Adam Phillip Pitz

ADAM PHILIPP PITZ (15) was born in Waldgrehweiler on an undetermined date in either 1785 or 1786, and he died in Waldgrehweiler on 30 March 1861. He and his children lived during one of the periods of greatest turmoil in European history. The French Revolution occurred in 1789 and set the stage for the Napoleonic Wars (1796-1815) and the incorporation of the Rhineland into the Napoleonic Empire. During his reign, Napoleon ravaged the Rhineland and created a political, economic, and social upheaval that brought to an end the 500-year old feudal system that had bound peasants to land owned by manorial lords, had retarded the growth of towns, and had stifled the migration of common people. While the collapse of the feudal system, together with the start of the industrial revolution, freed people from the bonds that had constrained them for centuries, these developments also deprived them of the security inherent in the feudal system. Untold numbers of Germans found themselves free, but without any means to support themselves. Those who had marketable skills, those who managed to gain ownership of a few acres of land, and those who joined the military remained. Millions of others packed their meager possessions and emigrated, some to uncultivated lands in Eastern Europe, some to South American, and many to the 19th Century “land of opportunity,” the United States.

Adam Philipp reportedly was a swine herder (“Schweinehirt”). The mother of his children was KATHARINA BARBARA LAHR (16), who presumably was his wife, though this could not be confirmed through extant records. Adam and Katharina appear as the parents on the birth records of nine children: + (17) JAKOB - (18) EVA KATHARINA was born on 22 October 1810. Extant and accessible records provide no further information about her. - (19) VALENTIN-MAURER lived in Waldgrehweiler his entire life, from his birth on 11 August 1812, through his marriage to Katharina Werrmann on 13 May 1837, and his death on 24 March 1872. + (20) PHILIPP ADAM + (21) PETER - (22) SIMON was born on 5 February 1819 in Waldgrehweiler, married Elisabeth Fries on 14 October 1842, and died on 17 December 1878 in Kaiserslautern (about 20 kilometers south of Waldgrehweiler). + (23)CHRISTIAN + (24) HEINRICH - (25) CAROLINE was born on 16 June 1827 and died on 24 September 1829. Her places of birth and death could not be determined.

KATHARINA BARBARA LAHR (16) was born circa 1783 in Schmalfelderhof (a few kilometers from Waldgrehweiler) and died on 8 September 1862 in Waldgrehweiler. Her death certificate lists her parents as George LAHR and Maria Elisabetha PITZ.