Augustine (Preisch) Price (bef. 1722 - aft. 1803)

Born before 31 May 1722 in Offenbach, Landau, Kurfürstentum Pfalz, Heiliges Römisches Reich

Ancestors

Husband of Anna Elizabeth (Sharp) Price — married 1749 in Augusta, Virginia

Descendants

Died after 3 Jul 1803 after age 81 in Gaheysville, Rockingham, Virginia

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Biography

[CAPT.] AUGUSTINE PREISS/PRICE, SR., son of David Preisch/Breisch and Agnes Hoffman; christened as Augustinus Preisch on 31 May 1722, Offenbach, Landau, Rheinland Pfalz, Germany, where his parents were members of the Catholic Church.^[1] He died after 3 July 1803, when he signed a court document; he was probably buried in the Peaked Mountain Cemetery, Rockingham County, Virginia.^[2] He married between 1747-50, ANNA ELISABETH SCHERP (member of Peaked Mountain Church, Rockingham County, Virginia).^[3] Augustine came to America, 5 September 1738, on the ship Winter Galley, which landed in Philadelphia from Rotterdam with people “from the Palatinate,” including his brothers, sister and brother-in-law; they settled first in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania; with his brothers and brother-in-law Philip Harless, he emigrated to New River Settlement in Virginia, 1740/1; one of the founders, along with others who had come on the same ship in 1738, of St. Peter’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in New River Valley, the first church west of the Alleghanies and the third Lutheran church in Virginia; removed to Peaked Mountain with brothers Daniel and Henry ca. 1748.^[4]

Note: details of Augustine's Price's 50 subsequent years in colonial Virginia from about 1750 to 1800 are listed in order in the posted PDF entitled "Chronology for Augustine Price In Rockingham County, Virginia."

On 16 October 1802, when was aged 80 years, Augustine deposed that he had been driven from his home on New River by Indians in the year of Braddock’s defeat [1755], that he encamped on land now Mrs. Gilmer’s, then John Madison’s [deposition received September 1804] Augusta County;^[5]

Note Concerning Surname

PRICE is the Anglicized word for German Preiss; members of the Preiss family immigrated to an English speaking colony in America and the inevitable name change happened right on schedule. However, when Augustine was born, many western European countries, such as Germany and England, still spelled surnames in various sometimes very inventive ways and routinely used different renditions of the same name, sometimes even on the same document. So the name was Preis, Preiss, Preish, Breisch, Preisch, and/or Preuss, and no doubt there were other variations. Which of these was the very first identification of the man who became Augustine Price? In the original church register of baptisms, which is probably the first recorded reference to Augustine, his surname was spelled Preisch.^[6]

Notes from THE NEW RIVER EARLY SETTLEMENT

Excerpts from Patricia Givens Johnson, The New River Early Settlement (Pulaski, Va.: Edmonds Printing, Inc., 1983).

[p. 80] Immigrants to New River John Buchanan had left Adam Harman and Israel Lorton as agents for the Woods’ River Company. In July 1748 Lorton sold to Michael Price and Philip Harless 400 acres at the mouth of Jones or Tom’s Creek and 400 acres to Augustine, Henry, and Daniel Price at the Horseshoe Bottom. These men, including Lorton with Caspar Barger, Adam Wall, and Stephen Lang, were all German immigrants who had arrived September 5, 1738, in Pennsylvania on the Winter Galley out of Rotterdam [Note 19: CS (Lyman Chalkley) 1: 23, 38, 307-308]. All came to New River. The eldest Price brother was John Michael, aged nineteen in 1738. With him were Augustine, aged sixteen and brother-in-law Philip Harless married to Anna Margaretha Price, the elder sister of Michael. Not on the ship’s passenger list because they were under age were Daniel, fourteen, and Henry, twelve. Nor was the name of Anna Margaretha. Although there were 113 women and children on board their names are not listed. This Price family were the children of David Preisch (Breisch) and Agnes Hoffman of Offenbach, Landau, Rheinland Pfalz, Germany. Their father David had recently died in 1735. After immigration the Prices and Harlesses remained for a time in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, for the first child of Philip and Anna Harless was christened in a Moravian Church in Lancaster town though the Harlesses had been Lutherans at Mohlhofen, Rheinland Pfalz. The Prices for several generations were registered in the Catholic Church baptisms at Offenbach. However, their true religious aspirations seem apparent when they came to America and were free to choose their religion. In New River Valley one of the first acts was to establish a Lutheran Church on land that James Patton promised. St. Peter’s or St. Michael’s Church at Price’s Fort, Montgomery County, Virginia, dating from 1750, is built on this site and is said to be the oldest Lutheran church west of the Alleghanies [Note 20: Catholic Church Register, 1685-1822, GS. 367, 643].

[p. 81] Monument: [Photograph: Site of St. Peter’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, 1750-1885] St. Peter’s was the first church west of the Alleghanies and the third Lutheran Church in Virginia. Its original members were pioneers who, having suffered religious persecutions, had come from the Palatinate in Germany to Philadelphia, Pa., September 5, 1738, thence to and around the Horse Shoe Bottoms on New River. Richard Haeven Samuel Pepper Philip Harless Augustine Price Adam Harman Daniel Price Jacob Harman Henry Price Valentine Harman Michael Price Jacob Harberger Jacob Shell Israel Laurton Adam Wall

[p. 120] From Indian Attack [1755] Near the Peaked Mountain settlement, Augustine Price, brothers, Henry and Daniel, the Harlesses, the Lingles, and others from New River found safety. When aged 80 Augustine testified “he was driven from his home on New River by Indians in the year of Braddock’s defeat; he encamped on the land of John Madison.” This land was on Cub Run near Elkton, Rockingham County --- Augustine Price and Jacob Harman were responsible for the orphaned Williams boys, Henry, Philip, and Michael, for coming to the New River. The Williams were bound to Price and Harman after their father Henry Wilhelm died at Peaked Mountain.

Children

Children of Augustine, Sr., and Anna Elisabeth (Scherp) PRICE:^[3]

• i. SUSANNA PREISS, b. 9 May 1750; bapt. 15 Aug. 1753, Peaked Mt. Church; sponsors: John Ernst Scherp and his wife Anna Margaret;[ ] m. JOHN MANN (b. ca. 1750, Va.); m. of John, Mary, Elizabeth, George & Jacob Mann. John Mann and wife Susanna were baptismal sponsors for John, son of George Adam Mann and his wife Elizabeth, on 20 July 1771, at Peaked Mountain Church.^[7]
• ii. CONRAD ALIAS LEONARD PREISS, b. 24 Dec. 1752, Rockingham [then Augusta] County, Virginia; m. ELIZABETH MALLO.
• iii. [LT.] AUGUSTINE PREISS, JR., b. 24 Dec. 1754; m. (1) MARY ______; m. (2) ANNA MARGARET MILLER.
• iv. ELISABETH PREISS, b. 8 Sept. 1757; bapt. 15 Oct. 1757, Peaked Mt. Church; sponsors: her parents.[ ] She may have married WILLIAM BENTZ/PENCE.
• v. JOHN FREDERICK PREISS, b. 24 Sept. 1759; m. ANNA CATHARINE (MALLOW?).
• vi. JOHN PETER PREISS, b. 20 July 1762, Augusta Co., Va.; m. (1) ELIZABETH HERMAN; m. (2) MARY “MOLLY”/ANNA MARIA WILLIAMS.
• vii. ANNA CATHARINE PREISS, b. 4 May 1763; bapt. 19 June 1763, Peaked Mt. Church; sponsors: Daniel & Anna Catharine Price;[ ] d. 17 Dec. 1835, Greene Co., Ohio; bur. Boot’s Cem., Greene Co.; m. GEORGE MALLO/MALLOW, JR., in Apr. 1783, Rockingham Co., Va.; m. of John Peter, John, Elizabeth, George & Anna Maria Mallo.
• viii. MARIA CATHARINE PREISS, b. 12 May 1765; bapt. 18 June 1765, Peaked Mt. Church; sponsors: Frederick Ermentraut & wife Catharine;[ ] m. HENRY MILLER, JR. Marie Catherine Preiss was a baptismal sponsor for John Mallo, son of George and Catherine, in 1786 at Peaked Mountain Church.^[8]

Research Note

Did Augustine also have a son nicknamed “Queli”? QUELI PRICE, married LISE THOMAS; father of Frances “Frankie” Price; possibly Queli is a nickname for Michael. Augustine's son Conrad Price witnessed the wedding of Frances Price and Jacob Zumwalt in St. Charles Borromeo Church (in St. Charles Co., Mo.) on 4 November 1800; both Queli and Lise were identified as Lutherans and natives of Virginia. He may have been the eldest child of Augustine and Anna Elisabeth and a brother of Conrad. Perhaps Michael or “Queli” was born before the Prices began having their children baptized at Peaked Mountain Church. A simpler solution would be that “Queli” was another nickname for Conrad alias Leonard, who was a witness at the wedding, and may have signed as the bride’s father. But Conrad had no heir identified as a daughter Frances Zumwalt; the extensive records about him and his estate make it seem impossible that he could have an unidentified daughter who married Jacob Zumwalt.

Sources

1. ↑ Patricia Givens Johnson, The New River Early Settlement (Pulaski, Va.: Edmonds Printing, Inc., 1983), p. 80.
2. ↑ This date (3 July 1803) is mentioned in the Augustine Price entry, www.findagrave.com, memorial #21066320. No citation is given for the court document, and I have not seen it.
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1} F. Edward Wright, “Records of Peaked Mountain Church,” Early Church Records of Rockingham County, Virginia (Westminster, Md.: Family Line Publications, 1998), 11. There are two other published versions of these records.
4. ↑ Rev. Ulysses S.A. Heavener, German New River Settlement" (Genealogical Publ. Co., Baltimore, 1976; originally published 1929), 19, 22, 23.
5. ↑ Chalkley, Chronicles of the Scotch-Irish, 2: 36. Deposition filed as part of a Circuit Court judgment , Sept. 1804.
6. ↑ Photograph of Augustine Preisch's baptismal record at https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSJY-NQMK-Q?i=103&cat=145272
7. ↑ Wright, "Peaked Mountain," 16
8. ↑ Wright, "Peaked Mountain," 21.

Acknowledgements

• WikiTree profile Price-1250 created through the import of Shurtliff Family.ged on Jun 20, 2011 by Mark Shurtliff. See the Changes page for the details of edits by Mark and others.
• WikiTree profile Price-1253 created through the import of Shurtliff Family.ged on Jun 20, 2011 by Mark Shurtliff. See the Changes page for the details of edits by Mark and others.