Timeline for the Probable Personal History of Johannes Kimmel of Hampshire Co., Virginia

Possible migration of Johann Nicholaus Kimmel from the Weibelskirchen to Southfork

All records listed below are conjectured to be for the same person.

1/8/1754 - Johann Kümmel and wife of Weibelskirchen received manumission for emigration at Weibelskirchen, Saarbrücken, Palatinate.

9/30/1754 - Johannes Kemmell/Johann Nicholaus Kimel, age 20, is on the passenger list for Ship Brothers arriving in Philadelphia with residents from Palatinate and Mentz.

10/1754 - Arrivals in Philadelphia this month include these surnames of residents of Hampshire County in 1767:  Alt, Seyts/Seiths (Sites), Steyl (Steel/Stihl), Mock (Moak), Stumpf/Stumpp (Stump), and Becker (Baker).

12/21/1760 - Joh. Nicolaus Kühmle is witness with Conrad Kühlme and wife of the marriage of Antony Müller and Elisabeth Thümmich[in] at the German Evangelical Lutheran Congregation in Philadelphia.

11/8/1767 - Johannes Kimmel is a communicant at a service of the Evangelical Reformed Church of Frederick, Maryland held at in "Southfork" of Hampshire County, Virginia

8/3/1773 - John Kimble, Senr. leased tract #44 on the west side of South Branch Potomac River from Thomas Lord Fairfax for the lives of himself and sons Michael and Adam (Hardy Co., Deed Book 4, Page 341)

1794-1798 - land purchases and sales as John Kimball/Kimbell/Kimble

6/24/1798 - John Kimmel takes communion as a member of North Mill Creek Lutheran and Reformed Church south of Petersburg.

1798 - last year John Kimble/Kimbel/Kimbell appears on tax lists

General Conjecture

The John of Weibelskirchen seeking to leave the Palatinate in 1754 is for certain the John arriving in Philadelphia the same year.  This is one arrival I have not been able to place with any other Kimmel family established in America.  The timing is right for John of Hampshire County, Virginia.  The other passengers arriving immediately after John arrived appear to be of a group of families gathered at the port in Philadelphia by scouts from Virginia seeking Germans to take up residence in their frontier as a buffer between the English-populated colony of Virginia and the natives to the west.  Hampshire County and Lord Fairfax's South Branch Manor was part of this buffer.  More information is needed to prove this conjecture, such as proving ties of some of the early October 1754 arrivals in Philadelphia with the South Fork families of the 1767 communion.