Martin Loy (to America 1741)

Martin Loy (born [unknown year, estimated around 1710-1720] near Heidelberg,* Germany—died shortly before his will was proven in May 1779 Orange Co., NC court)
md.
Catherine Foust** (born [unknown year and birth place]—died between 1779-1798, likely in Orange Co., NC)

*Note: According to family tradition of Martin’s son Henry’s son John Henry Loy’s descendants, the Loys originated “near Heidelberg.” Other researchers have determined he came from Baden. Heidelberg is in the Stadt (state) of Baden-Württemberg, so this would explain how both would be correct.

**Note: Catherine’s maiden name was Foust, according to the earliest of the family researchers from the mid to late 1800s, which also said daughter Mary married George Foust. There were and are yet Foust families in the old Orange Co., NC vicinity. No birth or death date is known of Catherine, but per Martin’s will, their son Henry was to inherit the family land after her death. When Henry died (by the February 1798 court term) this land had been part of his estate, which his heirs later sold.

Martin Loy arrived in Philadelphia, PA on 26 September 1741 on the ship St. Mark, shipmaster William Wilson.

Martin and Catherine only spoke German, as did their children. From my research, many (if not all) of their grandchildren, by all three of their sons, only learned English as they got older and in all likeliness some may have never learned English. One granddaughter by son George attended German-speaking churches in NC even to old age, another granddaughter by son George, only literate in German, learned to read an English-language Bible after her children were grown, after her fervent praying that she could read the English Bible. Two sons by son John and their wives attended Stoner’s church, a German-speaking church in what is now Alamance Co., NC. One grandson by son Henry spoke German only until he was 16 years old, about the time his widowed mother migrated the family from North Carolina.

Martin Loy’s will was dated 15 July 1777, proven May 1779, Orange Co., NC.

Martin Loy’s sons are mentioned in the Early Orange Co., NC Tax Records for 1779 and the 1790 Orange Co., NC Census, his two widowed daughters-in-law were in the 1800 Orange Co., NC census. Son John and his descendants continued being in Orange Co., NC census in 1800, 1810, 1820, 1830 and just John’s descendants after John’s 1840 death. I used to have links to these Rootsweb transcriptions but URLs kept changing and now, late 2017 and early 2018, Rootsweb.com has been offline for maintenance. Once its entire site is restored, one may view transcriptions by going to Rootsweb and doing a search for “Loy” under their North Carolina state search. The new locations for these items should come up, along with other various North Carolina Loy record transcriptions. Aside from Ancestry.com (a paid subscription) these census images can also be found (for free) at FamilySearch.org, although I have not found the 1779 Tax Records there.

A caveat I will give concerning many online trees and even Find a Grave: Some submitters give unproven parentage of Martin Loy. In the 1980s, a distant cousin mentioned to me about someone sending him a Haßloch Reformed Church record transcript that had a Martin Laye marriage to Anna Fechter, with names of fathers of bride and groom. The same church records listed children born to them, baptized in that church. In my research, I’ve come across many men in Germany in that era named Martin Loy (and variant spelling surname), even as there are now. I’ve found nothing documented to show this was Martin (to America 1741) with a prior marriage and children from this marriage. Now with modern internet and online trees, I’m seeing people post as if this was the same Martin, and list him with two marriages and claim all the children by Fechter died before he left Germany. (Again, none of this has been proven.) Other trees list only Catherine Foust as wife and give his mother as Fechter and listing Martin Laye’s father as his father. Of course, none of these give documentation, either. As a result of all this, this is why in my records I document my line only as far back as Martin (to America 1741).

Martin and Catherine’s children:

Born Where Died Where
#1 George Loy ? likely PA will proven 1799 St. Asaph’s District, Orange [now Alamance] Co., NC
md. Catherine Tillman ca. 1740-
1750
? between ca. 1830-
1842
likely in AL, if not East TN or KY
#2 John Loy 1747 PA 3 May 1840 Orange [now Alamance] Co., NC
md. Mary Duffie (“Molly”) Holt ? after 1830 census
#3 Mary Loy ? ? after 1777 ?
md. George Foust ? ? ? ?
#4 Henry Loy ? ? by February 1798 court session regarding estate St. Asaph’s District, Orange [now Alamance] Co., NC
md. Margaret [Tillman??] ? ? between November 1808-
1814
Anderson [now Union] Co., TN or Madison Co., AL

This site’s section of the Martin Loy (to America 1741) branch is still in process of being converted from the old HTML format into the new WordPress PHP format. As a result, nearly all .html pages at LoyHistory.com will change once site is completely converted. Until then, some links here will still direct to the old .html pages.

The “Special Links of Interest to Martin Loy’s (to America 1741) Family” page has been temporarily removed. I noted too many URLs that linked to Rootsweb were “dead” due to Ancestry.com’s complete renovation of the Rootsweb website. So quite a few links I’ll have to chase down before I can update.

What About Anna Marie (Loy) Sharp??