Whitesell-Somers Family Web Project - Person Sheet
Whitesell-Somers Family Web Project - Person Sheet
BurialFriedens Lutheran Church, 6001 NC Highway 61 North, Gibsonville, North Carolina [297]
Birthabt 1718, Reinish Palatinate, Ober Bexbach, Germany [802]
Death1798, Guilford County, North Carolina [802]
OccupationMiller [297]
FlagsEarliest Ancestor
FatherPeter / Petrus SUMMERS (1685-)
MotherElizabeth (1685-)
Spouses
ChildrenJohn (1745-<1788)
Maria Barbara (1751-1796)
Hope (1754-)
Faith (1751-)
Peter (1757-1837)
Adolphus Valentine (1768-1853)
Obituary Online notes for Anna Margaret (Spouse 1)
This single marker honors a husband and wife, Jacob and Margaret Summers, whose story reaches all the way back to Germany and the earliest days of settlement in North Carolina.
Jacob's inscription tells us he died at age 60, while Margaret's notes that she passed away in 1810 at the age of 90. No dates of birth are listed, but the stone made me curious, especially since this cemetery is filled with families who immigrated here from Germany.
What I found was fascinating.
Jacob Summers was born in 1710 in Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany, and Margaret was born in Langenselbold, Hessen, Germany. I haven't yet found the year they married or the exact date they arrived in America, but they likely immigrated through Pennsylvania before moving south. By 1768, one of their sons was already born in North Carolina, suggesting the family had settled here by then- possibly even earlier.
Like many German families of the time, they were probably part of the Pennsylvania Dutch migration down the Great Wagon Road, the major route that carried thousands of settlers from Pennsylvania through the Shenandoah Valley and into the Carolina backcountry during the 1700s. This movement shaped much of North Carolina's early culture, farming traditions, and communities.
Jacob and Margaret had at least three sons, including Peter Summers (born 1757), who became a soldier in the Revolutionary War.
He is buried nearby, not far from the parents who brought their family across an ocean and into a new life on the American frontier.
What a remarkable legacy, carved into a single weathered stone.
FROM " THE FORGOTTEN SOUTH" 1/7/2026 [3210]
Jacob's inscription tells us he died at age 60, while Margaret's notes that she passed away in 1810 at the age of 90. No dates of birth are listed, but the stone made me curious, especially since this cemetery is filled with families who immigrated here from Germany.
What I found was fascinating.
Jacob Summers was born in 1710 in Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany, and Margaret was born in Langenselbold, Hessen, Germany. I haven't yet found the year they married or the exact date they arrived in America, but they likely immigrated through Pennsylvania before moving south. By 1768, one of their sons was already born in North Carolina, suggesting the family had settled here by then- possibly even earlier.
Like many German families of the time, they were probably part of the Pennsylvania Dutch migration down the Great Wagon Road, the major route that carried thousands of settlers from Pennsylvania through the Shenandoah Valley and into the Carolina backcountry during the 1700s. This movement shaped much of North Carolina's early culture, farming traditions, and communities.
Jacob and Margaret had at least three sons, including Peter Summers (born 1757), who became a soldier in the Revolutionary War.
He is buried nearby, not far from the parents who brought their family across an ocean and into a new life on the American frontier.
What a remarkable legacy, carved into a single weathered stone.
FROM " THE FORGOTTEN SOUTH" 1/7/2026 [3210]