Here is just a sampling of what you’ll read in the many pages of “The George Druck Family Chronicle, 1741-2008.” Read the book for more historical and personal information!
From Chapter 2 – “As Long as One of Us Lives
We have no proof that the first George Druck actually came to America alone. . . Unfortunately, the early eighteenth century European emigrants left no photographs and very few written records of their journeys to the New World. From what history is available, we know that their ocean journeys were often horrible. It is impossible to imagine the sheer courage it took to leave their loved ones and familiar homes to endure untold hardships in the hope of a better life in a totally foreign world.
Why did George decide to leave the land of his birth? Did he leave parents, brothers, sisters, and other relatives behind? Had he been a prosperous landowner or was he an unfreed peasant who had to pay his European ruler a fee to be able to leave the country? . . .
. . . we have all descended from a very diverse group of people. We all have ancestors who survived incredible odds. They left the known and journeyed into the unknown. They crossed the ocean under adverse conditions. They survived Indian attacks, droughts, floods, disease, epidemics, wars, family tragedies, and the Great Depression.. . .
Our ancestors are all ordinary and all special: all worth writing about. Many are worthy of a book all their own.
From Chapter 5 – The First Generation in America: The First George Druck
Although his exact date of death is not known, George was around 78 years of age when he died in the fall of 1792. It is interesting to note the legal process that took place after his death. On the second day of October, George’s firstborn son—also named George—filed a petition with the court stating that his father had died without a will and asking for disposition of his Hellam Township property. The property by then consisted of 99 acres and was adjacent to lands of Adam Strong, Abraham Koble, Kraft Billet, Thomas Niell, and others. The Orphans Court then ordered that the Sheriff “with twelve good and lawful men of his Bailiwick in the presence of all the parties who shall chuse [sic] to attend or the guardians of such of them as are minors, they having respectively had due and legal notice thereof to hold an inquest” of the property to determine its distribution. Six days later, an “inquisition” was taken on the premises by 12 men—
probably the elder George’s friends and neighbors—who determined that the value of the property was worth 72 pounds and 16 shillings, considered “lawful money of Pennsylvania.”
From Chapter 8 - The Third Generation
Shortly after my ancestor, Gottlieb Druck, married Maria Elizabeth Kunkel (a daughter of Gottlieb and Agnes Kunkel), Gottlieb’s brother, GEORGE DRUCK, about 18 months younger than Gottlieb, married Elizabeth’s younger sister, MARY MAGDALENA KUNKEL. George was born 22 December 1788, in Hellam Township, the second child of George Druck and Elizabeth Billet; Mary Magdalena (known as Lanah) was born 12 April 1790. A child of either gender born that year had a life expectancy of 35 years, whereas during the Revolutionary War years, a woman’s life expectancy was even shorter, partly because of the hazards of childbirth, from infection and difficult deliveries performed with crude instruments.
George and Lanah were married in York’s First (Trinity) Reformed Church on 9 May 1809, just a few weeks after Gottlieb and Elizabeth were married there. George was 20 years old; Lanah was 19. . . In predictable fashion, Lanah gave birth to a brood of at least ten children at regular intervals, including the first recorded Benjamin in the Druck family. . .
From Chapter 9 – The Fourth Generation
About 10 weeks after Jacob Druck and Elizabeth Strong exchanged vows, a daughter, Priscilla, arrived on 21 June 1859.
The census report of 1900 (the only one to include each person’s month and year of birth) indicates that Priscilla was born 
in July, rather than June, but her tombstone at Mt. Zion Cemetery—on which her name appears to be engraved as Briscilla—confirms her date of birth as 21 June 1859. Assuming their marriage date is correct, one cannot help but wonder: Was Priscilla really Jacob’s child, or was Elizabeth pregnant by someone else, perhaps someone who had died or walked out on her? Perhaps Jacob married her so that Elizabeth’s child would have a father. On the other hand, if it was Jacob’s child, why did he and Elizabeth wait so long to marry? It sounds like the plot in a paperback romance, and it’s too bad we’ll never know the whole story.
Judy Druck Routson
