Cyriacks/Cyriax Family Christmas News

December 1998

Thank you for the kind help with answers to my April 1998 Newsletter request for family history information.  We try to find stories about how families took some form of the St. Cyriacus name for their name.

St. Cyriacus was so well thought of that, even after the Reformation, children born to some Lutheran families had Cyriacus as one of their given names.  This was especially true if an older man in the family was named Cyriacus, or if someone in the village named Cyriacus had no sons to continue the name.

We look for more family stories for the next Newsletter in 1999 or 2000, so your letter or phone call would be very much appreciated.  Please phone
- Renate Zimmermann at
- 04238-640 in
- Hohenaverbergen, just southeast of Verden and Bremen

She will help me find Cyriacks, etc. stories.  Her son, Tobias, 17, now lives at my home to attend our Neenah High School for 6 months.  Toby ".ist mein Helfer" to translate this Christmas note into German.

Passage made to America with landing at Staten Island to join the English army and a fleet of more than 300 ships at anchor.  New York City was held by the American rebels. Mirbach Regiment on ships saw the pretty little city of Arundel (Annapolis, Maryland), where the rebels had thrown up defensive positions and had two American flags flying. The Americans lose 100 men as 15,000 English and Hessian soldiers crossed to Long Island and did battle. The Mirbach Regiment sees action in the large and very thick woods near the village of Flatbush.  The Hessians captured two American generals and more than 800 Americans. The Hessians entered Brooklyn where all the rebel defenses had been abandoned the night before as the Americans crossed to New York City. The Hessians are in Pensylvania where their Jaegers (hunters) had a brief skirmish with the Americans. The entire rebel army assembled at Brandywine Hill and Creek retreats in haste and confusion. New York is evacuated by the Americans, who spiked all the cannons and took all the bells from the churches. Philadelphia is entered at daybreak on the 21st.  Fort Red Bank across the Delaware River in New Jersey refuses to surrender and is unsuccessfully attacked with the Mirbach Regiment in the center.  The Mirbachs suffer 36 dead, 56 wounded, and 15 taken prisoner with four officers killed and three wounded. The Americans capitulate at Fort Washington; 2,371 American prisoners are escorted that night by the Mirbach Hessians to Harlem, where they are guarded two days in barns before the English took them into New York. The Hessian Regiment was in winter quarters in houses on New York's Kings Street, which was better living than in barracks. The Mirbach Regiment debarks and enters quarters recently occupied by the 57th English regiment on the North River. After an uneventful year, the Mirbachs march north along the Hudson River. Some believe the plan is to capture Fort Defiance with its 100 cannons at West Point on the river.  Others think they march to hinder Washington's crossing the Hudson to New Jersey. The Americans along with several French regiments were discovered within the English-Hessian lines.  The von Mirbach regiment again wintered in New York City in both 1781 and 82. The regiment was assigned ships to sail back to England and Germany. They pass Dover and anchored to the east near Deal wintering until April 1st in England. The Weser River was reached and the anchor was dropped near Bremerlehe.  Small boats carried the soldiers to Bremen - no marching on the way home as they did eight years before for their 1776 departure to America. Two days from Bremen, the small boats (Boecke) stopped at Dreye, a customs station.  Many ditches had to be crossed by the horses pulling the ships.  This and the many bends in the Weser made travel slow.  That afternoon they passed the Achim River, close to the small village of Achim.  About 7:00 p.mn they passed Usen, a village on the left bank which was very high in elevation.  Here they lost sight of the towers of Bremen.  The night was spent near the village of Baden, the home of some of the Cyriacks who had originated in Etelsen just to the east. Only a short distance after Baden, the horses had to be transferred across the river to the right bank.  Here they covered the two worst miles (each German mile equal to six English miles) according to the regimental journal kept these 8+ years by the quartermaster.  Today this bad stretch of the Weser is bypassed by the Schleusenkanal, which begins upstream near Daverden and its church high on the north bank of the river.  The oldest Cyriacks records dating back to about 1680 come from this church.  The mouth of the Aller River is just above the start of the canal. After passing the stone bridge with nine large arches and two small ones, progress was slow.  Various farmers pulled the ships instead of horses. They passed Hameln at 11:00 a.m. The regiment arived at Münden where the Werra and Fulda Rivers join to form the Weser.  Here they unloaded the heavy baggage.  The next day they marched through Münden and 7 hours later arrived in the Hessian capital (Kassel?) to be inspected by His Serene Highness, "our dearest prince of the land."

One can understand how costly it must have been for King George to keep this big army in the field for almost eight years.  Peace came in 1783.

One Hessian who returned with money in his pocket was John Martin Holzhauer born the last day of July 1752.  He served 1780-1783 in the Seitz regiment.  His gr.-gr.-gr.-great grandson Hans-Jürgen Holzhauer in Nümberg wrote in his 1992 Family History that it is disputed today that these 12,500 soldiers from Hesse-Kassel were all volunteers (the contract with Britain for soldiers was signed January 15, 1776).