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Note: perty near Whitehouse. He furnished the seats for the Zion Lutheran Church in Rockaway (latter called Potterstown) and became an elder of the congreation. He was of Hardenburg, Germany, Graffschaft Co. Pickel's Mt. (Cushetunk) was named for him. He was 79 yrs old when he died.
"We find no record of a church in this area prior to 1749. It may be extant, written in German. In the present church edifice at New Germantown (Oldwick) is a stone marked 'Zion's Evangelical Lutheran Church, erected in 1749.' The same walls, built at that date form the building. They are two feet thick and were built to stand for ages. But it is a wonderful undertaking for such a people as this, in a remote wilderness to erect such an edifice. And who were these people? Baltis Pickel, Aaron Melick, Kline, Fritz Cramer, Van Vliet, Dietz (now Deats)***, Hildebrant, Shurts, Kruger, Bartles, &c. Some of them are the very same men who carried the musket in Spain under the banners of Queen Anne.
"Close to the walls on the east end of the church in New Germantown lie buried the bones of Baltis Pickel and his wife Catharine. He was born in 1686 and died in 1765, aged 79. Catharine was born in 1684 and died in 1761, aged 77. These two then came with the colony in 1710, young and devoted to God and freedom. They accompanied their people through all their wanderings and saw their temples reared in the land they went out to inherit, and calmly laid down in their last sleep close by the walls their devotion and
long suffering had helped to rear."
The Early Germans of New Jersey; Their History, Churches and Genealogies
REV. LUDOLPH HEINRICH SCHRENCK.
page 73
One of these two men was Baltus Pickle , who had been the builder of the church, had paid 50 poundstowards the organ and 25 for the church. Moreover the church was still in debt to him for materials and work in building. This indebtedness was included in the 1,000 pounds which Baltus Pickle afterwards left by will to the New Germantown Church at his death in 1760.
Note: The marriage was recorded by the New York Lutheran Church by Rev. Justus Falckner. The minister who married them was Rosscher. Johan Balthasar Pickel prospered in New Jersey. Before 1729 he owned land in Round Valley; later he acquired more pro
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