By far the most important man in this colony was its pastor, JOHN HENRY HAEGER. As so many people in the record are descended form him he is entitled to considerable notice. The Protestant church in Siegen, and all the Protestant churches in the neighborhood are German Reformed, not Lutheran churches. Connected with the Siegen church, in the latter part of the 17th century, was a Latin school; and connected with this school, first as teacher and then as assistant principal from 1678 or earlier to 1703, was a man who was long the leader and teacher in this colony. This man was REV. JOHN HENRY HAEGER, born at Antzhausen, September 25, 1644. He was the son of HENRY HAEGER, the school master at Antzhausen, a village of about 5 miles due east of Siegen and one of the 27 villages of the parish of Netphen. Antzhausen was in the Catholic part of the county, and during some of the troubles between the two faiths, about 1652-4, Henry Haeger moved with his family to the northwest of Siegen into the Protestant part of the county. John Henry Haeger studied theology, and on September 25, 1678, his 34th birthday, was appointed the third teacher in the Latin school at Siegen. Under date of December 3, 1678, the following appears on the record of the Siegen school: "The worthy and learned Mr. Henry Haeger preceptor of the Latin school at this place, son of Henry Haeger of Antzhausen was married to ANNA CATHERINE, daughter of JACOB FRIESENHAGEN, late Mayor of Freudenburg." This union lasted more than 54 years, for the wife was living when Mr. Haeger made his will in April 1733. He seems to have dropped the JOHN from his name in later years, and was known as HENRY; and we will Anglicize him name to HAGER. Twelve childfren were born of this marriage; we are interested in the third, JOHN FREDERICK, born 1684, baptized the 18th Sunday after Trinity (September 28, 1694). 4th, ELIZABETH, b. 1687 9th, AGNES, b. 26 Nov. 1697 11th, ANNA CATHARINE, b. 15 May, 1702 Henry Hager became assistant rector at Siegen in 1689 and so continued until 1703 when the following entry appears on the church records: "On the 21st of January 1703, Rev. Mr. Schmidt was appointed as conrector in the place of Rev. Mr. Hager, whom the most noble prince wished to transfer and promote to the pastorate of Oberfischbach." The map will show this village about 3 miles west of Siegen. (Shown in book: Title page of Book translated by Henry Haeger, courtesy of Presbyterian Historical Society. - [ printed in German] ) Hager did not spend all his time in teaching: for in 1690 he translated from French into German, at the request of Count WILLIAM MORRICE of Nassau- Siegen, a cousin of King WILLIAM III of England, and published at Herborn, the "Story of Rev. Jacque Pineton de Chambrun," court preacher at Orange in France, of William III. Because of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, and the consequent persecutions of the Protestants, de Chambrun was arrested and imprisoned, and with many other of his co-religionists suffered great hardships. He finally escaped and made his way to Holland, where he was protected by William of Orange, later King of England. He there wrote in French an account of the sufferings of himself and his fellow-Protestants, and it was this work that Henry Hager translated into German in 1690. A copy of it is still one of the cherished relics of the Latin school, now the Gymnasium at Siegen. The writer has a photograph of the title page. (See notation above) Hager seems to have pleased the prince by his work, and was later rewarded by a promotion to the pastorate at Oberfischbach. Here he remained for some time, but was ill for a while, and in consequence, obtained permission for his son JOHN FREDERICK, who had been licensed to preach in 1708, to assist him. In 1711, he was suffering from a rupture, and on February 16, 1711, he handed in his resignation, and on April 13, received an honorable dismissal. He lived in retirement at Oberfischbach until July 1713. (For complete details with reference to the life of Henry Hager, see an article by Rev. W. H. Hinke in The Journal of the Presbyterian Historical Society, Vol. II, Nos. 1, 2 and 3.) Hager's 4th child, ELIZABETH, married either in Germany or in England, it is as yet uncertain which, JOHN JACOB RECTOR. He was an important man in the colony and was one of the elders of the congregation while the colony was at Germanna. He went to Germantown, but seems to have died soon after the colony went there, before 1729, for the Germantown land was set off to ELIZABETH RECTOR, illlegally, of course. She had one son born at Maidstone in England and another born in this country. She seems to have soon married again, a man named MARR. Here was exactly the same situation as happened in the SPILMAN-GENT family later referred to. But there was a tragedy in the Gent marriage, for the pleadings recite that 'Gent had been runaway from this colony for many years," leaving poor Mrs. Spilman with the entire care of her Spilman and Gent children. Mrs. MARR made some kind of a compromise with her Rector children, for she transferred one hundred acres of the Germantown tract to her eldest Rector child, to whom it belonged under the law. Apparently MARR died comparatively soon, for the tradition is that in her later years, Mrs. Marr married a prominent and wealthy citizen of Culpeper, COL. JOHN FINLASON, and that after the first MRS. JOHN FISHBACK died, she took her niece ELIZABETH FISHBACK, then a baby (perhaps also the other daughter ANNA CATHARINE), and raised her. Quite possibly this had something to do with the early marriage of ELIZABETH FISHBACK to JOHN PETER KEMPER, for the marriage took place when Elizabeth was 15 years 6 months and 24 days old; and also with the marriage of ANNA CATHARINE FISHBACK to her cousin Mrs. Marr's son, JOHN RECTOR. JOHN FREDERICK HAGER, the 3rd son of HENRY HAGER, had applied to the English government to be sent to the New World, as pastor of some of the Palitinate colonies, which the English government was planting in America. England was attempting to make of these Germans, communicants in the church of England, and refused to send Hager as a Reformed minister, so he was ordained in the Church of England December 20, 1709, and in 1710 went to New York as a Church of England minister. The colony and the proselyting were failures. The colonists left their lands and their new religion, after several years,and after many thrilling and unfortunate experiences finally drifted over into Pennsylvania, and Hager was later known as a Reformed minister. TO BE CONTINUED