Michael (Gutknecht) Goodnight
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Hans Michael (Gutknecht) Goodnight (abt. 1721 - 1781)

Hans Michael (Michael) Goodnight formerly Gutknecht
Born about in Hohenecken, Kurfürstentum Pfalz, Heiliges Römisches Reichmap
Ancestors ancestors
Son of and
Brother of [half], , and
Husband of — married 1751 in Heiliges Römisches Reichmap
Husband of — married 19 Feb 1762 in Bedford County, Virginiamap
Descendants descendants
Father of , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and
Died at about age 60 in Harlan's Station, Kentuckymap
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Profile last modified | Created 20 Oct 2018
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Michael (Gutknecht) Goodnight was a Palatine Migrant.
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Contents

Biography

1776 Project
Michael (Gutknecht) Goodnight served with Civil Service, North Carolina during the American Revolution.
SAR insignia
Michael (Gutknecht) Goodnight is an NSSAR Patriot Ancestor.
NSSAR Ancestor #: P167744
Rank: Patriot
U.S. Southern Colonies Project logo
Michael (Gutknecht) Goodnight was a Virginia colonist.
Flag of Germany
Michael (Gutknecht) Goodnight migrated from Germany to Pennsylvania.
Flag of Pennsylvania
Hans Michael Goodnight (a.k.a. Johannes Michael Gutknecht) was born in Kaiserslautern[1], an area then claimed by both Germany and France. He immigrated to North America in 4 October 1752.
Nearly twenty years later Michael Goodnight was among a group of hearty pioneers who sought to make a new home on the Kentucky frontier. Unfortunately, he was killed and scalped during an Indian attack near Harlan's Station, in Mercer County, Kentucky.[2] [3]
Michael Goodnight produced at least seventeen children by two wives and became the progenitor of many men and women who helped tame the western wilderness. Among these was one grandson, Solomon Young of Shelby County, Kentucky, who became the grandfather of our 33rd U.S. President, Harry S. Truman.[4]
(Note that Christian Gutknecht (Goodnight), Michael's brother, was the 6th-great-grandfather of our 44th U.S. President, Barack Obama.)

Historical Account

Kentucky Historical Society:[5]
Michael Goodknight immigrated to the area... located in Rockbridge County, Virginia... where he lived until the death of his wife in 1760. He was subsequently married to Miss Mary Landis, February 19, 1762, whereupon he removed from Virginia to Mecklenburg county, North Carolina. In 1780 Mr. Goodknight moved from North Carolina to Harlan’s Station, in what is now Mercer county, Kentucky, where he resided about eighteen months..
Michael Goodknight was 91 years old at the time of his death and the father of twenty-three children. Four months later Isaac Goodknight was born at Harlan’s Station, being the twenty-fourth child and the first white child born on Kentucky soil.[6]
Michael Goodknight was the father of fourteen children by the first wife, by the last, ten. The names of the sons of the last were as follows: John, Jacob Henry, Abraham, then five girls, and Isaac.

Name

Hans Michael Goodnight (Anglicized from Gutknecht)[2][7][8]

Birth

1721 in Hohenecken, Kaiserslautern,[1] in either France or Germany (now in Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany).[2][8]

Immigration

Arrival: 1752, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania[2] [7]
Hans Michael Goodkneckt (a.k.a. Johannes Michael Gutknecht) was born in a Germanic area of France, but immigrated to North America on the ship Neptune with Capt. John Mason, from Rotterdam via Cowes in England.[2] On 4 October 1752 those who were imported swore "Oaths and Affirmations" to the government.[7]

Marriage

Hans Michael Gudknecht (Goodnight), married before 1751, in Germany
  1. Mary or Barbara Unknown
  2. Mary Landis, married 19 Feb 1762, in Bedford County, Virginia.

Public Service

In 1761, Michael Goodnight served as a Captain in David Moore's Company of Militia in Augusta County, Virginia.
Michael Goodnight served as a Constable in Mecklenburg County in 1775. [9]

Residence / Timeline

  • Oct 1752: Arrival in Philadelphia
  • 1761: Augusta County, Virginia
  • 1 May 1764: Michael Goodnight and his wife, Mary, purchase land in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. (Brother George lives nearby.)
  • 1775: Mecklenburg County, North Carolina
  • 1779: Brother George Goodnight sells his farm, moving to Ruddell's Station, about thirty miles northeast of Lexington, Kentucky.
  • June 1780: Indians and British attack the Fort killing George Goodnight and his son, Henry.
  • 28 April 1781: 400 acres of land is surveyed for Michael Goodnight by virtue of a preemption warrant No. 531,[10] land described as lying and being in the County of Lincoln (later Mercer) on Chaplin's Fork.
Sep 1781: Michael Goodnight killed just before reaching home in Harlan's Station.

Death

Michael Goodnight was killed by Indians on 1 Sep 1781, in the vicinity of Harlan's Station, in Mercer County, Kentucky, which is near present-day Danville, Kentucky.[11]
Kentucky Historical Society:[5]
In 1780 Mr. (Michael) Goodknight moved from North Carolina to Harlan’s Station, in what is now Mercer county, Kentucky, where he resided about eighteen months, when he and his oldest son, John, (by the last wife) returned to North Carolina with four horses to bring the remainder of his household effects to Kentucky. When within a half day’s journey of the Fort at Harlan’s Station they paused for rest and in the night were attacked by Indians. Michael Goodknight was killed and John was badly wounded. He, however, made his way to Harlan’s Station, where he secured the aid of twelve armed men and returned to the camp, the scene of his father's death. The remains of Michael were found and buried near the camp.

NSSAR

There are three separate entities for Michael Goodnight at the NSSAR web site:
  • P167744 (VA, Public Service)
  • P167745 (NC, Patriotic Duty)
  • P167747 (NC)

The Goodnight family immigrated to Pennsylvania from Germany. Hans Michel Gutknecht (born 1721) sailed to America in 1752, and his name was changed to Hans Michael Goodnight. He married Mary Landers in Kentucky in 1762. Hans and his brother George were supposedly the first settlers of Kentucky when it was called "The Dark and Bloody Ground". He was killed by Indians in 1781, at Harlan's Station, KY. The story can be found in KY Biographies. They were buried in a mass grave. When the Lair brothers obtained the land, they moved the remains or bones to the Lair vault overlooking the Licking River.

Hans Michael Goodnight ( Gutknecht )

Hans Goodnight ... [12]

No more info is currently available for Hans Goodnight. Can you add to his biography?

Sources

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Kaiserslautern in Wikipedia
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Goodnight Mailing List Archives at RootsWeb (book references noted within)
  3. ↑ GenealogyTrails.com
  4. ↑ Truman Presidential Library Genealogy
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Register of the Kentucky State Historical Society, Vol 4, p.80
  6. ↑ Note: There are many births which claim to be the first in Kentucky.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Strassburger, Ralph Beaver; edited by William John Hinke. Pennsylvania German Pioneers: A Publication of the Original Lists of Arrivals in the Port of Philadelphia from 1727 to 1808. (Pennsylvania German Society, Norristown, PA, 1934). Vol. 1 p. 492 p. 492
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900 Author: Yates Publishing (at Ancestry.com), Pedigree chart; 6 pages
  9. ↑ Daughters of the American Revolution, DAR Genealogical Research Databases, database online, (http://www.dar.org/ : accessed 8 Apr 2018), "Record of Goodnight, Michael", Ancestor # A046422.
  10. ↑ Lincoln County, Kentucky Survey Book (1781-1783), Page 67
  11. ↑ Harlan's Station in Kentucky Ancestors
  12. ↑ Entered by Tom Coley, Sep 18, 2012

See also:

  • S. H. Goodnight,. THE GOOD (K)NIGHT (GUTKNECHT) FAMILY IN AMERICA.] Reprinted from the Kentucky State Historical Register, October 1935. (Madison, Wisconsin 1936.) Digital Edition at Archive.org

Acknowledgments

  • Thank you to Scott Ledbetter for creating WikiTree profile Goodnight-246 through the import of Ledbetter01.ged on Jun 8, 2013.
  • Tom Coley, firsthand knowledge. Click the Changes tab for the details of edits by Tom and others.




Sponsored Search by Ancestry.com

DNA Connections
It may be possible to confirm family relationships with Michael by comparing test results with other carriers of his Y-chromosome or his mother's mitochondrial DNA. However, there are no known yDNA or mtDNA test-takers in his direct paternal or maternal line. It is likely that these autosomal DNA test-takers will share some percentage of DNA with Michael:

Have you taken a DNA test? If so, login to add it. If not, see our friends at Ancestry DNA.

Images: 1
Michael Goodnight family sketch
Michael Goodnight family sketch


Comments: 23

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Danny Gutknecht
Goodnight-242 and Gutknecht-87 appear to represent the same person because: Clearly ment to be the same person. Hans Michael Gutknecht changed his name into Goodnight only after immigration into Pennsylvania.
posted by Danny Gutknecht
Danny Gutknecht
Hey, who is in charge for this profil? Especially from the Palatine Migration Project? I do some research now on the family of his attached parents in Bischwiller, France, and what should I say ... They aren't! So we will have to remove this profile and also his brother "George/Gerrick" Goodnight-564. The two of them are really brothers but they have different parents. I will do the preparations and updates, but since it will effect the family in more than minor things, I would like to do it together with the project, and anybody else who has a special interest.

Greetings Danny

posted by Danny Gutknecht
Rutherford-448 Dave Rutherford
Hi Danny,

This is the correct forum to discuss changes like this. Because this profile is project protected you would be unable to make the change without approval from a profile manager. Please go ahead and outline your research and show why you think these men are attached to the wrong parents. We are always looking to improve our profiles and correct mistakes that have been made.

Dave

posted by Dave Rutherford
Danny Gutknecht
Hey Dave, thanks for responding. I will put something together and come back to you later, so we can discuss the best way to chance it. Greetings.
posted by Danny Gutknecht
Susan Smith
If it were originally French, “the Good Knight,” bestowed for valor in battle, as has been sug¬

gested, it would have been “!e bon chevalier” and that, translated into German, would have been “dcr gute Ritter” and not “der gute Knecht.” If we give due weight to etymology, we shall have to content ourselves with plebeian rather than aristocratic origin, for Knecht in German means servant, or, in medieval days when knighthood was.on the wane, it meant a foot soldier as contrasted with the mounted knight. https://archive.org/stream/goodnightgutknec00good/goodnightgutknec00good_djvu.txt

The German Society of Pennsylvania has recendy published a stout three-volume

work entided Pennsylvania German Pioneers . [6 By Strassberger and Hinke. Norristown. 1934. ] In 1727, the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, alarmed at the vast numbers of continental foreigners being incessandy landed there, passed a law requiring all male continental immigrants between the ages of 16 and 60 to sign certain oaths of allegiance upon arriving at Philadelphia. Ship captains were also required to submit lists of all male adult immigrants imported in their ships. Unhappily, not all the lists have been preserved, but this recent work contains those that have come down to us in the Pennsylvania archives, and shows in both printed lists and in facsimile reproducdons of the original sheets the names of the men arriving in 324 shiploads from the year 1727 to 1775. Women and children were not listed, and there is no indication as to which men were single and which were heads of families. It is estimated that at least 65,000 German immigrants landed in Philadelphia from these 324 shiploads. The majority were from the southern German states which had been so heavily scourged by war and famine.

In list 130C of volume I, we find that “Christian Gutknecht” was “imported in the ship Christian, Capt. Thomas Brady, from Rotterdam but last from Cowes, England,” and took “the usual Oaths to the Government” on Wed. the 13th of September, 1749.

In list 187C, same volume, we find that “Hans Michael Goodknecht” came “in the ship Neptune, Capt. John Mason, from Rotterdam and last from Cowes, England,” and took the oaths on October 4, 1752.

And list 229A shows that the “Ship Recovery, Amos Jones, Master, from Rotterdam and Cowes,” brought “Gerick Goodnight” who took the oaths on October 23, 1754. https://archive.org/stream/goodnightgutknec00good/goodnightgutknec00good_djvu.txt

posted by Susan Smith
Entrikin-5 Kie (Entrikin) Zelms
I don't see any dispute in this profile as to the origin of the name, Gutknecht or that it is derived from the French for "good knight" The name was anglicized to Goodnight likely because the German gutknecht sounded like "gute nacht" (which is "good night" in German. Strassburger is cited on the profile.

Is your comment perhaps meant for a different Gutknecht/Goodnight profile that needs attention?

posted by Kie (Entrikin) Zelms
Susan Smith
I added the Comment for no reason other than because the material itself, the ebook, is available online, *in case you want to read it for additional information.*

The abstracts were a sample, and both were footnotes to the text.

https://archive.org/stream/goodnightgutknec00good/goodnightgutknec00good_djvu.txt

Of course, you may have a copy of the book already. The book is classed as an Original Source if you are using information from it. The citation for the ebook is easily composed, so that others can also read the book.

posted by Susan Smith
edited by Susan Smith
Entrikin-5 Kie (Entrikin) Zelms
Thank you. I added it to the sources on the profile.
posted by Kie (Entrikin) Zelms
Susan Smith
Good idea, considering the number of ships (300+) mentioned, German immigrants of as many as 65,000+ aboard those ships. We chase down each person, one at a time, and don't tend to think of them as part of a massive movement over time (65,000+) and the socio-economic impacts and the impacts on churches, schools, politics, and civil infrastructures in a region.
posted by Susan Smith
Entrikin-5 Kie (Entrikin) Zelms
Agreed. The entire Palatine Migration was astounding in volume. Many people have no concept of the numbers. This is a very helpful reference specific to this family and it is always wonderful to have the source available online. Hooray for Archive.org (and HathiTrust.) There were a number of bad links and redundant sources that needed cleaning up, so I'm glad you posted and called my attention to the profile.
posted by Kie (Entrikin) Zelms
Susan Smith
I have a marital connection to the German influx to Pennsylania with Konrad Stadtmüller (1777 - 1814) and another marital connection to the batch of Germans that came into Texas, the ancestors of Charles Christian Schlaudt (1872 - 1959) (Johann Phillip Schlaudt2, Georg CThe hristian Schlaudt1)

The Texas German influx had a huge impact on Gillespie County and Llano County, as well as other counties, in Texas.

posted by Susan Smith
Brown-109144 Luther Brown
Now that this merge has been done, it looks like there will need to be some merges with his children... John, Rachel and Abraham.

Isn't genealogy fun?

posted by Luther Brown
Rutherford-448 Dave Rutherford
Yes, the domino effect! The merges are set up.
posted by Dave Rutherford
Fiscus-32 Julie (Fiscus) Ricketts
Goodnight-707 and Gutknecht-87 appear to represent the same person because: Duplicate profiles for the husband of Mary Fiscus
posted by Julie (Fiscus) Ricketts
Entrikin-5 Kie (Entrikin) Zelms
Hopefully the merge direction will go toward toward Gutknecht. Perhaps the profile needs to be project protected?
posted by Kie (Entrikin) Zelms
Fiscus-32 Julie (Fiscus) Ricketts
Hi, Kie -- Gutknecht is, indeed, Project Protected. :-) Thanks!
posted by Julie (Fiscus) Ricketts
Brown-109144 Luther Brown
I agree with you, Julie. These are the same person. Hans Michael Goodnight (Gutknecht) is my 4th great grandfather. We should also decide on a spelling for the last name. I believe the Americanized, Goodnight, since it appears most records show it spelled this way. And on we go...
posted by Luther Brown
Entrikin-5 Kie (Entrikin) Zelms
The Palatine Migration Project uses the Name field guidelines set by the Germany Project. As in all of WikiTree, we need to "use their conventions, not ours." See https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Germany_Project_Name_Field_Guidelines. The LNAB should be the German Gutknecht since it is the first record found. His arrival record refers to him as Goodknecht, a misspelling of the correct Gutknecht. The Anglicized version, Goodnight, can be added to the Other Last Names or Current Last Name field so that searches for Goodnight will locate the merged Gutknecht profile.
posted by Kie (Entrikin) Zelms
Rutherford-448 Dave Rutherford
Goodnight-246 and Gutknecht-90 appear to represent the same person because: Same person - merge into Gutknecht (German spelling)
posted on Gutknecht-90 (merged) by Dave Rutherford
Rutherford-448 Dave Rutherford
Gudknecht-3 and Gutknecht-90 appear to represent the same person because: Same person - Data is correct on Gudknect-3 but merge into Gutknecht - for correct spelling on LNAB
posted on Gutknecht-90 (merged) by Dave Rutherford
Howard-18984 Donald Howard
Merger needed: The two Henry Goodnights, Henry Goodnight (Goodnight-5) and Henry Goodnight (Goodnight-288) seem to be the same person. Same birthdays. Additionally, Henry Goodnight (Goodnight-5) is shown as being born abt 4 years before his mother's marriage date. If Henry Goodnight were to be merged into Henry Goodnight, he would have the correct mother, and we would only have one Henry.
posted on Gutknecht-90 (merged) by Donald Howard
Vincent-18 Bill Vincent Ph.D.
Goodnight-259 and Gudknecht-3 appear to represent the same person because: I recently adopted Goodnight-259. LNAB should be Gudknecht.
posted on Gutknecht-90 (merged) by Bill Vincent Ph.D.
Lee-5956 Robin Lee
Goodnight-285 and Gudknecht-3 appear to represent the same person because: same dates, alternate spelling of last name...change probably happened when he came to the US
posted on Gutknecht-90 (merged) by Robin Lee

Featured National Park champion connections: Michael is 13 degrees from Theodore Roosevelt, 17 degrees from Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger, 15 degrees from George Catlin, 14 degrees from Marjory Douglas, 20 degrees from Sueko Embrey, 14 degrees from George Grinnell, 24 degrees from Anton Kröller, 15 degrees from Stephen Mather, 21 degrees from Kara McKean, 14 degrees from John Muir, 17 degrees from Victoria Hanover and 21 degrees from Charles Young on our single family tree. Login to find your connection.

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Categories: Pennsylvania, Immigrants from Holy Roman Empire | Southern Pioneers | Neptune, Arrived 4 October 1752 | Bedford County, Virginia | Mercer County, Kentucky | US President Direct Ancestor | Palatine Migrants | Civil Service, North Carolina, American Revolution | NSSAR Patriot Ancestors | Virginia Colonists