Posted on: Griest-Greist Queries Board URL: http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi/surnames/gri/Griest?read=93 Surname: griest, greist, garretson ------------------------- Justin, I saw your "Update" message on the Rootsweb board. Rather than answer specifically to your listings I think I'll just flesh out some contextual details on the earliest history I know in addition to the other short message I posted. 1.) First a correction to what I said about the British burning the Philidelphia Customs House. I guess I'm getting incipient Alzheimer's; I just pulled out Cross and here's the correct info on that. Genealogical Data, Salem Co., New Jersey, by H. Stanley Craig, Vol. I, page 293, EARLY PASSENGER LISTS. "During the War of 1812-14 the records of Philadelphia Customs House were removed to Washington for safe keeping, and when the British burned the Capital these were destroyed. It has been said that between the years 1675 and 1700 about ninety vessels entered the Delaware, and while a number of persons are known to have come on certain vessels, it is not positively known that any complete passenger list exists." Sorry for my mix-up! 2.) John Griest, estimated birth 1694, who married Martha Baldwin, b. 12-16-1694, was probably a grandson of the Pioneer. From census tax records it appears he had brothers Richard, William, Joseph, Jacob, and Robert (probable birth dates 1697, 1698, 1700, 1703, 1708). Males were taxed at 21 years of age. "Smith's History of Delaware County, 1862", page 465. John Griest and Ann Butt declared their intentions of marriage at Chester Monthly Meeting of Friends for the first time on 8-2-1682. The second time was on 9-6-1682 and leave to marry was given by the Meeting." In the New Jersey Archives, First Series, Vol. 23, page 195 there's an inventory of the estate of John Grisse: personal, 90pounds,15shillings, incl. a rabbit fur bed and bedding 5 pounds; real, a farm of 40 acres 20 pounds; 1688, 1st day, 6th month. Ann the widow refused to act as administratrix in favor of the son-in-law (stepson) George Grisse. This John was probably an uncle or father of John (married M. Baldwin). George Griest may have been his cousin or half-brother. 3.) Not to say that John (m. M. Baldwin) was a slouch in the Pioneering spirit department. "John Griest was the first white squatter on land west of the Susquehanna. He was forcibly removed therefrom about the time of the survey of Sir William Keith's tract and confined at Philadelphia for the offence of entering unpurchased Indian lands." A draft in the Dept. of Internal Affairs in Harrisburg identifies the habitation (trading post) of John Griest and Captain Beaver an Indian on the West Bank of the Susquehanna where Wrightsville now stands. (It's about where the old Pennsy railroad station stood and John could easily cross the shallow river rapids here on horse or foot. The river here is only about 3/4 mile wide, between the old Route 30 bridge and the new Route 30 Bypass bridge - Sid) John later got a land grant opposite the Susquehannock Indian Village in Hellam Twp and the creek there is now called Kreutz Creek, a German form of the word "Grist after John Griest." Griest to the German sounded as "Christ". (Also see: http://www.ydr.com/forgotten/1700a.htm Kreutz Creek settler tried: Settlers trickle west across the Susquehanna River and squat on non-approved land. John Grist, who settles near Kreutz Creek and the river, is one such squatter. He faces trial in 1721 after American Indians complain he assaulted and abused them.) The Penn. Archives record a 8-17-1721 meeting of the Provincial Council at Philadelphia sentencing "to dieting John Griest in and sun 20 weeks at 2s. per week, 1 pound 4s. 3p. (bills and expenditures 1720-1722 found in vault of Chester County Court House.) John had land grants on both sides of the Susquehanna, in York and Lancaster County, near the Susquehannock Indian villages, on territory that was contested in Cresapp's War (see below). The last of the Susquehannocks - called Conestoga Indians, 20 old men, women, and children, were pulled from the Lancaster County jail (where they had been gathered together for their safety) and were massacred by shot and hanging by the Paxton gang (whites) 12 years after John's death. In 1738 John built for his family in what was later York, Pa a two story limestone blockhouse, 16 foot square with a door and three windows on the first floor facing the road, and on the second story four windows, each window of two sashes, and each sash containing six panes of glass (a sign of affluence in days of oiled paper and casement windows). John sold it in 1755 and it became the first inn west of the Susquenanna, then "Ye Olde Valley Inn" until it was demolished in '62 to make way for a shopping center. (Also see: http://www.ydr.com/forgotten/1700a.htm Famous inn a house first: John Greist, an English Quaker, builds a house that later becomes Ye Olde York Valley Inn. (Some sources list 1747 as its erection date.) The stone building serves as a favorite watering hole for thirsty travelers passing from Lancaster to York. George Washington and Marquis de Lafayette are among its most famous visitors. Confederate Gen. John B. Gordon camped on its grounds when marching to Wrightsville during the rebel occupation in 1863. The Inn stood until 1962, when workers dismantled it to make way for the York Mall parking lot. They relocated part of the structure to Susquehanna Memorial Gardens in York Township, where it now serves as the cemetery's office." All of the settlers used the Indian trails which gradually became inadequate. John built his blockhouse a year before the Lancaster County Court ordered construction of a road, known as the Monocacy Road. It ran from Wright's Ferry (future Wrightsville), through York and Digges Choice (Hanover) to the provincial line. Settlers traveling it passed through Maryland, crossed the Monocacy and Potomac Rivers before moving into Virginia and the Carolinas. The 400-plus mile road becomes known as the Philadelphia Wagon Road in the North and the Great Wagon Road in the South. Today's Lincoln Highway or Route 462 in York County follows or runs parallel to parts of this road. In 1742 John got a land grant from Thomas Penn and Richard Penn for 200 acres on the East bank of the Bermudian Creek, and I presume, moved there shortly thereafter, keeping the blockhouse in York as an investment till 1755. My dad showed me this parcel and it was quite rocky and strewn with BIG boulders in some areas. By big, I mean as big as a house. At the time York County included both York and Adams County, and the English Quakers and the Scotch- Irish seemed to settle on the poorer shale soils on the edge of the Piedmont while the Deutsch (Germans) aggressively pushed into the more fertile limestone lowlands. See: http://www.ydr.com/forgotten/1700a.htm (Sheriff's races lead to fights: Generally, the Rhinelanders and Scotch-Irish avoid each other. One group would settle and the next would move a little farther west so that the pattern of German and Scotch-Irish settlement resembles spokes on a wheel. Scholars note that 19th-century English (often Quakers), Scotch-Irish and Germans in Pennsylvania were largely unmixed and retained their national characters beyond those in any other state.) JOHN'S ESTATE: From York County Book A, page 47, Letters of Administration, of Warrington Twp, Sept. 30, 1751. Inventory of John Griest of York County, deceased, 2 horses, a knife, 2 noggins, 2 trenchers, strainer and bowl, 2 bowls & 3 spoons, a bowl, oak bowl, a powdering tub, bag & beans, a gun, a powdering tub & beef, a rope of onions & mustard seed, a gum & tobacco, a dough trough, a log chain, a collar and hames and trees, a saddle & bridle, a flax & tow, a bundle of linum yarn, a weeding hough, 2 weeding houghs, 1 axe, 3 yards of new linum, a bed tick, and a pair of pillow cases, a pair of drawers, trousers & leggins and frying pan, a shirt & cap, shoes & stockings, a linen waiste coat, a pair of leather britches, a pair of mittens, a coat and great coat, a cover lid, a blanket, a boulster, and 2 pillows, a wallet & a pair of yarn stockings, 2 cakes of tallow, a padlock, corn in house, in the crib, a hat, sow, & six pigs, 2 shoats, 2 shoats, 2 shoats, 1 shoat, 2 rows of apple trees, 3 rows of apple trees, a nursery of peach trees, a cow, a powdering tub, a steer calf, a bottle, wheat stack, a stack of oats, a stack of flax, wheat & rye on the ground, three dozen turnips, lumber, stack of hay, another stack of hay, cash 14s. 7p. By Josdph Beals, Jr. 2 pounds no s. & no pence. Michael Miller by Joseph Jacob Beals Jr. 2 pounds no s. & 6 pence. Signed by Jacob Beals and Thomas Kendall. Oct 21st, 1751. (John was probably about 56 or 57 when he died). History of the Original Settlements on the Delaware, by Benjamin Ferris, 1846, page 206. "Joseph and John Griest signed the petition in 1736 to have Willingtown laid out as a town." John and Martha's (Baldwin) last (eighth) child, Willing, was born 8-2-1736 and named for the town. Willingtown at the time was eight or ten houses on a small creek; Willing Griest (depending on the record consulted is either the first white child or the first white male child born in Willingtown; and Willingtown is of course today Wilmington, Delaware. When you shake the family tree you can never be sure what might fall out of the tree: "Prince George County, Maryland, August, 1724. Mary Waleor, aged about 34 years swears that in July 1723 she was in John Griest's house in the forks of Patomac and she saw John Griest have a black horse branded W S on the near shoulder and a slit in the near ear, an under bell on the far ear with two white feet behind and she then deposed says that she heard Nehemh Ogden ask the aforesaid John Griest how he came by the aforesaid horse and his answer was that George Veston stole him from Jacob Myers in Conestoga and that he would have more from the same place, etc., endorsed "Mary Walters Affidavit agt. John Griest." John sure seemed to get around a lot, although geographically this is all a pretty small range. My grandfather Emerson Griest (1871-1955) used to tell me that his grandfather John Griest (1797-1883) maintained that John (1694-1751) also was involved in Cresapp's War. This was a territorial dispute between Pennsylvania and Maryland with settlers getting involved in insults, abuse, abductions, arrests and occasional armed conflict . See: http://www.innernet.net/hively/newpage33.htm (Also see: http://www.ydr.com/forgotten/1700a.htm A band of 16 Marylanders breaks into the jail in Lancaster where border war instigator Thomas Cresap's accomplices are incarcerated and free their fellow statesmen. But Cresap is not there. Authorities previously moved him to Philadelphia. The raid causes King George II to order Pennsylvania and Maryland proprietors to end their boundary dispute by drawing a line between the two provinces. This temporary line appeases the Penns and Calverts until Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon perform their boundary work in the 1760s. (i.e. The Mason- Dixon Line) The king also warns against further violence and orders both sides to drop all prosecutions and to discharge prisoners on bail. I am aware of no direct documentary evidence that links John Griest to an active involvement in the events of Cresapp's War. He would certainly have had an interest in this issue as his land grants on the Susquehanna would have been invalidated had Maryland's territorial claims been upheld. Plus he was moving actively throughout the region at this time, and as we know, he was, shall we say, fencing hot horses as far South as the forks of the Potomac. Lest it seem that John had a lot of land and abodes for one man in a short period, remember that in the Colonial period, with axe and adze, a few able bodied men could throw up a dirt floored cabin without chimney, and knock out rough furniture in less than a week. Plus there were no annoyances such as land purchases, building permits, and so forth. I hope this context adds a little flesh to the normal data of geneological tables. I am a descendent of John Griest (1694-1751), through Willing (1745-1820), Jacob (1770-1844), John (1797- 1883), James (1829-1896), Emerson (1871-1951), and Chester Griest (1910-1993). Jacob through Emerson are buried at Warrington Meeting Burial Ground, but Jacob's arrival there was delayed for about 90 years. He married a Dutch girl, Ester Vanscoyac and on 9-12-1791 "Huntington Meeting complains of Jacob Griest for marriage by a hireling teacher to one not a member. Disowned". Which means he was kicked out of meeting and also barred from burial on Quaker ground. He and Ester were buried on a separate plot on Mine Bank Road, off the "Quaker Race" Road, outside Wellsville until the mid 1930's when my Father, Grandfather, Uncle and Great Uncle disinterred the bodies and reinterred them at Warrington Meeting. Time heals all wounds I guess. R. L. Cooke has a web page on the Warrington Meeting at: http://www.interment.net/data/us/pa/york/warrington.htm Our family farm (sold 1955) is on the North side of Wellsville, PA about two miles from Warrington meeting, Which is on the South side, between Wellsville and Rossville. Regarding the trans-Atlantic Welsh connection, I am sure that with the power of the Web it should now be easier to find the information needed. I will contact some folks I know in Wales and query them for genealogical contacts also. The key is all in knowing where to find the information. Right now it is all about priority L (Last) for me. I will be in Europe and the Middle East next year and could carve out a few weeks in London etc. if actual archival research was required. I would bet dollars to donuts our ancesters wore blue body paint, limed their hair and liked to occasionally do some casual head hunting (i.e. were Celts); before being successively "civilized " and assimilated by the Romans, Danes, Jutes, Angles, Saxons, and Normans. About half of the info above is out of the first 10 pages of Sam Cross's book where it is sort of scattered haphazardly about. The remaining 530 pages are all the genealogical tables, indexes, etc. I'll get your copy wrapped up and in the mail to you Monday. I will be on holiday in York County 7/13 through 8/4. Hope the above helps to bring your heritage a bit more alive for you. NO MAN IS DEAD UNTIL HE IS FORGOTTEN! Best regards, Sid Griest 1745 E. Sunnyslope Lane Phoenix, AZ 85020 602.331.9907 Note: I have the remaining publisher's inventory of "The Griest Family" by Samuel Benjamin Cross, Vantage Press, 1966, 543 pages, published without dustjacket, new condition, most with slight scuff marks on front and back from 34 years of boxed storage. $50 + $5 priority mail. Credit Card via PayPal, M.O. or Check.