Hendrick Hendrickse BANTA, II

                   Historical information included in notes.




Source:http://www.parsonstech.com/genealogy/trees/rturner1/d78.htm#P236Hendrick H. BANTA was born about 1718 in Hackensack, Bergen Co., NJ. He was, in 1738, a blacksmith. He died in 1804 in Shelby, KY at the home of a son at age 86. He was buried in 1804 in Shelby Co., KY on Geoge Bergen's Farm, now Pleasureville cemetery. Moved from Bergen Co to Somerset Co., NJ between 1750 and 1752. He had 6 children by his first wife, Rachel, and 13 to 15 by his second wife, Antie. Hendrick was a natural leader. He was described as "brave, tenacious, unswerving, a man with great force of character." The area of New Jersey that Hendrick was from, Bergen County, was at the crossroads of the fighting during the American Revolution. The Hackensack square, and the Banta Farm, were the place of encampment both the British and the Continental Armies at one time or another. General Washington is known to have established a camp on the Banta property, building up a 3 foot high earthworks for protection, which remained part of the landscape for many decades. Fourteen year old Cornelius Banta, great granson of the original Cornelius, carried a barrel of cider every other day to the Continental troops camped on the land near his father's cider mill. Bergen County residents were not, as a whole, in favor of the rebellion, with the Dutch taking sides, father against son, and brother against brother. The rebuilt Banta homestead in Hackensack is now the Dumont Public Library.According to Elsa Banta, Hendrick was the leader of the Great Dutch Migration into the American frontier. Overcrowding, and the influence of the English, German and Swedes on the Dutch children, caused Hendrick to desire to move westward. On December 19, 1751, he and Antie's first daughter was born. Soon thereafter, they, and a number of friends from the Schraalenburgh congregation set out for their new home in Somerset County, in western New Jersey. They were not the first to leave, but Hendrick's force of character soon made him a leader in what became known as the "Low Dutch Colony," ("Low Dutch" meaning that their ancestors had come from the low lands of Holland).When Hendrick went west to Somerset County, New Jersey, he settled in Bedminster, Montgomery township. In 1752, he was a member of the Montgomery Church, and chosen as an Elder in 1758. In 1768, Hendrick and 165 other Dutch and Huguenot families (over 1,000 people) left New Jersey. He settled in Conewago, York County, Pennsylvania, on land that he named "Loss and Gain". The cabin that he lived in there was still standing in 1983 on Swift Creek Run, 2 miles east of Hunterstown, Pennsylvania, 6 miles east of Gettysburg, and 3 miles northwest of New Oxford, just south of U.S. Highway 30. He donated some land on this property for the Low Dutch Church. He was appointed to the York County Committee of Safety in 1774. Owner of the Banta land on Swift Creek Run in 1983 was Russ Osborn.In 1779, Hendrick once again pulled up roots. He led 75 settlers, via the Ohio River, to Louisville, Kentucky. His son, Abraham, plus 11 other of Hendrick's 19 living children, followed him. From Louisville they proceeded via Beargrass to Cove Spring, Kentucky. They were attacked numerous times by Indians along the way.His will was dated 13 Dec 1799 and probated 14 Oct 1805 in Shelby Co., KY bequeathing property to his widow Antjin. His first marriage ended with death of Rachel following birth of Geertrje.



Per Dan Roberts data 5/8/1995: Sometime around 1750 Hendrick Banta moved from Bergen Co., to Somerset CO. NJ. At least 4 of the children of the second wife were born (Probably 8: Rachel through Mary). In about 1767-68, he moved to Conewago, York Co., Pennsylvania near Gettysburg. The references to him in the Banta book from about this time are calling him Henry Banta.According to the book, a group of Dutch families, not including the Banta family, moved from Conewago, PA> about 40 miles southwest into Berkeley CO., West Virginia, and settled near Shepherdstown. They had heard stories about Kentucky during the War, and a feeling grew among this group and also those still at Conewago in favor of an all-out move to Kentucky. Samuel Duryea, husband of Wyntie Banta, along with eight other white men and two Negroes, was sent on an exploring mission to Kentucky. They left Shepherdstown 1 May 1779 and went southwest down through West Virginia between the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Alleghenies, and crossed through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky to Boonesborough. Samuel made a land claim there on Muddy Creek, at a spot that looked favorable for a mill, and they returned to Shepherdstown that same fall.Late that fall, Henry Banta with his family and several other Dutch families, a total of seventy five people, left Conewago for Kentucky, but on a different route that that taken by Duryea. Of the seventy five people in this group, the Henry Banta family must have made up a substantial part, because there were 12 of his 21 children, some married, and nineteen grandchildren in the party. Three of his children had died in infancy, (#2, #20 & # 21) and his oldest son Hendrick had recently died leaving nine children, who were brought up by their grandfather. Five of six of his sons were married, two of whom, Samuel and Peterius, remained for a while in Pennsylvania, as did his three married daughters (possibly Leah, Rachel and Angenitie). They went from Conewago over the Appalachian Mountains, possibly on the Braddocks road, to Fort Pitt, now Pittsburgh, where the Monongehela and the Allegheny Rivers join to form the Ohio River. They stayed in Pittsburgh through the winter and in the Spring of 1780 bought flatboats, loaded all their possessions including livestock, and started down the Ohio, of which both shores were inhabited by hostile Indians. They floated down the Ohio to the Falls, in Kentucky, now Louisville, arriving in April 1780. Conditions were not good in Louisville, having just come through a very hard winter. Louisville consisted only of a fort and a few cabins, and during that Spring about three hundred boats arrived there bringing settlers from the East. Prices for corn and supplies got high very quickly. Five new Stations were set up in the area to accommodate the influx of people, one of which was called the 'Low Dutch Station', later known as Beargrass, for Beargrass Creek, about seven miles from Louisville. They rented land from a Colonel John Floyd and planted crops, the rent consisting mostly of clearing land for him.The Dutch group from Shepherdstown, Berkeley Co., West Virginia left early in the year 1780, led by Samuel Duryea, and traveled the same route he had the year before, through the Cumberland Gap to White Oak Spring, near Boonsborough, to which Captain Daniel Boone had moved with his family four or five years earlier and made a settlement. David Banta (must have been a cousin or something such) was killed by Indians in the Powell Valley, and his widow returned to Conewago. Thirty people arrived at White Oak Spring.The following quotes from the T. M. Banta book were taken from Collins' History of Kentucky: "White Oak Spring, sometimes called Hart's Station, one mile above Boonsborough was settled in 1779 by Capt. Nathanial Hart and some Dutch families from Pennsylvania." ..."The spring was described as "twelve feet square at the top and one hundred feet deep, boiling up pure, cold and fresh, and flowing off in a large and constant stream." ... "The settlers were unaccustomed to Indain warfare, and some
ten or twelve men, all were killed except tow or three" ..."Among the immigrants were Henry Banta, Sr., Henry Banta, Jr., Abraham Banta and John Banta." Note that this differs from the Joan Murray account. The T. M. Banta book describes the trip from Pennsylvania to Kentucky as a severe hardship. Apparently it was a trip of over six hundred miles of unbroken wilderness from the then western limit of civilization in Pennsylvania, over what was then known as "the Wilderness Road", which passed through the valley of Virginia, between the Blue Ridge and the Alleghenies, and across the mountains by Cumberland Gap to Fort Harrod. The road was really only a "trace", not even a wagon road until at least fifteen years later, and the colonists traveled on foot and with pack horses. The "pack saddle" was a forked branch of a tree fastened on the horse, on which they hung all then household goods and provisions. An account of the journey by another group in 1779 describes the "men on foot with their trusty rifles on their shoulders, driving stock and leading pack horses, and the women, some walking with pails on their heads, others riding with children in their laps, and other children swung in baskets on horses, encamping at night, expecting to be massacred by Indians, subsisting on stinted allowances of stale bread and meat, encountering bears, wolves and wildcats in the narrow bridlepath overgrown with brush and underwood." Another account tells about a colony, migrating to Kentucky in 1783, three years later than the Banta group, ... "had reached within half a dozen miles of the first settlement in the territory, when seven families of the train stopped to encamp for the night, the others passing on. That night the Indians attacked the families who had encamped and all were killed except one man."According to the Joan Murray book, Henry Banta and a group of men left their families at Beargrass in February of 1781 and went to meet the Duryea group at White Oak Station. There were twenty men altogether who "met up" in the wilderness and built cabins for their families some sixteen or seventeen miles from the Duryea mill seat on Muddy Creek. They spent several weeks in the area, and started 13 or 14 cabins, but competed none of them at that time. The cabins were built in the shape of a fort, and became known as 'Banta's Fort'. Trouble with the Indians continued. Back at the White Oak Station, two more men (Duryeas) were killed. As a result, the discouraged Banta group returned to the Dutch Station at Beargrass. They tried again in the summer, with men from both Stations, but after more trouble both parties returned to their Stations and no further attempts were made to settle Muddy Creek. The Bantas moved to Mercer Co. where they built the second Dutch Station, and were joined there by the White Oak group in 1782.The T. M. Banta book goes on at some length to describe the hardships endured by the Bantas. It quotes a story from the Shelby Co. Courant, a newspaper, dated 15 May 1873, written by George W. Demaree: "--in about the year 1785, Capt. Daniel Banta, Cornelius Banta and John Banta St. followed the 'trace' leading from Harrod's Station in Mercer Co. to Hoagland's station, in what was afterwards Shelby CO., till within a few miles of the latter place where they boldly plunged into the wilderness and built a cabin about two miles northeast of Hoagland's station--" --"This was, beyond doubt, the first cabin built in the limits of the Dutch tract. It was constructed of blue ash logs, and was torn down but a few years ago, after having braved he storms for more than eighty winters. The Banta, while on their hunting expeditions, doubtless saw a considerable part of the tract of land afterwards purchased by the Dutch Company -- though hardly all of it, as it was no child's play to explore so vast a wilderness." --- " The Bantas had enjoyed their novel position but a short time when one of those periodical storms of wrath burst in upon the frontier settlements, and they wisely retired to Hoagland's Station. This station was poorly m
anned and provisioned at the time, and was threatened daily with an attack from the redskins. So squally did the times become that the little garrison determined to send to Harrod's Station for re-inforcements, etc. Jake Bant, an officer of the fort (brother to the other Bantas) volunteered to perform the dangerous mission. The wilderness being full of prowling savages, he chose the darkness of the night to pass through the 'narrows' on the waters of Benson Creek, near where Hardinsville now is. But poor Jake never reached Harrod's Station. AS he crept silently and all alone in the darkness of night through the dreaded 'narrows', the redskins pounced upon him from ambush and cleaved his skull with a tomahawk. They left Capt. Banta on the tragic spot with this own tomahawk buried in his skull as a token of their fierce vengeance. The loss of this brave man was deeply felt by the frontier settlement. As soon as the storm had subsided our three heroes, who had taken as active part in the exciting scenes with which they were surrounded, went back to Harrod's station fully satisfied that their attempt to take possession of an isolated wilderness was at the time premature. It can hardly be doubted that their good report of the excellent quality of these lands, carried back to the Dutch Company of which they constituted a part, led to the purchase and ultimate settlement of the same." ---(from the same article) The writer remembers hearing the old folks talk of 'Shaker John Banta'." --- " -- and his researches have satisfied him that the Shaker Society of Kentucky had its origin in the limits of the Dutch Settlement, -- i.e. in Shelby CO., about the year A. D. 1804. The first Shaker meeting held in Kentucky, beyond doubt, was held at the house of John Banta., who was one of the original members of that sect in this State, hence the name Shaker John Banta. Some of the Voorhees and Montforts adopted the Shaker system at the same time." --- "The (Shaker doctrine) met with poor success however, with the mass of the community, hence John Banta and his few associates separated from them and returned to Mercer CO., and purchased the present site of Pleasant Hill. The result is familiar to everybody." (I don't know what this last sentence refers to.) The Shaker Society was celibate, believed in visions, and was very strict. Their houses had solid partitions through the middle with no doors, with entrance by the women on one side and by men on the other. They had strict rules, called Millennial Laws, such as : it is Contrary to Order for brethren and sisters to milk together; to be in a room together without company; for a brother and sister to pass on the stairs; for a sister to go to the barn, wood house or road alone; to have right and left shoes; to read newspapers in a dwelling house at any time without the Elder's permission; to receive or write a letter without the Elder's perusal of it; to fold the left thumb over the right in prayer or when standing up to worship; and many more. Several of the Henry Banta descendants joined the Society, with some leaving later.The Dutch community in Kentucky tried for several years to get the Low Dutch Reformed Church of New Brunswick to send them a Minister who could preach in both Dutch and English, with no success. Henry Banta was doing the preaching in the absence of such a man, and was known as "The Exhorter". He was one of the signers of several letters to the Church asking for a Minister. His son Albert Banta went so far as to join a Babtist Church, much to the dissatisfaction of the Dutch, who made him move some distance away from the Dutch community. He later moved to Preble CO., Ohio.Henry Banta was the father of twenty-one children, and is said to have left a larger number of descendants than any other man in Kentucky. He made a will in 1799, leaving all of his possessions to his wife Anne, He died in 1805.
                  

                   NAME:
Weyntje/Wyntie