Emigration – A Pennsylvania Dutch Genealogy

Surname Saturday: Alexander Bonnington

Kris Hocker on 19 May 2012

Alexander Bonnington (1875-1964)

From Scotland to West Virginia

Alexander Bonnington was born on 16 August 1875 in Durhamtown, Bathgate, Linlithgow, Scotland, the third son of Peter Purvis and Elizabeth (Buchanan) Bonnington.¹ He grew up in the lowlands of Scotland between Edinburgh and Glasgow. His father died on 16 September 1891 when Alexander was 16 years-old.²

On 27 January 1899, he married Christina Peace, daughter of James and Isabella (Brown) Peace, in Loanhead, Lasswade, Edinburgh, Scotland.³ By the fall 1900, Alexander and Christina were living in England as their eldest child James P. Bonnington was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland on 5 November 1900. They were living in Heaton, Newcastle upon Tyne at the time of the 1901 census for England.⁴ Alexander was a clerk.

The Bonningtons did not remain in England, however. By the fall of 1913, the family was living in Wallaceburg, Kent, Ontario, Canada. Their daughter Alexandra Marguerite Bonnington was born there on 9 November 1913.⁵ Alexander was a chemical engineer.

Alexander made several trips to the United States. He crossed into the U.S. at Niagara Falls on 5 December 1915, then at St. Albans, Vermont on 24 December 1915.⁶ According to his border crossing card, he had previously been to the U.S. in 1910 to visit his sister Elizabeth Cochrane of 35 West 18th Street, Harrisburg. He had arrived on 1 August in New York.

This time, apparently, was to settle in the U.S. His wife Christina followed him, entering through Niagara Falls on 6 January 1916, accompanied by her children James and Alexandra.⁷ It appears from her entry card that her husband was working for a chemical company, perhaps out of New Jersey.

The family was settled in South Charleston, West Virginia by 17 January 1920 when they were listed in the 1920 U.S. Census.⁸ Christina died sometime between the 1920 census and 1924 when Alexander remarried.⁹ He married Martha Krich and the couple had a son. In 1930, the family was living in Huntingdon, Cabell County, West Virginia.¹⁰

Martha (Krich) Bonnington died in Cabell County, West Virginia on 1 March 1953.¹¹ I believe Alexander died in Nebraska in February 1964.

Alexander was my 3rd great uncle, his sister Eliza Craig (Bonnington) Smith Cochrane, my GG grandmother. My grandfather Hocker and his sister Jean spoke of their parents visiting him in West Virginia.

Why Did They Settle There?

Kris Hocker on 22 Feb 2012

I think I answered a question that’s been bothering me for a while yesterday. But I didn’t do it by researching my ancestors.

My ancestor Johan “Hans” Adam Hacker emigrated from Germany to Pennsylvania aboard the ship Ann, landing in Philadelphia on 28 Sep 1749. He was the first to immigrate. His brother Johan Georg followed in 1751, then his parents—Christoph and Anna Margaretha (Jock) Hacker—and his sisters Christina (Hacker) Lang and Margaretha (Hacker) Haushalter with their husbands in 1752.

When my distant cousin John Garrett Hocker was in Germany in the 1990s (I believe) he found that the Hackers applied for permission to become citizens of Gräben. They were denied. So, they applied for permission to emigrate to “norde-amerika.” John wrote about his trip to Rußheim and my great uncle William Wingeard included John’s essay in his book A German-American Hacker-Hocker Genealogy. No date was given for this application, but it had to be prior to their emigration in 1752 and possibly before Adam’s emigration in 1749.

So, that tells me why they left Germany. But why did they settle near Brickerville, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania? It’s known that the Germans tended to move in groups and settle amongst people they’d known in a prior location. But I found no other family already in the area.

Rußheim and its neighbors

The answer has less to do with immediate family and more to do with the larger community. In Feb 1749 three widows from Rußheim applied for permission to move to Pennsylvania. They apparently wanted to remarry, but their prospective spouses were denied citizenship in Rußheim—possibly because they were only tenant farmers/farmhands. They were granted permission to leave.

One of these women was Margaretha (Heger) Elser.¹ She was engaged to a man named Mock from Gräben. His given name was not provided, but a Henrich Mock and Peter Elser appear on the passenger list of the ship Ann which arrived in Philadelphia in Sep 1749. Both of these names appear in the records of the Warwick congregation (now Emanuel Lutheran Church) at Brickerville.

Adam’s name appears just below theirs on the ship list. So, it’s probable that he was traveling with people that he knew from his village.²

But why did they settle near Brickerville? Looking at the other names in the Warwick congregation records, you’ll see Stober, Weidman, Ness, and Oberlin. All of these names appear as residents of either Rußheim, Liedolsheim, Gräben or Linkenheim in 1709 lists.³ The Hackers intermarried with some of these families—Adam and his brother Georg both married Wiedman sisters. Additionally, the names Haushalter and Lang/Long also appear in the church records. It’s quite possible they were relations to Adam’s brothers-in-law Lorentz Haushalter and Johan Michael Lang.

So while there were no Hackers waiting to receive him when he arrived in 1749, Adam settled amongst people he may have known—or their relatives—from the villages surrounding Rußheim.

Tag: Emigration

From Scotland to West Virginia