William Hann

1704-1794 · Germany

Born 1704, Germany

Died 1794

William Hann was a German whose name was first written Henn or Hahn. A genealogy of the region's German families, published in 1895, gives his birth as about 1704. Where in Germany he came from, and when he crossed, are not known.

In 1745 "William Henn" bought 350 acres of the Stevenson tract on Schooley's Mountain, in Morris County, New Jersey, from Samuel Schooley and his wife Avis of Bethlehem township, Hunterdon County. Schooley had bought the land of Isaac DeCou in 1726, and the Schooleys gave the mountain its name. Three years later Robert Colver bought 265 acres immediately west of the Henn land, and William's son Jacob married Colver's daughter Esther. The Hanns farmed beside the Terryberrys, and an 1895 account of the mountain mentions "the Hann farm formerly belonging to Terryberrys."

His wife was named Else, written Elsie in the 1895 genealogy. Their children were Joseph, born on 23 January 1734; William, born in 1738, who married Anna Maria Sharp and died in 1809; Jacob, who married Esther Colver; John, born in 1747, who married Anna Dimet Sharp and lived to 1838; and the daughters Anne, who married a Wiles, Margaret, who married a Schuyler, and Mary, christened Anna Maria, born on 5 March 1741, who married first Matthias Cramer and second John Sharp.

In July 1777 the Governor and Council of Safety ordered him cited, with his sons Jacob and William, to come in and take the oaths of abjuration and allegiance to the new State of New Jersey. On 22 July 1777 "William Hann of the County of Morris" appeared and took them. He was then past seventy.

In February 1794, "advanced in years", he made his will as William Hann Sr. of Roxborough township. He died that month, on 10 February by the 1895 genealogy, though the dates printed in the probate abstract put the will and the inventory a little later. The estate was valued at £752.7.6.

Sources

Calendar of New Jersey Wills, Administrations, etc., vol. VIII, 1791-1795 (New Jersey Archives, first series), p. 162; archive.org calendarofnewjer00unse_2. Original: Lib. 35, p. 142; File 847N.

T. F. Chambers, The Early Germans of New Jersey: Their History, Churches, and Genealogies (Dover, N.J., 1895), p. 397; archive.org earlygermansofne00cham, leaf n518.

T. F. Chambers, The Early Germans of New Jersey: Their History, Churches, and Genealogies (Dover, N.J., 1895), p. 174; archive.org earlygermansofne00cham, leaf n255.

Minutes of the Council of Safety of the State of New Jersey (Jersey City, 1872), p. 90; archive.org cu31924096849587.

Minutes of the Council of Safety of the State of New Jersey (Jersey City, 1872), p. 97; archive.org cu31924096849587.

Find a Grave memorials 99057855 (William Hann) and 99057947 (Elisabetha "Elsie" Hann), cenotaph in Pleasant Grove Presbyterian Churchyard, Pleasant Grove, Morris County, New Jersey, photograph 2023.

T. F. Chambers, The Early Germans of New Jersey: Their History, Churches, and Genealogies (Dover, N.J., 1895), pp. 173-175, 304 and 397 (archive.org earlygermansofne00cham); Calendar of New Jersey Wills, Administrations, etc. (New Jersey Archives, first series), vol. VIII, 1791-1795, p. 162 (archive.org calendarofnewjer00unse_2); Minutes of the Council of Safety of the State of New Jersey (Jersey City, 1872), archive.org cu31924096849587, pp. 90 and 97. Find a Grave memorials 99057855 (William Hann) and 99057947 (Elisabetha "Elsie" Hann), cenotaph in Pleasant Grove Presbyterian Churchyard, Pleasant Grove, Morris County, New Jersey.

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Cite: Heirology, "William Hann (1704-1794)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/william-hann-1704-1794-7e529d.