VI. Zin(c)k – Funkhouser

There is considerable to show that the Jacob Zinck born in Virginia in 1756 was the son of a Zinck who emigrated from Europe to America during the 18th century.¹ This man was GOTTLIEB ZINCK, and his wife was BARBARA {FUNKHOUSER} ZINCK. They were married in Frederick County, Virginia, about 1752.²

Barbara was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, about 1734. She was probably the daughter of JACOB FUNKHOUSER and a woman named VERENA, whose family name is not known to us. Jacob Funkhouser was born in Germany or Alsace sometime around 1700 to 1706 and according to family tradition died in 1771 at the family residence on Tumbling Run in what was then Frederick (now Shenandoah) County, Virginia. It is possible he was a miller, since a year after his death another man petitioned to build a "new" mill on Funk's Mill Creek (the original name of Tumbling Run) – perhaps to replace the one that Jacob Funkhouser had run.³ His wife Verena⁴ was born in Germany about 1706, and she died sometime after 1767 in Frederick (now Shenandoah) County, Virginia. Both of them are presumably buried in an abandoned family graveyard near their house on Tumbling Run.⁵

Jacob Funkhouser arrived in Philadelphia (then the most common port of entry for immigrants, especially those from the Rhineland), during the early 1720s. By 1724 and 1725 he is listed as an unmarried adult freeman named Bankhouser and Funkhowser on tax lists in Conestoga Township of Chester (later Lancaster) County, Pennsylvania – an area near Lancaster where there were many Swiss and German immigrants. Jacob and Verena evidently were married in Lancaster County about 1730 to 1732 and may have migrated south to Virginia not long afterwards: it was at this point the Shenandoah Valley was beginning to attract settlers, and the Swiss and Germans who had come into Pennsylvania were attracted to the prospect of unclaimed land there.⁶

We know that Jacob and Verena were in the Shenandoah Valley by mid-1736, when he witnessed a note of indebtedness. On July 23 of the next year he was one of fifty-one men who signed a petition protesting being required to contribute their labor to the building of a road through Chester Gap that, they objected, would not benefit them. Many of the signers were residents of the Opequon Creek area in western Frederick County and the Cedar Creek area near Strasburg, Virginia. Soon there was a small Funkhouser colony (including two other Funkhouser males about Jacob's age, Johannes and Christian, who may have been brothers or cousins) along Tumbling Run – then still called Funk's Mill Creek – near Little North Mountain west of the town of Strasburg. Many of their descendants still live there today.⁷

Jacob Funkhouser's property, 260 acres about a mile west of today's community of Fisher's Hill, was near a fork in the run where a good spring was found.⁸ He and the other settlers were technically squatting, since all of this land (more than five million acres between the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers) was part of a 1649 land grant from King Charles II that had by the 1730s descended to Thomas, Lord Fairfax. Fairfax then had been compelled to defend his grant against numerous and lengthy legal challenges, which he overcame by 1745. He subsequently settled in Virginia, in 1747, but was just beginning to survey and sell portions of his vast property – known as "the Northern Neck of Virginia" – by 1749.⁹

The process that Lord Fairfax used in selling his lands is worth describing, since several persons in our family used it in obtaining property from him. Once an individual had found available land, he applied to Fairfax's agent for a patent and paid a fee. The agent issued a warrant, which enabled the purchaser to engage a surveyor to survey and mark the property. A survey and plat with the location, description, and neighbors was the next step. Once all this was submitted to Fairfax's agent, and if there were no complications (a competing claim, for instance), the grant could be issued and the purchaser received title in fee simple for an annual payment to Fairfax (to be made on September 29, St. Michaelmas Day) of about one shilling per fifty acres. Thus the arrangement was a kind of long-term lease, either for 21 years or for "three lives" – those of the husband, the wife, and the youngest son. The process of securing a Fairfax grant took time, sometimes years, during which the warrant often changed hands.

Soon after Lord Fairfax did open his land, in 1748, Jacob Funkhouser sought title to the portion he had cleared and planted by applying to Fairfax for a warrant on September 4, 1750. It took some time – until January 26, 1761 – until Jacob made full payment to Fairfax and received title to the land. In the meantime, during the 1750s, there were numerous Indian attacks in what would become Shenandoah County. These were part of the conflict known in America as the French and Indian War. Although there were incidents at Mill Creek, Stony Creek, and Cedar Creek (the latter being close to the Funkhouser property), there is no evidence that the Funkhousers were affected; neither did they flee, as so many settlers did when the Indians raided isolated farms and settlements. Jacob Funkhouser was a lay leader (Vorsteher, in German) in the Reformed Church, which had some adherents but no formal congregation in the Tumbling Run area. (Such a leader would preside over pastorless meetings at which members would pray, read from the Bible, sing hymns, and enjoy one another's company.) Jacob and Verena transferred their 260 acres on Tumbling Run to their son, also named Jacob, on March 2, 1767.

On September 22, 1864, the Funkhouser farm and the adjacent properties would become the scene of an important Civil War battle known as the Battle of Fisher's Hill, which involved a total of 40,000 soldiers. The Confederate commander, General Jubal A. Early, had just raided into Maryland and even into the District of Columbia (attacking from the north, on what is now Georgia Avenue) before being driven back into the Shenandoah Valley. Defeated at Winchester, Virginia, on September 19, Early established a defensive position at Fisher's Hill near Strasburg. The Confederate line was along the southern side of Tumbling Run, which runs from the northwest to the southeast. The ground there is steep and partially wooded.

Union Generals Philip H. Sheridan and George Crook¹⁰ decided to forego a direct uphill assault on the Confederate position. Instead, Crook's forces stole westward across the enemy front to Little North Mountain, where they turned southeast and then fell on the Confederate flank. Crook's attack was a total surprise, and the main Union forces soon charged south across Tumbling Run and completed the victory. Fifty-two Union soldiers were killed; the Confederate side lost more than 1,200 men in all, plus almost as many taken prisoner. Following the even more decisive Battle of Cedar Creek a month later, Sheridan launched his famous (or infamous, from the Confederate point of view) scorched-earth campaign to punish the Shenandoah Valley and to remove it as a source of food and supplies for the Confederacy; the Funkhouser barn was surely burned as part of this campaign, which virtually ended the Civil War in the Shenandoah Valley. Today some of the Funkhouser property lies within the Fisher's Hill Battlefield park, which is now preserved – and prized because its current condition is almost unaltered from what it was in 1864.

Discovering the European origins of the Jacob Funkhouser found on Tumbling Run by the 1740s has not advanced beyond a number of theories. The most persuasive explanation I have seen suggests that he was the son of Christian and Magdalena {Christen} Funkhouser from Alsace, perhaps the Jacob born to this couple in 1705. This would make Jacob the brother of the Johannes and Christian Funkhouser mentioned earlier, but oral tradition in the Funkhouser family holds that Jacob was not related to the other two. In any case there is no definite record that links the Jacob Funkhouser we are seeking to this particular European Funkhouser family.¹¹ Other researchers contend that Jacob Funkhouser of Tumbling Run is the man of that name who was born in Trub, Canton Bern, Switzerland, on May 11, 1702, but this man seems to have stayed in Switzerland.

Yet another source, a Funkhouser family history written in 1902, states that the Jacob Funkhouser of Tumbling Run was born in Hesse Cassell, Germany. There are other notions about Jacob's European family, there being numerous Funkhouser couples in Switzerland, Alsace, and Germany at this time and any number of young Funkhouser males who might have emigrated to America, but we cannot establish a firm connection with any of these European Funkhousers, either. Information about still earlier generations is murky and contradictory, and there is no point in even repeating it here until we can definitely link Jacob Funkhouser to a specific European family of that name.¹²

Obviously we have much yet to learn about Jacob and his origins, and some very skilled researchers (with more at stake than we have) have not been able to make this link. I am inclined to agree with one such researcher, who has concluded that since most of the Jacob Funkhousers of Trub are accounted for, the one who lived in Virginia more likely came from an Alsace family or from a large Funkhouser grouping in Eggiwil, near Trub, where the surname Jacob was more common than in Trub. Several Funkhouser brothers in Eggiwil had large families whose males have not been thoroughly traced, and one of them may be the Jacob we find living on Tumbling Run from about the 1750's on.

Whatever the specific European origins of the Jacob Funkhouser we are interested in, it is generally agreed that the Funkhouser family as a whole is originally Swiss: it is first observed in what is called the Emmenthal Valley in Canton Bern. Many persons from this valley who went to live in the German Rhineland or in Alsace during the last part of the 17th century and the early part of the next one – Funkhousers among them – considered themselves Swiss even if they later migrated to America from other places in Europe. It is easy to see, then, how there could be confusion over whether this particular Jacob Funkhouser who came to the New World began his journey in Switzerland or Alsace.¹³

All of the Funkhousers in America are thought to trace back, somehow, to a Hans Funkhouser who lived between 1452 and 1530, and to his father, Niklaus (known as Clewi), who lived between 1408 and about 1476. This line ultimately reaches a Hans zum Vanghus, who is first mentioned in 1404. All these men leased the land of, and managed the sheep belonging to, a Benedictine Monastery in Trub. Members of the Funkhouser family have continued to live on this land right down to the present time.¹⁴

Like the Funkhousers, the Zincks to whom we now return one last time were numbered among the thousands of Germans and Swiss who emigrated to America during the 18th century. Many of these emigrants were Mennonites, as we shall see, but it does not appear that either the Funkhousers or the Zincks were practicing members of this sect.¹⁵ As noted, many of these Germans and Swiss arrived in Pennsylvania (in part because of William Penn's vigorous recruiting of them). Large numbers of them stayed in that colony, forming the core of what is known today as Pennsylvania Dutch (a transformation of Deutsch, for "German") country in Berks, Chester, Lancaster, and surrounding counties. Many others, though, headed south and west, slanting along the impressively broad succession of mountain ranges that channeled them into the Great Valley of Virginia (where it is known as the Shenandoah Valley) and still further south. Both the Funkhousers and the Zincks were among this latter group.

It would appear that Gottlieb Zinck was born during the first part of the 1730s: in about 1752 he married a woman born in 1734, and in 1766 he was old enough to buy property in Virginia. Unfortunately, we do not know just when Gottlieb¹⁶ or his parents came to America. There are a number of possibilities to consider, and the story of each of these Zinck immigrants sheds a little light on the problem of identifying our Gottlieb.

Perhaps the Gottlieb Zinck best known today who came to America at this time was born in Rodt, Freudenstadt, Germany, about 1730.¹⁷ Along with his parents and his siblings, in May of 1752 he applied to the authorities to leave for America. The family was permitted to journey down the Rhine River to Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, and from there to Philadelphia. En route, they stopped for clearance at Cowes, on the Isle of Wight in England, as English colonial law required. The Zincks traveled aboard a ship called the Duke of Wirtenberg, which arrived in Philadelphia on October 20, 1752; the captain was a man named Daniel Montpelier.

This Gottlieb's parents were Hans George & F. [for Frederick?] and Elisabetha Zinck. Because Hans George Zinck died in Philadelphia, and because neither of our Gottlieb's two wives was named Barbara, I am inclined to think that this man is the Gottlieb Zinck who can be found living in the Philadelphia area through the American Revolution.¹⁸ In addition, because this Gottlieb Zinck arrived so late during the year in 1752 it is improbable that he would have married Barbara Funkhouser in Virginia during that same year. It may be that Gottlieb and Barbara were married in another year, of course, but it seems more likely that the Gottlieb Zinck we are seeking arrived earlier than 1752.

It is also possible that our Gottlieb Zinck did not come to America as an adult but was the son of one of the other Zincks who arrived here in 1752 or earlier. We know the names of only some of the Zincks who came to these shores, surely, for not all of them came through Philadelphia (the only port where even some of the names of immigrants were collected), and the children of most of the Zincks who did arrive in America – whether at Philadelphia or elsewhere – are lost to history. Among these other men named Zinck we do know of are Learmer (1738), Daniel (1741), Conrad (1751),¹⁹ and Anthony (1752).

One of the most plausible of these potential fathers of Gottlieb among these early Zinck immigrants is the Jacob Sinc²⁰ who arrived in Philadelphia on September 14, 1728. His ship, the James Goodwill, had sailed from Rotterdam with a stop in Deal. Its commander was David Crokatt. To be listed by name in the information the Pennsylvania authorities were collecting about those arriving from the Palatine Jacob had to have been at least sixteen years old when he arrived. He was born no later than 1712, therefore, and so is perhaps about the right age to have fathered our Gottlieb during the 1730s. A fellow passenger on the James Goodwill was a Lutheran minister who headed the church with which a Jacob Zinck and his wife Anna Maria were affiliated at least between 1744 and 1751: Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. From this we can postulate that Jacob Sinc did not stay in the Philadelphia area but lived in the same county where Barbara Funkhouser and her family resided. In the church's records Jacob is said to be a member of the Reformed Church and Anna is described as a Mennonite, but the couple is also described as desiring to join this Lutheran congregation.²¹

It was at about this time, half way through the 18th century, that some of the Zincks we have observed living in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, buy property in and move to the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. This property is described as being opposite the mouth of Naked Creek, at the foot of Peaked Mountain, and in locations elsewhere in what was still Frederick County, Virginia.²² Among these newly arrived Zincks is a Jacob, but the relationship between these newcomers and our own family of that name we know resided in the Shenandoah Valley during the 1750's is not known.²³ We can hypothesize a connection between them and the Jacob Sinc who stepped ashore in 1728, but much of the evidence is circumstantial.

Did this Jacob Sinc/Zinck and his family (including a young Gottlieb) leave Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, during the early 1750s and travel south to the Shenandoah Valley, part of the German migration from Pennsylvania to that valley? Recalling that a Jacob Zinck petitioned to be relieved of further county levies in Shenandoah County in 1773, we can wonder if this man might be the Jacob Sinc who had been living in Lancaster County earlier. The date of the petition suggests that this man was born around 1705 to 1710, which would make him about the right age to have fathered Gottlieb during the 1730s and old enough to be listed by name on the passenger list of the James Goodwill in 1728, but we cannot positively identify him as the Jacob Sink or Zinck in Shenandoah County at that time. Moreover, one scholar has identified the Jacob Sink aboard the James Goodwill as a man born in Michelfeld in Northern Kraichgau, Germany, in 1701 who died in Lancaster County. His sons born between 1730 and 1735 did not include a Gottlieb but did include one named Johannes Jacob, born in 1735, and it is possible this Jacob Sink is the one who later migrated to the Shenandoah Valley.

In my estimation, the Gottlieb Zinck we are looking for is probably the one named Johannes Gottlieb Zinck, who arrived in Philadelphia from Rotterdam and Portsmouth aboard the Duke of Bedford (Richard Jefferys, captain) on September 14, 1751. He is thought to have settled in Virginia, but what actually became of him after his arrival in Philadelphia cannot be said with certainty. This Gottlieb, too, would be about the right age in 1751 as the Gottlieb we are trying to identify. Like most Germans, he probably followed the custom of using his middle ("calling") name rather than his formal given name. Moreover, one expert researcher who has studied the handwriting of the various Zincks we have been discussing has concluded that this man's signature matches exactly that of the Gottlieb Zinck who married Barbara Funkhouser in Shenandoah County. I think we should accept him as our Gottlieb Zinck until other evidence to the contrary is encountered.²⁴

If naming conventions were followed within the Zinck family, as they were in most families during this era, we would probably be correct in thinking that Gottlieb's father was a man named Peter Zinck, since Gottlieb's first boy was named Peter. Unfortunately, there are no obvious Peter Zinck's in any of the surviving European records. Our search is complicated by that German tradition of giving children formal first names by which they were baptized. Unless we learn the entire name of Gottlieb's father we cannot proceed further with our search.

Setting aside any further conjecture about the origins of Gottlieb Zinck, let us take up what we do know about him. Gottlieb Zinck is first documented in Frederick County, Virginia, in April 1755 when he is one party in a legal case; later that year, he appears on the clerk's list of delinquents – probably for not having paid the costs of this case, or perhaps for the personal property tax. Gottlieb surely had arrived in Frederick County by 1754 in order to be involved in a case during April of the next year, but in any event there can be little doubt that Gottlieb was already present there by 1752 when we judge that he and Barbara were married. (By then, as we have seen, the Funkhousers had been living in the Shenandoah Valley for two decades, so Gottlieb and Barbara would not have married elsewhere.) We know that Gottlieb Zinck was on a list of tithables for Frederick County in 1756 and 1760 – both times with relatively small sums beside his name. Then, in April 1764, he and Jacob Funkhouser are listed among those present at a sale at Sandy Hook, near Strasburg, where Tumbling Run empties into the Shenandoah River.

In May 1765 there is a reference to Gottlieb Zinck's property line in another man's deed, but there is no evidence that he owned any property in the area specified in this deed: near Saumsville on McNishes (now Pughs) Run just northwest of Woodstock, Virginia, like Sandy Hook in the area of Frederick County that would in a few years become Shenandoah County. (Shenandoah County, first called Dunmore County, was created in 1772.) The circumstances suggest that Gottlieb Zinck might have been engaged as a renter of the property of a man (a resident of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania) who died intestate and whose 1,500 acres here in the Shenandoah Valley had to be divided among his heirs. It seems likely that Gottlieb had been living in this portion of Frederick County since his arrival in Virginia, but we cannot be sure of this. One wonders if Gottlieb had known the deceased owner, a man named John Baughman, in Lancaster County.²⁵

However Gottlieb happened to live on Baughman's land on Pughs Run, by July of the next year, 1766, he acquired property of his own by obtaining another man's warrant (presumably by purchasing it). This property was 294 acres along both sides of Stony Creek, about fifteen miles south of the Funkhousers' home on Tumbling Run but still in what would soon become Shenandoah County. Stony Creek runs from the mountains west of Edinburg through that town and into the North Fork of the Shenandoah River. In December 1772, Gottlieb obtained a another warrant. This one was for 213 acres called "Surveyor's Camp," described as four miles below the source of Stony Creek. For reasons unknown he failed to complete the purchase of this property, but in 1774 he bought another 114 acres adjoining his 294 acres on Stony Creek, receiving title for this acquisition on February 5, 1778. We do not know whether Gottlieb Zinck actually moved to the Stony Creek property as early as 1766, but two references to him in county records make one suspect that he lingered in the Strasburg-Woodstock area of the county as late as the early 1770s. His selection in mid-1773 as one of those chosen to inventory and appraise the property of a deceased resident of the Stony Creek area suggests, though, that he too had begun living there.

Gottlieb Zinck's two purchases are shown on a contemporary survey of the area, which reveals their exact location: the area encompassing the junction of Stony Creek and Rails Run. (The name of the latter is spelled variously, even today.) His property ran along what is today called Dellinger Acres Road just off Route 42.²⁶ That the Zincks and the Funkhousers remained closely associated over the years is suggested by the fact that in 1772 Gottlieb Zinck added his name to a petition for a road along Tumbling Run near the Funkhouser property. (It is his signature on this petition that is thought to match the one on the passenger register of the Duke of Bedford.) As we have seen in our discussion of the ministry of Gottlieb's presumed son, Jacob, the Zinck property on Stony Creek was close to Zion Lutheran Church, which the family – including young Jacob, who grew up on Stony Creek, – must have regarded as their home church.

Like others in the Shenandoah Valley, Gottlieb probably raised wheat, hemp, and flax, the most common crops. In addition, he may have helped to make charcoal for the iron furnaces that the western part of the valley now supported. But from road orders for Frederick County, we also learn that by 1767 Gottlieb Zinck was operating a mill on his property. The proposed road, subsequently opened, is today's Dellinger Acres Road.²⁷ Gottlieb Zinck is listed on the Shenandoah County tax rolls (property and personal property alike) during the 1780s, his last listing being in 1790. He is consistently shown with 249 acres (an error: he actually owned 294 acres), three to six horses, and as many as eighteen head of cattle. Sons Peter and Daniel are sometimes listed as members of his household or as near neighbors. Gottlieb Zinck must have supported the American Revolution, willingly or otherwise, for in 1782 he is recorded on an official claim for 420 pounds of beef that he supplied to the Continental Army.

On July 28, 1790, Gottlieb and Barbara {Funkhouser} Zinck sold the properties on Stony Creek they had acquired in 1766 and 1778. (In fact, a close analysis of the tax rolls suggests that they had moved from those properties in late 1788 or 1789.) Most Zinck researchers, myself included, have assumed that after the sale they then headed southwest to Washington County, Virginia – perhaps in company with their children and their families. Is this assumption correct? We know that Gottlieb is documented in Shenandoah County as late as August of 1790 but not thereafter. We also know that Gottlieb's sons and sons-in-law also disappear from those tax rolls at about the same time, and that they soon are living in Washington County. But we also know that Gottlieb Zinck does not appear on the tax rolls in this county until 1795, after which he is listed every year through 1802. This is curious.

Even more curiously, Gottlieb (termed a "yeoman" in the deed) did not buy property in Washington County, Virginia, until June 18, 1802. This was approximately 260 acres belonging to Christopher Funkhouser, Barbara's relative, in two tracts on both sides of Beaver Creek. The property was in the same Rust Hollow area where Gottlieb and Barbara's son Jacob had lived at least since 1791 – indeed, the properties of father and son nearly adjoined one another.²⁸ Yet Gottlieb is described in the 1802 deed as being from Washington County, so he presumably had been living in the county for at least a time. Exactly where he was living during these dozen years between 1790 and 1802 we do not know; we will return to this matter shortly.

Gottlieb Zinck's will, which he wrote on December 26, 1801, was recorded in Washington County, Virginia, on December 21, 1802, so he died between June 18 and December 21 of that year. In this will, Gottlieb refers to a woman named Rosanna, who was his second wife. Oddly, there is no record of their marriage in either Shenandoah County or, even more strangely, Washington County where his son Jacob was a minister. In my opinion, all this evidence suggests that Gottlieb (accompanied by Barbara if she was still alive) probably left Shenandoah County for Washington County at about the same time as the other Zincks, perhaps in the fall of 1790 or (more likely) in the spring of 1791. My hunch is that although Barbara might have died in Shenandoah County any time after the property sale in July 1790, she probably died in Washington County sometime between then and the mid-1790s, after which Gottlieb married a woman – a widow? – he had met there. (It is also possible that Rosanna was someone he had known in Shenandoah County earlier and that he returned there to marry her after Barbara had died.)

Why does it appear that Gottlieb and Barbara – assuming she was still alive when the Zincks moved from Shenandoah County – did not purchase property when they arrived in Washington County? I suspect that for some undetermined time after 1791 but before 1794 or 1795 Gottlieb (with or without Barbara) lived on the land in Rust Hollow that we know Jacob bought in April 1791. Perhaps Barbara had died before the move to southwest Virginia and it was Gottlieb's intention to live with one of his children, or perhaps the couple decided to do so now that they had reached an old age. This would explain why there is just one land purchase for the two Zinck men we are interested in, Jacob and his father Gottlieb. Then, during the mid-1790s,the older man met and married Rosanna, which led him to purchase his own property. Although it is possible that this purchase did not take place until mid-1802, just before his death later that year, it is noteworthy that the neighbors mentioned in that 1802 deed were ones from a number of years earlier (not 1802, in other words); this suggests to me that Gottlieb Zinck had purchased the land during the 1790s and that a deed was needed for a sale in anticipation of his imminent death. Without more information we can only theorize like this about what happened in Gottlieb's life between 1790 and 1802.²⁹

Gottlieb's will left his house and possessions to Rosanna but his land to son Daniel, who was obligated to treat Rosanna as if she were his mother and to pay her rent in accordance with a written contract his father refers to in the will. She was entitled to live on Gottlieb's plantation – and to rental income, determined by a panel of four men – should she move from it. Daniel was also obligated to pay sums to his siblings (including a Jacob), who are named in the will, also according to the terms of the contract. Daniel and Rosanna, who served as administrators of Gottlieb Zinck's will, paid fees as such through 1809 but do not seem to have filed any report.³⁰

This speculation about the final years of Gottlieb Zinck brings us to the end of the (visible) trail for the Zinck family. We have only a handful of clues about the family's possible origins in Europe. One is a reference to a John Jacob Zinck, a weaver in Preuschdorf in northern Alsace, who lived during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Another is a reference to a Pastor Zink in Marbach in Baden-Württemberg, a man who was alive at the time Gottlieb Zinck crossed the ocean to America and so conceivably was his father or grandfather.

In addition, it is of passing interest to note that one Zink researcher has claimed to trace the family line to a Volcnant V von Erlach (1168-1230).³¹ Von Erlach was a poet and master of the medieval cornet, or Zincke, from which the later members of this man's family took their name. The Erlach region, where the Zincks lived for many generations, is in the area where Germany, France, and Switzerland come together. The Zinck line, according to this researcher, goes back eventually to a Danish king, Harald Klak (784-850) of the Skioldung dynasty. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of any of this, but it is an intriguing thought.

With that comment we complete our study of the entire Zink line, which we began with the father of Anabel {Zink} Vanderpool, William R. Zink, the son of Michael and Clarissa {Hughbanks} Zink. After a pause to examine the Hughbanks family, we moved on to Michael's parents, Jacob (James?) Zinck and Mary {Ring} Zinck. After another detour into the Ring family, we examined Jacob's presumed parents Jacob and Mary M. Zinck and finally this Jacob's parents, Gottlieb and Barbara {Funkhouser} Zinck. I think a good case can be made that this is the accurate line, but we must admit some of the evidence as we would like it to be.

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rev. 7/25/10

Notes

¹Although Gottlieb Zinck is the best candidate to be Jacob' father, there other Zincks in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Virginia who are known to existed. Unfortunately, many of the Zinck families used the names Gottlieb and Jacob frequently. Some of the better other candidates would be a Jacob Zinck who left the Palatinate in 1754 along with other – presumably related – Zinks and settled in Rowan County, North Carolina. (It should be borne in mind that the Rings once lived there.) Another Jacob Zink, born in 1726, enrolled in the militia in Augusta County, Virginia, in 1757 – about the same time and place where the Jacob Zinck we are tracking was born. In addition, the Andreas, Jacob, Christophel, and Christian Zinck who arrived in 1754 cannot be overlooked. There are also Zinks who lived in Pennsylvania and who may or may not be related to the clan later found in the Shenandoah Valley. One of them, a Jacob Sink in Pasyunk Township, left a will in 1803 that mentions a son named Jacob. Two Jacob Zincks were born in Philadelphia, one in 1759 and the other in 1771, and either could be the father of the Jacob Zinck we are discussing. Even the Zink family histories sometimes get confused on the relationships (or lack thereof) among all these Zincks.

²Some Zink researchers do not accept Barbara as the wife of Gottlieb Zinck; instead, they believe that his wife was named Catherine. After considering the evidence, I have opted for Barbara. Return to text

³As we have seen, Gottlieb Zinck was among those who petitioned for a road along Tumbling Run that would make the mill accessible. This road is probably the one called Battlefield Road today.

⁴This is a form of the common Swiss and German female name, Veronica. It was often shortened to Froney or Franey. One Funkhouser researcher has advanced the interesting theory that she, too, was a Funkhouser by birth: the Verena Funkhouser born on September 25, 1705, to Peter Funkhouser (born on November 7, 1673) and Anna {Bieri} Funkhouser (born in 1677). He argues that this woman, born about the right time, is the only one of their children who is not accounted for – and so may have come to America. It appears, though, that Jacob Funkhouser and his wife Veronica were married in America, which raises serious doubts about this theory. Because Jacob Funkhouser has no daughter named Verena, as one would expect him to have, one researcher has wondered if Verena was his second wife and not the mother of his children.

⁵A fuller description of the location can be found below, but according to a Funkhouser researcher who grew up within sight of the property, the graveyard once could be found on the crest of a hill on the north side of the run, a few hundred yards east of the home. See slides 09180-89, taken in 1998. Return to text

⁶See Appendix IV for a discussion of migration to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Return to text

⁷Johannes Funkhouser arrived aboard the ship Mortonhouse in 1728 and lived about a mile further up Tumbling Run from where Jacob Funkhouser settled. Christian Funkhouser arrived in the Tumbling Run area later than both Johannes and Jacob, probably about 1734. He lived further south in Shenandoah County before moving to the Yadkin Valley of North Carolina and then to the Holston Valley of Virginia. It is primarily from Johannes and Jacob that the numerous Funkhousers of today's Shenandoah County descend. How Johannes and Christian were related to Jacob, if they were, is not known, but one suspects some sort of family tie existed. Johannes is listed among those who voted for George Washington for the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1758, and Jacob is among voters for Washington three years later. Return to text

⁸Jacob Funkhouser's log cabin was located on what is now Route 601, Battlefield Road. The existing house was built in 1766 by Jacob's son, also named Jacob, who was a carpenter. The original, quite smaller, house of the senior Jacob Funkhouser stood at the edge of the garden, where the road curves around the present house and its barn. It was demolished in about 1920. See the USGS map for Toms Brook/Virginia and slides 09180-89, 09266, and 09273-74 all taken in 1998.

⁹As Virginia added new counties, this area was in several counties during a short time. Shenandoah County was formed from Frederick County in 1772 but bore the name Dunmore County until 1778, when patriots drove out the unpopular Governor Dunmore and the county was renamed. Frederick itself had been created from 1738 to 1743, mostly out of Orange County and partly out of Augusta County. Orange County had been formed a few years earlier from Spotsylvania County. The section of the present Shenandoah County that lies between Toms Brook and New Market, and where we once lived, has been part of all five counties: Spotsylvania, Orange, Augusta, Frederick, and now Shenandoah. Return to text

¹⁰George Crook was possibly related to the Crooks family described below, but I have not explored that topic. Return to text

¹¹The Alsatian Funkhousers may have lived in the village of Neuwiller les Savernes before coming to America, but the evidence seems stronger that they lived instead near the villages of Waldhambach and Tieffenbach, also located in the northwest sector of Alsace. The specific location was a farm called Hansmannshof, which was about a mile east of Tieffenbach. Return to text

¹²See my files for details. Return to text

¹³At least one Funkhouser was expelled from Switzerland, in 1710, for his religious views, but if the direct ancestors of the Funkhousers we have been examining migrated first to the Rhineland and then to America voluntarily, there is no evidence they did so for anything except their economic betterment. We fail to appreciate today how poor – and overpopulated – Switzerland was during this era. Return to text

¹⁴The Funkhouser name derives from a device called a Fang, which was used to trap bears who preyed on livestock. The farm near the trap (perhaps that of the trap's tender) became the Fang Haus, and its occupants naturally became known as Fanghouser, then as Fankhouser, and eventually as Funkhouser. Return to text

¹⁵Many of Jacob Funkhouser's children were raised as Mennonites, but this faith seems to have come from the maternal side of the family. Return to text

¹⁶This name, sometimes Americanized to Godlove, was a more or less literal translation of the German, meaning "beloved of God." The name was often mangled by non-Germans into Cutlip, Curtis, or worse. Return to text

¹⁷This area is slightly south of due east from Strasbourg and about thirty miles from the Rhine River, in the region now belonging to Lossburg. Records from this area were destroyed during World War II but are being reconstructed. Return to text

¹⁸This Gottlieb Zinck owned property in Frederick Township of Philadelphia County and served in the city guards during the Revolutionary War. Return to text

¹⁹And possibly another man with this name the next year. Return to text

²⁰As the index lists him. The facsimile printed in the book of Palatine passenger lists looks like "Zink" to me, however.

²¹See slides 10427 and 10428 (2003) for views of the site of Trinity Lutheran Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Jacob and Anna Maria apparently had three children baptized in this church between 1744 and 1751. It is also worth noting that a John Jacob, son of Jacob "Zint," was baptized at Peace or Muddy Creek Reformed Church in Lancaster County in 1735 and that a Jacob Zinck born in 1722 was a catechumen or communicant at First Reformed Church in Lancaster during 1750-51. How these persons fit with the Zinck family we are studying here is not clear. Return to text

²²Once again, see Appendix IV for a discussion of migration to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. There are two Virginia streams called Naked Creek (so termed because they did not have any vegetation growing on their banks). In my opinion, the stream the Zinks probably lived on is the one now in Page County, near the town of Shenandoah: this part of the Shenandoah Valley was settled as early as the 1740s, mostly by Germans from Pennsylvania, and lies at the very foot of Peaked Mountain. See the USGS map for Elkton East/Virginia and slides 09871-02 (taken in 2001). The other Naked Creek is about a dozen miles southwest of Peaked Mountain (near Burketown; see the USGS map for Mount Sidney/Virginia and slides 09860 and 09862-05, also taken in 2001). Peaked Mountain is the old name (given to it because from the east the surface of the mountain is serrated) for the abrupt southwestern end of Massanutten Mountain, which runs for many miles through the center of the Shenandoah Valley. The northern end, called Signal Knob, is near Strasburg – and, oddly, the Tumbling Run area where the Funkhousers lived. Some Zink researchers locate several Zincks somewhat southwest of the Naked Creek now in Page County, and without more study of land records we cannot be positive where Jacob Sinc and the other Zincks lived in any particular year. Shenandoah County was formed from Frederick County in 1772 but bore the name Dunmore County until 1778.

²³Among these unknown Zincks is one named Daniel, mentioned in Augusta County, Virginia, records as early as 1754, who owned 400 acres near Peaked Mountain in 1760; he may be the Daniel Sing who paid taxes in the Monocacy area of Frederick County, Maryland, in 1750. One Zink researcher describes this land as being between Port Republic and McGaheysville, which would be just about halfway between the two Naked Creeks mentioned earlier. Daniel continues to appear in records in this area (which became part of Rockingham County) until 1800, it would seem. This man would be just about the right age to be a son of Jacob Sinc and a brother of Gottlieb Zinck. Another Zinck is Jacob, who enlisted in the militia in Augusta County in 1757; he was a carpenter aged 31 years and so not the Jacob Sinc who arrived in Philadelphia in 1728. How all these Zincks, too, fit into the family we have been studying – assuming they do – remains a mystery. Return to text

²⁴In view of the fact that the Jacob Sink born in 1735 was living near or with Gottlieb Zinck in 1773, when Jacob petitioned to be relieved of taxes, suggests that they were related somehow – likely as brothers. That in turn suggests that Gottlieb may also have originated in Michelfeld in Northern Kraichgau, but this remains speculative. Return to text

²⁵Thanks to another researcher, we can identify the approximate location of the property where Gottlieb Zinck lived in 1765. Fortunately, the deed in which Gottlieb's line is mentioned cites how the land he is occupying relates to the others referred to in the deed. See the USGS map for Woodstock/Virginia and digital images 00752 and 00753 (2010) for views of where Zinck probably lived. This land lies very close to our former property on Back Road, just slightly to the southwest. Return to text

²⁶See the USGS map for Conicville/Virginia for the location of Gottlieb Zinck's property and slides 09866-70 for views of the area in 2001. Some of his property may be part of Camp Strawderman, a well-established and highly regarded camp for girls that was founded in 1929. Return to text

²⁷Cutting the trees and tending the fires to produce charcoal was very labor-intensive work, as was hauling the finished pig iron to market. Each ton of iron required twelve to fifteen cords of wood, and a single furnace could cause the deforestation of 20,000 acres within fifteen to twenty years. It was not unusual for a furnace to employ more than one hundred persons who did nothing more than cut trees and burn the wood for charcoal. Early furnaces in Virginia date from at least 1742 in Frederick County and even earlier further south. Return to text

²⁸As we have seen in our discussion of Jacob Zinck, Rust Hollow is located near Abingdon, Virginia. See the USGS map for Warren/Virginia and Wyndale/Virginia for one modern researcher's estimation of where Gottlieb's property was situated. His property, south of Countiss Ridge, encompassed portions of Black Hollow and Reed Creek Roads and their intersection. Also see slides 11094-11103, taken in 2005, for the approximate location of Gottlieb's property; these slides, however, were taken before the exact location of Gottlieb's land was more recently determined. Return to text

²⁹On October 9, 1798, a Gottlieb Zinck purchased 40 acres on Three Mile Mountain, along which Stony Creek runs, practically within sight of the property Gottlieb and Barbara Zinck had owned from 1766 through 1790. This Gottlieb Zinck sold the land on March 10, 1801. Since these transactions took place so long after Gottlieb and Barbara had left the county, and since the purchaser in 1801 was described as a resident of Shenandoah County, the likelihood is that he was a younger man who shared the same name as the Gottlieb Zinck we are studying here. In fact, a Gottlieb Zinck was baptized in Shenandoah County in 1773 and is shown in 1794 as a tithable in the household of the Jacob Zinck who was exempt from taxation – that is, the likely brother of Gottlieb Zink the immigrant. Every sign points to the purchaser being this younger Gottlieb. Return to text

³⁰Gottlieb Zinck's will was written in German and translated into English. Daniel Zinck and his wife sold the property they inherited from his father (now described as 276 acres) in 1805 and 1806 and seem to have moved to Kentucky thereafter. Return to text

³¹See the complete (and detailed) genealogy in my files. Return to text

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