Joseph Yost Strock Sr
Revolutionary War Veteran from Württemberg, Germany
1748-1832
Who was Joseph Strock?
Joseph Strock was born in Germany in 1748, perhaps in the Lower Palatinate region of Württemberg, as family tradition suggests, or in the County of Wittgenstein where family researcher Robert E. Strock has found references to the Strack (Strock) surname. The story of Joseph Strock's heritage has been passed down in the family. It is said that he was the son of a serf who challenged his overload. Joseph's father and uncle were subsequently killed and the surviving family members fled for their safety. Joseph's mother managed to send her sons to the New World and eventually arrived in America herself, in 1757, with a new husband, Mr. Sassaman, and her nine-year-old son Joseph, whose passage had been paid by indenturing him in servitude until his 21st birthday.
Joseph arrived in Northampton County (now Lehigh County), Pennsylvania, according to Biographical History of Northeastern Ohio, where he lived for many years, presumably serving out his indenture. He married in about 1769, to Anna Susanna Bensinger who died shortly after the birth of their only child, Henry, on 27 March 1771, perhaps in Brunswick Township, Berks County (now Schuylkill County), Pennsylvania. Henry was raised by relatives, generally believed to be his uncle and aunt, Samuel and Susannah Strock, and little is known of him as part of Joseph Strock's family.
Several sources credit Joseph Strock with participating in the Revolutionary War and some sources place him at Valley Forge during the winter of 1777-78. Perhaps he brought supplies to Washington's army during that difficult time.
About 1778 or 1779, Joseph married Anna Susanna's sister, Elizabeth (Betsey) Bensinger, who, some say, was the widow of a Hessian soldier. Betsey was born in Berks County, Pennsylvania circa 1762. She and Joseph had eleven children, all born in Pennsylvania: Mary (Maria), John Henry, Molly, Betsey, George, Joseph - all born in Berks County; and Jacob, Hannah (who was blind), Samuel, William, and John - all born in Cumberland County.
Notes in the Strock Family Reunion records state that Joseph Strock lived in Pennsylvania where the Schuylkill River goes into Berks County from Schuylkill County. In about 1790, Joseph moved his family to Cumberland County, where the family members lived in the Carlisle and Ickesburg area. As the children married, they settled within twenty miles of their parents' home. In 1814, Joseph, now the patriarch of a large family, decided life would be more prosperous in Ohio, and so in September of that year, he led all of his clan, traveling by "ox train," to unsettled Ohio to live and farm the new land.
Two of Joseph's sons returned to Cumberland County, Pennsylvania after their discharge from service in the War of 1812, and were surprised to find that their entire family - parents, brothers, sisters, wives and children - were no longer there and according to neighbors had "gone west." The two men walked over the mountains together and were reunited with their family who had settled 300 miles away in eastern Ohio, principally in the area of what is now Austintown, west of Youngstown. Once again all the families lived within a radius of twenty miles of each other.
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From GENEALOGICAL SKETCH OF THE JOSEPH STROCK FAMILY, by Ronald W Strock
By 1810, JOSEPH STROCK, an immigrant farmer from Wurtenburg, Germany, and a Revolutionary War veteran, had acquired seven sons, four daughters, and over 478 acres of land in Cumberland Co PA. In 1814, Joseph gathered up his family, including the families of his sons George and Joseph Jr who were serving in the War of 1812, and set out for Ohio, where land was still abundant. One daughter, Elizabeth, does not appear in any Ohio records and probably remained in PA. "The story goes that our Joseph upon arriving near Smith's Corners, it being in the forenoon at an old neighbor of his in PA, was greeted by the wife who sent her son to call her husband. The boy shouted to his father: "Grand Dad Strock has come," and the husband swung his axe about his head, yelled, let go and ran. The next day he could not find the axe and, so far as the story goes, it is still lost." This was the family of HENRY YEAGER, who moved here before 1810, having been a close neighbor of Joseph back in PA. Many of the YEAGERs (YAGER) are buried to the south in Canfield Twp in what is now known as the Old North Cemetery.
JOSEPH and ELIZABETH (Betsy) BENSINGER STROCK purchased 100 acres of land from Henry OHL in Austintown Twp. The next year Joseph bought an additional 94 acres from Archibold MORRIS. Then in 1828, he bought another 78 acres from Edward HOOKER. An anecdote from the family history illustrates the frugality of the Strock household. It is said that "one day, Joseph looked sternly across the table at a grandson who had just spread both butter and apple butter upon a slice of bread and said, "And has your father got two farms?"
When Joseph Strock died, he "sold or otherwise disposed of" certain portions of his property to some of his children, leaving the rest intact until the death of his "beloved wife," Betsy. At the time of Betsy's death, all but Henry of the eleven children were still living.
SAMUEL married MARY "Polly" MAGDALENA BRUNSTETTER;
WILLIAM married LYDIA CRUM;
JOHN married MARY "Polly" MAGDALENA WEAVER;
GEORGE married ELIZABETH LOTMAN (LUTMAN):
JOSEPH married ELIZABETH MILLER;
JACOB married SARAH _____________;
HANNAH married JOSEPH STITLE;
MOLLY "Maria Magdalena" married "PHILIP LUDWICK:
ELIZABETH married _________________ CLINGER;
MARY appears to have been unmarried.
Joseph and Betsey Strock died in the summer of 1832, within a few weeks of each other. They are buried in the "Dutch" or German Lutheran Reformed Cemetery, now the Old North Cemetery, located on Route 46, just north of the city center of Canfield, Ohio. Their gravestones were destroyed in the 1930s during the construction of a road near the cemetery.
*If anybody from the Strock family, or anybody who maintains their memorials needs control of this page message me I will happily pass over as long as I know he's going to the right person*
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/116262904/john-henry-yager
http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~strockfamily/genealogy/
Joseph Yost Strock's Family Tree-
https://www.genealogieonline.nl/genealogy-ludwig/I19789.php
Veterangraves Page -
https://veterangraves.com/grave/3351
Gravesite Details
Headstone missing