Karl had believed that the Furr family was originally from Germany and the name was originally spelled Fuhr. It now seems that is not correct.
The earliest identified ancestor of Cynthia Roscoe was Wendel Lowmeister of Germany. He was married to Magdelena Von Beulow, also from Germany. The name Lowmaster (or its variations - probably originally Laumeister) can be traced back to the Margraves of Baden in Germany. Margrave is a title of certain German princes. His wife is supposed to have been from the house of Von Beulow. The Markgrafen (margraves) who ruled Baden for the longest period of time were those descended from Conrad of Zähringen (duke 1122-1152), who founded Freiburg in 1120 and whose ancestor Berthold or Berzelin was related to the house of Staufen (Hohenstaufen). Berthold's son, Berthold I, was given the title of duke of Kärnthen in 1061 and later margrave of Verona. He died in 1087, and the family divided into two branches. The younger son, Berthold II, inherited the larger share of the ancestral domains and reigned until 1111. The older son, Margrave Hermann II, the head of the House of Baden, founded the dynasty that ruled Baden until 1918.
Wendel Lowmeister arrived in Philedelphia on September 12, 1750 on the ship "Priscilla". He and Magdelena were active members of Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church, York, Pennsylvania. He was a carriage and wagon maker in York and employed 6 people. He was one of those in York who made the famous "Conestoga Wagons".
The Fuhrs and the Lowmeisters, along with many other northern Lutheran Germans, had sought to escape the constant warfare of Europe for the relative freedom and prosperity of America. Most of them came from the Rhenish Palatinate, which forms part of the Upper Rhenish lowlands. The old Rhenish Palatinate extended from the left bank of the Rhine to the Alsace region in what is now France (but at that time was German). This area was the scene of constant warfare between German princes and France. It was primarily Catholic with small numbers of Lutheran communities scattered through the area.
The Rhineland Palantinate region is a wine-growing region of Germany. It was known as the "Wine Cellar of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation." The western Rhine valley and the hills leading to the densely wooded Palantine Forest in the Vosges Mountains has a warm, dry climate that is ideal to growing wine grapes. The Palantinate Rhine valley stretches from Mainz, past Worms and Speyer, to Strasbourg in Alsace. There are a number of medival wine villages in the region. The German emperors, the Holy Roman Emperors, had Palaces (hence the term "Palantinate") or residences in the region. Speyer was an imperial city. There are chains of ruined castles in the hills and along the Rhine.
In the late 1600's and early 1700's there was a sizable Protestant minority living in the region west of the Rhine River. Most of them were Lutheran. Catholic France surrounded them to the West and South and Catholic Germany to the East of the Rhine.
Alsace had remained a province of the Holy Roman Empire to the 17th century. While enjoying considerable local autonomy, Alsace remained German in culture and institutions. Strasbourg had been a free imperial city from the 13th century. In 1681 Louis XIV captured the city and made it a part of France. The Treaty of Westphalia of 1648, ending the Thirty Years' War, gave Alsace to France. Even after this date, however, Alsatian German manners, customs, and tongue were preserved, and Imperial privileges and rights in Alsace were respected. Louis XV's reign was peaceful until 1740, when France became entangled in the War of the Austrian Succession in alliance with Frederick II of Prussia.
During the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) between France and Germany one out of every three Germans had perished. From 1702 the people of the Palantine and Alsace were again enduring war. The Palatines were heavily taxed and endured religious persecution. While the German Elector had issued an edict forbidding the migration, but estimates on the number of Germans in Pennsylvania during this period varies from author to author, but a common estimate is 10,000-15,000 by 1727 and 70,000-80,000 by 1750. Most of those were from the Palantine region.
The passage down the Rhine took from 4 to 6 weeks. Authorities of the territories through which they passed demanded tolls and fees. From the mouth of the Rhine in the Netherlands, usually at Rotterdam, the refugees sailed to England. Most of them were then put in one of two refugee camps. One was outside of London, and another had been set up in Ireland. The English would ship people to any one of a number of its colonies throughout the world. From the refugee camps they were sent to be shipped to the Colonies through Cowes, Plymouth, or Deal.
The voyage to the colonies usually lasted from 3 to 6 weeks. The ships were over- crowded, there was no privacy, the drinking water was polluted, and the food was vermin-ridden. Only enough food and water was supplied to provide for the longest average trip. If a boat was delayed by the weather, the refugees, who were considered as cargo, were in trouble. Sickness and death took a heavy toll. But in spite of all the difficulties, many of the people made the trip in relative good health.
When the ship reached America, the ones who could pay the disembarkation fees, were allowed to leave the ship immediately. Those who could not pay and who were healthy were kept on the ship until a person who would buy the bond for the full amount of money owed came onto the ship, examined the "redemptioners" chose one or more, and paid the fees. At this point many families were separated when different "masters" bought family members. This process may take days or weeks, while the sick ones were still on the ship, with the poor conditions and little or no medical care. Once all of the healthy ones were sold at full price, then the sick ones were auctioned off for whatever price they could bring. Even if a man or woman died on board the ship, the spouse was obligated to pay for the passage fees of the deceased. If both parents died, the children were held to the obligation to pay for their parents.
The system of indentured servitude enabled those who could not pay their way to migrate. Such people contracted with a ship captain and, in return for their passage agreed to serve for a term of years for the master who bought their contract. The purchaser got much needed labor; the immigrants secured the cost of the journey; and the captain profited by the trade which put the New World within reach of thousands of humble Europeans. Most of the indentured servants contracted to work for an established farmer or homesteader. Such service provided excellent training for pioneers. It taught all the skills needed for frontier living. After the servant had completed his term of bondage he, in turn, would homestead and may take on bonded servants.
Searle Roscoe was said to have been born on a farm in Whiteford
Township, Monroe County, Michigan to a French-speaking father, Israel "Ezra"
Roscoe, and Henrietta Garrison. Israel's father, Cyril, was French extraction.
The name was originally Rasicot (in French it would be pronounced "Raceecoe").
The earliest settlements in southern Michigan were the French settlements
at Detroit, St. Antoine (Monroe), and St. Joseph sur la Baie in Vienna
in Erie Township.
Francis Regis Racicot, born in Boucherville, Quebec, Canada in 1780, son of Charles Racicot and Marie-Madeleine Pitalier, married Louise Jerome-Lapointe, the 5 October 1807 in Boucherville, Quebec. She had been born in 1780 to daughter of Jerome Jerome-Lapointe and Marie Denoyon of Quebec City. Regis and Louise apparently moved from Boucherville to Sandwich (now Windsor), Ontario, then to Monroe, Michigan. In 1824 Regis purchased 80 acres in Erie Township, Monroe County. They were members of the French-speaking parish of St. Joseph sur la Baie in Vienna.
Regis was descended from Jacques Racicot, who was born in Angers, Anjou, France, but immigrated to Canada prior to 1715. Jacques married Marie-Jeanne Labbe, the 6 May 1715 in Quebec City, Quebec. Marie-Jeanne had been born the 14 July 1694 in Charlesbourg, France. Jacques and Marie-Jeanne settled in Boucherville, Quebec.
Searle Roscoe, great-great grandson of Regis and Louise, was perhaps part Indian. There was a family tradition that he had a grandmother who was Indian.
There is suggestion of some link between the Roscoes with one of the Chippawa (or Ojibway) reserves in Ontario near Windsor. (Wanda Krupp remembered visiting a relative on a reserve near Windsor year ago.) The Chippawa (called Ojibway in Canada) had received a better degree of protection than did those in Michigan. Their communities at Kettle Point on Lake St. Claire near Windsor and at Stoney Creek near Ipperwash on Lake Huron continue as active, close communities.
Edward Ball, the father of Rose Ball and Cynthia Roscoe Furr's grandfather, apparently was a full-blooded Indian, perhaps Blackfoot. There is also the possibility of a connection with the Mohawk of up state New York.
Among the groups from the British Isles who settled in America during
the Colonial period were the Quakers. One of our early ancestors was Samuel
Abernathy who was an early settler in Randolph County, Indiana. Bessie
Abernathy McFadden was descended from him.
Among our earliest direct Quaker ancestors were the Mendenhalls and Newlins of Chester County, Pennsylvania. Early in 1681 William Penn had received a royal English grant to the lands of present Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1682 William Penn arrived and remained for two years. That same fall the Mendenhalls arrived from England. The Newlins arrived the next year from Ireland. The Newlin Mill, which was built by Nathaniel and Mary Mendenhall Newlin in 1704, still stands in Concordville, Chester County, Pennsylvania. It is now a museum. The old Longwood Progressive Meeting House is a whitewashed frame building. Its Quaker congregation was a peaceable but determined lot. It stood firmly against slavery and turned its facilities over to those who fought for or sought freedom. Now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the building was a major stop along the famed Underground Railroad. Its people provided aid and comfort, and its walls provided refuge for slaves who fled their bondage in the South.
The Longwood cemetery is just across the street is the old Quaker Longwood meeting house. In the oldest section are the graves of those Friends who settled the land granted to them by William Penn. Many Mendenhalls and those related are buried there.
The old Longwood Progressive Meeting House is now the information center for the Brandywine Battlefield Park. One of the many battles in the Revolutionary War was fought at this site. Our Quaker ancestors had left Pennsylvania before the Revolutionary War.
It is evident that the Quaker immigrants were comparatively wealthy and brought material, tools, money and children with them to settle among other like-minded Friends in southeastern Pennsylvania where they could have access to water transport at the sea as well as suitable farmland. The terms "Mister" and "Yeoman" indicated education and land ownership. Each brought with them a personal craft such as wheelwright or miller.
The principle belief was dedication to religious principle with absolute devotion to God foregoing oath and creed and nonviolent resistance to persecution. Another was that one should not seek public notoriety or superior social position whatever one's wealth. The other personal characters grew out of these in developing the moral principles of honesty, trustworthiness, virtuousness, dependability, modesty, caution, generosity, and sense of social responsibility toward others.
James and Mary Patterson and the McCombs are our earliest recorded
ancestors in North America on the Furr side of the family. James Patterson
was 20 years old when he arrived in the Quaker colony in Pennsylvania in
1728, having left family and sweetheart in County Antrim, Ireland. He settled
in the predominantly German Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. It took him
three years to be able to bring his sweetheart, Mary Montgomery, to join
him. Elderly William McComb and his two married sons, their wives, and
two teenage sons, and a granddaughter entered America in 1732 from Ballymere,
Parish of Ballymere (probably Ballymena), County Antrim, Ireland. Edith
Lyons Furr was descended from this line.
The Pattersons and McCombs were probably typical of the many Scots-Irish Presbyterians who arranged their passage by signing contracts of bondage. The Scots-Irish came from the Irish counties of Ulster and Antrim in northern Ireland. Many were descended from the Scots settlers in Ulster who had been sent by Oliver Cromwell to colonize Ireland with strong Calvinist Presbyterians to combat the "Papist" Irish. Others had come from the glens and hills of where the Highland Scots clans lived on the shores on both sides of the channel between Ireland and Scotland -- families such as the McFaddens -- Juanita McFadden Furr's ancestors.
From the time of Cromwell's suppression of the Catholics in Ireland the Presbyterians in Ireland had a privileged position in Irish society. After the ascension of Queen Anna in 1702, a High Church Anglican, a bigoted, intolerant monarch, the Penal Acts which were aimed at the suppression of the Catholics were extended to the Presbyterian. The Church of England was the only religion permitted, with a tithe required from all to support the Church of England. Dissenters were forbidden the practice of their religion, forbidden to receive or give education, enter the professions, hold public office, engage in commerce, hold land, keep arms, or engage in almost any activity which led to wealth, peace of mind, or, in fact, any thing which to sustain life. As the economic foundation of the Presbyterian collapsed rents were doubled or trebled. There was no escape other than conversion to Anglicanism or emigration to America. Thousands and thousands chose William Penn's Quaker colony dedicated to religious toleration.
The trip to America had it own problems, including brutal captains, pirates, shortage of water and food, delays in sailing, rough seas, over-crowding, disease and pestilence and, often, death. In the 1730's Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, was the beginning of the western frontier. The Scots-Irish and German immigrants were rapidly clearing the land. The Scots-Irish typically were not very good farmers. There highland glen and hills in Scotland and Ireland were appropriate to sheep herding but not farming. The Germans, on the other hand, tended to be excellent farmers who had left excellent farmland in Germany, and while poor in their homeland, they knew what good farm practice was.
This is the history of some of our ancestors in North America. In the branches of the family I will be writing about our ancestors were German, Scots-Irish, and English people who came to America in the late 1600's and early 1700's.