How Did We Get Here from There - Part 1

America was settled by immigrants from Great Britain and Europe.  That statement is only true if you discount the fact that the land was occupied by red and brown-skinned people labeled “Indians” because Christopher Columbus mistakenly thought he had reached India.  Actually, many parts of America were already settled before the white immigrants got here.  But that is another story for another time.  I am here to tell the story of the migration of three or four families as they moved incrementally across the country.

The Hackers

Julius Hacker is the founding father of our Hacker line, but no one has been able to discover who his father was or when he came to this country.  The family story is that he was a German immigrant born about 1720.  Like most Germans in the 18th Century he probably entered the the country through the port of Philadelphia.  In course of time, he met and married Martha Beeler, presumed daughter of Ulrich and Maria Elizabetha Buehler.

We should touch briefly on the Beeler family because our line is descended from them in a couple of ways.  Ulrich Buehler was German-Swiss who came to this continent on a ship called “Hope,” arriving in September, 1734.  He settled in Pennsylvania, married and had several children.  Four of his children were baptized in Lutheran churches in York County, Pennsylvania, and we know who they are.  

John Valentine Beeler b. February 21, 1737

Maria Elizabeth Beeler b. August 6, 1738

Susannah Beeler b. February 27, 1741

Joseph Beeler b. bef August 1744

Notice the change of name.  The name went through several spelling changes from Buehler to Buler, to Bealor or Bealer, to Beeler or Beelar.  

Four children are presumed to be children of Ulrich and Maria Elizabeth but are not documented.  These are:
  Martha Beeler.  I think she was born about 1745.

George Beeler, b. abt 1747

Jacob Beeler b. October 10, 1750

Ulrich Beeler b. 1755.

A great deal could be written about how these last four came to be considered as children of Ulrich and Maria Elizabeth Buehler, but that is a Beeler story, not a Hacker story.  Martha is the only one of these that concerns us because Julius Hacker married her about 1764.  The family story is that they moved to Chesterfield County, Virginia Colony, but--again--no one has found documentation of them living there.

I found a large Beeler family tree on a site called Roots Web (a site that allows people to upload family trees for free).  There is no guarantee of the accuracy of the data there, but one can find much information from looking at these family trees.  Martha was listed on the Beeler tree as married to Julius Hacker, but no children were listed.  The Beeler researcher knew nothing about the Hacker family.

Our Hacker story is that Julius married Martha about 1764 and they had e following children:

  Jacob Hacker b. 1765

  John Hacker b. 1768

  Julius Hacker Jr. b. 1769

  Elizabeth Hacker b. 1773

  Joseph Hacker b. 1775

  Susan Hacker b. 1780

  Catherine Hacker b. 1781-1783

The first four children were born in Chesterfield County, Virginia Colony.  Joseph, Susan and Catherine were probably born in Washington County, North Carolina.

The first move made by the Julius Hacker family may have been from Chesterfield County to an area called Washington County, North Carolina.  I estimate that this move took place about 1775.  (This date is based on the 1850 census record of Joseph Hacker which states that he was 75 in 1850 making his birth year 1775, and that he was born in North Carolina.)  We find the first documentation of the Julius Hacker family in 1780, when the family was named among those taking refuge in Shelby’s Fort during a time when most men of the area were away fighting the Battle of King’s Mountain.  In those days, many of the Cherokee Indians were hostile to the white settlers, so families took refuge in a fort for protection.

You’ve never heard of the Battle of King’s Mountain, you say?  It is important to the history of this particular area, and was also important in the Revolutionary War.  It was the next to the last battle of that war; a battle where the “Overmountain Men” (as they were called) took their muskets and marched across the mountains to fight British and Loyalists forces commanded by Col. Patrick Ferguson.  They won the battle, and it turned the tide of war against the British, who surrendered soon after.

Julius Hacker was too old to fight in the Revolutionary War and his sons were too young.  Two of his sons fought in the War of 1812.  One of them was Joseph, the ancestor of our branch of the Hacker family.

Washington County, NC was on the frontier, separated from the main part of that North Carolina by two mountain ranges.  Therefore, citizens of North Carolina had not moved there.  It was occupied mostly by Cherokee Indians who were the most “civilized” of the Indian tribes.  They lived in villages, built cabins to live in, cultivated crops to provide food, and also hunted and fished.  They had retreated from coastal areas into an area that now comprises Alabama, Tennessee and Arkansas.  The fertile land provided extensive hunting grounds for them to pursue their way of life.  The British government had negotiated a treaty with the Indians under which their lands were protected from intrusion by white settlers.  They also were prohibited from selling any of their land to white men.

Unfortunately, neither side really kept the treaty.  White men began to move in as squatters on Indian lands.  And some Indians sold land to a few white families, hoping that they would be satisfied and leave the Indians alone.  But the land was attractive to people who lived in Virginia, and they were the ones who began to move in.  Much of the land in Virginia was owned by companies or wealthy individuals to whom The King of England had given large land grants of thousands of acres.  Virginia citizens could obtain land under lease agreements paying a yearly rent to the owner, but they could not buy the land outright.  So, this Indian land that seemed “empty” looked attractive to the Virginians who wanted to own their own farms.

While this was going on, the Revolutionary War broke out (1775).  It was two-pronged.  In the coastal areas, militias and armies were formed to fight the British soldiers.  The British also recruited Loyalists from the American population to fill their ranks.  On the frontier, however, militias fought Indians who objected to the white man's encroachment on their territory.  The British supplied the Indians with food, guns and ammunition so that they could fight the white men, and keep them occupied.  This discouraged these Overmountain Men from joining the coastal armies that were fighting the British.

The five sons of Ulrich Buehler began moving into this area, which initially did not have a name, around 1771.  The area also had no governing authority.  There was no protection from hostile Indians, and no one from whom they could purchase land.  During the decade of the 1770s, these problems were tackled and “solved” from the white man’s perspective.  But the Indians began to have many problems as they were pushed further and further west by encroaching white folks.

It is my belief that Julius and Martha moved to this area, which came to be called Washington County, North Carolina, because they wanted to rejoin Martha’s family.  They probably squatted on some land and built a cabin to live in.  They, and the Beelers, all settled north of the Holston River along Beaver Creek.  By 1780, North Carolina had created a system by which that state could process land grants for the settlers.  Many of these were “bounty” land grants awarded to soldiers that had fought in the Revolutionary War.  Others were grants to people who had established themselves on a parcel of land.  The granted land was purchased at a rate of 50 shillings per 100 acres.

Julius Hacker was given a 640 acre land grant by North Carolina in 1784.  He purchased the land and his family lived on it, his sons helping him farm it.  I recently found a transcription of the Julius Hacker land grant, complete with legal description of the 640-acre parcel.  It was exciting to see evidence of where this family had actually lived.  I also have an electronic copy of the actual handwritten deed for this property. 

In the meantime, part of Washington County was broken off to form Sullivan County in 1779.  By 1790, North Carolina had relinquished control of this land, and it had become part of Virginia.  In 1796, Washington and Sullivan Counties were included in land that became part of the new state of Tennessee.

Julius Hacker was listed on the 1796 Tax Lists for Sullivan County, Tennessee--the first tax list for the new state.  He was taxed on his 640-acre farm.  His sons, John and Julius Jr. were also listed on the Tax List and were charged a “white poll,” (which enabled them to vote) but they did not pay taxes on land, indicating that they did not own any.  They probably still lived with their parents, helping their father farm the land.
 

Jacob Hacker was not on that Sullivan County tax list, however.  He had married by then, and is found on the tax lists of Greene County, Tennessee--a new county that had just been formed.  Joseph Hacker had also gone off on his own.  A Hacker researcher has found evidence in court records that Joseph was in Carter County, Virginia near where his youngest sister, Catherine, lived with her new husband, Jacob Peters.  

By the 1790s, records begin to appear for the Hacker family members; marriage records, court records, records of service in a militia, land records, and tax records.  The undocumented Hacker family had become documented, and we can trace where they go, who they marry, who their children are.

Addendum:  Since first writing this essay, I learned that a researcher named David R. Cosper has found a record indicating that Julius Hacker received a land warrant in Fredericks Co., Virginia in 1768.  He had the land surveyed about 1770, and then sold the warrant in 1772.  The land was located in the same general area where Ulrich Buehler and John Valentine Beeler occupied large farms under a lease agreement with Lord Fairfax.  Julius would have occupied his land under a similar agreement.  David Cosper believed that Julius Hacker and Ulrich Buehler were good friends, hence the marriage between Julius and Martha, Ulrich's daughter.

If this is true, it suggests a different story on where Julius and Martha might have lived and where their first four sons were born.