Tobias Bickel arrived in Philadelphia as a young single man, fleeing the discrimination aimed at Anabaptists. The Anabaptists would not lift up arms, thus they wouldn’t take the oath of allegiance that required them to defend their country if needed. The Anabaptists in Europe became mostly Mennonites in the US. Most came to Philadelphia because of its tolerance of religious viewpoints and peaceful philosophy. There is some confusion when we go all the way back to Tobias Bickel because records show two men with the name. Nonetheless, whether or not we can find the right one in Germany, somehow the two melded into one in America in all of the records found by our cousin Joyce Veigel Giaque and her husband Charles Giaque.
So we go with records that have Tobias arriving in America by ship from Germany on Sept. 26, 1737. He and his brother Frederick settled in the Heidelberg section of Berks County Pennsylvania. The most interesting thing here is that our ancestor Jacob Hochstetler fled the same Anabaptist discrimination and arrived in Philadelphia via the ship Harle on Sept. 1, 1736. His name on the ship roster is Jacob Hofstedler. Is it possible that our two ancestors knew each other as young men in Philadelphia?
Tobias (born either in 1711 or 1718 in Germany, depending on which record is right of the two possible Tobias Bickels) is believed to be buried in an unmarked grave in Rowe’s Church Cemetery in Penn Township, Pennsylvania. He married twice and had 13 children. His second wife was Elizabeth Christopher. She was the mother of his last 10 children, one of whom was our ancestor Thomas Bickel. It wasn’t until the early 1800s that our ancestor Thomas, sixth child of Tobias, moved to Ohio. He married Barbara Weaver in Berks County, Pennsylvania, but both died in Mechanic Township, Holmes County, Ohio, where my grandmother Alma Bickel Dewar was born in 1892, so the family was pretty steadfast in Holmes County from the early 1800s. In fact most Bickels living in Holmes and Coshocton Counties are descendants of Thomas and Barbara.
Thomas and Barbara’s second son was John Thomas. He married Eva Margaret Krieger. They were both part of the family that came to Ohio in the early 1800s since they married in Pennsylvania in 1798. They are believed to be buried in the Reformed Church Cemetery at New Bedford, Ohio but there are no existing headstones. They had seven children, the third of which is our ancestor George John Bickel. He was born in 1804, still in Pennsylvania and came to Ohio with his parents and grandparents. He died in 1886 and is buried in the Clinton Brick Cemetery in Elkhart, IN. His wife Catherine Mizer is buried in Fairfield Cemetery in DeKalb County in Ashley, IN. They died within months of one another, she on April 9 and he on August 15, 1886, so their separate burials may be a mystery, except that he was living with his son in Elkhart, IN when he died in August. It is possible that after she died, his son moved George Bickel to Elkhart and it seemed expedient to bury him there. George, born in 1804, would have been 82 when he died and Catherine, born in 1802, would have been 84, so perhaps they weren’t well enough to even have a say where they were to be buried. They had eight children. This is where we get to Alma Bickel Dewar’s grandparents. Their first child was Thomas George Bickel born August 17, 1826 in Millcreek Township, Coshocton County, Ohio. Thomas George Bickel married Elizabeth Hochstetler, born in New Beford, Coshocton County, Ohio Nov. 29 , 1833. So finally we bring together the descendants of Jacob Hochstetler and Tobias Bickel.
Thomas George Bickel died on Feb. 24, 1909 in Mechanic Township, Holmes County, Ohio and Elizabeth died on Dec. 13, 1903, in Mechanic Township, Holmes County. Thanks to the Veigel Giaques, their graves are well and beautifully marked in a tiny cemetery, which is hard to find, but well kept and can be visited. It is in the countryside of Holmes County, outside of Millersburg, Ohio. They married on May 1, 1853 and had 5 children: Mary Ann, Levi, Nancy Jane, Cyrus Thomas and Ida Catherine. Mary Ann married John Buss. She is buried in Dekalb County, IN. They had five children. Levi married Malinda Strock. They are buried in the West Lawn Cemetery in Baltic, Ohio. They adopted Pearl. Nancy Jane married John Leach. They are in the same tiny cemetery as her parents, Thomas and Elizabeth, outside of Millersburg. Ida Catherine married Phillip J. Fett. They had 5 children, Celesta, Mary, Thomas, Zelpha and Ruth. Zelpha was one of Grandma Dewar’s favorite cousins. She was born in 1905, so she was younger than Grandma by 13 years. She married Gottlieb Edward Veigel and their daughter is Joyce Arlene Veigel, born 1929, who married Charles Albert Giaque. She was an elementary teacher with a BS from Ohio State. She wrote the book from which I get most of this information; she died in 2001 in Morrow, Ohio.
Our ancestor, my great grandfather, is the fourth child of Thomas George and Elizabeth Hochstetler Bickel, Cyrus Thomas Bickel, born 1861. He married Nancy Jane Clark born 1859. He was born in Holmes County, Nancy in Coshocton County. They moved to Harrisville, Michigan, Alcona County in 1899. They are buried in Harrisville in the same burial plot as Nancy Clark Bickel’s father George Clark and their daughters Alma Leora Bickel Dewar and Addah Wyona Bickel Freer Walker. They had four children, Walter, Mary Elizabeth (Madie), Alma Leora and Addah Wyona.
Family History 