JOHN HARRY FILBERT
Source: Pennsylvania, A History, George P. Donehoo, (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1926), p. 100
Surnames: Filbert, Batteiger, Ache, Webber, Reith, Fidler, Meyers, Leiss, Machimer, Umbenhaur, Stoudt, Lamm, Clayton, Reitzel, Kitzmiller, Conrad, Beltzhoover, Herman, Hitch, Saulsbury, Henning
A well-known attorney of the Schuylkill County Bar, John Harry
Filbert, who has been in the practice of his profession for the past
three decades in the county, is also deeply interested in educational
matters, and has ably served his district along these lines. He has
always been active in the civic life of his community, and although
like many men who have attained prominence, he has created enmities by
the wayside, yet even those who opposed him at first were compelled by
results to see that his actions of conservatism were in the right. Mr.
Filbert comes of a long line of American ancestry, and his name dates
back beyond that into an antiquity whose beginning is in the Teutonic
language, being derived from “fielbrecht,” which means very bright or
illustrious. This appellation was borne by many of the old Teutonic
chieftains, whose descendants carried it into all the countries of
Western Europe in their early conquests. The earlier spellings of the
name were “Philbert” and “Philibert,” and in England it exists both in
the form Philbert and Filbert; while Philibert, Prince of Orange was
one of the generals of Charles V., and fell in the Italian campaign of
1529. St. Philibert who founded the Abbey of Jumieges on the north
bank on the Seine and died in 683, had been an Abbot at the Merovingian
Court. He was so greatly beloved by the peasantry that at his death
they took his day, August 22, to gather the hazel nut which ripened in
that locality about that time and called it St. Filbert’s nut. The
admiral of the French Fleet that made the demonstration against Morocco
several years ago belonged to the French branch of the family. There
were several counts of the name who ruled over Savoy in the twelfth
century, and the descendants of Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy became
kings of Sardinia, and later the reigning family of Italy.
(I) The American branch of the family traces its ancestry to John
Samuel Filbert, who was born in Wurttemberg, January 8, 1710, and who
with his wife Susanna came to the New World on the ship “Samuel,” of
which Hugh Percy was master, sailing from Rotterdam, and took the oath
of allegiance to the crown of Great Britain and the Province of
Pennsylvania at Philadelphia, August 30, 1737. He spelled the name
“Filbert,” but the Rev. John Casper Stover, who kept the baptismal
records of the family, spelled it “Philbert.” The children of John
Samuel Filbert were: 1. John Thomas, born in 1737, died in 1784;
married Catherine Batteiger. 2. Marie Catrina, born 1739, married John
Heinrich Ache. 3. Anna Elizabeth, born in 1741, married John Henry
Webber, a captain in the Revolutionary War. 4. John Philip, of whom
further. 5. John Peter, born in 1746, who was a delegate from the
First Battalion of Berks County Militia to the convention held in
Lancaster, July 4, 1776, to elect three brigadier-generals for the
Pennsylvania and Delaware Militia, and who was elected sheriff of Berks
County in 1785. 6. Maria Christiana, born in 1749, married to Jost
Reith. As the father and three sons had the first name “John” in
common, they dropped it in active life, and the only places that it can
be found are on their baptismal records and tombstones. The father
Samuel and his wife, Susanna, settled immediately on coming to this
country in Bern Township, Lancaster, now Berks County, Pennsylvania, at
what is the present site of Bernville. Samuel Filbert and Godfried
Fidler each gave an acre of ground to the North Kill Lutheran Church at
Bernville. A log church was built in 1743 on the part donated by
Samuel Filbert; tradition says that he paid half of the cost of the
building, which was used for a church on the Sabbath, and as a school
on week days. In 1791 the log church was replaced by a brick building,
at which time his son, Philip, acted as president of the building
committee. In 1897 the present handsome brown stone edifice was
erected on the same ground. Back of the chancel in the new building is
a beautiful stained glass window dedicated to “Samuel Filbert, Founder,
1743.” He died September 25, 1786, and is buried in the center of the
old church yard.
(II) John Philip Filbert, son of John Samuel and Susanna Filbert,
was born December 7, 1743. He was commissioned as a captain of the
Eighth Company of the Sixth Battalion of Berks County militia, June 14,
1777, and was recommissioned in 1780, 1783, and 1786, so that he served
as an officer of the Pennsylvania militia during the whole period of
the Revolution. Captain John Philip Filbert’s battalion was mustered
into the Continental service on December 13, 1777, for sixty days, and
was engaged under General Washington in the Schuylkill Valley, between
Valley Forge and Germantown. Tradition states he assisted in erecting
the last works at Valley Forge. He married Anna Maria Meyers, and they
were the parents of three children: Samuel, of whom further; John,
married Anna Maria Leiss; and Catherine, who married William Machimer.
John Philip Filbert died August 20, 1817, and is buried at Bernville.
(III) Samuel Filbert, eldest son of John P. and Anna Maria (Meyers)
Filbert, was born about 1770 and died about 1795. He married Sibylla,
daughter of Francis Umbenhaur, a captain in the Revolutionary War, and
they were the parents of two sons: Joseph, who died in 1904; and
Peter, of whom further.
(IV) Peter Filbert, son of Samuel and Sibylla Filbert, was born at
Bernville, Berks County in 1794. His father died when he was about six
months old, leaving his two sons to the guardianship of their
grandfathers, Philip Filbert and Francis Umbenhaur. In 1814 Peter
Filbert enlisted with the troops called out for the defense of
Baltimore against the British Army, and marched under Captain Smith to
Springfield camp, near that city, and after the retreat of the British
was honorably discharged from service. He married Elizabeth Stoudt,
daughter of John Stoudt, in 1818, and the following year removed to
Pine Grove, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, to take charge of the Pine
Grove Forge. Subsequently he was the presidential elector chosen to
represent this district in the election of 1840, and cast his vote for
the successful candidate William Henry Harrison. He died February 14,
1864. He and his wife, Elizabeth (Stoudt) Filbert, were the parents of
the following children: 1. Samuel P., married Lavina Lamm. 2. Edward
T., married Mary Clayton. 3. Peter A., who was a major in the
Ninety-sixth Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers in the Civil War; married
Theodosia Reitzel. 4. Leah, married Dr. John Kitzmiller. 5. Rebecca,
married F. W. Conrad, D. D. 6. John Q. A., of whom further.
(V) John Quincy Adams Filbert, son of Peter and Elizabeth (Stoudt)
Filbert, was born in Pine Grove, Schuylkill County, February 11, 1827.
At the age of sixteen years he served on the engineer corps of the late
Colonel Benjamin Aycrigg, and later he removed to York , Pennsylvania,
and then to Baltimore, Maryland, where he lived when the Civil War
broke out. Mr. Filbert was a staunch Unionist, and was one of the men
who helped save Maryland for the Union. When it was reported that the
confederates were going to seize the city, he stood in the trenches to
help guard it. All of the coal yards of the city were in the hands of
southern sympathizers who would not coal the government vessels, and
the government did not dare to confiscate them for fear of further
inflaming sentiment. Mr. Filbert, at the request of the leadership of
the Union element in the city, came up to Schuylkill County and made
arrangements to procure coal for the national vessels. He returned to
his native county in 1866, residing on his farm below Schuylkill Haven
for thirty-five years, and died there December 4, 1910.
John Quincy Adams Filbert married, April 30, 1856, Mary Beltzhoover,
daughter of Michael G. and Mary (Herman) Beltzhoover, of Boiling
Springs, Pennsylvania, and they were the parents of the following
children: 1. Benjamin Aycrigg. 2. Mary E. 3. Helen B., who married
Dr. Gaylord A. Hitch, of Laurel, Delaware. 4. Charles B., married
Florence Saulsbury, and they reside in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 5. John Harry,
of whom further.
(V) John Harry Filbert was born in the city of Baltimore, October 19,
1865, and when but a few months old, his parents removed to Schuylkill
County, where he has resided ever since. He was educated in the local
schools and then was graduated from the Pottsville High School, and
later attended the Pennsylvania College at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania,
and Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts. He registered as a
student at law under the late Judge David C. Henning, and was admitted
to the practice of law in the courts of Schuylkill County, on the first
day of January, 1894. He has always taken a deep interest in
educational matters, and in all movements that were to benefit the
community. He has been a member of the Midwinter Educational Club of
Pottsville for upwards of two decades. He was one of the incorporators
of the Schuylkill County Historical Society, and was its first
vice-president, and he has the reputation of being one of the best read
men in the community on local historic matters. He has been active in
the civic life of the section, and has held a number of offices of
honor and trust. During the great World War he was chairman of the
Schuylkill Haven divisions of the Committee of Public Safety, a member
of the Fuel Committee of Schuylkill County, and handled many delicate
tasks in a diplomatic manner. He steadfastly refused to fall in with
the popular hysteria as to the prevalence of spies, and the menace of
alien enemies, and yet Schuylkill County went through the war without
one overt enemy act of a destructive nature. Mr. Filbert’s work was of
the highest order, and won widespread praise. He also was the leader
in all of the sales of Liberty Bonds. Fraternally he is a member of
Page Lodge, No. 207, Free and Accepted Masons, of Schuylkill Haven, and
he is also a member of the Masonic Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania. He
maintains his law offices at Pottsville, but resides at Schuylkill
Haven.
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