Background
Bartlyme Bentziger (spelling varies) came from Germany on the ship, Patience on August 11th, 1750 through the port of Philadelphia. We know this from family bibles and from the actual ship passenger list (http://tinyurl.com/23osmyg [he's towards the bottom, apparently indicating that he was not considered that important!]). For an idea of what the journey was like, you can skim through Gottlieb Mittelberger's "Journey to Pennsylvania in the year 1750," an actual first hand account of coming to PA from Germany in that very same year! Read it free: http://tinyurl.com/342mmya
Bartlyme married Catherine Bendendorf (widow with a son named Michael). Together Bartlyme and Catherine had four children: Christina, Anna, Catherine and John Henry Bensinger, baptized 11/4/1759 as Henry Pensinger. Many families from this time period Americanized their names, Bentziger become Pensinger.
Henry was the last child born and his mother, Catherine died either at Henry’s birth or shortly thereafter.
War Service
Henry Pensinger at age 17, enlisted in the Fourth Pennsylvania Regiment under Colonel Anthony Wayne in a company commanded by a Captain Church in 1776. He served in the Battle of Three Rivers (http://www.myrevolutionarywar.com/battles/760608.htm) where he was wounded, and later lost his left leg at Ticonderoga during the winter of 1777. He was hospitalized in Philadelphia where he was ultimately discharged after a six months stay.
Post Discharge Activity
Henry married Rosannah Singer and they had eleven children. His service as a pvt is well documented by muster sheets and pension requests, and qualifies every woman directly descended from him to join Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). You can view one of the muster sheets here: http://tinyurl.com/2ap4ouy (Right column) Here is a copy of the original pension request that lists his property and states that he fought in the Battle of Three Rivers: http://tinyurl.com/23aahpt
Descendants
Henry’s first son, Jacob Sr. was born 9/25/1789. Jacob Sr. is depicted in the first photograph shown on this site. In about 1810 he moved to Franklin County, as documented in this history book on page 868 http://tinyurl.com/28p8haq Reading the book you'll see that Jacob Sr.'s kids and grandkids filled the town. One of them even became a prominent local politician. Just read it! Look up "Pensinger" in the index. The family is mentioned throughout the book for their involvement in various agencies.
Jacob Pensinger Sr. married Mary Coy. They had ten children, their fourth child was Jacob Jr. born 4/8/1813. Jacob Pensinger Jr. married Elizabeth Wilson and had ten children. He remarried shortly after her death to Catherine Miller. They had five children the eldest was Samuel born 1/1/1857.
Samuel married Annie Cromer and they had ten children. (Grant says his grandfather Samuel was a ‘mean’ man!) Their sixth child was Elmer Pensinger born 12/12/1889. Elmer married Edith Denisar and had two children Lloyd 7/4/1915 and Mabel 4/12/1917. Edith died when she was just twenty two from internal injuries received from being kicked by a cow. Elmer remarried Prudence Upperman and they had three children: Marguerite 8/18/1921, Ruth 3/29/1926 and Grant 3/4/1931.
Epilogue
Because there are so many Henry Pensinger descendants there is a very good chance that more and differing information has been gathered by other branches of the family tree. Hopefully having one, centralized location to store information will clarify things quite a bit for all of us! To contribute to this page please contact: henrypensinger@yahoo.com
Lineage at a glance (example):
1. me, Sarah
2. my mom, Sue
3. grandpa, Grant
4. Elmer
5. Samuel
6. Jacob Jr.
7. Jacob Sr.
8. Henry Pensinger
9. Bartlyme Bentziger 