Johann Georg Klees Sr. (abt. 1754 - aft. 1820)

Born about 1754 in Eckenheim, Hessen-Hanua (now Germany)

Descendants

Died after 1820 after about age 66 in Columbia County, Pennsylvania, USA

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Beverly Benfer [send private message]

Biography

Johann Georg Klees was born in about 1754 in the village of Eckenheim, now part of the greater community of Frankfurt-Am-Main, Germany. Based on baptismal records, his parents were Andreas Klees and Anna Elizabetha Schwab. According to the Hessian Statistical Office in Wiesbaden, in the year he was born there were 44 households with 207 people living in Eckenheim.

Based on the Parish chronicles for Evangelischen Kreuzgemeinde (the oldest church in Frankfurt), it appears to be the church that Georg Klees attended. The Preungesheim Parish consisted of Preungesheim, Eckenheim and Berkersheim, with a church in each community. However, weekly services were only conducted in the main church in Preungesheim. Interestingly, each community had its own section of the church and its own entrance. This was a Reformed Church; the Lutherans met at the Castle and later in the mountains.

(In Parish Chronicle #4, there is mentioned Johan Clöß and Johann Klös, Senior, who lived in Preungesheim. Hans Jörg Clöß and Nicholas Clöß lived in Eckenheim. These are early variations of the Klees surname. Benfer-47 11:15, 16 March 2015 (EDT))

He married Elizabeth Roth/Rhodes/Rhoads on Oct. 30, 1787 in Zion (Spies) Church, Alsace Twp., Berks Co., PA. She lived in Philadelphia prior to her marriage. She died Jan. 18, 1850 at age 82 at the home of her son Henry in Lycoming County and was buried in Webster Cemetery, Huntersville, Lycoming County, PA (Her last name has been spelled three different ways. She has not been entered in the WikiTree database until the correct spelling of her maiden name can be verified. Benfer-47 11:15, 16 March 2015 (EDT))

Military Service

From Chronicle #6 of the church records: Pastor Scherer, the successor of Cress, reports of wordly events in 1776 - the regiment marched out of the Hanau to America in a strength of 668 men. The regiment embarked on March 15, 1776 from au Main, next to the Heller Bridge. The names of the boys from the Reformed parish Preungesheim were as follows:

• 1) Preungesheim: Philipp Heil, John Braumann, Johann-Peter Schwab, David Zorbach.
• 2) Eckenheim: John Filzinger, Philipp Muller, Georg Klee, Anton Sterlepper, Philipp Sterlepper, Philipp Filzinger, Johann Georg Zorbach and Pastor Kester's son.
• 3) Berkersheim: David Hamburg, Wilhelm Engelhard.

When he joined the military, his father was 52, and his mother was 51 years old. He had 1 brother and 5 sisters.

Inducted at about age 19 as a recruit in June 1773, he served as a Hessian Musketeer in the Crown Prince Regiment, Company 2 (Hessen-hanauisches Regiment Erbprinz #2). The regiment was sent by Count William of Hesse-Hanau to Canada and assigned to British General John Burgoyne. When General Burgoyne surrendered to American General Horatio Gates during the Saratoga campaign in 1777, his forces included around 5,800 troops. The surrender was negotiated in the Convention of Saratoga, and Burgoyne's remnant army became known as the Convention Army. "Hessian" soldiers under Major General Friedrich von Riedesel comprised a high percentage of the Convention Army. The Americans marched the prisoners to Charlottesville, Virginia, where they were imprisoned in the Albemarle Barracks until 1781. From there, they were sent to Reading, Pennsylvania, until 1783.

• A significant number of Hessian soldiers were volunteers from Hanau, who had enlisted with the intent of staying in the Americas when the war was over.
• Many of the German states were officially Protestant, making them traditional allies of other Protestant nations, such as the United Kingdom of Great Britain, whose king, George III, was also the Prince-elector of Hanover and came from an ethnic German line. Great Britain formed strong German alliances during the Diplomatic Revolution of 1756, and had combined forces with Frederick the Great during the Seven Years' War to form a coalition that functioned as one Army. When the British colonies in America rebelled a decade later, several German states contracted for the temporary loan of German soldiers to the British Army. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germans_in_the_American_Revolution)
• More about the activities of Georg's regiment: http://www.kempffer.ca/data/friedric.htm
• From a journal by Hessian POW Johann Bense in the Reading Camp: In the month of July [1782], they read us an order from Congress. Any one of us wanting to be free, and that immediately, should give 80 silver talers [one British pound was worth 5 5/6 talers] as ransom and if he did not have that much money, a citizen should pay it for him with whom he should work in bondage for 3 years.
• Georg was an indentured servant in November 1782. (The Germans called this "sold into slavery.")

Daniel Heyl (later spelled Heil) was from Escherscheim, Hessen-Hanua. He served as a Musketeer in the same regiment as George. In 1782 he was indentured at Reading or Lancaster and settled in Pennsylvania. In 1790 George Klees and Daniel Heil cut a road through the wilderness and pioneered the European settlement of Quakake Valley in what was then Northampton County (now northwestern Carbon Co., PA). They were the first white settlers in the valley.

A deed for some land belonging to George was recorded in Easton, PA on the 15th of January 1810 (Northampton Deeds E-3-336). It is a deed for 200 acres and 37 & 1/2 perches of land in the Quakake Valley. George Kless (the spelling of the name in the record) was mentioned as "of Luzerne Township, Northampton County". He paid 105 pounds and 5 shillings for this land to Joseph Hiester of Reading (one of Pennsylvania's early governors).

George is listed in the 1820 U.S. Census for Madison Township, Columbia County, Pennsylvania which was enumerated on 04 August 1820. Consequently, he passed away in Pennsylvania sometime after that date.
NOTE: Some people have reported that he died in 1833, but no primary sources have been identified. Can anyone verify that information? --- Benfer-47 21:24, 12 January 2017 (EST)

This profile is a collaborative work-in-progress. Can you contribute information or sources?

Sources

• Hessian Regional History Information System (LAGIS) - Hessian Troops in America
• Book: "Hessische Truppen im Amerikanischen Unabhängigkeitskrieg (HETRINA), Index nach Familiennamen" (English: Mercenaries from Hessen-Hanau who remained in Canada and the United States after the American Revolution); Includes names, birthdates and places and other information for each soldier. Smith, Clifford Neal & Dülfer, Kurt; 1976; Vol. 6, Hanauische regiments / Edit. Inge Auerbach
• Hessian Troops in the American Revolutionary War: Vol. 6, Hanauische regiments. - 1 A - L; edited by Auerbach, Inge., Marburg 1987
• Database of Dr. Joachim Fischer, former Frankfurt city archivist, transferred to Historische Kommission für Hessen
• Hessian Prisoner-of-War eye-witness accounts, including a journal by Hessian POW Johann Bense, http://www.berkshistory.org/multimedia/articles/hessian
• Parish chronicles for Evangelischen Kreuzgemeinde, Old Preungesheim, Frankfurt am Main, Germany (http://www.kreuzgemeinde-frankfurt.de/kreuzkirche/pfarrchronik-der-ev-kreuzgemeinde/pfarrchronik-teil-6) (Note: All records are in German.)
• Johannes Schwalm Historical Association, Inc.: a nonprofit organization dedicated to researching German auxiliary troops (generically called Hessian) in Revolutionary War
• History of the Crown Prince Reg. Co. 2: http://www.kempffer.ca/data/friedric.htm
• "United States Census, 1820," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XHLP-LVG : accessed 13 January 2017), George Klease, Madison, Columbia, Pennsylvania, United States; citing p. 32, NARA microfilm publication M33, (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), roll 101; FHL microfilm 181,406.
• Find A Grave Memorial# 70506925 for Elizabeth Roth Klees: created by Malcolm Hall; record added May 28, 2011