My Family Tree

Family arrived in US 27 Sep 1727

see http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/l/e/a/Lawrence-Leach/GENE5-0001.html
"According to Shirley Ann Lawing and Ruth Leatherman Seabock (Leatherman family researchers in Lincoln County North Carolina, Johann Nicholas was baptized on 7 September 1724 at Dehlingen Lutheran Church. He travelled to America on the ship James Goodwill in 1727 with his father Hans Diebold, mother Anna Maria Engle, and four brothers. In 1775 the Nicholas Leatherman family moved to the Reedy Creek area of Rowan County North Carolina from a farm in Maryland owned by Nicholas which he had named "Shady Grove". It appears as though his sons John, Christian, Jonas and Daniel had arrived at Reedy Creek sometime earlier, probably early 1770's. Early Rowan County colonial records show Feb 12, 1780 "Ordered that Nicholas & Ztian (Christian) Leatherman, Dunkers in the same district, be released from a 12 fold tax and reduced to a 3 fold tax. Probably due to these men entering into some kind of service other than military, ie; prison guard, overseer of the road, river crossing guard, etc. The term "Dunkers" is a name the English called these primitive baptists who called themselves "The Brethren". Their religious beliefs were very much like German Mennonites. They were an Amish-like group that could not swear an oath, charge interest, own slaves, fight in war, or hire anyone to go for them. The brother Daniel, Nicholas and his son Christian were active ministers and elders. Additional reference to this family has been recorded in "Eighteenth Century Emigrants from the Northern Alsace to America" by Annette Kunselman Burgert on pages 330 and 331."