Our Family Heritage: Founders of Hellertown, Pen
Argyl, Saylorsburg, Appenzell, perhaps Wind Gap too and more.
Johan Christopher Heller’s farm
house, circa 1760.
In 2004 I toured east
central Pennsylvania, a land area stretching from northern Philadelphia suburbs
to East Stroudsburg in the Poconos.
I spent a day in the Hellertown Library, Saylorsburg cemetery, and Penn
Argyll downtown district researching our family line and discovered a
transformative origin – Johan Christopher Heller and four of his six sons
settling the land in 1740 after the Leni Lenape Indians were pushed out by the
colonial Pennsylvania government located in Quaker Philadelphia.
We had a problem – we could not
prove our connection to Christopher Heller and his six sons beyond grandfather
Albert E. Heller’s birth in 1891 in Appenzell, PA. With the assistance of www.MyHeritage.com, we traced our
heritage to Johan Christopher Heller leaving Pheddersheim, Germany in 1738 and
finally to Conrad Heller, Brandenburg, Germany born in the late 1400’s.
The above map showing Pen Argyl in center and Appenzell to the
northeast does not include either Hellertown and Saylorsburg located southeast
of the area. Lee Widener, author
of Hellertown, “Images of America”, Arcadia, 2003, describes his small
city.
“Nestled in the Saucon Valley, Hellertown lies just south of Bethlehem,
bordered on the Saucon Creek.
While the creek derives its name from the Native America sakunk meaning ‘place where a small
stream enters a large stream,” the town inherited its name from Christopher
Heller and his sons, especially Michael who started the first farm and grist
mill. The 1800’s brought a wave of
Deutsch (German) immigrants to this corner of the Pennsylvania Dutch (Deutsch)
country.”
The Genealogy of Christopher Heller and his
six sons, a paper read by William Jacob
Heller at the Fifth Reunion of the Heller Family Association at Island
Park, Easton, PA, August 29, 1908, Library of Congress, describes a history of
Christopher and four of the six sons; Dieter, Simon, Michael and Daniel.
Michael Heller’s Grist Mill
Heller and Pennsylvania Ave., main intersection, Penn Argyll, PA
Founder Joseph Saylor’s wife was a Heller (Elizabeth? Louise?)
Saylorsburg’s main commercial corridor, circa 2005
The names of these two wives are unknown and their identities will
probably never be discovered. He
lies buried at the Lime Kiln School house, the ancient burying ground near
Hellertown. I have purposely left
the typos and grammatical mistakes intact out of respect for their time.
Daniel, the Fourth Son
May be wife of Milton Heller, grandfather Albert Heller’s older
brother. Burial site is in
Saylorsburg, PA.
In a History of Bucks County, PA Volume
3, William H. Davis writes:
Heller family genealogy chart Johan Simon
Heller through Hoyt Bernard Heller, pictured age 10.
William Davis text continues:
Appenzell, located near Jackson Township,
Monroe County, is where our grandfather Albert grew up; also, where our father
Bernie spent occasional extended periods of time when his mother Freda joined
Albert on the road when he managed a traveling carnival. In the near future we hope to visit
Appenzell, a place we’ve never known and are a little lesser for it.
Our
connection to the Heller family history in Pennsylvania is through our beloved
grandmother Freda Belford Heller who married Albert in 1910.
