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The Moll-Newhard-Kuntz Triangle of Old Northampton County Gunmaking, including some Rupp-Schreckengost Family Relationships
Factors in the evolution of a regional craft style once had faces and names. Here are a few of them from the point of view of a family member.
N.C. Wyeth, The Capture of Alice
It was December, 1755 on the Pennsylvania frontier, early in the French and Indian War, and Delaware Indians prodded by the Iroquois and the French were attacking and burning outlying farms and settlements. In a scene reminiscent of James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans, 32-year-old German immigrant Johannes Sensinger and his 14-year-old brother Nicholas were killed on their Lehigh Township homestead when they stood and fought to cover the successful escape of eight family members to safety with distant neighbors. The group included Johannes’ wife Magdalena and four children under five years old, one a newborn. Others on the frontier didn’t fare as well. Eleven Moravian missionaries to the Delaware were slain at Lehighton 20 miles to the north, with an additional Moravian woman dying in captivity. Up and down the Appalachians, between three and six thousand settlers were killed or captured by Native American allies to France or later Britain between 1755 and 1780, and over twice that number made refugees. The terror of these conflicts would impact family members for a generation and more, including gunmakers Andreas Albrecht, Peter Newhard, John Moll, David Kuntz, Jacob Kuntz and their immediate descendants. The last major incident in the Susquehanna-Lehigh area of Pennsylvania was the destruction of Wilkes Barre by Seneca Indians allied to the British in 1778, with over 300 scalps taken and hundreds of homes burned. A pivotal incident in the Allentown area occurred in October, 1763. Twenty three people were murdered and scalped, thirteen of them young children, after local friendly Lenape Delawares went on a ten-mile rampage after being robbed while staying at a local tavern. Gunmaker John Moll relocated to Allentown just months after the 1763 incident, probably because of the increased demand for weapons there, which may also have been the impetus for a 19-year-old farmer named Peter Newhard to take up gunmaking. Further, were the origins of John Moll’s and Jacob Kuntz’s use of Indian head decorations on rifles the whimsical depictions currently described in contemporary references? Or were the emotions darker? The Sensingers had been family members to Moll’s daughter-in-law and Kuntz’s wife. (Kastens Vol IV pp158-60, Klein pp25-28, Mickley, LDS Genealogical Library, Stroh pp11-12, Fischer pp419-425, PAGCA, Silver, Chapter 1 and pp239-241.)
In 1775 when danger again threatened frontier settlements, a nephew of the slain Sensinger men, 16-year-old Philip Newhard (1759-1827), would be one of the first to enlist in Captain Matthew Smith’s Company of Colonel William Thompson’s Rifle Battalion. Philip’s parents and six older siblings, ages three through eleven, had been made refugees by the massacres of 1755, and their farm had been completely destroyed. Matthew Smith was a well-known Indian fighter with a reputation for brutality equal to his adversaries. Philip walked over 90 miles to Harrisburg to enlist, and his thoughts along the way weren’t of the Redcoats and Hessians we think of when pondering the Revolutionary War, but of their tribal allies ravaging his parents’ homestead a second time. These frontiersmen weren’t militia, but one of the first regular units in George Washington’s new Continental Army, answering the call for “six companies of expert riflemen to be raised in Pennsylvania” after the Battles of Lexington and Concord. As men were eager to join, Pennsylvania soon formed nine companies instead of the six requested, and the unit quickly grew into a regiment. Philip’s company would serve as scouts for Colonel Benedict Arnold’s invasion force while attached to Captain Daniel Morgan’s Riflemen during the Quebec Campaign. Morgan would go on to become the teamster-turned-Brigadier who made Tarleton and Cornwallis look like amateurs at The Battle of Cowpens. (Note 1) William Thompson would soon be promoted to Brigadier, and succeeded by his Lieutenant Colonel, Edward Hand. Hand was a physician as well as a soldier who later distinguished himself as a combat commander at the battles of Long Island and Trenton, and would become Adjutant General of the Army at the Siege of Yorktown. Matthew Smith rose to the rank of Colonel during the war, then resigned his commission to serve as Pennsylvania’s Lieutenant Governor. Seasoned by hard service and the example of first-rate leaders, young Philip would survive the war to become a prosperous farmer in Allen Township near Kreidersville. He and his wife Maria Rockel produced nine children and 43 grandchildren. (Kastens Vol IV pp162-76, Henry JJ, LDS Genealogical Library, PA Archives Series 5 Vol II, Silver Chapter 1)
Uniforms of the Pennsylvania Rifle Regiment
A few months later Thompson’s Battalion evolved into the Pennsylvania Rifle Regiment, and Philip’s cousin Christopher Neuhart (1729-1776) enlisted as a Private in Captain Henry Shade’s Company raised from men living in Northampton County. A widower with a thirteen-year-old daughter, Christopher’s 69-year-old father-in-law had been murdered, stripped and scalped by Indians in Plainfield Township the year before. Christopher was killed in action during the Battle of Long Island that same year, probably while covering the withdrawal of General John Sullivan’s 1500-man Division from the high ground north of the village of Flatbush, now part of Brooklyn Borough. This was a delaying action which devolved into desperate hand-to-hand fighting between Sullivan’s small delaying force against 5000 Hessians under Lieutenant General Philip von Heister of Kassel. Sullivan’s Division reached Brooklyn Heights as planned, but Sullivan himself was captured along with Christopher’s regimental commander, Colonel Samuel Miles, commander of the delaying force. When word reached Christopher’s family that he had been killed, all four of his younger brothers enlisted in the Northampton County Militia. Courage breeds. (Adams, Kastens, Vol IV pp14-16, Klein pp18-25, the LDS Genealogical Library and PA Archives 5 Vol II, Vol VIII)
A Delaying Force of Riflemen Makes a Stand
American rifles weren’t built to mount bayonets, putting riflemen at a distinct disadvantage in close encounters with line infantry armed with the shorter-range muskets that were.
What Philip and Christopher had in common besides kinship is they were probably using rifles made by their cousin Peter Newhard during those battles. Rifle Regiment soldiers were required to own their own rifle and accoutrements, the rifle had to be well-made to meet the required marksmanship standard, and the relationships between the three families were close. Specifically recruited from frontier communities, riflemen served as scouts, snipers, couriers, hunters and skirmishers rather than line infantry, had to pass a skill test to enlist, and the regiment’s published marksmanship standard was consistent shot placement inside of seven inches at 250 yards, a feat impossible with smooth-bore military muskets and the common trade guns of the period. To meet the standards required early in the war, Christopher and young Philip had to have been skilled woodsmen and marksmen as well as farmers, and had to own first-rate rifles. Enlistments were for a one-year term of service. (Kastens Vol IV pp111-195, Stroh pp13-21, and Valuska)
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