This site heralds the life and career of Johann Jacob Brumbach, born 1726 in Osthelden, Kreuz Ferndorf, Siegen, Westphalia, Germany, who emigrated through Amsterdam to British North America in 1750 on the ship Nancy, Capt. Thomas Coattem, last of Cowes which docked at Philadelphia on August 31, 1750. Once in the Pennsylvania colony, he became Jacob Brumbaugh (1726-1799) (with a wide variety of spellings), a husband, father of seven children and grandfather who started as a weaver and became a wheat and grain farmer, a frontier scout and wagonmaker and distiller of grain whiskey on “Resurvey of Clalands Contrivance,” an 800-acre farm northeast of Hagerstown, Washington County, Maryland.  He married Mary Elizabeth Angle (Engle), daughter of Henry, an earlier German immigrant, in 1760 and they had seven children, one daughter and six sons. She is often cited as the first convert to German Baptist Brethren religious practice in western Maryland. Jacob almost certainly took up the GBB faith too. He was active in the French & Indian War, but during the Revolution, he reached age 50, so he was over the age of military draft. Nevertheless, he contributed two blankets and sold grains to the Washington County agent for the Continental Army, so he has qualified in later years as a “Patriot” for purposes of DAR and SAR heritage membership. The author portrays Jacob as one of the leading “Pacifists as Patriot” of Washington County, Maryland, and emblematic of other German pacifist sects and other sectarians who similarly qualify. 

Join us as we explore his life and career and considerable accomplishments. Recently, the Maryland Historical Trust headed up an archeological dig on the former Brumbaugh farmstead which resulted in a 586-page report which sheds some new light on how the Brumbaughs lived and passed on their farm. A scholarly journal article is forthcoming and possibly a book.