| Birth and Parentage/Ethnicity |
| Samuel |
January 1735, no birthplace |
SOURCE: Holy Bible (Philadelphia: John Adams for Mathew Carey, 1803). |
NOTE 1: The family Bible was probably purchased in Ohio, and entries possibly recorded by Mary Doddridge. Samuel’s birthdate may have been calculated from their age difference.
NOTE 2: Photocopies provided by Rev. Dr. Frank McDonald Spindler, a descendant of Charity Teter McDonald. |
no birthdate, South Branch of the Potomac River, Virginia
“You can make out a Biography of Capt. Sam Teter to suit yourself without fear of any living person contradicting any statement you may make.” |
SOURCE: invalid grandson Samuel D. Teter of Ross County, Ohio, letter dated June 26th, 1866, reluctantly dictated in answer to queries from Lyman Draper and Narcissa Doddridge (Draper 5E42–43, Wisconsin Historical Society). |
NOTE 1: The Teter-Henkel families settled on the North Fork of the South Branch of the Potomac River in the 1760s after returning to Virginia from North Carolina. In 1736 George Teter had patented 200 acres on the south side of the Robinson River (Library of Virginia, Images and Indexes, Virginia Land Office Patents and Grants, “Land Office Patents No. 16, 1736,” 475) near Madison and the Hebron Lutheran Church.
NOTE 2: The South Branch of the Potomac River was a well-known settlement, but several Potomac tributaries also have south branches. One of Jost Hite’s land patents, for 5018 acres, included land on Opequon’s South Branch (Library of Virginia, Images and Indexes, Virginia Land Office Patents and Grants, “Land Office Patents No. 15, 1732–1735,” 343–344). Joseph M. Toner, in his notes for the 1754 “Journal of Colonel George Washington,” suggests Washington’s route to the Great Meadows passed “Edwards’s Fort on the south branch of the Great Cacapehon Creek, where a slight expense was incurred, thence by Pearsal’s and down the south branch to the Potomac, crossing [into Maryland] to Cresap’s, and thence up the Potomac to Will’s Creek.” (Albany, NY: Joel Munsell’s Sons, 1893), 181. See Jefferson and Fry’s 1751 map for these locations. |
| “The grandfather of the subject of this sketch came from Germany and first settled in Maryland. During the War of the Revolution he was Captain of a Pennsylvania Company.” |
SOURCE: “An Old Pioneer Gone,” obituary of grandson Samuel E. Teter of Marion County, Iowa, 1817–1905, transcribed from an unnamed and undated newspaper photocopy provided by a cousin. |
NOTE 1: The grandfather referred to more likely describes Captain Samuel Teter of Maryland and Pennsylvania rather than Thomas Edmonson/Edmiston of Kentucky. The facts in the article are thorough, including the birthdates and birth states of Samuel E. Teter’s parents John Teter and Mary Edmonson/Edmiston.
NOTE 2: Other Maryland Teters include Abraham Teter and John Teter in an undated muster roll of Jonathan Hager’s militia company (Maryland Historical Society, MS 375.1), who may be the Abraham and John later in Morrisons Cove, Bedford County, Pennsylvania; and Devalt Teter, mentioned in records of Frederick County, Maryland, in the late 1750s and 1760s (Kellogg 1958, 260), who may be a match for immigrant Diebolt Dieterich arriving in Philadelphia on the ship “Brothers” 22 September 1752. |
1733, Pennsylvania
1737, no birthplace |
SOURCE: WPA veterans’ grave registration card (1930s), in Samuel Teter’s probate file, Union County, Ohio, CP 30. |
NOTE: 1733 may have been calculated from the McDonald Cemetery monument and 1737 from an unidentified Revolutionary War roster. Pennsylvania is least reliable as a birthplace, being merely Samuel and Mary Teter’s previous residence before moving to Ohio in 1798. |
| “The first of the family to come to America was Elisha Teter, who emigrated from Germany (some accounts say Holland) to New Jersey about the time of the American Revolution. About 1796 he settled in Pennsylvania and still later came farther west, locating in Columbiana (now Mahoning) County, Ohio.” |
SOURCE: Florence Houston et al., “Maxwell History and Genealogy” (Indianapolis: C. E. Pauley & Company, 1916), 359. |
NOTE 1: Although somewhat accurate regarding the Teter-Uzzell families of Nebraska, Houston et al. (1916) mixed Teter ancestors, dates, and places, even including the will of Kentucky George Teater’s son Samuel in Howard County, Missouri, 1845.
NOTE 2: Kellogg (1958, 7–9) awarded “first of the family/name in America” to George Teter of Lehnberg, Giglingen, Wuerttemberg and Rhinebeck, Dutchess County, New York based on his 1715 marriage to Anna Maria Meyer. |
| “Possibly Capt. Samuel Teter was a son of the Jacob Teter, living on the Opequon about 1735–50.” |
SOURCE: Joseph Kellogg, “The Teter Family” (1958), 247. |
NOTE 1: Jost Hite’s Opequon settlers were tenants, and few records are available for them. Jacob Teters petitioned Frederick County, Virginia for a road in February 1744/1745 (Kellogg 1958, 36, referencing Thomas K. Cartmell, “Shenandoah Valley Pioneers and Their Descendants” (Winchester, VA: The Eddy Press Corporation, 1909), 22, in turn quoting Frederick Co. court minutes).
NOTE 2: It may be significant that John Teter and Eva Turney of southwest Virginia named a son Jacob. Kellogg (1958, 37) also proclaimed George, John, and Samuel to be “almost certainly identifiable” as sons of Hite’s Opequon settler George Dieter. |
| George |
“Paris Teator … was a son of George Teator, a soldier in the war of the Revolution, who was a native of Maryland, his father, Paul Teator, a native of Germany, locating in Bladensburg in the colonial days. It is supposed that all of the name Teator, now living in America, are descendents [sic] of Paul.” |
SOURCE: Polly Eckles, transcriber, Biography of Clayburn C. Teator, “Iowa Biographies Project, Appanoose County, 1886 Index, R–V” transcribed from “Biographical and Historical Record of Wayne and Appanoose Counties, Iowa” (Chicago: Inter-State Publishing Company, 1886), 639–640. |
NOTE 1: An historical marker at Bladensburg reads, “In 1742, the town of Bladensburg was created on the banks of the Anacostia River (also known as the Eastern Branch of the Potomac River) through an act of the Maryland General Assembly for the purpose of promoting trade and commerce. The act stated that the new port town was to be located on ‘the Eastern Branch of the Potomack River in Prince George’s County near a place called Garrison Landing.’ The legislation was in response to a petition from the inhabitants of Beall Town to have a new town laid out.”
NOTE 2: The correspondence of Governor Horatio Sharpe and the Maryland Assembly proceedings show that in September 1756 a company of 100 men recruited from the militia of Prince Georges County, under the command of Captain Joshua Beall, marched from Bladensburg to Fort Frederick where Captain Alexander Beall was overseeing construction. |
| In an article for “The Virginian,” Governor David Campbell (1779–1859) described the settlement of old Washington County, Virginia, listing the Teetor family among the Germans. |
SOURCE: Margaret H. C. Pilcher, “Historical Sketches of the Campbell, Pilcher, and kindred families” (Nashville: Press of Marshall & Bruce Co., 1911), 100. |
NOTE: Local German families identified by Governor Campbell are “the Fleenors, a large family; Gobblers, Mungles, Sydars, Huntsuckers, Kaylors, Whisenands, Davaults, Funkhousers, Knicelys, Lindamoods, Statyers, Zimerlies, Teetors, Goodmans, Shelleys, Munfours, Jinks and Droakes.” |
| “This George Teter was most probably a son of the George Teter living in the Opequon district of Frederick County, Va., and was born March 9, 1739 and baptized April 29, 1739, with George Bauman and wife Maria (Jost Hite’s daughter and her husband) as sponsors, as given on Rev. John Caspar Stoever’s records.” |
SOURCE: Joseph Kellogg, “The Teter Family” (1958), 227. |
NOTE 1: “Records of Rev. John Casper Stoever” (Harrisburg: Harrisburg Publishing Company, 1896), 10, show Opequon Dieter children Maria born May 1734 and baptized 5 November 1735, Susanna born September 1736 and baptized 5 June 1737, and Johann George, with Jost Hite’s daughters and sons-in-law as sponsors. [Translation of the German record, Family History Library microfilm 20436 item 7]. Another possible sibling is Margaret Teator, daughter of George Teator, indentured to Martin Cartmell on 3 June 1746 (Kellogg 1958, 36, referencing Frederick Co. Court Record Book 2, 104.)
NOTE 2: In “The Deter Family History,” Eunice Deter et al. (1965, 2) claimed, “Research shows a Johann Georg Dieter living in Opequea [sic], Lancaster county in 1734. Church records give the birthdates of three of his children. One son, Johann Georg Dieter, born in 1739, is the father of Johann Georg Dieter born in 1775” in Delbehaden (or Tulpehocken), Berks County, Pennsylvania. Thus, confusing Opequon in Virginia with Pequea in Pennsylvania, the authors overlooked a possible connection to John Dieter of 1700s Tulpehocken, matched by Kellogg (1958, 19–20) with the immigrant Johannes Dieter arriving in Philadelphia on the ship (Pink) Johnson 18 September 1732, who could have been the grandfather of their 1775 infant. |
| Military Service |
| Samuel |
“In the first place [Capt. Teter] collected all our men together, and related the battles and skirmishes he had been in, and really they were not few in number. He was in Braddock’s defeat, Grant’s defeat, the taking of Fort Pitt, and nearly all the battles which took place between the English and the French and the Indians, from Braddock’s defeat until the taking of that place by Gen. Forbes.” |
SOURCE: nephew Joseph Doddridge, “Notes on the Settlement and Indian Wars,” ed. Alfred Williams (2nd ed. Albany, NY: Joel Munsell, 1876), 281. |
NOTE 1: Doddridge recounted this 1782 incident from memory for his first edition in 1824. Samuel Kercheval quoted Doddridge’s account in his 1833 “A History of the Valley of Virginia” (2nd ed. Woodstock, VA: John Gatewood, 1850), 201. John Lewis Peyton quoted (and attributed the account to) Kercheval rather than Doddridge in his “History of Augusta County, Virginia” (Staunton, VA: Samuel M. Yost & Son, 1882), 199.
NOTE 2: Captain John Dagworthy led a troop of fifty Maryland Rangers as part of Sir Peter Halket’s 1st Brigade, listed in “Major General Braddock’s Orderly Books” (Cumberland, MD: Will H. Lowdermilk, 1878), xxxii–xxxiii. The Rangers’ names are unknown. Records of Maryland soldiers during Forbes’ campaign survive due to political wrangling over their compensation. The entry for Private Samuel Teater in “French and Indian War Account Books vol. 1, 1762–1763” (Maryland Historical Society, MS 375) lists credits for service in Joshua Beall’s company from October 9, 1757 to December 30, 1758; in Dagworthy’s company from December 31, 1758 to April 26, 1759; and for work on Fort Cumberland, margin note dated March 8, 1763. The debit column includes hospital and unspecifed charges, and a payment to Captain Joshua Beall, possibly owed for a cash advance. |
| “The only incident that I can remember in his military operations is that he led the advance guard against the Indians at Ft. Pitt near Pittsburg, Pa. and that his co. were all killed except himself and one of his privates.” |
SOURCE: grandson Samuel D. Teter, letter dated June 26th, 1866, dictated in answer to queries from Lyman Draper (Draper 5E43, Wisconsin Historical Society). |
NOTE 1: This account may have been William T. Lindsey’s inspiration for The Teter and Manchester Families, added to Doddridge’s “Notes on the Settlement and Indian Wars” (3rd ed. Akron, OH: The New Werner Company, 1912), 286. “He took part when a very young man in the ill-fated Braddock expedition in 1755, and in the Forbes expedition in 1758, in which he bore a gallant part, leading one of the assaulting parties at Fort Pitt, in which his little company was almost annihilated.”
NOTE 2: The account may refer to Major Grant’s defeat on September 14, 1758. The Maryland troops who fought that day were led by Captain Ware, but they were not from his company alone. Murtie June Clark listed among the fallen soldiers four privates from Ware’s company, Lt. Duncan McRae and six privates from Alexander Beall’s company, seven privates from Joshua Beall’s company, and three privates from John Dagworthy’s company, in “Colonial Soldiers of the South” (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, Inc., 1983), 75–91. The number of Maryland troops engaged and their casualties vary between James McSherry, “History of Maryland” (Baltimore: John Murphy, 1849), 147, and J. Thomas Scharf, “History of Maryland” (Baltimore: John B. Piet, 1879), vol. 1, 509; but both authors agree that Lt. Riley of Joshua Beall’s company and Ensign Harrison of Alexander Beall’s company aided the survivors’ escape. For a contemporary account see “Annapolis, October 5,” Image 1439 and Image 1440 of the “Maryland Gazette” Collection, MSA SC 2731, January 2, 1752–October 19, 1758, M 1279, a Publication of the Archives of Maryland Online. It is reasonable to believe that Private Samuel Teater was among the enlisted men who survived Grant’s defeat, though we do not have their names. |
| Revolutionary War |
SOURCE: “David Shepherd Papers” (Draper 1SS, 2SS, 5SS, Wisconsin Historical Society). |
NOTE: Samuel Teter was a frontier militia captain from the summer of 1777 to 1779 in Ohio County, Virginia, while living in what became Washington County, Pennsylvania when the boundary dispute was settled in 1781. |
| George |
Claiborne C. Teator’s “grandfather Teator, of Maryland, settled in Lincoln, now Boyle, Co., Ky., in a fort … his great-grandfather [sic] Teator was in the French war, also in the Revolution; was at the battle of Ft. Duquesne, and, although wounded, was one of eight saved from a company of 200.” |
SOURCE: “The History of Appanoose County, Iowa” (Chicago: Western Historical Company., 1878), 590–591. |
NOTE 1: The generation may have been an error, but like Samuel’s French and Indian War story this account may refer to Major Grant’s defeat.
NOTE 2: An entry in “French and Indian War Account Books vol. 1, 1762–1763” (Maryland Historical Society, MS 375) for Private George Teater lists credits for service in Alexander Beall’s company from October 9, 1757 to December 30, 1758; and in Dagworthy’s company from December 31, 1758 to April 26, 1759. The only entry in the debit column is a note “To [then] Lt. Burr Harrison by order to receive his pay.” This entry may indicate a debt owed, or simply Harrison acting as courier. |
| In 1780 George Teater proved to Virginia courts that he served as a Virginia soldier under Captain Gist, “last war,” and Colonel Byrd, 1761. |
SOURCE: Joseph Kellogg, “The Teter Family” (1958), 228–229, referencing W. A. Crozier, ed., “Virginia Colonial Militia” New York City: The Genealogical Association, 1905), 51, 57. |
NOTE: George Teater was seeking Virginia land, so mentioning Maryland military service would not have helped his case. |
| Revolutionary War |
SOURCE: Lewis Preston Summers, “History of Southwest Virginia, 1746–1786” (Richmond: J. L. Hill Printing Company, 1903), 855, 864. |
NOTE: Summers lists George Teeter as an Ensign in the militia of Washington County, Virginia, 1777–1780; and among the soldiers who fought at King’s Mountain. |
| Religious Affiliation |
| Samuel |
Samuel Teter’s name was published as a signer to a 1779 call for Presbyterian Reverend Joseph Smith of Maryland to serve the Buffalo and Cross Creek congregations in Washington County, Pennsylvania. |
SOURCE: Florence S. McIlvaine, “Early Presbyterians in Hopewell Township, Washington County, Pennsylvania” (1963). |
NOTE: There is doubt whether the signature attributed to Samuel Teter was transcribed accurately. Attempts to access the original document or a 1939 copy questioning some of the signatures have been unsuccessful. The version by McIlvaine (1963) is available at the Citizens Library, Washington, Pennsylvania. |
| George |
“George Teter of Kentucky (who was presumably a son of this George Teter on the Opequon) was a Baptist. There seems to be no Lutheran connections in this particular family, other than the baptism of children by Rev. Stoever.” |
SOURCE: Joseph Kellogg, “The Teter Family” (1958), 37. |
NOTE: Kellogg offers no proof of George’s religion. Possibly the Baptist claim is an extension of Kellogg’s theory that George’s father was one of the German Baptists (Dunkards) of Opequon Creek. |
| George Teator’s name was published as a signer to a 1773 call for Presbyterian Reverend Charles Cummings to serve the congregations on the Holston River near Abingdon, Virginia. |
SOURCE: Lewis Preston Summers, “History of Southwest Virginia, 1746–1786” (Richmond: J. L. Hill Printing Company, 1903), 139–141. |
NOTE 1: The location of the original document is unknown. An undated handwritten copy can be found in the Draper manuscript collection (Draper 9DD844–845, Wisconsin Historical Society), but in the microfilm the name George Teator is unclear. The T and t are poorly written, and the final r appears to be missing. Scotch-Irish and German names appear on the list.
NOTE 2: Summers’ later “Annals of Southwest Virginia” (1929) appears to have typesetting errors. The Cummings petition signers do not match the earlier lists, and George Teator’s name is among those missing. |
| Children and Descendants |
| Samuel |
Samuel, Susannah, George, John, Charity, Mary, Daniel |
SOURCE: Holy Bible (Philadelphia: John Adams/Mathew Carey, 1803). |
NOTE 1: Photocopies provided by Rev. Dr. Frank McDonald Spindler, a descendant of Charity Teter McDonald.
NOTE 2: Of the Morrisons Cove, Pennsylvania families, Gale Honeyman and Linda McDaniel list John and Susannah Ulrich Deeter’s children Susana, Elisabeth, Johanes, Daniel, Abraham, Barbara, Hana, Catharina and Samuel in “Descendants of John and Susanna Ulrich Deeter” (1994); Frank Bayer lists Abraham and Elizabeth Shively Teeter’s children David S., Daniel, Abraham Jr., John S., Barbara, Jacob, Isaac, Catharine, Elizabeth, Susan and Hannah in “Abraham Teeter Family” (1984). |
| “Jacob Hare … married Miss Mary Teeters, who was of Scotch parentage, but a resident of Highland County, Ohio, and in an early day they emigrated to Ross County, Ohio, the year the land came into market.” |
SOURCE: Norma Rogers, transcriber, Biography of Colonel A. M. Hare, “Biographies for Muscatine County 1889,” transcribed from “Portrait and Biographical Album of Muscatine County, Iowa” (Chicago: Acme Publishing Co., 1889), 167. |
NOTE: Since a specific ancestor is not identified, “Scotch parentage” could refer to Miss Mary Teeters’ mother, Rebecca Ford. Biographies in similar collections of the late 1800s frequently mention maternal and paternal ethnic ancestry. The Highland County residence claim has not been proven. |
| George |
Samuel, George, Willliam, Robert, Sarah, Paris, Susannah, Lewis Craig, Nancy |
SOURCE: Joseph Kellogg, “The Teter Family” (1958), 237–240. |
NOTE: The first six children are from the first marriage; the last three from the second. Gravestones in Garrard County, Kentucky only show G.T. and S.T. Kellogg said, “His first wife . . . was named Sarah. Her family name was most probably Pearis (or Paris) and she was a daughter of Captain Richard Pearis, of Revolutionary war fame.” The family name may have been conjectured from the name of George’s son Parris. Captain Richard Pearis of the French and Indian War was a loyalist during the Revolution, and his daughter Sarah is now believed to be the wife of John Cunningham, who lived in Charleston, South Carolina, and is buried in the First (Scots) Presbyterian church graveyard there. |
| “Caleb Conner, the grandfather of Mrs. Stever … married Miss Susannah Teeter, who was of Scotch-Irish descent and they became the parents of seven sons and three daughters.” |
SOURCE: Karen Zach, transcriber, Biography of Davis Stever, “Parke County Indiana Biographes - S,” transcribed from “A Portrait and Biographical Record of Montgomery, Parke and Fountain Counties, Indiana” (Chicago: Chapman Brothers, 1893), 273. |
NOTE: Since a specific ancestor is not identified, “Scotch-Irish descent” could refer to Miss Susannah Teeter’s mother, Nancy Ross, or her paternal grandmother, Sarah [Pearis?]. Biographies in similar collections of the late 1800s frequently mention maternal and paternal ethnic ancestry. |
Samuel Teter of Pennsylvania and Ohio
