Orndorff & The Mill

 Johann Christian Orndorff, my 8th G Grandfather was born in Siegen, Germany August 15, 1692 to Johann Heinrich Orndorff and Agnes Giesler.  He married Elizabeth von Mueller in 1721in Nassau, and they had three children together: Johann Christian, Anna Barbara, and Mary Magdalena.  Unfortunately, Elizabeth passed away in 1741, and that, coupled with the religious prosecution of those of Protestant faith in Germany no doubt spurred Christian, and two of his children find themselves on the ship "St Mark" headed to the port of Philadelphia.  (It is unknown whether Elizabeth passed away on the ship en route or just before the emigration, as I don't have specific dates for her.  I also do not know whether or not Mary was with them on the ship, of if she had passed in Germany or on board.  Woman and children under 16 are typically not listed on ship manifests, but we know Anna was with him and arrived in PA, as she's listed in a deed as a married woman years later.)  "St. Mark" docked September 26, 1741 and made their way to Lancaster county Pennsylvania, where we find a Hermann Orndorff who had emigrated with his wife to the same area in 1737, and they no doubt were related.  By 1746, Johann Christian and family had settled in Tulpehocken Creek, in Lebanon county, and April 2, 1749 the younger Christian marries Elizabeth Anne Hoffman, who's family had also emigrated from Nassau.  It is then that the Orndorff's begin to make their mark on America.  

The earliest deed on record for Johann is 372 acres purchased from Peter Grove in 1749.  This property will become famous for it's mills, with one operating until the late 19th century.  In 1762 Anna Barbara's husband  George Casper Kohr buys the property from a now 70 year old Johann, and it's unclear whether he, Johann, or a combination of the two built the first mills.  Either way, it was built sometime recently prior to 1763, when Kohr entered an agreement with an adjoining property owner for construction of a mill-race across the property, and was the first mill erected near the town of Fredericksburg.  In 1758 Johann buys two more tracts of land in the same day, totaling 268 acres, then naturalizes as a subject of the British Crown.  He passes away in 1772 at the ripe old age of 79, and was buried next to Anna Barbara who had passed just a year earlier.

The younger Christian, seeing that his father and brother in law had a good handle on the Lebanon Valley, sold out his shares in 1761 and headed to Maryland, where there were rumors of fertile limestone valleys.  In 1762 he purchased a tract of land called "Smith's Hill" run through by the Antietam River, building a plantation and naming it "Mount Pleasant."  Here Christian built his own mills, with settlers from the neighboring valleys grinding their wheat at his mills.  As payment, they would leave a small portion of the flour, which Christian then sent to Baltimore for exportation to the West Indies.  By 1774, Christian was a wealthy and well respected man, and when the Colonies began to protest taxation without representation, Christian is appointed a "Representative of Frederick county in regard to the new exportation policy agreed upon by the Continental Congress."  It is said Christian helped raise and equip the first Company West of the Blue Ridge Mountains, being he was a Committee member as well as friends with Captain Cresap, composed of 130 backwoodsmen who then marched to Boston armed with rifles and tomahawks, dressed in deerskin and moccasin.  By 1776, Christian was a judge on the election of Delegates to the Provincial Convention, and his son Christian III had become a soldier.  Christian and his eldest son Christopher are mentioned as officers to the Maryland Militia, and did their best to supply the growing army with provisions, including from their own mills.  Christian also rose tot he rank of officer, serving the Continental Army as 2nd Lieutenant of the "Flying Camp."  He was prisoned in New York after surrendering at Fort Washington, then joined the Sixth Maryland Regiment as Captain upon his release.  Being too old to physically serve his country, Christian kept the mills running at full capacity, supplying the army with large shipments of flour.

                         

                                                                    Mount Pleasant

During the Revolution Christopher married the daughter of one of the adjoining plantations to Mount Pleasant, a German girl named Mary Thomas.  He then purchased land nearby to his father and began to build his own mills.  He begins buying up land owned by his aging father, as well as surrounding parcels, and quickly becomes the biggest landholder of the Orndorff family.  But by 1796 Christopher sold his share of Mt Pleasant, and the now-famous mills became property of Jacob Mumma, who didn't know how to run the mills and instead put a call in the local newspaper for millers who 'knew their trade completely.'  In fact all of the Orndorff's had by this time sold their shares and moved to neighboring states, and by the time of the battle of Antietam the Orndorff homestead had changed hands many times before being bought by Joshua Newcomer.  As the battle comes literally onto their front steps, Mount Pleasant becomes a field hospital, and the house suffered scars from cannonballs being lodged in its timbered walls.  The Orndorff family cemetery, where Christian and Elizabeth were buried, becomes rubble after the Civil War, and is eventually walled in and covered over by blue grass.  In 1862 the army "appropriated for their immediate use a large quantity of his property including 4,964 fence rails, 28 panels of board fence, 42 panels of board fence 16 feet long, 1 sorrel horse, 18 acres of corn and fodder, and the uncut hay on 77 acres of pasture land."  Newcomer claimed $3000 in damages to the government, but since they couldn't prove if it was Union or Confederate armies who caused the damages, they were only awarded $145 and never financially recovered.  The Newcomers left the area and Mount Pleasant changes hands again and again until the mills close permanently in the 1880s.

Today Mount Pleasant has been restored and is know as the Newcomer House, and is used as a visitor's center, with the mills and all other outbuildings now gone.  That doesn't change the fact, though, that a pioneering German fled religious persecution in Germany and ended up building a large family, flourishing business, and historic legacy.  This seems to be one of the more interesting lines in my family tree, and can be researched almost as far back as my main Weller line.  

                        

                                        Mount Pleasant/the Newcomer House today

How the Orndorff's relate to me:

Johann Christian Orndorff (1692-1772) - 8th G Grandfather

-Johann Cristian Orndorff (1726-1797) - 7th G Grandfather

--Catherine Orndorff Rohrer (1763-1843) - 6th G Grandmother

---Elizabeth Rohrer Weller (1788-1825) - 5th G Grandmother

----Thomas Jefferson Weller (1808-1877) - 4th G Grandfather

-----Thomas Jefferson Weller (1858-1929) - 3rd G Grandfather

------Andrew Bert Weller (1880-1942) - 2nd G Grandfather

-------Ralph Andrew Weller (1909-1994) - G Grandfather

-------Lawrence Edward Weller (1935-2014) - Grandfather