Hans Dietrick (Dieter) Bauman

  General Notes:

"It was summer time in the Palatinate Germany. The year was 1727 when Hans Dieterich Bauman decided to go to America (This was four years prior to the journey to America by our common ancestor, Christian Lauffer). Some time called Hans Dieter Bauman, he came from the Rhineland, Germany, on the good ship"Adventurer" sailing from Rotterdam, Holland and landed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on October 2, 1727. On the same ship were his friend, Nicholas Kern, and Daniel and Jacob Bauman, two relatives .Hans settled in Marlboro Township, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, where he erected a mill on Perkiomen Creek. He married Eve Elizabeth Weil, on August 24, 1739. During the French and Indian War in 1754 he came with his wife and four children to the Towamensing region to settle, having been attracted here by his friend Nicholas Kern, Jr.,who had a farm and was a miller at Kern mill, where the town of Slatington now stands.
Hans Dieter Bauman built a log house near the spot where St. John's Lutheran and Reformed Church was later built, west of where the town of Palmerton is. The Boyers, Strohls, and the Merkhams were his neighbors. At the time of this settlement the French and Indian War was at its height. Many Indian massacres occured and the Pioneers had to seek refuge in Stockades and Forts provided by the Colonial Government. At one time Hans was forced to remove his family, which consisted of a wife, two daughters, and two young sons to Easton, Pennsylvania, for safety. His occupations were hunting, fishing, trapping and lumbering. The Colonial soldiers were sent to the Towamensing section of Northampton County to protect the inhabitants from the Indian depredations. Fort Allen, now Weissport was the barracks. During this time of turmoil, Hans died in January 1761. It is not known whether he was killed or wounded, or if he died from exposure during the hard winter.
His two little boys Bernhard and Heinrich, aged thirteen and eleven years, and his daughters, Anna Maria and Sybilla, aged twenty and eighteen, were left unprotected in this vast wilderness. Both girls were beautiful and attractive; and the widow, Eve Elizabeth Bauman, wishing to keep them from falling into the hands of the Indians, or from falling in love with the soldiers, placed the girls in the Moravian Seminary at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. It was of no use, for Sybilla eloped with young Ensign Christopher Truby, who became a Captain and then a Colonel, took his wife, Sybilla to western Pennsylvania where he became prominent in the civic and military history of Greensburg in Westmoreland County. Anna Maria Bauman married Sebastian Seybert and settled near where the town of Berwick now stands.
Eve Elizabeth Bauman, the widow, alone in the wilderness with the two boys, turned to her neighbors and husband's friend of long standing for advice, protection and assistance. This neighbor, Nicholas Kern,Jr., was a widower with an infant son. He married Eve, who took his motherless baby into her life and reared him with her own boys. later this baby, Nicholas Kern, 3rd, served in the Revolutionary War with his stepbrothers and was Sheriff of Lehigh County in 1829.
Hans Dieter Bauman's sons grew to manhood serving in the Revolutionary War. The older, Bernhard Bauman, was a Lieutenant, the younger Heinrich Bauman became a Captain. Both married cousins who bore the same name of Catherine Dreisbach. Bernhard lived in a stone house at Lehigh Gap and later moved to Sterlersville. Heinrich built a stone house near the old cabin of his father. This house is still standing near the old Lutheran Church at Towamensing. Both men followed the occupation of farming, fishing, hunting, trapping and lumbering. About the year 1800, Bernhard Bauman's descendants remained in this section of Pennsylvania. His children were John Dieter Bauman; Heinrich Bauman, Jr., Anna Maria Bauman, wife of Jacob Snyder; and Susanna Bauman, wife of Christopher Kern. John Dieter Bauman, grandson of Hans Dieter Bauman, the pioneer was the founder of Bowmanstown. He married Marguerite Maria Newhard and lived in a log house across the Lehigh River, but in 1808 he built the stone house which is still standing in Bowmanstown."

Hans married Eva Elizabeth Weil, daughter of Valentine Weil and Elizabeth, on 24 Aug 1739 in Montgomery County, PA. (Eva Elizabeth Weil was born on 6 Apr 1720 in Brandau, Hesse, Germany and died after 1773.)