Hans Hage (abt. 1690 - abt. 1750)

Born about 1 Jan 1690 in Switzerland [uncertain]

Descendants

Died about 1 Jan 1750 at about age 60 in Chester, Pennsylvania [uncertain]

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Biography

Immigrant I

Hans Hage was a member of that large body of persecuted Christians of Berne and Schaffhausen, Switzerland, who, about year 1672, took up their abode in Alsace, above Strassburg, on the Rhine, where he remained until 1709. In that year he, in the company of Madame Ferree, and other Huguenots, Swiss and German, took passage in a ship carrying numerous Palatines bound for England. They are reported to have sailed from London and to have reached New York in the year 1709 or in 1710.

Hans Hage, as well as many of this group of immigrants, resided for a while in New York in the Huguenot colony at Esopus, now Kingston, on the west bank of the Hudson river. But on becoming dissatisfied because of land titles and church differences, he and other zealous Calvinists united with their brethren at Wicacoa in the vicinity of Philadelphia. He finally settled in Pequea Valley, in Lancaster county, then Chester county, Pennsylvania, where he may have died. Tradition is that he married one of the daughters of Madame Ferree.

No will of Hans Hage or administration on his estate has been discovered in the records of Lancaster or Chester counties. However, a will written in German in the nam of an unidentified Hans Hage (Hege, Hegi, or Hegey) and filed for probate in 1741 is preserved in the Philadelphia County records, City Hall, Philadelphia. It is not improbably that this document is the will of Hans Hage, (Immigrant I), as no evidence has yet disclosed precisely where or when his death occurred. In view of the fact that Immigrant I resided for a time in Philadelphia county and perhaps returned to that county and died there, it would be reasonable to conclude that he is identical with the person of the same name.

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