Catherine Kryder b. 1775

/ Kirstin Miller

Catherine Kryder 4th great aunt on Roots Magic tree

Catherine was born May 8, 1775 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania to John and Anna Maria Fuchs/Fox Kryder. Parents John and Anna both migrated from Germany and married, raised their family in Lancaster, PA, “By 1775, Germans constituted about one-third of the population of the state.” [At Wikipedia with sources.] Catherine was the youngest in the Kryder family. Her older sister Anna Maria married Johann Fryberger and they left for Ohio where their daughter Elizabeth married Henry Miller and their son Peter moved on to Bremer County, Iowa where his son William had a daughter Lola, mom of Faber Miller.

Catherine’s parents and siblings and her husband and children are recorded in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Mennonite Vital Records, 1750-2014. These are individual index cards, 1000s of cards, typed up to track local family histories. The cards are part of the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society, still in Lancaster, PA right next door to the Tanger Outlet Center. Mennonites are/were an Anabaptist group committed to peace and pacifism, following the ministry of Jesus. Mennonites were named for Menno Simons of Friesland, Netherlands who was a contemporary of Martin Luther and other Protestant leaders. A person could spend months learning about the history of and current Mennonite religion.

Back in PA, Catherine married Michael Hess in 1795. Catherine and Michael had 11 kids, 9 stayed in Pennsylvania, son Benjamin left for Kansas, daughter Anna left for Illinois. Michael was a soldier in the American Revolution. The only record, so far, of his service is a veteran’s burial index. One of his soldier benefits may have been the chance to buy land. In 1818 Michael bought 100 acres of unimproved land from the US gov’t at 10 pounds per acre. Michael and Catherine with their family and, probably, helpful neighbors would have turned this unimproved land into a homestead and farm, with their hands and tools, machinery of the 1800s. They would have built up a house, barns, fences, water wells, chairs, beds and hundreds of other things.

Catherine and Michael’s family are connected through marriage with other Miller relatives: Bair, Druckenbrod and Harter- families that started in Pennsylvania, moved on to Ohio, then on to Iowa. Catherine and Michael are buried at Stover Cemetery in Aaronsburg, Pennsylvania, an older country cemetery.

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