Eisenhart Family Groups

Spring Valley Eisenharts

According to his burial record, Benjamin Eisenhart, the patriarch of the Spring Valley Eisenhart family, was born on March 24, 1803. Because there is little in the way of existing document evidence, information about his early life and family origin is minimal. The newspaper (Der Unabhängige Republikaner) announcement of his marriage to Catharina Seibel on December 4, 1825 stated that both the bride and groom were residents of Macungie, so it seems certain that he had grown up as one of the Allentown/Macungie Eisenhard/t clan. After his marriage, he lived in Macungie Twp. (1830) and what would become Allentown (1840). However, for reasons that remain unclear today, he moved his family eastward to Spring Valley (Saucona) in the mid 1840s. In 1848 he purchased a large home and farmland from the Apple family, and over the years he augmented his holdings to include various business interests and considerable additional acreage. His prosperity was further increased when he loaned the U.S. Government a large sum of money during the Civil War, which was repaid at a generous rate of interest, and subsequently, when iron ore deposits were discovered on his property, he received additional compensation from the company that eventually became the Bethlehem Steel Corporation.

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Benjamin and Catharine Eisenhart raised 13 children, all but two of whom remained in the Spring Valley/Bethlehem/Hellertown area, including sons Tilghman, Benjamin Seibel, Hiram, Henry, Moses, Franklin, and Milton, and daughters Sarah Erdman, Eliza Sterner, Caroline Weber, and Matilda Beck. Son Jacob emigrated to Ohio and son Owen to Binghamton NY. Benjamin and Catharine would eventually have approximately 90 grandchildren. He died in the Eisenhart Old Homestead in Spring Valley on September 6, 1878, and both he and Catharine are buried in the Apple’s Church Cemetery in Lower Saucon Twp.

Because of his somewhat mysterious past, several generations of Benjamin’s descendants worked diligently in an attempt to unravel his family ancestry. Ruth C. Eisenhart (1909-1989) of Washington D. C. and Amber C. Eisenhart (1889-1982) of Escondido CA were two of the many Spring Valley Eisenhart family members who contributed to this effort.

With the results of the Eisenhart & Related Surname DNA Project initiated in 2006, it was established that Benjamin was the great grandson of Andreas Eisenhart II (The Immigrant) and the grandson of Andreas Eisenhart III. By examining the given names and birth dates of the children of Andreas III’s sons, it appears most likely that Benjamin Eisenhart was the son of Daniel Eisenhart (1780-1826), but irrefutable document proof of this relationship is still lacking.

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