Marching to Brandywine

#52andestors Week 21—Military
Marching to Brandywine 
By Myra Vanderpool Gormley © 2018 





Johann Michael Treece (called by his Rufname — Michael — as was the German custom) served during the American Revolution on the American side. He was one of many young men of Germanic origins who did. By the middle of the 18th century, about 10 percent of the American Colonies (estimated at 2.5 million) spoke German. 

Michael purportedly was the youngest child of Peter Treece (Dreiss) and Anna Catherine Volck (Folk), His father arrived in Philadelphia on the Mary on 29 September 1733. (Strassburger, Ralph Beaver, and William John Hinke. Pennsylvania German Pioneers: a Publication of the Original Lists of Arrivals in the Port of Philadelphia from 1727 to 1808.Vol. I, Genealogical Pub. Co., 1980, pp. 130-133). His mother, Anna Catherina Volk, was born in 1715 in New York but she was the child of a German couple — Andreas Volck and Anna Catherina Meckel — who were part of the band of Palatine emigrants who arrived on the Globe in 1708 led by the Rev. Joshua Kocherthal. (Knittle, W. A., Ph.D. (n.d.). The Palatine Emigration of 1708. Retrieved May 26, 2018, from http://threerivershms.com/knittlech2.htm) 

He noted many years later, in 1833, when he applied for a soldier’s pension, that “during the whole time I was in the service of the United States and for some time after, I could not talk or understand one word of the English language.” 

His service in the Pennsylvania militia from Northampton County included being drafted at times and volunteering at others — usually serving in two-month stints. He also served as a substitute at one point. He was among those who marched into the neighborhood of Philadelphia to Germantown “where we joined General Washington, and we marched to Brandywine.” 

Marquis de Lafayette

As an 18-year-old private he participated in the Battle of Brandywine on 26 September 1777 as part of Ritter’s Company of the Pennsylvania militia. Sir William Howe, the British commander, defeated the Americans that day with American losses estimated to have been 300 killed, 600 wounded and 400 taken prisoner. While some family historians have read Michael Treece’s Revolutionary War pension application to claim that he was wounded at Brandywine, a closer examination shows that he was referring to the then 19-year-old Marquis de Lafayette, not himself, who was shot in the leg. Additionally, some have claimed Treece was a “hero” at this battle, but I find no evidence whatsoever to confirm this. 

Treece followed a typical migration pattern from Pennsylvania to North Carolina soon after the Revolutionary War and thence to Tennessee in the early 1800s. He married twice and had children by both wives. The name of his first wife is undetermined so far, and by her he had five or six children, one of whom was my ancestor — Mary Magdalena Treece who married Henry D. Fricks about 1804 in North Carolina. By his second wife, Malinda Vaught (Voght) (Faught) (Fite) he had seven children. They married in 1812 in Claiborne County, Tennessee. 

He died quietly in 1840 in Grainger County, Tennessee — an unsung Patriot. 

Thank you for your service.