Maria Christina (Null) Ricker (abt. 1730 - abt. 1783)

Born about 1730 in Osnabruck, Niedersachsen, Germany [uncertain]

Wife of Mathias (Somers) Sommer — married 23 Oct 1749 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Wife of Jacob Ricker Jr. — married after 1768 in Moncton, Nova Scotia Colony

Descendants

Died about 1783 at about age 53 in Moncton, New Brunswick [uncertain]

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Biography

Maria Christina Null was born about 1730.^[1] The circumstances of her birth, parentage, and arrival in Pennsylvania have not yet been documented. Some online trees claim she was born in Osnabruck in Lower Saxony in 1720 and that her parents were Anthon Null and Maria Magdalena Brunelle, but there has been no documentary support found for this claim.

She married Matthias Sommer at St. Michael's and Zion Church in Philadelphia in October 1749. The witnesses included Jacob Schütt, Hans Jurg Null, Johann Jurg Kurtz, Philip Haller, and John Dorett.^[2][3][4] The couple were members of this church from 1750 to 1753, and their two eldest daughters were baptized there.^[5] They moved upriver to the Germantown area after 1759, and joined the Rev. Heinrich Melchior Muhlenberg's new St. Peter's Lutheran Church at Barren Hill in Whitemarsh Township north of Germantown. They were members of that church until their 1766 departure, and Matthias was one of its trustees.^[6][7] The Sommers lived near St. Peter’s Church according to Mühlenberg.

The Sommers family were among the original group of German families in Philadephia contracted by John Hughes of Benjamin Franklin & Co. to settle Monckton Township on the Petitcodiac River. Their ship, the single-masted sloop “Lovey” under Captain Nathaniel Shiverick, landed at Hall's Creek in present-day Moncton, New Brunswick on June 3, 1766.^[8][9] Matthias received Lot 7 in the township^[10] but died in the early days of the settlement, most likely in 1767.^[11]

Christina and the surviving family are mentioned in a March 1768 letter, and she later married widower Jacob Ricker, Jr. and brought her children by Matthias into that household.^[12] Their son Andrew remained on the original Moncton grant, while the rest of the family went to Hillsborough Township downriver.^[13] Christina died about 1783, in Hillsborough or in Moncton.

Sources

1. ↑ Bowser 2001, p. 403.
2. ↑ Schaefer, p. 3.
3. ↑ Bowser 2001, p. 40.
4. ↑ Hempel, p. 142.
5. ↑ Hess, Vols. 1, 4.
6. ↑ Hempel, pp. 143-144.
7. ↑ Bowser 2001, p. 40.
8. ↑ Hempel, pp. 180-185.
9. ↑ Bowser, 2008.
10. ↑ Hempel, p. 231.
11. ↑ Hempel, p. 188.
12. ↑ Bowser 2001, .
13. ↑ Larracey, p. 84.

See also:

• Bowser, Les. The Search for Heinrich Stief: A Genealogist on the Loose. Halifax, NS: Nimbus, 2001.
• Bowser, Les, “John Hall and the Eleven Families at Monckton,” Generations: The Journal of the New Brunswick Genealogical Society, Summer 2006.
• Bowser, Les, “Locating the Monckton Settler: Roxborough, PA,” Generations: The Journal of the New Brunswick Genealogical Society, Vol. 30, No. 3, Fall 2008.
• Bowser, Les, “Sailing from Philadelphia,” Generations (The Journal of the New Brunswick Genealogical Society), Vol. 30, No. 4, Winter 2008.
• Bowser, Les. The Settlers of Monckton Township. Omemee, ON: 2016.
• Franke, Norman A. Our Genealogy: The Franke/Colucci Family Website. Matthias Sommer person sheet.
• Hempel, Rainer L. New Voices on the Shores: Early Pennsylvania German Settlements in New Brunswick. Toronto, ON: German-Canadian Historical Association, 2000.
• Hess, Robert L. and F. Edward Wright. 18th Century Records of the German Lutheran Church of Philadelphia (St. Michaels and Zion), Volumes 1-5 (1745-1800), Lewes, DE, 2008.
• Larracey, E. W. The First Hundred. Moncton, NB: 1970.
• Schaefer, Mary Ann. "Establishing the German Origins of Mathias Sommer, Settler of Monckton Township." Generations: The Journal of the New Brunswick Genealogical Society, Summer 2017, Vol. 39, No. 2, p. 3.
• http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=sheareb&id=I026142

Acknowledgments

• WikiTree profile Null-33 created through the import of The BTM Tree.ged on Jun 26, 2011 by Carolyn Trenholm. See the Changes page for the details of edits by Carolyn and others.
• Thanks to David McLellan for starting this profile. Click the Changes tab for the details of contributions by David and others.