a small village in Baden in the German Palatinate that four young men, probably brothers, left their home to try their luck in the New World at regular two year intervals. Of one brother, there is no trace of his having landed. He may have been under the age of sixteen and hence too young to take the oath of allegiance to the King of England upon arrival, or his ship may have been lost at sea. The two elder brothers, Johann Christian and Johann Wilhem Badenheimer, arrived in September of 1749 and September of 1751 respectively, aboard the brig, Two Brothers, in two separate crossings out of Rotterdam bound for Philadelphia. Two years later, the third brother, Johann Peter Badenheimer, arrived in Philadelphia in September of 1753 aboard the snow Rowand. A snow is defined as a sailing vessel rigged in manner similar to a brig but with a trysail mast just abaft the mainmast and considerably smaller than a brig, more manoeuvreable and sometimes used in warfare. Each of the brothers, upon arrival, disembarked in Philadelphia and had to take an oath of allegiance to the British Crown as well as an oath of abjuration and fidelity to William Penn and the proprietors of Pennsylvania. The two elder brothers appear to have left Pennsylvania subsequently and to have settled in North Carolina. Johann Peter travelled north to New Jersey.
That each son left the Palatinate as soon as he approached sixteen years of age would indicate that the land around Baden, known for the quality of its vineyards and its wine, where the family had farmed for generations, was now of insufficient harvest potential to support five sons for division among them. The first born, as was the custom, remained at home.
Political unrest in Europe also may have contributed to the departure of the younger four. The War of the Austrian Succession broke out in 1740 when Johann Peter was three years of age. Charles VI, the last Holy Roman Emperor died in 1740 and left no male heirs. He had exacted promises of fealty to his daughter and heiress, Maria Theresa, from his various vassals, kings and electors. The emperor was no sooner entombed than Maria Theresa, who had succeeded to the thrones of Austria, Bohemia and Hungary, was faced with Frederick II, the Great, King of Prussia, marching into Austria. Charles Albert, Elector of Bavaria, Philip V of Spain and August III, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, also made their claims to the Palatinate and the war was on. Maria Theresa was supported by Hungary, Britain and the Netherlands. Bavaria, France, Poland, Sardinia, Saxony and Spain supported Frederick and the other insurgents. For five years battles and skirmishes made the farmers’ lives difficult and precarious, although the Badenheimers’ produce no doubt was in high demand. At last the Treaty-of-Aix-la-Chapelle was signed in 1748, but it was an uneasy peace. In 1756 the war known as The Seven Years War broke out, three years after Johann Peter had left his home. He was nineteen years of age and must have been relieved to have left the constant uncertainty that frequently led to open warfare. Emigration may well have been an attractive alternative to providing cannon fodder for the Electors of Saxony and Bavaria.
After he made his way north, young Johann Peter was registered as a member of the German Reformed Church in Mount Pleasant, New Jersey. He eventually married and his wife bore him three children, one of whom a boy, born in 1773, was named Peter after his father. By this time the original spelling of Badenheimer had become more phonetically pronounced as Bawtenheimer, and so it was spelled.
Young Peter Bawtenheimer married a woman identifiable only as Grace and the first two of their ten children were born in New Jersey. In 1800 Peter and Grace Bawtenheimer made their way to Upper Canada along with Peter’s brother, John. Although nothing is known of their activities, if any, in the Revolutionary War, many families who had not actively supported the revolution, finding themselves socially and commercially ostracized over a period of time, came north to what remained of British North America. They were not given land grants as United Empire Loyalists had been, but were able to bring whatever fortune they possessed and to buy land. A descendant recorded the brothers’ account of the journey, in part, “coming with horses and on foot, there being no vehicles, by way of Niagara crossing the river on a ferry boat following Indian trails and deer tracks westward till they arrived in what is now the city of Hamilton which was only a few huts at the time. Peter took 200 acres at the Cold Springs, lot 36, 1st Concession, township of Ancaster. John settled on a bush lot of 200 acres south of what is now Copetown.”
Those who had supported the British in the War of Independence which ended in 1776, or who had remained obviously neutral, were made to feel less and less welcome in the new United States and were still arriving as loyalists. Peter and Grace settled down on their lot and their third child, Daniel, Samuel Edward’s great grandfather, was born in 1803, to be followed by seven more children. In time the Ancaster and Blenheim townships of Wentworth and Oxford counties respectively were well populated by Bawtenheimers. So much was this the case and so popular was the name of Peter, that one Peter Bawtenheimer changed his name to Beheimer so that his mail and his real estate dealings should not be confused with those of a same named cousin and their transactions end up in considerable confusion.
Good farmers all, the Bawtenheimers prospered and in the early years of the 1800’s Peter went back to New Jersey to buy a wagon and horses. When war broke out between British North America and the United States in 1812, Peter put his Yankee bought wagon and his teams of horses to work hauling supplies for the British troops. It was known that his wartime activities had brought him “a good deal of wealth.”
In time young Daniel married (Catherine) Katy Chrysler, whose father, Henry, had died in the war of 1812. The couple settled on a farm given to Daniel by his father Peter, on lot 4, Concession 6 in Blenheim Township. Daniel, William, Peter, John, James and David, all sons of Peter, farmed near to one another. On Sundays the brothers took turns visiting one another back and forth making their roundabout way by boat on the Nith River. Daniel’s younger brother, Peter, married Rachel Chrysler, Katy’s sister. As in the Weir family, there were double cousins aplenty.
Daniel’s second son, Henry, the grandfather of Samuel Edward, apparently felt the call to preach from his childhood. Born in 1826, he studied for the Wesleyan Methodist Ministry, became an itinerant preacher in his early twenties and was given his first charge at the age of thirty. He began his career in Wellesley, a village west of Kitchener in 1856. The following year he was based in Kincardine. In 1858 he began the year at Bayfield and later was moved to Stratford. After his ordination in 1859, while he held the charge of Morris Township in Huron County, Henry established himself in Blyth. In the year of his ordination, he married Martha Amanda Barber, whose parents had come to settle in Upper Canada from the United States. A petite and high spirited young beauty of sixteen, Martha Amanda was born in 1842. Henry, who was thirty-seven at the time, is reported to have remarked that he deliberately chose a young wife that he might mold her into the proper attitude and behaviour of a minister’s wife. Henry, it would appear, took his responsibilities and himself with great seriousness as a god fearing minister of the gospel.
According to family lore, while still in Blyth in 1860 the Bawtenheimers’ first child, Sarah, Samuel Edward’s mother, was born over the blacksmith’s shop. Then, in 1861, it was on to Teeswater where in the following year the Reverend Henry was declared supervisory minister. From 1863 until the year of Confederation in 1867 the family was quartered in Clinton where Charles was born in 1864, followed two years later by another daughter, Frances, known as Frankie. By 1868 the family was on the move again, this time to Oil Springs and Petrolia, about twelve kilometres apart, where Henry’s health “failed.” The poor roads, mud and winter weather which made travel between the two charges daunting undoubtedly contributed to symptoms brought on by exhaustion. In 1869, another daughter, Mary, was born in the new charge at Paris where the family remained until 1873. Eva Jane, who later married Alexander Thompson, a lawyer, was born in Paris in 1872.
In 1874 the family was sent to Toronto for one year and, in 1875, the Reverend Henry received a call to take charge of the Cape Croker Indian Reserve near Wiarton. There to “convert the heathen” he took great pride in being the first Methodist minister to be so appointed. After two years of preaching and ministering to the Ojibway on the Reserve and establishing a thriving religious community, the Reverend Henry and his family were moved again. This time it was to Kilsyth, not far from the Reserve and close to Owen Sound, a charge that would last for
