Frysburg/Coopersburg
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In reply to:
Re: Thomas Slifer
Carole Henson 4/10/05
The message posted immediately above provides the URL for a genealogical website.That website posits a direct connection between the Schleiffer family at Frysburg,Upper Saucon Township, Northampton County, Pennsylvania (now Coopersburg, Lehigh County) and the Slifer family at Burkittsville, Frederick County, Maryland.
The reader needs to be cautioned that this connection is far from proven.Although there is some chance that it might be correct, it has several difficulties:
1) Coopersburg lies near Allentown, well to the NW of Philadelphia and NOT on the usual migration path through Maryland toward the Shenandoah Valley,
2) most of the early settlers at Burkittsville are known to have come from Lancaster and York Counties, which are on the usual path,
3) Johannes Schleiffer of Burkittsville is known to have married Aseneth Gaver whose parents are known to have come down that more usual path,
4) there was another, apparently unrelated, Johannes Schleiffer who appears in the baptismal records at Lutheran churches at Lancaster in 1740 and at York in 1749,
5) a recently published local history of Burkittsville states quite firmly that the Brethren Church there was founded in 1760, ten years earlier than had previously been supposed, eliminating the Johannes Schlieffer known to be buried there from any leadership role because he would have been only 17 years of age,
6) an almost legendary Johannes Schleiffer is commonly supposed to have played a leadership role in 1760, a life style which is incompatible with what is known of Johannes Schleiffer of Coopersburg,
7) although the connection between this "Pathfinder" and the Slifers of Burkittsville is not known, if it was fatherly, then the connection to Coopersburg is erroneous.