Drums of Drums Introduction

The gravestone has now stood in the St. John's Lutheran and St. John's U.C.C. (formerly Reformed) Cemetery, St. Johns, PA for 214 years. It marks the location of a five-year-old child’s grave. The inscription reads, “hier liegtingot Isaac Drum bgraben  geboren ten 18^th October 1799  gestorbn ten 8^th Mey 1804. das macht den zorn das wir sovergen”. Here lies Isaac Drum buried. Born 18 October 1799. Died 8 May 1804. I believe a rough translation of the last phrase might be, “Never to be forgotten” (to the best of my translation-ability it reads, “that makes anger; that we forgot”.)

That this five-year-old child is buried in the St. Johns Cemetery confirms the family was in the Drums valley at the time of Isaac’s passing in 1804. It marks not only Isaac’s grave, but documents the earliest known date of George Drum and his family being in the Drums valley.

A postcard of Drums I keep pinned to my wall (note the pin). That’s Drums in the middle, St. Johns is up in that crinkled upper right corner, the Little Nescopeck can be seen near the bottom lower left and I81 is the line that runs across the top half left to right.

This beautiful valley, in the midst of the Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania, sits approximately five miles North of Hazleton and just around 30 miles South of Wilkes-Barre. It is called Drums Valley because the village of Drums sits right in the center of the valley. The Drums Valley is also known as the Butler Valley. It is called the Butler Valley because Butler Township fills the valley up from Butler Mountain (also known as Buck Mountain) to Nescopeck Mountain. Butler Township is not to be confused with the town of Butler, PA. The Town of Butler is approximately 200 miles West of Drums; about 30 miles North of Pittsburgh. That is pretty country too, after all it is still Pennsylvania, but I think we can all agree it isn’t the Drums Valley.

Butler Mountain as seen from my home in Drums, PA (June 4, 2018).

“Drums”. Now THAT is an odd name for a place to be called! Why in heaven’s name would someone name a place “Drums”? Well, that was George’s fault. As important as Isaac is to us today for confirming the earliest known date of his family’s presence in the valley, George was all that and more when it comes to importance to the place that took his family’s name for itself. But we’ll get to this in a later post.

Now even though it is unusual for me to be ahead of my time, in this case I am, by about 100 years. Therefore, as is often true in so much of what we do in life, I must go backwards to go forwards! However, we’ll catch up quickly. What will follow in posts yet to come will be the story of specific descendants of a man named Philip Drum, beginning with him, himself, when he was born more than 300 years ago, in 1702.

Turns out, this Philip Drum is the progenitor of our line, as one Genealogist put it in 1927[a]. Philip was the first of “us” to come to this continent, that we know of, to stay. He arrived in Philadelphia in 1738. Now he wasn’t alone in holding the last name Drum. There are Drums spread across the country. There are Drums in North Carolina, New York, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas, almost every state, even California! Wait. Some of those California Drums, as well as some of those others, are from Philip’s tree, but believe it or not, many (most?) are not. Of course, we all MAY be from the same tree if the various trees are followed back far enough, but remember, I said only 300 years.

Most of what will be presented is documented fact. Some has been documented by me but a lot will be based on facts documented by someone else which I didn’t, or wasn’t able to, double-check. Some of what will be written here will be un-documentable oral history and some will be out-right supposition. None of it will be pure fiction on my part although I will, upon occasion, take poetic license to add ambiance such as “gulls screaming over-head while the ship rocks on the waves”. Stuff like that just gives the story more life and, therefore, I hope, makes it easier to read.  I hope you’ll forgive me when I do wander in this way.

I’ll try to post something at least once a month. As for the facts and/or suppositions that I post, if you should see something that I just plain missed or got wrong, know more about than I relate, and/or can confirm my “supposes”, let me know. We can always talk it over and I am always ready to learn more! Now, I am sure someone will know something about some member in this family that I don’t mention. “Hey! What about Ruben?” you’ll want to shout. “You just jumped right over Ruben!!” Now if you were to say such a thing, you’d be right. My line of inquiry will follow closely the direct father/son line from that first Drum named Philip to the 10^th generation of today, also named Philip. Believe me, some of those fathers along the way had a number of children and they also had a number of brothers and sisters, most of whom also had children, and most of those children had children…well, you begin to see the issue. There are a terrible lot of stories that could be told!

My intent here is not to address the stories of every one of Philip’s decedents. My intent is to focus in on those Drums – Philip, Jacob, George, Philip, John, Nathan A., Elmer, Harry, Ronald, Philip - who make the direct connection between my son and his Grandfather⁸ (including me and Philip that’s ten generations). That is not to say some of those stories about the brothers and sisters, even from other Drum trees, when known, can’t be told! In fact, I plan to tell at least one told to me by Kevin Drum from Ohio. But I never turn a story away. Tell me the one you want told, let me use your name, allow me to edit what you tell me, and we will all learn the stories for those I do not touch on in my discussions.

My plan is to roll the story out generally chronologically. So, in the next post, we’ll begin in Germany in 1702, take the trip across the ocean to the new world with Philip, and make some promises once we’ve arrived. Then in later posts we’ll investigate what became of Philip, his son Jacob, and their wives once here in Pennsylvania. The discussion will carry Jacob’s son George and his family to Drums and follow George’s descendants, staying close to the line advanced above, through the 1800’s and 1900’s until we reach the present. Down the line (no pun intended) we’ll focus on faith, war, coal mining, and various kinds of transportation that impacted the Drums and/or that the Drums impacted! 

The story of the Drums of Drums begins; at least the part of the history we know, anyway; not in Drums, of course, but approximately 3,895 miles east, in a place called Zweibrucken which is located in present-day Germany. There, we begin.

The next post: Into the Unknown! Return June 25 for a trip across the ocean.

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[a] Helman, Laura M., History and Genealogy of the Drum Family (Allentown, PA: Berkemeyer, Keck & Co., 1927)