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JOSEPH STALEY
By Robert M. Staley
Joseph Staley might have been the father of Conrad, Martin, and Jacob Staley. A Joseph Stahle arrived in Philadelphia on Aug.31, 1750 aboard the Ship Nancy, Thomas Coatam, Master, from Rotterdam and last from Cowes, England. This date fits the time line of the published birth dates of Conrad (b.1736), Jacob (b.1740), and Martin (b.1747), and the claim that they were supposedly all born in Germany.
Conrad Staley’s tombstone in Richland Lutheran Cemetery in Randolph Co., NC reads: " Here lies the body of Conrade Staley a native of Germany who was born 23 of (April) 1736, came to America as a youth, was married to Barbara Huver the 16 of March 1762 and departed this life the 31 of May 1816." Conrad Stahli and his wife Barbara recorded the birth of their first son Johan Jacob Stahli at Strayer’s (Salem) Lutheran Church on April 24, 1763, and their son was baptized at that church on June 19, 1763. A Joseph Stealy bought 150 acres of land in Paradise Twp., York Co., PA on Dec. 18, 1751. This land was in the northern part of Paradise Twp., just south of the border with Dover Twp. Strayer’s (Salem) Lutheran Church was in the town of Dover, in Dover Twp. Up until 1762 it was the closest Lutheran Church to the Joseph Stealy property, being only four miles away. It would be the most likely church for Conrad and Barbara to attend if they were living with Joseph. The second son of Conrad and Barbara Staley was named Joseph. They had at least one grandson named Joseph.
A 1762 census of York Co., PA lists two Jacob Staleys in Paradise Twp., and a Henry Staley in York Twp. By 1785 there were three Jacob Staleys in Randolph County, NC (the successor to Orange Co. and Guilford Co.). This 1762 census also lists a George Huber in Paradise Twp. A 1775 York Co., PA will for George Hoober lists his children as “John and Barbara, wife of Conrad Staley.” In 1762 John Hoover bought 100 acres of land in Paradise Twp., not far from the Joseph Stealy property. The 1762 census of York Co., PA did not mention Joseph or Conrad Staley. There is a possibilty that they left the area during the French and Indian War (1754-1763), and returned at the end of that conflict.
On Sept. 23, 1763 a Joseph Stailey was naturalized at Superior Court, Salisbury, Rowan Co., NC, along with 45 other natives of Germany. The main trail from PA to this area of NC ran right through Salisbury. Since the Staleys later bought land in Orange Co., NC in 1764, and the county seat for Orange was Hillsborough, one gets the feeling that this group had just pulled into town, and took care of the naturalization before shopping for property. Since they must have left PA after the June 19, 1763 baptism, they had about three months to travel down to NC, which is nearly 400 miles away. The exodus from PA may have been prompted by the outbreak of Pontiac’s War (1763-1766) in May 1763. “Pontiac led an uprising of a broad Native American coalition that included Seneca, Wyandots, Delawares, Shawnee, Miami, Ottawa, and other nations. They attacked British forts and frontier settlements in Pennsylvania and Virginia. During the summer of 1763 they killed as many as 2,000 settlers.”
In 1764 William Barton received 290 acres in Orange Co., NC from his father John Barton, who in 1760 had bought 1000 acres from Henry Eustace McCulloh, Joseph Robinson, and Joseph Wilcox . On July 26, 1764 William Barton sold a 165 acre parcel to Martin Staley, and a 125 acre parcel to Conrad Staley. These must have been adjacent pieces of the original 290 acre parcel. The Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina holds an indenture (contract) for the 1764 sale of 165 acres in Orange Co., NC from William Barton to Martin Stala. This document is one of the few surviving Orange County deeds from that period, as most were lost in the Revolutionary War. It is badly damaged and difficult to read, but it gives a good description of the property, shows the July 26, 1764 sale date, the August court session when it was recorded, and lists Martin Stala as a shoemaker. The property description refers to a marked Poplar as being the “Conrad Stala Corner.” The fact that Martin Staley bought property before Jacob Staley, whose first purchase was in 1771, would suggest that Martin was older, and that their published birth dates are incorrect. The published birth date for Martin is 1747, which would have made him 17 years old in 1764.
The book “Eve B. Weeks (transcriber), Register of Orange County, NC Deeds, 1752-1768, and 1793” (Danielsville, GA: Mary B. Warren, 1984) shows that On August 14, 1764 Conrod Stale registered the purchase of 125 acres from William Barton. On this same date Joseph Stata registered the purchase of 207 acres from Robert Stewart. On Feb. 10, 1767 Joseph Stala registered the sale of 100 acres to Thomas Canby. It is believed that these two Josephs were the same man, with two different erroneous spellings and/or transcriptions of the name Staley.
If this Joseph Staley were the father of Conrad Staley (and not a brother or an uncle), he was probably born in Germany in about 1716. He probably died in Orange County in the 1760’s, or Guilford County in the 1770’s, or perhaps even in Randolph County in the 1780’s or later. No record of his death has yet been found. The last known record for Joseph Staley is his sale of 100 acres in Orange County in 1767. His 150 acre parcel in York Co., PA was apparently sold to George Beck in 1810. Joseph might have been renting out the property while living in NC, or he might have sold it earlier without the sale being recorded. It would be interesting to see who sold it to George Beck. There was a 1756 survey taken of a 270 acre parcel, which included Joseph’s 150 acre parcel, done for a man named Himes.
It is known that Conrad’s first son was named Johan Jacob Stahli, and that Conrad’s brother signed his name as Johann Martin Stehle. Most likely all the Staley men had the first name Johan (or Johann, or Johannes), but went by their middle names. This German naming convention was common to people that came from around the city of Ulm in the present day state of Baden-Wuerttemberg. Ulm lies on the Danube River in Southern Germany (Incidentally, Ulm was the birthplace of Albert Einstein). There were probably dozens of small villages around Ulm. In order to trace the family back to Germany one would need to know the exact village they came from. This data might possibly be available in the PA or NC church records, assuming one could gain access to them, and read Old German script. Interestingly, about 70% of the males baptized at Strayer’s (Salem) Lutheran Church in Dover, PA had the first name of Johan or John, indicating that most of the church members were from the Ulm area. The emigration records of Wuerttemberg in the 1800’s show that 61% of the 95 Stehles who left that area were born in the town of Binsdorf, which is near Geislingen (postal code 72351), and about 50 miles from Ulm, Germany.
Conrad Staley
by Dennis R. York
Conrad Staley (1736-1816), along with his younger brothers Jacob Staley and Martin Staley, migrated into central North Carolina in about 1764 from the area around York, Pennsylvania. They were born in Germany, most likely with a surname such as Stahli, Stähli, or Stehle. People have conjectured that they were born in the Palatinate, or Baden-Wurttemburg, or Bavaria, but no one knows for certain where they came from. English speaking officials in the American colonies most likely assigned to them the anglicized version of their surname, i.e. Staley. Strayer's (Salem) Lutheran Church records for Dover Township, York County, Pennsylvania show that Conrad Stahli and his wife Barbara had a son by the name of Johan Jacob Stahli on April 24, 1763.
The three brothers and their families then migrated into what was then Orange County, North Carolina, arriving in about 1764. They no doubt traveled by wagon train down the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road through the Shenandoah Valley of Maryland and Virginia, crossing the Blue Ridge Mountains somewhere near Roanoke, Virginia, and on down into the Piedmont region of North Carolina. They were part of a mass migration of German speaking people from Pennsylvania into the South, which started in about 1745 and peaked sometime after 1750. The Staley’s settled near the Richland Lutheran Church (founded in 1760) in the north east corner of what is now Randolph County, in the area near where the present day town of Liberty is located. This area is very fertile, with stands of tall trees, lush grass, and a great abundance of streams and lakes. (This area would have been in Orange County from 1753 to 1770, in Guilford County from 1770 to 1779, and in Randolph County after 1779). “It has been said that a visitor to this area during that time frame would have thought he was back in Pennsylvania, with everyone speaking ‘Pennsylvanisch-Deutsch’, a language made up of the dialects used in the ancient Palatinate, Wurttemberg and other countries along the Rhine, intermixed with English words. Even the black slaves of these Germans spoke this language.”
In 1764 Conrad Staley bought 125 acres on Stinking Quarter Creek from John Barton, who had bought a 1000 acre tract from Henry McCulloch in 1760. Martin Staley acquired an 80 acre parcel on Stinking Quarter Creek at about this same time. Jacob Staley later bought land in this same area. All three of the Staley brothers bought and sold land in this area over a number of years, and all of their land was either on Stinking Quarter Creek, Sandy Creek, or Rocky River. In 1769 Conrad Staley bought 450 acres on Sandy Creek from Herman Husband for 15 pounds. Three years later he sold this same land for 150 pounds. (Herman Husband had to flee the area in 1771 because he had been condemned to die for his part in the Regulator movement and the Battle of Alamance. He went to Pennsylvania, and was later condemned to die again for his part in the Whisky Rebellion of 1794. He was later pardoned by President Washington.) By 1790 Conrad Staley owned nearly 600 acres of land in Randolph County. In 1790 Conrad Staley gave 417 acres to his eldest son Johan Jacob Staley “out of love and affection”. Johan Jacob Staley later transferred some of this land to his brothers Christian and Peter.
By Robert M. Staley
Joseph Staley might have been the father of Conrad, Martin, and Jacob Staley. A Joseph Stahle arrived in Philadelphia on Aug.31, 1750 aboard the Ship Nancy, Thomas Coatam, Master, from Rotterdam and last from Cowes, England. This date fits the time line of the published birth dates of Conrad (b.1736), Jacob (b.1740), and Martin (b.1747), and the claim that they were supposedly all born in Germany.
Conrad Staley’s tombstone in Richland Lutheran Cemetery in Randolph Co., NC reads: " Here lies the body of Conrade Staley a native of Germany who was born 23 of (April) 1736, came to America as a youth, was married to Barbara Huver the 16 of March 1762 and departed this life the 31 of May 1816." Conrad Stahli and his wife Barbara recorded the birth of their first son Johan Jacob Stahli at Strayer’s (Salem) Lutheran Church on April 24, 1763, and their son was baptized at that church on June 19, 1763. A Joseph Stealy bought 150 acres of land in Paradise Twp., York Co., PA on Dec. 18, 1751. This land was in the northern part of Paradise Twp., just south of the border with Dover Twp. Strayer’s (Salem) Lutheran Church was in the town of Dover, in Dover Twp. Up until 1762 it was the closest Lutheran Church to the Joseph Stealy property, being only four miles away. It would be the most likely church for Conrad and Barbara to attend if they were living with Joseph. The second son of Conrad and Barbara Staley was named Joseph. They had at least one grandson named Joseph.
A 1762 census of York Co., PA lists two Jacob Staleys in Paradise Twp., and a Henry Staley in York Twp. By 1785 there were three Jacob Staleys in Randolph County, NC (the successor to Orange Co. and Guilford Co.). This 1762 census also lists a George Huber in Paradise Twp. A 1775 York Co., PA will for George Hoober lists his children as “John and Barbara, wife of Conrad Staley.” In 1762 John Hoover bought 100 acres of land in Paradise Twp., not far from the Joseph Stealy property. The 1762 census of York Co., PA did not mention Joseph or Conrad Staley. There is a possibilty that they left the area during the French and Indian War (1754-1763), and returned at the end of that conflict.
On Sept. 23, 1763 a Joseph Stailey was naturalized at Superior Court, Salisbury, Rowan Co., NC, along with 45 other natives of Germany. The main trail from PA to this area of NC ran right through Salisbury. Since the Staleys later bought land in Orange Co., NC in 1764, and the county seat for Orange was Hillsborough, one gets the feeling that this group had just pulled into town, and took care of the naturalization before shopping for property. Since they must have left PA after the June 19, 1763 baptism, they had about three months to travel down to NC, which is nearly 400 miles away. The exodus from PA may have been prompted by the outbreak of Pontiac’s War (1763-1766) in May 1763. “Pontiac led an uprising of a broad Native American coalition that included Seneca, Wyandots, Delawares, Shawnee, Miami, Ottawa, and other nations. They attacked British forts and frontier settlements in Pennsylvania and Virginia. During the summer of 1763 they killed as many as 2,000 settlers.”
In 1764 William Barton received 290 acres in Orange Co., NC from his father John Barton, who in 1760 had bought 1000 acres from Henry Eustace McCulloh, Joseph Robinson, and Joseph Wilcox . On July 26, 1764 William Barton sold a 165 acre parcel to Martin Staley, and a 125 acre parcel to Conrad Staley. These must have been adjacent pieces of the original 290 acre parcel. The Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina holds an indenture (contract) for the 1764 sale of 165 acres in Orange Co., NC from William Barton to Martin Stala. This document is one of the few surviving Orange County deeds from that period, as most were lost in the Revolutionary War. It is badly damaged and difficult to read, but it gives a good description of the property, shows the July 26, 1764 sale date, the August court session when it was recorded, and lists Martin Stala as a shoemaker. The property description refers to a marked Poplar as being the “Conrad Stala Corner.” The fact that Martin Staley bought property before Jacob Staley, whose first purchase was in 1771, would suggest that Martin was older, and that their published birth dates are incorrect. The published birth date for Martin is 1747, which would have made him 17 years old in 1764.
The book “Eve B. Weeks (transcriber), Register of Orange County, NC Deeds, 1752-1768, and 1793” (Danielsville, GA: Mary B. Warren, 1984) shows that On August 14, 1764 Conrod Stale registered the purchase of 125 acres from William Barton. On this same date Joseph Stata registered the purchase of 207 acres from Robert Stewart. On Feb. 10, 1767 Joseph Stala registered the sale of 100 acres to Thomas Canby. It is believed that these two Josephs were the same man, with two different erroneous spellings and/or transcriptions of the name Staley.
If this Joseph Staley were the father of Conrad Staley (and not a brother or an uncle), he was probably born in Germany in about 1716. He probably died in Orange County in the 1760’s, or Guilford County in the 1770’s, or perhaps even in Randolph County in the 1780’s or later. No record of his death has yet been found. The last known record for Joseph Staley is his sale of 100 acres in Orange County in 1767. His 150 acre parcel in York Co., PA was apparently sold to George Beck in 1810. Joseph might have been renting out the property while living in NC, or he might have sold it earlier without the sale being recorded. It would be interesting to see who sold it to George Beck. There was a 1756 survey taken of a 270 acre parcel, which included Joseph’s 150 acre parcel, done for a man named Himes.
It is known that Conrad’s first son was named Johan Jacob Stahli, and that Conrad’s brother signed his name as Johann Martin Stehle. Most likely all the Staley men had the first name Johan (or Johann, or Johannes), but went by their middle names. This German naming convention was common to people that came from around the city of Ulm in the present day state of Baden-Wuerttemberg. Ulm lies on the Danube River in Southern Germany (Incidentally, Ulm was the birthplace of Albert Einstein). There were probably dozens of small villages around Ulm. In order to trace the family back to Germany one would need to know the exact village they came from. This data might possibly be available in the PA or NC church records, assuming one could gain access to them, and read Old German script. Interestingly, about 70% of the males baptized at Strayer’s (Salem) Lutheran Church in Dover, PA had the first name of Johan or John, indicating that most of the church members were from the Ulm area. The emigration records of Wuerttemberg in the 1800’s show that 61% of the 95 Stehles who left that area were born in the town of Binsdorf, which is near Geislingen (postal code 72351), and about 50 miles from Ulm, Germany.
Conrad Staley
by Dennis R. York
Conrad Staley (1736-1816), along with his younger brothers Jacob Staley and Martin Staley, migrated into central North Carolina in about 1764 from the area around York, Pennsylvania. They were born in Germany, most likely with a surname such as Stahli, Stähli, or Stehle. People have conjectured that they were born in the Palatinate, or Baden-Wurttemburg, or Bavaria, but no one knows for certain where they came from. English speaking officials in the American colonies most likely assigned to them the anglicized version of their surname, i.e. Staley. Strayer's (Salem) Lutheran Church records for Dover Township, York County, Pennsylvania show that Conrad Stahli and his wife Barbara had a son by the name of Johan Jacob Stahli on April 24, 1763.
The three brothers and their families then migrated into what was then Orange County, North Carolina, arriving in about 1764. They no doubt traveled by wagon train down the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road through the Shenandoah Valley of Maryland and Virginia, crossing the Blue Ridge Mountains somewhere near Roanoke, Virginia, and on down into the Piedmont region of North Carolina. They were part of a mass migration of German speaking people from Pennsylvania into the South, which started in about 1745 and peaked sometime after 1750. The Staley’s settled near the Richland Lutheran Church (founded in 1760) in the north east corner of what is now Randolph County, in the area near where the present day town of Liberty is located. This area is very fertile, with stands of tall trees, lush grass, and a great abundance of streams and lakes. (This area would have been in Orange County from 1753 to 1770, in Guilford County from 1770 to 1779, and in Randolph County after 1779). “It has been said that a visitor to this area during that time frame would have thought he was back in Pennsylvania, with everyone speaking ‘Pennsylvanisch-Deutsch’, a language made up of the dialects used in the ancient Palatinate, Wurttemberg and other countries along the Rhine, intermixed with English words. Even the black slaves of these Germans spoke this language.”
In 1764 Conrad Staley bought 125 acres on Stinking Quarter Creek from John Barton, who had bought a 1000 acre tract from Henry McCulloch in 1760. Martin Staley acquired an 80 acre parcel on Stinking Quarter Creek at about this same time. Jacob Staley later bought land in this same area. All three of the Staley brothers bought and sold land in this area over a number of years, and all of their land was either on Stinking Quarter Creek, Sandy Creek, or Rocky River. In 1769 Conrad Staley bought 450 acres on Sandy Creek from Herman Husband for 15 pounds. Three years later he sold this same land for 150 pounds. (Herman Husband had to flee the area in 1771 because he had been condemned to die for his part in the Regulator movement and the Battle of Alamance. He went to Pennsylvania, and was later condemned to die again for his part in the Whisky Rebellion of 1794. He was later pardoned by President Washington.) By 1790 Conrad Staley owned nearly 600 acres of land in Randolph County. In 1790 Conrad Staley gave 417 acres to his eldest son Johan Jacob Staley “out of love and affection”. Johan Jacob Staley later transferred some of this land to his brothers Christian and Peter.