Dutchess County Historical Society Yearbook Vol 063 1978

IN SEARCH OF COLLATERAL ANCESTORS

By Robert Pierce (The Sixth Chapter of the Flagler Family) The fifth chapter of the Flagler saga, appearing in the Dutchess County Historical Society 1976-77 Year Book, was an excursus devoted to the life and times of the Reverend Isaac Flagler, a Presbyterian minister and the great-grandson of the immigrant Zacharias (Zachariah) Flagler. As was pointed out, this lineage digression purposely excluded two earlier generations; an omission which it is now the intention of the writer to include in this narrative.

A recent publication of the Parish Register of Saint Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church of West Camp, Ulster County, New York, happily rendered into English from the original Dutch cacography, provides pertinent vital statistics not previously afforded this researcher. The record asserts that on "11 March 1711 Zacharias Flegler from Wertheim in Franconia and Anna Elizabetha, widow of the late Georg Schultz (Schultzen) from Darmstadt territory" were married, the ceremony being "performed in the time of the ministry of Joshua Kocherthal, first minister of the Germans Lutherans in this province."

As was shown in the 1975 Year Book, this "first" Zacharias and Anna Elizabeth (her maiden name was Hoofd) had five children: Anna Magdalena Elizabetha, born 19 September 1712; Simon, born 16 February 1714; Gertruda, born 8 May 1717; Margareta, born 12 February 1719; and Zacharias, born 6 July 1720. Zacharias was a posthumous baby, his father having died in March of that year.

Zacharias (Senior) at the time of this, his third marriage, had by a former wife a son, living, by the name of Philip Solomon Flagler (Flegler, Flagllar), born 21 August 1701, who accompanied his father to the American shores in 1710, his mother, a sister, and a brother having died at sea.

As was noted in a former chapter the "first" Zacharias Flagler was born at Urphar, Franconia Province, Germany in 1676, and as a young man belonged to a military unit which apparently moved about extensively. He met and married as his first wife Anna Elizabeth (last name unknown) sometime prior to the year 1700. In an ancient churchbook at Dannenfels, a hamlet sixty miles due west across the Rhine from Urphar, in the Rhineland Palatinate, is the following entry: "Philip Salomon, son to Zacharias Flegeler and his wife Anna Elisabeth, was born 21 August, 1701; sponsor was the Pastor's servant from Marnheim, Anna Magdalena Heckin." What a pity that the wife's maiden name was not mentioned!

Philip Solomon Flagler (spelled Flagllar on his headstone) settled on his father's farm land in the early years of the 18th century, the property being in the Beekman Precinct north of the present village of Green Haven. Dr. J. Wilson Poucher, surgeon, physician, and historian in his "Old Gravestones of Dutchess County" wrote that Philip Solomon Flagler built a house in 1736 east of the burial ground in the hollow under the hill." He states further that the shell of the house outline was visible in 1913. The hill to which he refers is now crowned by the recently dedicated Flagler graveyard -- a wind-swept eminence commanding views of forests, fields, and patures on every side.

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