The Shelor Family History

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From The Hills Touch Heaven, Chapter 1

We begin with Lawrence Shelor. We know some things about this man, who was probably a German immigrant, and our current knowledge raises more questions about a life and times long past.

To understand something about the life of Lawrence Shelor, we must first know something about the times in which he lived. American was more than an adventure to the German immigrants who fled there from the late 1600's on; it was a refuge.

The Virginia Company in 1608 brought the first Germans, called Dutch by the English, to the New World as specialists in industries such as soap making, iron-working, and glassblowing. They came to the Jamestown Colony over Captain John Smith's protests. The experiment was not a success. The Germans, displeased by their treatment by the English, allied themselves with Powhatan and seriously endangered the English colony. A later group hired as carpenters built sawmills for the colony. This venture also ended in failure, with one German dying and the others too ill to work. Only one of the four returned to Hamburg to report on the New World. These Germans came over to the colony to work; they were not expected to stay.

Eventually Germans finally did come over and accomplish their tasks, and some settled in Virginia. As the colonies begin to prosper, more immigrants were attracted, though for the first century the greatest number came from England with a generous sprinkling of Scotsmen and Irish servants. Early on, the non-English settlers obtained citizenship by acts of the Virginia Company, and then the Crown.¹

The first organized immigration of Germans into Virginia was through the intervention of Governor Spotswood. He advertised that the forty-two persons were a part of his plans for frontier defense, but he was far more interested in their mining skills. The colorful governor was sure that there was gold in the New World. The group from Siegen, German, was settled on the south bank of the Rapidan in a fort called Germanna. Although the miners did not make the governor rich in gold, by 1716 they had set up and began production at the first successful ironworks in Virginia.

Most of the first groups of German immigrants in Virginia arrived from England. They were among the first to penetrate the frontier, and they established the first permanent settlements in the foothills of Virginia. The English colonies welcomed these settlements as buffers against the Indians. There was some trouble between the Indians and the German settlers, with more than one massacre. Some settlers disappeared into the wilderness as captives of the native tribes.

The immigration from Germany was a trickle until the French King Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685. The Edict of Nantes granted religious freedom to Protestants. The Catholic king's action caused an exodus of Protestants from France that shook the English colonies for years.

Frederick William of Germany offered some of these French refugees safe haven. In retaliation, Louis XIV sent an army in 1689 to attack the Palatinate. The French soldiers did their job very well, destroying towns, villages and farms. During the war of the Spanish Succession that followed in 1702-1713, many more families living along the Rhine suffered loss of lives and property. War followed war all through the 1700's in the Palatine area.

In 1715 Lawrence Shelor was born. A family legend states that he was born in the Rhineland. If he was born in Germany, at the time of his birth the Palatinate was in turmoil due to war, poverty and religious strife. Already many Germans had fled their homeland to settle in William Penn's colony that promised religious freedom and peace.

By 1683 a Germanic colony existed at Germantown, Pennsylvania. In the next ninety years nearly seventy thousand German and Swiss immigrants reached Pennsylvania. Most of them passed through the port of Philadelphia.

Research has uncovered several possible Sheler connections that might indicate other relatives of Lawrence in Pennsylvania. Michael Sheler was born in 1742, and married a Maria Sophia, then moved to Rowan County, North Carolina. He has descendants in various states who still spell their name Sheler. Conrad Sheller and his brother Daniel may also be connected, as they were settlers in Pennsylvania and Daniel Sheller died in Frederick County, Maryland, in 1809. A Jacob Scheler emigrated in 1737 from the Western Palatinate. There are other possibilities, and these are only possible relatives of Lawrence Shelor. The most likely connection seems to be Maria Shelar Delaplaine, who was the mother-in-law of one of Lawrence's daughters.

Lawrence may have been born in America, or he may have been an immigrant. On September 8, 1753, a Lorentz Shuler arrived in Philadelphia from Hamburg, Germany, by way of Cowes, England, on the ship St. Michael, captained by Thomas Ellis. Lorentz Shuler is listed as a passenger along with some sixty other men.⁶ Frequently during this time only adult males were listed, women and children were not accounted. Another shipping document of the period lists a woman as a chattel of her husband, giving no name for her.

If this is our Lawrence Shelor, there is no way to know exactly how many of Lawrence's children arrived with him from Germany. He would have been about thirty-eight years old at the time of his arrival, so some of his children were probably born in Germany. The birth dates that we have for many of the children are inconsistent with their marriage dates. A family legend tells that Daniel arrived with his father Lawrence and his family in Philadelphia. Someone gave him some corn bread to eat after the family landed. He had never seen such stuff before. He didn't like it and he threw it down in the gutter. Stories handed down in the family, as well as Sue Jefferson's book, may support Lawrence as the original immigrant.

The first church and tax records found suggest that Lawrence settled in Oley Valley, in Berks County, Pennsylvania. In 1759, Lorentz Shiller was listed as a taxable in the township. He paid three pounds in taxes that year, an average amount, according to the list. The entire tax levied was some 40 pounds. George Hartlein was the collector. Peter Miller paid two pounds. A Peter Miller married Lawrence's daughter Catherine some years later and may have been either the same individual or a relative. Lorentz Shiller, Jr. paid the sum of three pounds. He must have had a separate household by this time. Both Lawrences appear in the Oley Township tax records until 1767. Lawrence Sr. has disappeared from the Berks County records in this listing. However, Lorentz Sheeler (probably Jr.) is shown as operating a fulling mill in Western District Township, Berks County. He had 25 acres of land, a horse and a cow, and paid three pounds in tax.

Rufus Oliver and Julia Akers Shelor