Family Stories - John Henry Croft

This is a story about my triple great grandfather - John Henry Croft, the father of Jacob Henry Croft, and the grandfather of Charles William Croft. John Henry Croft was born JOANNES HENRICUS CROEFF in a small village in Prussia - Katholisch, Wittlich, Rheinland - now the province of Saxony in Germany. Because of the difficulty in pronunciation, the surname has been spelled many different ways: Kraaft, Kraaff, Kraft, Kroff, Kraff, Craft, Croff, Crofft, Graaf, Groff, Grafft, Grofft, Graff, Grauf - eventually becoming anglicized to Croft.

Since the surname Croft, with mostly English roots, is common in South Carolina, it was thought for years that our ancestor came from England. I even visited a Croft Castle in England thinking that maybe our roots were there, but there was never any connection to be found. Then, I started hearing about a Deutsch or German background. Yet, because of all those variants in spelling, there has been much uncertainty about the true identity of the father of Jacob Henry Croft. It is only the diligence of researcher Terri Spencer, a nurse in California, that has now convincingly "pierced the veil" and uncovered the following story.

In the mid-eighteenth century settlers in coastal South Carolina - principally Charleston - felt threatened by the native American Indians to the west. As a move to counter this, they made overtures to people in Germany to come to South Carolina. Large parcels of free land to the west of Charleston were promised to these Germans to form a buffer between the Charlestonians and the Indians. And so they came - in significant numbers. They were Lutherans, harassed and persecuted back home because of their Protestantism.

In October of 1751 a sailing vessel by the name of Anne landed in Charleston with 95 passengers - German immigrants - all of which immediately petitioned for the promised free land. Among those passengers were: Christian Crofft, his wife, and three children, Johannas Crofft, Elizabeth Crofft, and Cathrina Crofft. Johannas was 13 years old. Also among the passengers was John Jacob Heyer, his wife and four children. The Hiers family and the Croft family have been closely tied down through the years with several intermarriages. This is all recorded in a book entitled The Hiers Family Genealogy.

Johannas settled with his family on their new land, now Edgefield County, South Carolina, and became a shoemaker and eventually a Lutheran minister. Little is known about his parents other than that his father petitioned for his share of that free land. I have a copy of the court order granting Christian Crofft 250 acres of land between the Savannah and the Santee Rivers. The document is dated January 8th, 1752, but is very difficult to read. Johannes apparently inherited this land on his father’s death. There are several deeds in existence (with the many variants of name spelling) where he bought and sold land in Edgefield and Barnwell Counties. Other researchers have determined that his mother’s maiden name was Anna Margaretha Mattstadt.

All of the new immigrants to South Carolina were Lutherans, and they apparently had great difficulty getting ordained ministers to help them establish Lutheran churches. When a pastor died, it took years to find a replacement. So it was that at the age of 62, John Henry Graff was ordained. He was assigned to two churches near Barnwell, South Carolina: St. Bartholomew and St. Nicholas Lutheran Churches. He moved his family to property adjoining the St. Bartholomew church. He continued to support himself and the family by plying his shoemaker trade.

There were problems, however, in the churches. Johannes, or John, had never become comfortable with the English language. He insisted on preaching in German, and his sermons were long and tedious to the consternation of the congregation. Complaints reached the synod headquarters, and a Rev. Franklow was sent to Barnwell to find out what was going on. His lengthy report describes in detail the people’s complaints. They were so fed up with Rev. Graff’s ministry that they no longer considered him to be their pastor. Attendance at the churches had dropped to just a handful. There’s no indication that he ever preached again.

His Will, called a Last Deed and Testament, was dated January 15, 1819. It was recorded in probate court on March 1, 1819, indicating that his death occurred between those two dates at age 81. Another interesting thing about the Will is that the part apparently written by a lawyer spells his name out as John Henry Croft, yet the signature looks like John Henry Groof, maybe Graaf. He left his property to his wife during her lifetime, then to his heirs without naming them. The Will confirms that his property was adjacent to the St. Bartholomew church property.

All those variants in the spelling of the surname have confused the issue, but it is understandable. These were not upper class, educated people. Most were probably illiterate. So, when the name was written by Englishmen, they wrote what they heard in the guttural German tongue, and in time Johannes Heinrich Graff became John Henry Croft. All of his descendants have used the anglicized spelling.

I found many of the supporting documents for all of this on a visit to the courthouse in Barnwell, South Carolina several years ago, but it took the persistent research of Terri Spencer to tie it all together. My mother would have been shocked to learn of this German heritage. She was always proud to say that though she had married a German, she was Scotch-Irish. Her Scotch-Irish blood evidently came through the Drew side of the family.