George Weissinger was born in Wurtenburg, Germany in 1769 and immigrated to the 'new' country of the United States in the 1780's, landing in Charleston SC.
Family history [*] says he came with his brothers John and Leonhardt in 1789, a fact I have been unable to either prove or disprove. About brother Leonhardt we know little beyond his name, that he immigrated to Charleston and then moved on, perhaps to Virginia.
Brother John, however, was a baker in Charleston [1790 census], was married, had a family, and is buried in Charleston's St. John's Lutheran Church. It is due to brother John's son, Leonard, that we are able to trace the family members back to Germany and discover who were the parents of the three immigrant brothers.
This family had a penchant for using family names and this can cause confusion among the various John's, Leonard's or Leonhardt's. The father Leonhardt, his son Leonhardt (2) who immigrated and was 'lost', and more Leonard Anderson's than one can really keep track of, as well as 'baker' John who immigrated, John, son of brother Jacob, (Jacob did not immigrate but his son John did), and just about everybody named a son John or Leonard, including our George whose son was distinguished with his mother's maiden name Anderson as his middle name.
This Leonard Anderson had a son L.A., as well as a grandson, not to mention various nephews and great-nephews! Cousin Horace[*], for example had both a father and a brother Leonard Anderson Weissinger!
Considerable caution had to be exercised to know which John or Leonard was which! It is due to family letters, as well as research done by others, that allows us to 'link' our George to his brother John and consequently back to Germany.
Now to return to our direct line and our original immigrant George Weissinger who I think immigrated to Charleston SC around 1784/85.
By 1770 on the eve of the Revolutionary War, Charleston was the wealthiest shipping port (mainly rice and indigo) in the colonies. The city was captured in 1778 (and held through 1782) by the British forces and never fully recovered its premier shipping status after the War because as a consequence of that war it lost the British indigo subsidy. Charleston is located on a peninsula created by the Ashley and Cooper Rivers.
Rice plantations in the Low Country inland along the rivers are malarial breeding grounds and most of the major planters maintained a town house in Charleston to avoid the dangerous summer fever season (and perhaps the boring country winter season as well). In addition to, and maybe because of, these'summer visitors', Charleston also had a thriving merchant class.
By 1790 one merchant firm was "Frish & Wisinger". Since John has been identified as a baker, I presume this firm was a bakery or at least dealt with foods. George had suceeded well enough to own property, but by 1791 was also involved in Augusta GA area. George apparently remained in Charleston only long enough to get a start.
Annie Ford Wheeler [*] was born in Hamburg AL and has been doing considerable research [ca 1992] on the Hamburg area, including the Weissingers, for a book she is contemplating. I am indebted to her for finding some deeds from which I have deduced the following: The earliest South Carolina deed was 2 Feb 1792 when George "of Charleston, shopkeeper" buys some Charleston Neck properties. (George is now 21.)
Two months later he sells some property in which he is still identified as "of Charleston". George and Winifred Anderson were married in Richmond Co. (Augusta the county seat) GA in June 1792. A separation agreement of 23 Apr 1794 identifies him as "of Augusta".
It would therefore appear that George left Charleston sometime around his 1792 marriage, even though he still owned land in Charleston. George and his wife "of Augusta" sell the Charleston Neck land which George had purchased in 1792, to a John Weissinger, baker of Charleston 18 Feb 1795. 1 think this is his brother. There were only two Weissinger listings in the Charleston area listed in the SC 1790 census:- one, a certain "Frish & Wisinger" with two males over 16, and John "Wisinger" and a Charles Frish: John shown with one male over 16, one under 16 and two females, and Charles Frish one male over 16 and one female. John is elsewhere identified in 1800 as a baker. It could be that those two adult males at "Frish & Wisinger" are George and Leonhardt?
In any case, that 1794 separation doesn't look as if it lasted much more than a year or so, because George and wife, together, sold the property in 1795 to John. This property was the one George had originally purchased in Feb 1792 prior to his marriage, so her name was not on the purchase deed. I would think for her name to be on the sale deed they would have had to be again husband and wife. In addition the approximate birth dates of the eldest children of George and Winifred meant that the marriage was patched up within a few years, perhaps within months.
Augusta was created by James Oglethorpe, founder of Georgia, in 1735. At the outset, communication with the town "ascending in boats from Charles Town and Savannah" were its first traffic of Indian traders.
The 1773 land cessions from which the the present-day county of Wilkes and others were carved, created new settlements and markets north of Augusta. "Augusta was situated on a rich and fertile plain on the Savannah River; the buildings are near its banks and extend nearly two miles up to the cataracts.... [and] downwards to the ocean, a distance of near 300 miles by water ... navigable ... to Savannah". Augusta, like Charleston, was captured and held by the British during the Revolutionary War. When Savannah was captured in 1778, Augusta became the seat of government, for a period in name only as all of Georgia, save upcountry Wilkes Co. and environs came into British hands.
Indeed by 1780 it was being "boldly hinted that Georgia, and perhaps South Carolina, in any negotiations [British and American] would not be recognized as a part of the American Union, but would be excluded on the ground that they had 'been again colonized to England by new conquest'."
As might be expected, Georgia and South Carolina's Continental Congress representatives protested! This idea to cut off Georgia and South Carolina from the other Americans died within the year as Augusta was again in American hands in 1781. Savannah and Charleston saw British troops withdrawn by 1782. Augusta, still the capital, had suffered so badly during the siege and eventual expulsion of the British/Loyalist forces treat in 1783 it could not house the governor and general assembly and the Georgia Legislature temporarily convened at Savannah. Even though Augusta was again the seat of the general assembly, it eventually lost its designation as 'seat of government'in 1795.
Richmond Co. GA was divided into Richmond and Columbia counties in 1790, and in 1791 Augusta became an incorporated town and the county seat of Richmond Co. Therefore, when George Weissinger came to Augusta, he came to a town that was both a county seat and the state capital. "In 1791 Augusta is said to have contained two hundred and fifty houses, and a population of eleven hundred. The public buildings consisted of a church, a court house, an academy, ... a stone jail, a government house for the accommodation of the governor and the State officials, and three warehouses capable of storing ten thousand hogsheads of tobacco."
We find proof of George living in the Augusta GA area by June 1791 when he did an estate appraisal in Richmond Co. That he was in the Augusta area is shown by newspaper references [*] through October 1819. He married Winifred in Richmond Co. GA 30 Jun 1792.
We also know that he owned property on Germany's Creek in then-Columbia Co. [now Mc Duffie Co.] GA which was advertised for sale in 1818 and was sold about 1825. This house located today on Scuffle Road, approximately 30 miles from Augusta, currently [1994] owned by Mrs. Robert Hays is quite visible from 1-20 between Atlanta and Augusta between exits 59 & 60 and has been lovingly restored by the Hays. It is truly amazing to think how close the Interstate is - another 100 or so yards and the house would have been taken for the right-of-way! This Germany's Creek property consisted of some 1100-1200 acres and probably today looks much like it did then - it is open fields, and perhaps George quit being a businessman and became a farmer.
We are told by family sources that all of George and Winifred's children (with the exception of Alexander Jackson, b 1819 Perry Co. AL) and the youngest, Emily, were born in Georgia, and that the three eldest children were married there even after their father's remove to Alabama.
I'm beginning to get the impression that while George and Winifred moved to Perry County, Alabama in 1819, their eldest children remained behind until after the sale of the Gerrnany's Creek plantation.
George and Winifred "of Columbia Co." sold 65 plus acres in Richmond Co. 9 Dec 1805, and in 1806 sold "a new and convenient dwelling house with all necessary out houses and ten acres of land all cleared and under good fence". The property is described as "on the Sand Hills near Augusta". I've not found out when George bought the 1100 acre Germany's Creek tract, but it would seem that sometime around 1805/6 the family moved from near Augusta to 28 miles west - a distance that seems to me too far for a daily commute then. Or perhaps Winifred was the one who was interested in farming and George became a'weekend warrior'? I note an interesting gap in the children's ages[op cit]'s between G.W. Weissinger, b 1807 and J.M. Weissinger, b 1816!
The description we have of Winifred could very well bear out this theory - she was born 28 Sep 1777 in Newbern NC. This means that when she married George Weissinger in June 1792 she was 14 years and 9 months old. When she and George separated Apr 1794 she was 16 years, 7 months old. The description of Winifred Anderson quoted below comes from her granddaughter, Julia Cordelia Weissinger (then Mrs. William Bailey) which she wrote to H.Y. Weissinger in 1907:
"Our grandmother [Winifred] was at least a hundred years ahead of her time and for this reason was a misunderstood and little appreciated woman by the society of that day. She believed that a woman was capable of as much mental development as a man; that she had a right to her own opinions and a consequent right to be guided by them, not only in business but in public matters. She was proud, ambitious, energetic, and persevering, a noted housewife, a lover of plants and fowls, the introducer of many new sorts of each to the state [AL]. She was broad-minded, well informed, keenly intelligent, and always took a decided stand on political questions, often in opposition to grandfather, who, I am proud to say, was liberal enough not to question her right and to honor her for her sincerity. Her management was so good that he turned over to her twelve negroes to execute her orders and to assist her in her gardening, poultry raising, plant propagation, fruit growing, etc., all of which she did successfully. I have been told that she shipped from one thousand to fifteen hundred chickens a year to Mobile, and turkeys, geese, ducks, etc. in proportionately large numbers.
"She was extremely neat, and exacted scrupulous cleanliness from her servants, both as to their persons and service, giving every department her individual attention. Grandfather [George, Sr.] was justly fond and proud of her as he recognized that much of his own success was due to her loyalty and energy, but I am afraid her sons more admired the soft, clinging type of female so common at that time and were rather ashamed of their noble but strong minded mother, from lack of understandin on their part.
"I know she was called a masculine woman on account of her strong individuality and many thought her lacking in tenderness, but she was very earnest and devoted in her attachments, and really died of a broken heart from the loss of aunt Emily, her youngest child and special pride. This has always been a very sad history to me, and I have, from childhood, had a peculiar love and sympathy for our grandmother, who had imbibed the strict religion of that period and believed in eternal damnation for all who died in an unregenerated state (so called). Our Aunt Emily was bright and beautiful with apparently a brilliant future before her and had become deeply interested in religion, and while grandmother herself was religious, she wanted Aunt Emily to be introduced into society at a large and select ball to be given in Marion. [AL] Aunt Emily rather objected but grandmother's pride must be satisfied, so satins and laces were ordered from Mobile and a lovely dream of a dress was fashioned for the great occasion,.but, alas for human hopes, before the appointed evening she [Emily] was seized with mortal illness and the costly gown, in which she was to have made her debut, was her shroud, and life ended for her mother, who thought God had punished her for her idolatrous love and worldly pride, and she actually feared that the pure young spirit, guiltless of all evil, was lost eternally - as though God could be so merciless."
Julia Cordelia born 7 Sep 1849, was the daughter of George and Winifred's youngest son, Alexander Jackson. Winifred probably died between 1840 and 1850 , so it is perhaps from her father's memories that Julia is quoting, since she couldn't have remembered her grandmother personally. Indeed the opening paragraph states the information "as I remember it from my father and relatives on my mother's side who know our grandparents....
I am frustrated in that I cannot find Winifred's parents, nor where and when she died. Winifred Anderson Weissinger appears an independent woman and I would have liked to have known her.
George, his wife Winifred, and their children (some now married with families, including older daughter Eliza ), moved to Perry Co. AL probably in 1818/1819. George and Winifred lived in Hamburg Section where he registered a land claim 21 Jan 1820. Our family tradition gives George credit for naming the little settlement "Hamburg". He also was elected to a 5-member commission in 1822 which selected a site for the county seat, and George joined the majority in voting to name the county seat Marion.
According to an article printed toward the end of the 19th century in the Birmingham Ledger George was a "planter of substance ; W. Stuart Harris, writing in Perry County Heritage said he "operated a large plantation"; indeed by the time of the 1830 Alabama slave census George was shown to be among the top 10 slave-owners of the area owning 43 slaves.
We are told that a house, known as the "Hugh Davis Plantation" was originally one of the George Weissinger properties, apparently sold by L. A. after his father's death. It was destroyed by fire around 1917, but was still in Davis hands when a picture was taken in 1888. This pen and ink drawing used that picture as its source.
In 1841 George's son, Leonard Anderson Weissinger, offered 9000 acres for sale, some in Perry Co. and the balance in Washington Co. AL and Attala Co. MS. Since George died 1837 without a will, I think that at least some of this property was part of his father George's estate. In 1839, two years after George Weissinger's death there is still mention of estate matters. Annie Ford Wheeler speculates that Winifred died between 1840 and 1850. Could it be possible that this sale, which looks like it includes the 'home' place, was placed on the market after Winifred's death or perhaps after she went to live with L.A. in 1840?
Quoting Julia Cordelia, George had given "...his sons each a collegiate education, and to his daughters the best advantages possible for girls at that period, and beside educating his own family, he educated six grandchildren, Bradfords [i.e. children of his daughter, Sarah], who were orphaned. The children had property of their own, but this he held inviolate, supporting them entirely at his own expense until they were grown."
Judging by probable dates, it would seem that the two eldest sons, i.e. Leonard A. and John W., were educated in Augusta, perhaps at the Richmond Academy which had been founded in 1785 as part of the state [GA] university system charted that year.
Third son, George Washington Weissinger, attended the Lexington Kentucky Institute "... and while there met his first wife." Don't know how George W. decided to go to Kentucky for his education, but he must have been there in the late 1820's because he married his first wife in Louisville May 1829, where he was "one of the editors of the Louisville Journal". He married a second wife also in KY.
George's 4th and 5th sons, James M. and Alexander J. have listings (both apparently 1834? catalog) of the University of Alabama chartered in 1820.
George and Winifred apparently came to Alabama c 1819 with some resources (remember he was now about 50) as evidenced by the above-mentioned land holdings /transactions in both South Carolina and Georgia. By the time of his death in 1837, George and Winifred had amassed considerable property.
To quote Julia Cordelia's 1907 letter again: "[George] was of fine physique, without bad habits of any sort, and died in perfect, health of mind and body, at the age of 65, from concussion of the brain, the result of a fall from his horse, while on the way from his plantation to Marion to transact some business. The horse stumbled throwing grandfather, whose head struck a pine root. He went on to town, attended to his business and returned home but was suffering greatly with his head; retired early and was found unconscious the following morning, dying a few hours later."
Annie Ford Wheeler states that descendants of slaves have the tradition that George was struck by lightning, which also could fit with Julia Cordelia's horse stumbling and makes for a better story!
In trying to track down the exact date of George's death (my Great grandfather, HYW, only had Apr 1837), 1 found another cousin, Charles Hill Weissinger, Opelika Al,, who has the actual headstone! (Charles Hill and I are both great-grandchildren of Henry Yarbrough Weissinger.) George (and maybe other family members) were buried on the Plantation before it had been sold some time after George's death. Eventually all traces of the burial grounds disappeared. However, a gang of road workers unearthed the now in-two-pieces headstone, recognized the name as a local one, and contacted some local Weissingers. Charles Hill had been researching George and family shortly before the 'find' and was contacted to see if he wanted it! It is now in his possession and clearly shows the date of death as 20 Apr 1837. When Charles told me of driving from Perry Co. to Opelika after he had picked up the headstone, I had a sudden image of his driving back along the highway with the tombstone propped in the passenger seat beside him, but he assured me it rode in the trunk - too bad, what a story! It is also thanks to Charles Hill and his wife Enid that we have the picture of Leonard Anderson Weissinger and they first found the location of the Weissinger Germany's Creek house now owned by the Hays in McDuffie Co. GA.
Annie Ford Wheeler sent me a duplicated copy of George Weissinger's estate appraisal done in October 1837. 1 typed it into a spread sheet and came up with some interesting data. First and foremost, my total value is about $1000 MORE than the appraisal! ($31,305.60 vs, $30,395.23) 1 arbitrarily assigned 'location/use' to the various entries, for example furniture in the house, wagons and plows in the barn, and so on, and the divisions thus created showed:
$435.20 value on food, including such items as 188 lbs. of coffee for $28.20 and 160 bushels of wheat $320;
$1048.62 on items used or found in a barn, including a $400 carriage, $125 gin, and a$ 100 "waggan";
$1174.78 on household items, including 9 "bedstead & furniture'' whose value ranged from $25-43, 24 chairs, 8 tables, 35 sheets, 20 blankets, 11 "counterpins", 2 quilts, a loom (valued at only $3), and "lot" of spinning wheels at $4. The highest single-value item was a $90 secretary, the lowest a "lot" of shovels and tongs at 25 cents;
$1847 for stock, including a $400 pair of "matched horses" (and 10 others), 63 cattle valued at $500, and 2 "yoke oxen" at $80 and $40;
but the largest sum of all was the slave count, listed by name/family (perhaps 49 persons, up from 1830 census of 43) which totaled $26,800! It would seem that the description as "a planter of substance" consisted mainly in land and slaves.
George Weissinger was described as a man "well grounded in fundamentals and well read", not to mention the "collegiate education" of his sons, and this is borne out by 2 line items in his estate appraisal which contained 81 books, total value $33.48. The books were maybe housed in the $90 "secretary".
It looks like George and Winifred followed current events, judging by the names of 2 sons, James Madison and George Washington. They might have evolved from a Lutheran background (at least for George) to Methodism given the name of another son, John Wesley. Julia Cordelia stated "... [George] was a devoted and consistent member of the Methodist Church." I found it interesting that President George Washington visited Augusta in May 1791, and James Madison was president 1809-1817. George and Winifred's son G.W. was born ca 1807 and J.M. was born 1816. Of course, George and John were also Weissinger family names.
During the Weissingers early period in Alabama George was one of 2 elected Alabama State Legislators representing Perry Co., being first elected in 1822 and re-elected for the Fall-Spring one year terms continuously until 1830, with one exception (1828-1829) and was elected once again in 1832-1833. His son, L.A. Weissinger was elected 1837-1838 and 1838-1839.
Alabama, originally part of Mississippi territory' had become Alabama Territory in 1817 when Mississippi became a state. Alabama itself became a state 14 Dec 1819. The period 1822-1830 saw the first state bank established; a survey authorized for a possible canal around Muscle Shoals (Tennessee River) and financing begun; the capital moved from Huntsville to Tuscaloosa; mail service via stagecoach begun- the first railroad was chartered and the first track laid, as well as numerous new counties erected. (Perry Co. was erected in 1819.)
Alabama in its first Federal Census 1820 showed a population of 127,901
persons. Perry Co. by 1821 showed 119 holders of land, and its new county
seat Marion had an 1826 population of 144 persons "white and black, men,
women and children". The town included 3 stores, 3 hotels and 11 liquor
licenses! It also had a Female Seminary(1836), Judson College(1839), and
Howard College(1841).
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