Written by William Rodney Eddleman, Descendant of Boston Eddleman
My earliest ancestor (that I can document) was John Eddleman of Lincoln Co., NC. He appears in the late 1770s. Other males in Lincoln Co. by 1790 have been assumed to be his brothers (Boston/Sebastian, David, and Peter). Their parents are unknown, but a tradition in Peter's line states they were Boston Eddleman and Sarah Pratt. I know of no traces of this family in Pa. Peter also states in his RW Pension application that he came to Rowan Co. in 1769 as a child, he fought as a substitute for his brother-in-law Leonard Sifford in the Revolution, and he moved to Lincoln Co. after the war. These Eddlemans all owned land on Killians and Leepers creeks in northern Lincoln Co. The close relationship with the Siffords (Seafort, Seiffert) suggests they were related somehow to Surry Co. Peter, because Siffords intermarried with Eddlemans in his area of the Odenwald according to church records.
John Eddleman moved with most of his family to Maury Co., TN about 1815. They left few tracks there, owned no land, and left little in estate records. My ancestor, John's son Henry, came to Mo. from Lincoln Co., NC in 1828. He appears to have been the most prosperous of the bunch--owning land in NC and MO, giving land to 2 Lutheran churches, and playing quite a role in the early history of southern Perry Co., MO. His sons were also pretty civic-minded and prosperous, with the exception of my GG grandfather William Hager Eddleman, who died at the young age of 36 from malaria and typhoid.
I am mainly a field biologist.
I mainly research other Eddleman lines to eliminate possibilities on my own line.
---- Bill