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THE FILBRUN FAMILY
- AN OVERVIEW
The history of the Filbrun family has been traced
back six centuries to the ancient German village of Vielbrunn by the
authors and researchers of *A
Filbrun Family History.
“Viel” (the “v” in German is pronounced as an “f” in English)
translates as “many” and “brunn” means “springs”.
Vielbrunn, a health resort today, is still noted for its many
springs. (Click
on “history” at the top of this page for more information about life
and times in Germany during those centuries.) The earliest official records are of a Peter
Fillbrunn who was born about 1535, although there are reports of a
Hans Fillbrunn (Peter’s father?) born about 1480.
(If true, Hans would have been a mere boy of 12 when Columbus
discovered America!) Beginning
in the 1600s, many Filbruns served as mayor and/or imperial postmaster
– a singularly high honor at that time - of the farming community
of Neckarhausen, near Vielbrunn. The best-known member of the family was Alexander
Mack whose mother was Peter Filbrun’s great-granddaughter. Mack was the principal founder of the German Baptist religious
sect that became the Church of the Brethren after he immigrated to
the United States in 1729. But the first descendent bearing the Filbrun
name to come to this country was Johann Peter Fillbrunn in 1818. He promptly dropped the “Johann” and an “n” from “Fillbrunn”.
Peter Fillbrun settled in Maryland, married Elizabeth Harshbarger
and in about 1829 moved his family on to Wayne Township, Montgomery
County, Ohio (where he shed the second “l” from his name.)
Initially, Peter settled near his brother-in-law, Daniel Arnold,
whose farm now comprises the principal acreage of Carriage Hill Metro
Park and Farm in Huber Heights. So it is from Peter and Elizabeth Filbrun’s three
sons, Joseph, John and Henry that the Filbrun Family in the United
States has since descended.
And they have proliferated, as evidenced by the nearly two
dozen Filbruns and Filburns in the 2001 Dayton, Ohio phone directory. * Acknowledgements |
