I got this information thank's to Judy Carley calling it to my attention . The surname Harkey is listed along with many of the German families they intermarried. This is one page of the book and the entire book is on Genealogy Library.com Mary Harkey Russell bird@glasgow-ky.com http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~bird The book is ----------- The History of the Shinn Family Author: Josiah H. Shinn Call Number: CS71.S556 This book contains the history and genealogy of the Shinn family of New Jersey. Bibliographic Information: Shinn, Josiah H. The History of the Shinn Family. The Genealogical and Historical Publishing Company.Chicago. 1903. ------------------------------------------------- PAGE 87. Dr. Foote in his "Sketches of North Carolina" (page 20) says: "As the extent and fertility of the beautiful prairies of North Carolina became known, the Scotch-Irish, seeking for settlements, began to follow the 'Traders' Path' and join the adventurers in this Southern and Western frontier. By 1745 the Settlements in what is now Mecklenberg and Cabarrus (then Rowan) Counties were numerous. Some were born in Pennsylvania, some in New Jersey, and some had only been sojourners there for awhile." Again on page 202 he says: "Year after year were supplications sent to Pennsylvania and New Jersey for Missionaries." The "Traders' Path" ran from Philadelphia to Winchester, Va., and thence southwest through the Shenandoah, through Evan's Gap, into North Carolina. Rumple in his "History of Rowan County," on page 36, says: "There is a tradition that the first courts of Rowan County were held in the Jersey Settlement, not far from Trading Fork. Rumple also says that Rowan County was created in 1753 and that, at that time, the Jersey Settlement was more populous than the region between the Yadkin and the Catawba." A settlement at Crystal Springs, ten miles south of Salisbury, was made in the year 1746, and the old graveyard at Crystal Springs Church contains the remains of the McPhersons, the Mahans, the Longs, and others. Rumple says that the members of Crystal Springs were transferred to Old Bethpage. Samuel Shinn was buried at Old Bethpage. Along with the Scotch-Irish immigrants and settling side by side with them, went the Germans,2 or, as they were called, "the Pennsylvania Deutch." Thus "Old Rowan" as early as 1753 had three great classes of population: 1. The English from New Jersey, forming "the Jersey Settlement." 2. The Scotch-Irish. 3. The Germans. The names Bostain, Cline, Trexler, Rheinhardt, Barringer, Meisenheimer, Beard, Overcash, Harkey, Cress, Henkel and others attest the German occupation, while the McCulloughs, Grahams, Cowans, McKenzees, Osbournes and others show the Scotch-Irish. Into these two great lines "the Jersey Settlement" merged by marriage, and in a short time became indistinguishable from them. Thus the Longs, Potts, Sloans, Bransons, Gaunts, Gaskells, Howells, Oliphants and Shinns from New Jersey were claimed by either the Germans or the Scotch-Irish as parts of their original clans, to the great detriment of the genealogist who seeks to follow a given family through all its ramifications to a logical end. The "Traders' Path" is identified by the "Constables' Beats" as outlined in the old records of the Rowan Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, for 1753-4-5-6. Rumple says that the "Traders' Path ran to a point where Coldwater Creek runs from Rowan into what is now Cabarrus, then Rowan." It was in this region on Coldwater in Old Rowan that Samuel Shinn migrated. Here he took up several hundred acres of land. Here he settled and opened up several large farms or plantations, and here he died in December, 1761, leaving his wife, Abigail, and several children to mourn his loss. The following is a list of children by each wife, as enumerated in his will dated 11/12/1761 and probated at the January Court, 1762, at Salisbury, N. C. (Will Book A, p. 144. Clerk's Office of Rowan County, N. C., and the Burlington Register of Births and Deaths, Burlington, N. J.) 1The German settlement was large and compact, so that it is said that the Rowan negroes spoke the Dutch language. Page 87 GenealogyLibrary.com Main Page