Today, 225 years ago, our ancestor Stephen F. Acker and his younger brother John were baptized in Christ Church, Anglican Parishes of St. George and St. Patrick, Shelburne, Nova Scotia. Stephen was 11 and John was 7. Just months before in April, their sister Catherine, age 12, and brother Jacob, who was 4, were baptized also. Their oldest brother Henry didn't get baptized until he got married at the age of 32. (see Robertson Pedigree Chart)
Old Christ Church, Shelburne
Old Christ Church, ShelburneIt seems unusual to me for a family to baptize their children when they are older, in the Episcopal/Anglican church where baptisms usually involve infants. Why would they do that? They were on the run? No, Ester and John Acker had been in Shelburne for 12 years by then and they had land there. The church had just been built? No, Shelburne was an established town of Loyalists, people who had remained loyal to England during the American Revolution, and you would expect a town of loyal Englishpeople to have plenty of Anglican churches. Their church membership made me think the Ackers were of English descent, while they consistently, over the next century, said they were German.
Where were Ester and John B. Acker from before they arrived in Shelburne with their little boy Henry and baby Catherine? Our first clue is that John Acker testified as a witness for a man named Samuel Davenport, who claimed that he was forced to abandon his lands in Philipsburg by the Americans, run for his life, and hide out in New York City. John said he knew Samuel well. That points us to look for the origin of the Acker family in Philipsburg. The next question is, where is that?
Philipsburg was a manor in Westchester County, New York owned by Frederick Philipse during the Revolution. It was founded by his grandfather, also Frederick Philipse, when the Dutch founded New Netherlands. The Dutch manors of New Netherlands ran like the manors of the Middle Ages, with lots of tenant farmers. And in New Netherlands, the majority of tenants on Philipsburg Manor were of Dutch descent, the great-grandchildren of the original Dutch settlers of the mid-1600s.
So were the Ackers Dutch? The words Dutch and German have a tendency to be substituted for each other because the German word for German is Deutsch. Were they tenant farmers in Philipsburg? The church on the grounds, the Old Dutch Church and Burying Ground, was of the Protestant denomination Dutch Reformed, and they conducted their services, naturally, in Dutch. In the church records, there are an awful lot of people named Ecker, and their first names are Steffens, Jan, Catalyntie, Jakob, Heinrich, Hester.
There's another reason people are baptized - they want to change religions. There weren't any Dutch Reformed churches in Shelburne. So maybe the Ackers got tired of waiting for one to start up and became Anglicans.
225 years ago! Seems like only yesterday! The baptisms as older children of the Acker kids is another clue that points me to Philipsburg, New York Colony, where I'll be looking for more ancestors. Stay tuned - this is a developing story.
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