JOHANNES CREVELING, SR.
CREVELING FAMILY PATRIARCH BURIAL SITE
Johannes Creveling, Sr. is the common ancestor of all who have the surname Creveling in America and beyond. Johannes Creveling, Sr. was born Johannes Kriebeling in the Westerwald Region in Freilingen, Germany on June 6, 1706. He was a son of Adam Kriebeling (1677-1737) and a grandson of Johannes Kriebeling who was born in 1651 and Gertraud Tonges Kriebeling (1652-1727). After his arrival in America about 1744, the Kriebeling name was anglicized to Creveling. In 1755, he settled on a 270 acre plantation purchased from John Bassett in Jugtown (now West Portal), Hunterdon County, NJ. The original Creveling homestead and cemetery are located there. John Bassett, one of the earliest pioneers of the region, had possession of it as early as 1735. The will of Johannes Creveling, Sr. dated August 4, 1780, valued his estate, which included 2 slaves, at 800 pounds. Johannes and Eva Loecher Creveling, Sr. were married on September 6, 1737. They were the parents of twelve children. They had at least 80 grandchildren. They were the great-grandparents of about 560 children. The final resting place of Johannes and Eva Creveling, Sr., the Creveling Family Burying Ground in West Portal (formerly known as Jugtown), Hunterdon County, NJ, was restored in 2007. It was rededicated on July 31, 2007. Creveling descendants from across America were present at the ceremony and reception that followed. Johannes Creveling died on January 20, 1782 at his homestead in West Portal, New Jersey.

CREVELING FAMILY HISTORY AND GENEALOGY: SECOND EDITION, by Louis G. Creveling, 2002.

CREVELING HISTORY IN EUROPE
The first record found was the marriage of Johannes Kriebeling, later CREVELING, on September 6th, 1737 to Eva Christina Loecher. It was hard to tell what letter her family name began with, and until I went to Maxsain in March 1997, I had thought it was Coecher, but the pastor at Maxsain, Karl-Heinz Klein, set me straight, and told me there were still people in the area with that name. The minister who married them was Johannes Casparus Ghisberti. Further investigation showed that Johannes was born to Adam Kriebeling on June 26, 1706; his mother was Anna Maria Boehmer, daughter of Johann Diederich Boehmer and Margaretha Westhoff, born about 1681, confirmed in 1695 at the age of 14, and died on Monday 7 January 1728. Anna Maria Boehmer and Adam Kriebeling were married on 2 February 1702, at the time he was of Freilingen and she was of Woelferingen. Adam Kriebeling of Freilingen, son of Johannes Kriebeling, was born about 1677, died on Saturday 6 June 1737, three months before the marriage of his son Johannes to Eva Christina Loecher. His mother was Gertraud Tonges (this last names was sometimes written in Latin as Antoni), daughter of Johann Tonges (Antoni) and Maria Boehmer, daughter of Peter Boehmer, deceased. She died on Monday, 8 April 1727 in her 75th year. Johannes Kriebeling, father of Adam, appears to have been born about 1651, son of Johannes Kriebeling and his wife, whose name is unknown. The local story about the Kriebeling family is that the first Kriebeling was a French mercenary who fell in love with a local girl and elected to remain in the Maxsain area. His name appears later in a 1694 confirmation record for Johannes Christian Kriebeling, son of Johannes Kriebeling, deceased, so we can assume he was still living in 1680. I made note of all the Kriebelings in these church records. They were mostly farmers, and responsible citizens who held public offices: Another appendix in this book will give the genealogies of the families in the direct line of Johannes Creveling, the emigrant to New Jersey. I continued to look at German Church records from other towns, but so far have not been able to find where Johannes Kriebeling went after he and Eva Christina Lecher were married in 1737. Did they perhaps go to the Netherlands, or did they stay in Germany and eventually go with other families to genealogy appears. America? Perhaps some lucky researcher will find out where they went before the third Creveling genealogy appears.

THE WESTERWALD
Before moving to the new world with the Kriebeling/Creveling family, it seems appropriate to describe briefly the area where this family lived in Germany. Situated on the right bank of the Rhine, northeast of Koblenz, the Westerwald is hilly wooded farm country, punctuated by streams flowing down to the Rhine. The Saynbach River flows past Woelferlingen and Freilingen in the east, through Zuerbach and Maxsain and Selters down to Bendorf and the Rhine. Godert and Rueckeroth, villages mentioned in the records, are villages northwest of Maxsain. This area is still predominately agricultural, a favorite spot for camping and walking holidays. The roads are narrow and winding. the villages small and picturesque with some old half timbered houses. A local stoneware pottery is still in production. Maxsain is the principal city of the region, and the original church books of Woelferingen, Freilingen and Zuerbach are kept in the house of the pastor of the Lutheran Evangelical church there. The emigrants from the Westerwald in 1709 wrote enthusiastic letters home which spurred later emigration. I was interested to find the landscape of northwestern Hunterdon County in New Jersey where the Crevelings established their homestead, very similar to the countryside they had left. The name Jugtown Mountain for the hill which rises east of the Creveling farm in New Jersey certainly indicates that they found the soil suitable for pottery there as well.

THE CREVELING HOMESTEAD IN NEW JERSEY
This land was owned by the Creveling Family from the time of Johannes' purchase in 1760 until 1922 when William Sloan Creveling (1885-1955) sold the land to Albert S. Hagaman (1881-1972). The rights to the burial ground appear to have gone to his widow, Margaret Miller Creveling, who died in Rutherford, NJ, in July 1985. The house on this land, now the home of Mrs. Sophie Hagaman (1916-2005), widow of Paul J. Hagaman (1915-1984), son of Albert S. Hagaman, is on the site of the original homestead of Johannes Creveling, but it has been built over to such a degree that it is difficult to see the original construction. A photograph of the house at the beginning of the 20th century with the family of William Sloan Creveling outside the front door can be seen in Mr. Hagaman's picture book on Bloomsbury. The Creveling burying ground is behind the house on a hill with a nice view of the creek below and the rolling countryside, wonderful farm country with rich black soil. On 8 August 2000, Louis G. Creveling and Mary M. Thacher visited the homestead. They met first with Russell Thatcher, son of Mrs. Sophie Hagaman, who lives on the hill above the cemetery, and with Carl Heitzman who has done such a heroic job clearing the burial ground of a heavy cover of weeds and poison ivy. They later visited Mrs. Hagaman's daughter, Eloise Hagaman and her husband William Sabaki at their house east of the Creveling house, and were delighted to be able to see the parchment deed of William Creveling to Jacob Creveling for this part of the farm. Previously, in 1996 Mary and Peter Thacher had visited the Hunterdon County Courthouse and had copied two deeds: one from William Creveling, executor of John Creveling's estate to Peter Creveling and one from William to Jacob. The latter matched the deed on parchment to the letter: both are reproduced below. It is interesting to note that Aaron Watson, an abutting neighbor in this deed, was a witness to Johannes' will written in 1780 and proved in PittsTown on February 11, 1782. The earlier deed, from John Bassett to John Crimlen, was copied at the New Jersey State Archives in Trenton. (V. Appendix III, Early Land Records of the Johannes Creveling Family) From the inventory of his estate, we know that Johannes had a house on the property, with a stove room, chamber, an outroom; an old house which was probably a room over a cellar, a cellar house where food was stored, a corn crib, a wagon house, a barn, a wench's house for his slave girl who lived there with her nine year old son. We know from his will that he also had a cider mill and a windmil, that his farm produced hay, cider, flax and vegetables. He willed his wife one feather bed, with bedstead and bedding, as well as two milk cows, six ewes and several pigs. His woodlot provided plenty of wood for heating the house and cooking, and the orchard with apple trees supplied the cider mill. In short, he appears to have been a very successful self-sustaining farmer.

JOHN BASSETT
John Bassett died in Hunterdon County, New Jersey. He was there by 1753. His name appears often in court records. Trenton was then the county seat. His will was dated 21 May 1776, and named his sons William, John and Isaac Bassett as executors. The appraised value of his personal property as of 31 May 1781 was 80-12-6. Amos is the only one mentioned as a minor and he was to be put to a trade of his choosing and his legacy to be managed for him until he was 21. The estate, real and personal, was to be sold and divided among his children. Land transaction, Source Unknown On 17 May 1756, John Bassett of Bethleham Township, Hunterdon County, deeded to 148 acres to "Jacobus Williamson of the County of Sussex for oe220. This land in Sussex County was bordered by a "Corner of Hains Land", the "Muskonetkong River", "Johannes Crevelings Line". It was "part of Five Hundred and Twenty Acres... which was by the said John Bassett purchased of and from William Wilkins and Amos Wilkins, on 28 Jun 1755 who sold the same by Vertue of the Last Will and Testament of their Father Thomas Wilkins. This transaction was witnessed by Phillip Fisher and John Gulick.