ANDREAS KILLIAN
404
No doubt others will write on Andreas Killian, Sr. and even if they don't, his history has been published elsewhere, so I feel there is little point in my repeating his history. Instead, this will be an overview of apparent contradictions, commentary, sources, and status of work done on Andreas' history.
There was a monument erected to Andreas Killian Sr. at Old St. Paul's Church Cemetery, which is just northwest of Newton, NC in Catawba Co. According to Yates Killian's The History of The Killian Family in NC (page 25), the monument was erected & unveiled on Sun. Oct. 19, 1952. Since the booklet says the monument was erected near Andreas' grave, I would assume 1) he had no marker within anyone's memory and 2) it was placed here because this was the nearest empty spot to his son Leonard's grave. Leonard's grave has a crude stone inscribed crudely in German, therefore it must be an original and thus be in the original Killian area. Leonard's stone is in Row 6 and Andreas' monument is in Row 5. All inscriptions in the graveyard were copied line for line, assigned to rows, graves numbered, rows numbered, graves indexed, and published in Neal D. Wilfong's 1969 hardback 115 page book Tombstone Inscriptions of Old St. Paul's Church Cemetery.
On the monument to Andreas Killian, it says he came from Germany landed in Philadelphia where he took the oath of allegiance Sept. 23, 1732. If you look at photocopies of the passenger lists and oaths, they also bear the date, Sept. 23. However if you look at the above mentioned booklet, The History of The Killian Family in NC (page 2), it says Rupp's 30,000 Immigrants shows Andreas' ship landed Oct 4, 1732. It would be impossible to sign the oath in Philadelphia (They signed at the court house, according to photocopies of the oaths.) before landing. Most surely this discrepancy is the 11 day difference in the two calendars -- the Old Style (OS) -- Julian -- and the New Style (NS) -- Gregorian. Britain and its colonies were on OS in 1732. Rupp merely converted the date to NS just as we have converted George Washington's birthday to NS. Interestingly, the German States (both Protestant and Catholic) were on NS in 1732, so it is interesting to imagine what Andreas must have thought as he changed calendars to OS as he arrived and before he died, he changed back to NS as Britain did.
On the monument to Andreas, it gives the dates 1702-1788. The 1702 comes from the passenger list of Sept. 23, 1732 OS whereon he states his age as 30. By subtraction that gives you 1702, but on closer consideration, you know that one is 30 for a whole year so Andreas may have turned 30 as much as a year earlier. Therefore he was born between Sept. 24, 1701 and Sept. 23, 1702 OS (Oct 7, 1701 - Oct. 4, 1702 NS), so it is better if we say he was born in "1701 or 1702."
The above mentioned The History of The Killian Family in NC is by J. Yates Killian, paperback, not indexed, has 26 pages, has been reprinted as is available from the Andreas Killian reunion for $4. It appears to have been originally published by the reunion immediately after May 1, 1955, since a letter in the booklet to the reader from the reunion officers, bears that date. The booklet was reprinted about 5 years ago by the reunion.
According to Yates Killian's booklet (page 26), the Andreas Killian reunion was formed in 1935 and the reunion is held every Second Sun. in Sept. (SSS) at Old Salem Church. It still meets SSS, but not at Salem. For the last 10 years or so, it has been alternating between about 3 churches, one of which is Old St. Paul's. If you want to be contacted, phone me or William (Bill) D. Killian of Hendersonville, NC. He has been sending out the annual notices for about 20 years and has the booklets for sale.
On the oath of Allegeance (sic, should be "Allegiance") , it states that these passengers were from "the Palatinate upon the Rhine and places adjacent." Since this includes both, parts of Germany now in France (Alsace & Lorraine) and the German speaking part of Switzerland, it is perhaps presumptuous of Andreas' monument to say he came from Germany unless you take that to mean all of central Europe that speaks German including Austria & Liechtenstein as well as the above mentioned. There are people on the ship with Andreas with French names (e.g. Jean LeCene). In 1978, I hired Charles Hall of Salt Lake City for the Andreas Killian Reunion to search the German records currently indexed, but Mr. Hall failed to find Andreas Kilian of the right age or one with the right children's names. Charles Hall in 1978 was Director of European Research for Global Research Systems, a division of Everton Publishers. He felt that Andreas will eventually be found among the people from Kreuznach or if not, then among the protestant Kilians of Kusel. The Andreas Kilians found in 1978 were too old. One was christened in Wuerttemberg in 1685 and the other was christened in Bavaria in 1677.
There is an 8 1/2 x 11' (sic, should be "inches") book of over 200 pages on Andreas Killian's descendants by George W. Killian. He has not had it published. Instead, he makes up xerox copies and binds them in a binder so the buyer can add to it as new things are discovered. The book is indexed. George keeps a card file of descendants. His father Cletus H. Killian, had started research on the family of (sic, should be "in") 1947 and gave a talk on the history of the family at the unveiling of Andreas' monument in 1952. Cletus said who he thought Andreas' father was, but in 1970 his son George wrote to an archives in Germany and got the children of that man and Andreas was not among them. Cletus' proposed lineage for Andreas is given in George's book, but I am omitting the names here so as not to spread the wrong information. George was interested in the reunion's search in 1978 as we all were, but it produced no result. Perhaps many more records have been indexed now and it is time to try again.
Yates Killian's booklet says (page 1) that Andreas must have been above average in education since he signed his name while others could only make their mark. We should not boast that he was above average since forty out of the 58 men passengers who came on the ship he did, signed their names.
Andreas signed his name to each oath and the signatures closely resembles his signature on his will and the way he forms letters are distinct from the way others on his ship form the same letters. Therefore it is valid to assume the man who arrived in 1732 in Philadelphia is the same Andreas who lived and died in what is now Catawba Co., NC. He signed his surname on both the oaths and his will with one "l" -- Kilian. The 2 "l" version -- Killian -- is the current spelling here in NC since the early 1800's. In Germany who find (sic, should be "one finds") one "l" Killians almost exclusvely (sic, should be "exclusively") if not exclusively. His son's -- Leonard's -- 1795 grave has 2 "l"s, however.
Sources: History of the Killian Family by Yates Killian,
Tombstone Inscriptions of Old St. Paul's Church
Cemetery by Nel (sic, should be "Neal") D. Wilfong, 30,000 Immigrants by Rupp.
-- James W. Green, III
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