The Puzzle of Daniel Wampler

Section 1.5.a Last update: 1/14/2001 RETURN To PUZZLES

The lineage starts with Nathanial Wampler who was said to be an officer in the German Army during the Queen Anne War and who fled to America in 1708-09. He was said to have settled in Halifax Co. VA. Barbara Wampler also indicated that he resided in Brunswick and other counties, but could find no records supporting this story.

The tradition states that Nathanial's son Peter Wampler was born ~1720, that he first married a native girl who died during the birth of their first child. His second marriage was said to be to a "English lady of rank in Penna," producing a single child, Nathanial II.

Nathanial II Wampler is said to have been born ~1745 and moved to Indiana as a young man. His son, Daniel was born in April of 1770 and from there the line is well documented.

Thus, the lineage is Nathanial->Peter->Nathanial II->Daniel. The major alternative lineage that has been proposed for this Daniel is Hans Peter Sr->Hans Peter Jr->Daniel. Both of these are reflected in our database. However, the descendents of Daniel are only given in the NA0 tree.

Another puzzle of Colonial America is how many Peter Wamplers were there? See "The Tracks of Peter Wampler" for a summary of the data supporting up to three Peter Wamplers. Hans Peter Sr., who arrived in 1741 along with his son Hans Peter Jr., died in 1749. He was born in Alsace in 1701. Hans Peter Jr. was also born in Alsace in 1722. While this correlates with the supposed birth date of Daniel's grandfather (1720), the rest of the story does not. There is no evidence Hans Peter Jr. lived in Virginia or had a son named Nathaniel. His grandfather was Christopher, not Nathaniel, and he was from Alsace, not Germany. A third Peter Wampler of this time has only weak support in the data. He might have lived in Pennsylvania before the Hans Peters arrived. There is a record of land purchase by Peter Wampler in March of 1740. In addition, there is another record of land purchase in 1794 in Maryland, two years after the death of Hans Peter Jr. in 1792. The possibility of this third Peter Wampler does not help much. At one time we thought he might be the father of Eve of "The Puzzel of Eve Wampler". However, recently added information suggests strongly that she was the daughter of the Peter Wampler who's will is recorded in 1792. This data is summarized in "The Puzzle of Eva Wampler, Revisited". Somewhat circumstantial data supports the assignment that this will is that of Hans Peter Jr. We know that this Peter did have a son Daniel who was named as a beneficiary in his will. However, if this is the same Daniel as the one of this puzzle, all of the information concerning his lineage in the traditional story is incorrect.

If this Daniel Wampler ([na3-1]) is not Peter's son ([hp2-6]), then there is not much information on that one. Catherine Royer Wampler (wife of Philip [hp3-1]) wrote home to her mother in 1830 from Ohio to say that Daniel (presumeably, her husbands uncle [hp2-6]) was in a "very poor state of health since last summer and its very doubty if he will recover." Since Daniel [na3-1] lived in PA and died there in 1852, it is possible, but not likely that they are the same person.

In our database, the records given at the [hp2-6] refer to those of the [na3-1] entry for lack of a resolution to this puzzle. Interestingly, there is a third (or second?) Daniel of this time. He arrived at the Port of Philadelphia aboard the Janius from San Salvadore Brazil in 1818. One way to reconcile these various records is to speculate the Daniel [hp2-6], son of Peter, was active in the Church of the Brethren like others in his family. Perhaps the record of arrival is for a return from a mission trip.