“Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists."
― Franklin D. Roosevelt
A grist mill is a building where a miller grinds gain into flour.
Europeans who made the voyage to America faced a difficult journey of several months.
Dreisbach is also spelled Dresbach, Dresback, Driesbach, Driesbaugh, Dreisback, and Treisbach.
Georg Wilhelm (George William) Dreisbach was born in Oberndorf, Germany and his christening was recorded at the Evangelical Lutheran church in Feudingen on June 14, 1733. His parents were Johann Simon Dreisbach and Maria Katharina Keller.
He is easily confused with his nephew of the same name, a son of Simon Jr., born on January 31, 1756, who also married a woman named Sophia. This younger George remained in Northampton County, and was buried at Zion Stone Church.
He came to America with his family on the ship Lydia which departed Rotterdam and arrived in Philadelphia on September 20, 1743.
He married Sophia Schemelien (Schmielin- Schmidin?).
They may have had a son, Jost Dreisbach (1758).
A George Dreisbach was one of two men who contracted to do the carpenter work on the new Zion Church in November, 1771. In a 1773 valuation of real estate in Lehigh Township, George Dreisbach had a grist mill, and a sawmill.
A George (perhaps the nephew?) appears on a muster roll of May 14, 1778 of the 4th Battalion of the Northampton County Militia.
Feudingen is a village in the city of Bad Laasphe and its 13th century church ministered to the entire surrounding area. The church has been Protestant since 1555.
Oberndorf is a village in northwest Germany and part of the city of Bad Laasphe. It was in the feudal country of Wittgenstein in the 18th century.
Zion Stone Church is a Lutheran church near Kreidersville, Pennsylvania. It was dedicated on June 18, 1772.
1773 The Pennsyvania Gazette
A sawmill was an important developmental step in a community. Before sawmills, boards could only be sawn by two men with a whipsaw. In a sawmill, the circular motion of a water wheel was changed to the back-and-forth motion of the saw blade with a pitman arm.
Northampton County, Pennsylvania is on the eastern border of the state in the Lehigh Valley. It was formed in 1752 from parts of Bucks County. Easton is the county seat.
The Palatinate is a region in south-western Germany. Many thousands of Palatine immigrants were driven out of Germany by war, famine, despotic rule and disease. They were attracted to Pennsylvania by the first settlers who sent back favorable reports.
