sword in one hand an ax in the other."

Finally in 1713, 48 families were allowed by the Governor to move to the Schoharie Valley. They had no open road, no horses to carry their luggage. They constructed rude sleds and loaded their goods on these. The sleds were pulled through the unbroken forest, where the wind howled and snow was said to be three feet deep. Jacob and Conrad Goldman surely dragged the Widows belongings through the forest to the land promised. The families spent a miserable first winter having arrived to late to plant. The Indians came to their aid providing corn and showing them which roots were edible. Here in the Valley they dispersed themselves into seven villages. Widow Goldman and three children were listed at New-Amsberg ca. 1716.

Conrad Weiser was the chief of one of the villages. Each was allotted ten acres. This was not enough land to substain all of them. By the spring of 1723, Conrad Weiser had forged an agreement between the Iroquois and the Pennsylvainians and he led two thirds of the Palatines from the Schoharie Valley to Pennsylvania. They hacked out a path to the Susquehanna River, where woman and children, with their few possessions, floated down the river on rafts, while some of the men drove their livestock. They settled on Tulpehocken Creek by permission of Pennsylvania's Governor Keith. Widow Goldman settled their with three children. Two of her children are named in Church records, Conrad Goldman and Johanna Catharina Goldman. Dorothy Carter, Goldman researcher from Indiana, thinks the third child was Jacob Goldman. Jacob married Mary Abigail Brown of this settlement and left there for Back Creek, Orange County, VA between 1726 and 1733.

Although we have not located documented proof that Jacob Goldman of Back Creek, VA was a son of Conrad Goldman, independent researchers have reached the same conclusion and contend this is correct. Jacob Goldman named Fredrick Stern and Humphrey Baker as executors of his will in 1750, Augusta Co. VA. Fredrick Stern is proven to be a Palatine German who came to America on one of the boats from Holland in 1810. In the book A History of the Starnes Family's First 125 Years and Beyond in America, by H. Gerald Starnes and Herman Starnes, Pub. Gateway Press, Baltimore, 1983, Fredrick Stern is said to have married Mary Goldman, sister of Jacob Goldman. An excerpt from this book sugests that Fredrick and Jacob traveled the same path from New York to New River Virginia.
Jacob Goldman, a German Lutheran, was in the Back Creek area of the German settlements of New River, Virginia very early. He "had been in the settlement from the beginning…was associated with the Harmans near New River, but afterwards entered land with Dr. Walker on a south branck of North Fork of Halston." Kegley's Virginai Frontier, page 128. In 1745 his son, John Goldman, had been in the area long enough to gain the knowledge to be employed as pilot for an expedition led by John Buchanan for Colonel James Patton. Jacob Goldman received payment for his two sons to act as cahin carriers for five months for a survey party in 1745. Augusta County records for November 19, 1746 show Charles Hart as overseer of workers on the road form Reed Creek to Eagle Bottom, and Jacob Goldman and two sons as workers.

Jacob held 370 acres on the west edge of land later known as the 'Springfield Tract' on Back Creek at the base of Cloyd's Mountain in the foothills of Little Walker Mountains. This was truly back counrty, accessible by foot or horseback only, subject to numerous Indian raids and other perils indicativne of wilderness settlement.

George Washington visited this area of Virginia in 1748 and was amazed at what he found. He said they spoke mostly Dutch (German). In 1749 Leonhard Schnell, a Moravian Minister, of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania visited the New River settlements. His diary entry for November, 1749 states: "On the 21^st staid quietly at Jake Herman's" 22nd. Cold: 23d. J. H. went with me to Jacob Goldman's, whose wife is sister to my father-in-law." It is known that Schnell's wife was Elizabeth Brown, so Jacob Goldman's wife was Mary Abigail Brown.

Jacob Goldman made his will on August 23, 1750. His wife was granted lifetime possession of their plantation and a good cow, and afterwards her share with the rest of the family. The child who remained with the mother was to have the land after her death. John was to receive a mare and his share with the rest. Jacob Jr. was to have 50 acres and daughter, Mary, four English Shillings. The will states: "the youngest child shall have her share as well as the oldest." Dorothy Carter believes Jacob Goldman was father to Henry, Martin, and Conrad Goldman, in addition to those named in his will. Certainly he had more than three children.

Jacob Goldman died in August or September of 1750. Jacob's widow, referred to as both Abigail and Mary at different times, refused to administrate his estate. Her son, John Goldman, entered a bond with Adam Harman on August 20, 1752 to act as administrator.

Augusta County records dated November 24, 1753 name Jacob and Henry Goldman as workers on the road from Samuel Stalnakers, on Holston River to James Davis'. Constant Indian raids began in 1754 when John Goldman was killed at Holston River. Jacob Goldman, Jr. had left Augusta County and was removed form the tax list November 25, 1755. The New River Settlements of this area were abandoned until 1759. NO final settlement of Jacob Goldman's estate was recorded. It is not known what happened to his wife or daughter, Mary.

In May 1753, Jacob Goldman Jr. obtained a 100 acre survey in Rich Valley, on the North Fork of the Holston River. In 1763 Jacob Goldman, JR. of Cumberland County Carolina sold this track to William Poor. Henry Goldman could have traveled to North Carolina with his brother, Jacob Jr., or with the numerous other German settlers of New River who moved to North Carolina.

Even though Charles Hart was in Mecklenburg County by 1751, and Henry Goldman was still in Augusta County in 1753, we again find Charles Hart and Henry Goldman residing close neighbors, in Mecklenburg County, in 1763 when Henry enters his title to land on Little Coldwater Creek ajacent to Adam Blackwelders.

If Jacob Goldman was the son of Johann Conrad and the Widow Goldman, he escaped from the Palatine to Holland as a young boy, then crossed the English Channel to Great Britain where Queen Anne fed him. Then he survived the long half year voyage of the Atlantic, and saw two of his siblings die and be flung into the ocean. He lived in a hut on Governor's Island and then was sent to the Hudson River to gather naval stores for the Queen. His father left them there to fight the French and never returned. From here he traveled as a young man, helping to care for his mother, to Pennsylvania. He married Mary Abigail Brown and they ventured beyond civilization to Back Creek, where he lived until his death December 12, 1750. He had lived a short life. Probably only 50 years, but had survived hardships of which many never dream. He was truly a refugee--traveling from Germany to Holland to England and finally to America by his tenth year. No wonder he had little fear of the Indians on Back Creek. He had seen much worse in his lifetime.

HENRY GOLDMAN'S STORY

JACOB GOLDMAN'S WILL

Known all men by these present that I Jacob Goldman now lying on my Death Bead I do give and bequeath my soul to Almighty God and my Body to the earth. My Wife I do give one Cow and afterwards her share with the rest of my family and my son John a young pacer mare for his share and equal with the rest. When my debts are paid my youngest child shall have her share as well as the oldest. My wife shall have the plantation as long as she lives and anyone of my children that will keep their mother, and the others can agree, shall and may have the lands now in possession of their father. There is fifty acres of land to give to my son Jacob. To this being my last will and testament is witnessed where I have set my hand and seal this twenty third day of August 1750. My executors are Frederick Stern and Humphry Baker. My daughter Mary I do give two English Shillings.
Witnesses Present
Adam Scholl
Humphry Baker
Jacob Goldman His X Mark
Augusta County, Virginia Book 1 page 331


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