I have begun to suspect that there was a John Martz of Augusta Township, PA who perhaps married and had children by 1820 and died there in the 1840’s. His presence in Augusta Township suggests that the two best candidates to be his father would have been either David or Jacob Martz, the two earliest Martzes of that place. Since David definitely had a son John and I know his full biography, by process of elimination if this extra John existed he might have been the son of Jacob. (He was too old, I believe, to have been a grandson of either David or Jacob.)

I have considered that maybe Jacob’s imagined son John was maybe one and the same as Jacob’s known son John Henry, born in 1775, who I think maybe died young. In the early-mid 1700’s, a boy named John Henry (Johann Heinrich) would have gone through life known as Henry but by the very late 1700’s and certainly by the 1800’s customs were changing and he might well have been known as John or John H as an adult. On the other hand, I think all the evidence points to John being younger than John Henry would have been.

Everything that follows is what I know and speculate to be true about a man I believe existed and was known as John Martz. He is designated P6c.

Sarah Martz existed. I first became aware of her from the 1850 Census. She was presumably a widow, she was age 54 and living with her were two presumed children: William age 16 and Sarah 14. The question was whose widow was she? I know a lot about the Martzes of that area in that period of time, and yet I had no immediate idea.

So I began to consider every Martz I knew who definitely existed but yet I couldn’t be sure what happened to them. And about the first name I came up with was Peter Martz (P1d). He settled his father's estate in 1812, was in Census in 1820 and 1830 and then disappeared. Other than knowing he sold property in Chilisqauque with wife Elizabeth in about 1817 and that he had then lived in Sunbury and been involved in politics, I knew nothing more about him. So I googled “Peter and Sarah Martz”.

And I got a hit. I found a citation in the Pennsylvania State Archives that in 1842, an appeal was made to to the PA Canals Commission for payment of money due him for operating the locks on the PA Canal on behalf of Sarah Martz widow of Peter. The idea began to form that Sarah was Peter’s second wife.

To try to see if I could find any more evidence of the idea that Sarah was Peter’s widow, I did more research on Peter and on Sarah and also on Peter’s (first?) wife Elizabeth. Here are some things I learned:

Peter died in 1840.
Sarah wrote her will in 1863 and named her beloved son John.
John Martz of the right age to be Sarah’s beloved son lived next door to Sarah in 1850.
An administration on the estate of Peter’s widow Elizabeth was initiated in 1842.
Elizabeth’s estate was settled in 1848 with payments to her children: Susan Purcell, Henry K Martz and John Martz.
The date of the petition for payments to Sarah was made on 11 Mar 1842.
Elizabeth’s estate administration was initiated 12 Mar 1842.
The petition of Peter’s widow, whose name was then give as Susan, was approved 15 Mar 1842.

I have considered many possible ways to make sense of all of this — see the very lengthy discussion in my profile of Peter Martz (P1d). But the key facts that made me finally decide that Sarah was NOT Peter’s widow were these:

1. Peter had a son John by his wife Elizabeth. If he married second Sarah, would he have named another son John? I don’t think so.
2. Elizabeth died in 1842. Now I have considered that maybe Elizabeth died years (a decade?) earlier but had no assets until her father died in 1839, so needed no administration until after that event. But on the other hand, her father’s 1839 will did not refer to daughter Elizabeth as deceased, so the presumption is she was alive then.
3. The confusion in the PA State Archives as to whether Peter’s widow was Sarah or Susan and the very coincidental timing of that petition and Elizabeth’s estate entering administration. I just wonder whether the petition was initiated as a direct result of Elizabeth’s death and perhaps they were confused on her name down in Harrisburg. (Or could her name have been Sarah Elizabeth or Susan Elizabeth?)

For those reasons, I finally ruled Peter out as Sarah’s deceased husband. The next candidate I considered was John Martz who I knew only from the 1820 and 1840 Census and from Augusta Township tax lists in 1806 to 1827.

One thing perhaps supporting this idea is that in Pioneer Martzes of Northumberland County by Joseph A Meiser (and Richard J Martz), it says Sarah was the widow of John Martz. The John they are suggesting was her husband they say was born in 1807 (ignoring that Sarah was age 52 in 1850) and was in turn the son of John Martz and Elizabeth Arter. But all that is not true. John (P2a, see his profile elsewhere) and Elizabeth After did have a son John — but he was born in 1815 and died — with no heirs — in 1837.

Still, it is curious that they thought that Sarah was the widow of John. Did they have some evidence, not noted, in support of that idea?

Because Sarah Martz, widow, was living with Elizabeth Miller, 29 years her senior, in the 1850 Census, my guess is she was Sarah Miller.

I believe Sarah Martz in the 1850 and 1860 Census was the widow of John Martz. In 1850, she was age 54 and lived with William 16 and Sarah 14. Meiser suggests they were her grandchildren. Also living with Sarah in 1850 was Elizabeth Miller age 83 and Hannah Savage 44 and my guess is that Elizabeth may have been the mother of both Sarah and Hannah.

In 1860, her immediate neighbors were Elizabeth Fasold age 25 wife of Daniel and next to the Fasolds, John Martz age 38 whose wife was Harriet. I think John was her son who she left property and two houses to in her will.

Sarah is not on find-a-grave. But I do know about when she died as she left a will (here abstracted): “I, Sarah Martz of Lower Augusta Township…, considering the uncertainty….First, I give unto my beloved son John Martz this property with two houses on property and land also and after her (meaning my) death the loose property to be sold. I bequeath to each of my sons and daughters one dollar each. I bequeath unto Wm Martz a son of John Martz one mantle clock. I give bequeath the same to my beloved son John Martz, my Executor….19 March 1863.”

Her will proved 31 March 1863.

The William, son of John, she referred to was not the William living with her in 1850. Sarah’s (presumed) son William was age 16 in 1850, while John’s son William was born about 1853. In her will, she mentioned son John and mentioned that she had other sons and daughters, but did not name any of the others.

I believe William age 16 living with her in 1850 was another son. For now, I am proposing that he was the William who then in 1860 appeared in Census in Selinsgrove and who I otherwise can’t identify.