Research Notes Valentine Mendel Brooke County, WV ********************************************************************** USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. ********************************************************************** Submitted by Richard Irwin The documented facts are: 1) Valentine Mendel came to America on the ship "King of Prussia," sailing from Rotterdam to Philadelphia — where he took the Oath of Allegiance on 09 October 1775 (i.e. nine months BEFORE the Declaration of Independence). He was no "Hessian soldier brought by the English"! 2) Although his exact wherabouts in Pennsylvania have not been discovered for the period 1776-1778, Valentine is known to have lived in Earl Township, Lancaster county, PA from at least 1779 until the end of the Revolution. His residence there is documented both as a landowner (tax rolls) and by the birth and baptismal records of his three eldest sons (John, Valentine and Henry [my g.great-grandfather]) in Lutheran churches in Lancaster. Indeed, far from being a "Hessian soldier" in the employ of the English, he appears on the militia rolls of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania! 3) In Lancaster county, his occupation was noted (on the tax rolls and on deeds) as "stiller" — that is, he was a distiller. BTW, he and his son, Valentine, followed this business in Brooke county, also. 4) On 23 December of 1783 he placed a notice in the German- language newspaper, "Philadelphische Correspondz," stating his intention to remove from Pennsylvania. 5) On 04 November 1784, Valentine Mendel conveyed his land in Lancaster county, PA to Sebastian Stuffelbind. It is not known whether he moved immediately, however, or during the following spring. Thereafter, and until his death in late 1811, he appears on the tax lists of Ohio county, Virginia (and, Brooke county, after its subsequent formation out of Ohio county). 6) Valentine made his will in Brooke county in April 1806. In it, he names his wife, Mary, and nine children. Valentine apparently died in last quarter of 1811; his will was submitted to the Probate Court (which met quarterly at that time) at its January 1812 session. 7) Valentine Mendel did NOT subdivide his land and "sell it as farms." His esentially identical acreage appears on every tax bill until his death. As was usual, he left the land to his six sons. Specifically, his 1806 will stipulated that the land was to be divided between the sons, with John (the eldest son) receiving an equal share "should he ever return." Apparently, John did not return to claim his share; as is easily demonstrated from the subsequent Brooke county tax bills, the land was divided between Valentine, Jr., Henry, Peter, George and Jacob. George and Jacob sold their land and went to Dearborn county, Indiana in 1816; the three older sons kept their share of the land. 7) The wife of Valentine Mendel was Mary ————. There is some reason to believe that her maiden name was Gallatin (a name which also appears as Callendine in some records, as well as in other phonetically similar forms). There is also some reason to suppose that she was the sister of the Daniel Callendine mentioned further on in the Wellsburg & Washington Pike article. I must emphasize, however, that this is NOT PROVEN. Although the circumstantial evidence for her surname is "reasonable," it is, nonetheless, circumstantial. Since there is too strong a tendency on the part of amateur "genealogists" on the Internet to copy such information uncritically, I request that you not publish her prospective identity at this time. Her identity has been a problem of long standing, and there is no need to muddy the waters with a premature and necessarily ambivalent announcement.