George Taylor, his “Concubine”, and her Hessian Soldier Husband

 

Researched by Sharon Gothard

Most local people know who George Taylor was. He emigrated to America in 1736, became an Ironmaster at various furnaces. Eventually, he was a Pennsylvania Delegate to the Continental Congress and later was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Taylor married Ann (Taylor) Savage in 1743 and had two children with her, daughter Ann died young, and son James who was their only child to live to adulthood. Most people believe Ann, his wife, died 1768 in Catasauqua, PA. It is possible this is when Naomi Smith, housekeeper to Taylor, started working for him. 

 

There is little known about Naomi. She does not appear in any local church records; we do not know where or when she was born. She is mentioned in his will as his housekeeper. We assume her five children were Taylor’s; Sarah, Rebecca, Naomi, Elizabeth and Edward. ¹ According to his will filed a month before his death, all were under the age ten when Taylor died in 1781. Taylor may have been delusional about his finances. In his will he left £500 to his grandson, George Taylor and also £500 to Naomi, “my housekeeper Naomi Smith in consideration of her great care and attendance on me for a number of years past….” Taylor also left her one bed and bedstead together with such household goods and furniture as the executors saw fit. Any other monies would go to his grandchildren, (James’s children) and Naomi’s children. Unfortunately, Taylor had more debt than money at his death, and had very little left for Naomi, her children or his grandchildren.  Naomi and her children are mentioned in Taylor’s will inventory, as the executors do give Naomi appraised worth of £47 for sundry goods and £10.3 “for clothing for the de’ced children who were almost naked”.

Besides being mentioned in the will and inventory, there are no other mentions of Naomi or her children. We surmise there are a few places Naomi and her children may have lived while Taylor was alive, the Catasauqua house (unlikely as Taylor did not live there very long), Durham Furnace, the Bachmann Tavern, (that Taylor owned for 19 years), and of course what we now call the Parson-Taylor house where Taylor died. Since all of her children were young, we assume they were with her or nearby. In Taylor’s will, he does mention that once Naomi’s children reach the age of 10, that the executors shall put them "out”. (Probably farmed out or apprenticed for work). Sarah, is the only child of Naomi’s who has been found in subsequent records.

After doing research on Naomi and coming up empty, by chance, I found George Taylor mentioned in a book, A Strasbourger in America, John Frederick Ernst Minister of the Gospel, Lutheran Denomination (1748-1805). ²

This book contains the diary, correspondence, and history of Rev. John Ernst from his arrival in America until his death. During his ministry, Rev. Ernst served congregations in the Easton, Pennsylvania, and Greenwich, New Jersey, areas. Within its pages, an extraordinary discovery was found. On November 22, 1782, Ernst wrote a letter to Frederick Muhlenberg—minister, politician, and future first Speaker of the United States House of Representatives—on behalf of Mr. Ludwig Bertram regarding a debt Bertram owed him. Ernst explained how distressed Bertram was over his inability to repay the loan because of a series of unfortunate circumstances.

In the same letter, Ernst wrote: “At present, he [Bertram] needs and wants your kind assistance very much because he has joined in matrimony with a person, to whom was left £500 in the will of the late George Taylor, Esq., to whom she has been housekeeper and concubine for thirteen years. This money can’t well be gotten from the executors under the [pretence] that the estate is insufficient & too much involved into debts, which I truly believe is only a void scheme for some of the executors, who love themselves better than their neighbor*.” At the time, Ernst was living in Sussex County, New Jersey, now present-day Warren County. This letter finally reveals that Naomi had married Ludwig Bertram. Ernst's description of Naomi as Taylor's "housekeeper and concubine" also substantially strengthens the argument that her children were widely believed to have been fathered by George Taylor.

*Ironically, Ernst himself appears to have been unaware of the full extent of Taylor's financial troubles. Earlier in the same book, in a letter dated September 24, 1782, to the executors of Taylor's estate, he complained that he had still not been paid for officiating at Taylor's funeral.

Ludwig, or Lewis, Bertram remains an elusive figure. This is not entirely surprising, as New Jersey has no surviving federal census records between 1790 and 1820. In addition, if Bertram had deserted from the Hessian troops, he likely kept a low profile to avoid being discovered. I also searched for papers, journals, and diaries of Frederick A. Muhlenberg, hoping to find a reference to a loan made to a Bertram, but so far I have found nothing. However, while researching in the Marx Room, I discovered three volumes titled The Journals of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg.³ Henry was the father of Frederick Muhlenberg. In his journal entry for January 5, 1780, Henry wrote: “In the evening a [peddler] came with his horse. He took lodging with us by reason of a claim upon us, as my sons Fried-[rich] and H[einrich] had visited his cousins in Sondershausen when they were in Halle. His name is Bartram, and he came to America three years ago. His trade is that of huntsman, by which he cannot support himself here... The huntsman continued his journey to the city. I gave him the letter to Fr[iedrich] M[uhlenberg] to take along.” I strongly believe this "Bartram" was Ludwig Bertram. I also wondered whether Bertram had served as a Hessian soldier, since I could find no record of him in American military service. After discussing the possibility with a fellow researcher, he located Bertram in the online database Hessian Troops in America. It identifies Bertram, born about 1748, as a Corporal in JAG 5 (the Courier Corps) who deserted to the enemy in July or August 1779. Like many Hessian soldiers who deserted or were captured during the Revolutionary War, Bertram appears to have chosen to remain in America after receiving a pardon or being released at the war's end.

Another important clue concerning Bertram was found in a copy of Rev. John Ernst’s original diary, which is housed at the Pennsylvania Historical Society in Philadelphia. It was not uncommon for Ernst to use every available space on a sheet of paper, writing in the margins and even reusing pages. On one such sheet, written in large letters, were the words: Mr. Lewis Bertram, Shopkeeper at Pawlingskill.* This was a remarkable discovery, but it raised an obvious question: Why had Ernst written this?

A search for "Pawlingskill" quickly revealed that it refers to what is now known as Paulins Kill in Sussex County, New Jersey. Paulins Kill is also the name of the river that flows through the region and gives the valley its name. Additional historical context appears in Memoirs and Reminiscences by Rev. Casper Schaeffer, M.D.: "That part of the country lying between the Paulinskill and the Blue Mountains was settled originally by the Germans principally… Even before the Revolution many of them were settled there, and in the time of that great struggle, there was considerable [accession] to their numbers, of a dozen or more Hessians who deserted from a detachment of Burgoyne's captured army, on their way through Sussex to a location assigned them as a place of safety near Charlottesville in Virginia."*

This evidence suggests that the note may have been written on the same piece of paper—or perhaps the envelope—that Frederick Muhlenberg gave to Ernst in 1782. It is also significant that Bertram is identified as Lewis rather than Ludwig, indicating that by this time he had begun anglicizing his name, a common practice among German immigrants seeking to assimilate into American society.

A later discovery in a German newspaper, The Royal Gazette of Charleston, South Carolina, provided yet another important piece of the puzzle. The notice announced a suit for malicious desertion filed by Anna Maria Bertram against her husband, Corporal Ludwig Bertram of the Hessian Jäger Corps. The advertisement ordered Bertram to appear in person before the Commission in New York on Tuesday, December 11, 1781, to answer the charges. It further warned that if he failed to appear, he would be declared a malicious deserter by the Consistory, the marriage bond between him and his wife would be dissolved, and the plaintiff would be granted permission to remarry. The notice was dated New York, September 7, 1781.

The "Consistory" referred to a German ecclesiastical court that exercised jurisdiction over matters of marriage and morality. Even during the Revolutionary War, German religious and legal authorities attempted to maintain authority over their soldiers serving overseas. This notice establishes that Ludwig Bertram was already married in Germany before coming to America. It also strongly suggests that, after deserting the Hessian forces, he abandoned his first marriage and later married Naomi in his new homeland. No evidence has been found indicating that Bertram ever appeared before the Commission in New York, making it likely that the proceedings continued in his absence.

 I thought perhaps Rev. Ernst had married them, since he was familiar with Bertram, but unfortunately, no church record or his diary has that mentioned. However, again, in Rev. Ernst book on September 30, 1782 he wrote to Jacob Goering; To Reverend Mr. Goering in Carlisle. (Cumberland County, PA) 

"Honored Colleague! Yesterday I rejoiced [heartedly] [when] I met a married couple from your congregation and spoke with them. They have been made strong by means of your ministry, the Word of our faithful Jesus. They asked me, poor weak [struggler], for help in attacking the Kingdom of Darkness that rules their parents and brothers and sisters to convince them of their pitiful ruin.  All things consist [for the best] or by witness account. They testify at having undertaken this long trip out of love for their next of kin -- a spiritual impulse! -- a trip that will prove its beneficial purpose, if not here and now, then in the next world." Could this be Lewis and Naomi? I looked at Rev. Jacob Goering's church records on ancestry.com but unfortunately Lewis or Naomi were not mentioned.

Another intriguing possibility surfaced in Perry County, Pennsylvania. I found an inquest for a Lewis Bartram who died in Juniata Township, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania (now part of present-day Perry County). His body was discovered in his home, and an official inquest into his death was held on October 11, 1806. The jury concluded that he had died of natural causes. Unfortunately, the record provides no personal details such as his age, family members, occupation, or place of birth that might identify him with certainty.

Could this Lewis Bartram be the same Ludwig (Lewis) Bertram who had lived in Sussex County, New Jersey? The timing is certainly plausible, and the anglicized name is consistent with the other records that identify him as "Lewis." However, without additional evidence linking the two men, such as land records, probate records, church registers, or family associations, the identification remains speculative. While this inquest cannot yet be considered proof, it is an intriguing lead that deserves further investigation.

As with much history, many questions beg to be answered. Did Bertram marry Naomi just for her inheritance, that in the end she never received? Did they remain married or have children together? When did they die? What happened to Naomi’s children she had with Taylor and did she have more children with Bertram? We now know a little more of Naomi's life and hopefully the story will continue.

George Taylor is remembered as a signer of the Declaration, but Naomi Smith and her children reveal the far more complicated domestic realities behind elite eighteenth-century lives.

 

Many thanks to:

Richard Musselman – Local genealogist and Researcher

Shayne Schafer – Northampton County, PA Archives

Mary A. Redline – Education and Research

Robert Riffle – Education and Local Historian

and to Frederick Bond III who encouraged this search. 

 

  1.  Will of George Taylor, original at the New York Public Library Archives, copies at the Northampton County Courthouse Archives and Easton Area Public Library Marx Room.

2.      2. A Strasbourger in America, John Frederick Ernst Minister of the Gospel, Lutheran Denomination (1748-1805) by Edith von Zemenszkym, Ph.D., Mary A. Redline, M.A.

3.       3. The Journals of Henry Melchoir Muhlenberg in Three Volumes, Translated by Theodore G. Tappert and John W. Doberstein, Volume III

4.       4. Memoirs and Reminiscences together with Sketches of the Early History of Sussex County, New Jersey, by Rev. Casper Schaeffer, M. D.