Apgar Family Association: History

APGAR: History (Apgar Family Association, Inc.)

Henry Apgar, Jr., son of former Apgar Family Association President Henry Apgar, Sr., told the 1997 Family Association Reunion members of his one-day exploration of the area we believe was the homeland of our patron, Johannes Apgard.

Like most Germans emigrating to the English Colonies in North America during the early 1700s, Johannes came from the German Palatine region through Rotterdam (Holland) on English ships. Later German emigrants would come from Hamburg and Bremen on German or American ships. Most of the immigrants headed for the German-speaking communities in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Research tells us that Johannes came in one of the later waves of immigrants in 1734. We believe that he traveled to the New World with other families from his hometown. But, where was his hometown and why did he leave?

According to our Association Historian, Dorothy Apgar, the Palatine emigration was caused by a combination of local wars, heavy taxes, and harsh winters. The migration was encouraged by the British government to attract more Protestant Germans to pre-revolution America and also was stimulated by the inherent nature of Germans as “risk takers”.

Starting with basic information received from Dorothy during the 1996 Apgar Family reunion, I started my search for the six, close together, German Palatine towns which have old church records mentioning Epgert (or similar) family names.

Johannes’s family name in Germany may have been Epgert (possibly from the village of Epgert or another nearby Palatine village in the Westerwald). If Johannes could not properly write his name, the ship captain, Daniel Reed, may have written it phonetically as Apgard, later changed to Apgar.

On a crisp Saturday morning in May of 1997, I drove my rented German car from Frankfurt up the Rhine River toward Cologne. Herr Winfried Weber, my German friend from Darmstadt, had purchased for me some detailed roadmaps of the region and let me borrow his historical atlas of old German maps, which showed how the area looked in 1734, when Johannes left his homeland for the New World.

The little town of Epgert, nearly lost among its larger
neighbors, but still there.

Modern town of Puderbach, largest of those
with Epgert records.

As I passed near the famous Rhine towns of Mainz, Rudesheim, and the Lorelei, I pondered why Johannes and his friends would ever have left such a beautiful and bountiful area for unknown Philadelphia. The riverbanks are thick with vineyards. Germany’s greatest poets, painters, and other artists were attracted to this area. Even then, the “Father Rhine” served as Europe’s principle commercial waterway — the main river trade artery between the heart of the continent and the North Sea.

Crossing the Rhine at Koblenz, I approached the industrial city of Neuwied, important because of its position on the Rhine and the beginning of the region of Apgard ancestry. I then looked for Puderbach, site of the earliest (1701) church record of a family member. Easy to find and possessing a large new church, the town is typical of a modern German city with shops, homes, and schools. One building near the church displayed a marker indicating it was originally built in 1703.

Niederdreis, Rossbach, and Niederwambach are small farming towns and were more difficult to find. The maps proved not entirely accurate and some marked roads were little more than upaved farm access roads. It was here that I began to see how harsh life might have been for Johannes. The land is hilly and rocky, difficult to farm. The population now may not be appreciably greater than in the 1700’s. There is little industry here and the farm homes look un- changed from early drawings of the era. Actually, there is a striking visual similarity with the area around Cokesbury, New Jersey.

A typical farm in the little town of Niederwambach,
still home to Epgert farming descendants.

The roadside resturant named after our patriarch,
on the Frankfurt-Cologne Autobahn.

Although there are relevant church records dating back to 1698, as reported by Henry Jones, I didn’t find any churches that old. His two books, More Palatine Families and Westerwald to America, are good starting places for the serious family researcher. The churches I found dated from the 1800’s and the oldest cemetery markers dated from the early 1800’s. No Apgards or Epgerts there, either. Had they all moved to America?

I desperately wanted to find Epgert, the one village most closely aligned with our ancestor. Following the map, even at a scale of 1 to 25,000, proved frustrating. It was getting late in the afternoon and so I got back onto the Autobahn. I pulled off at the next rest station and found, to my surprise, that the roadhouse was named “Epgert”. The restaurant proprietor explained how the name came from a nearby town whose main road had been intersected by the building of the autobahn.

Encouraged by this confirmation that our namesake’s town still existed, I resumed my search with new enthusiasm and, after a few more tips from local residents, found the pair of yellow German roadsigns that announce the start and end of all German towns. The two roadsigns were close enough so that I could see both of them from the same position. But, there they were, solid proof that the one-road town of Epgert was still there.

Hardly the “jewel in the crown”, but I had found Epgert and successfully completed my search for all six German towns in which Johannes might have lived. I have not contributed much to ancestral research, which can only be done by a genealogical professional, but I did confirm that the villages still exist, with all the charm of 300 years ago. And, it is possible I walked down the same streets that Johannes might have walked to school and to work!

Email our GENEALOGIST with any questions or information you might have.

A modern church and cemetery in Neiderwambach, where Epgert records date back to 1698.