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Maria Catharina Youngken (1749-1815) was born in 1749, likely in Tinicum Township, Bucks County, PA, the daughter of German immigrants Johann "Herman" and Magdalena Youngken. Her maiden name also has been spelled over the years as "Younken" and "Junkin."

At the age of 17, circa 1766, she was joined in wedlock with John "Henry" Sebastian Haupt Jr. (May or July 21, 1744-1809), son of John Henry "Sebastian" and Catharine Haupt Sr. The family surname alternately has been spelled "Houpt" over the years.

Henry's father, Sebastian, is believed to have originated in the Palatinate region of Germany and came to America at age 23 aboard the ship Glasgow, which arrived in the Port of Philadelphia on Sept. 11, 1738. He eventually settled in Perkiomen, Montgomery County, PA.

Ray Haupt's Haupt Family Origins book and a coat of arms circa 1693

Rev. W.H. Haupt's manuscript history of the Haupts Courtesy Somerset (PA) Historical Center

The family of a dozen children they produced together included John Haupt, Mary Magdalena Kreider, Sebastian Haupt, Samuel Haupt, John "Jacob" Haupt, Sarah Piesch, John Henry "Sebastian" Haupt III, Maria Elizabeth Haupt, Abraham Haupt, Catherine Evans, Henry Haupt and Elisabeth Baker.

Two of the children are known to have died young. Son John Henry "Sebastian" III (Aug. 4, 1771-1775) passed away in 1775. Daughter  Maria "Elizabeth" (March 16, 1783-1786) received the rite of Christian baptism on May 11, 1783 but surrendered to the angel of death at two-plus years of age in 1786. Their tender remains were laid to rest in Durham Lutheran Church Cemetery and a notation of both deaths was written into the church records.

The Haupts' home in the early 1800s was in Durham Township, Bucks County. When the township was legally formed in 1775, Henry's name appeared a petition supporting the move. He is said to have operated grist mills on a cousin's tract in Upper Dublin, PA. In 1770, he spent £1,200 to acquire a mill property from his father-in-law in Springfield Township, near Durham. As of 1931, descendants remained in possession of that tract of land.

Then in 1771, Henry purchased an 80-acre tract from his father, at a price of £150, and appears to have rented it to tenant farmers. He held on to this tract for three years until selling it again for £515, quite a marked appreciation. When lots in the Durham property were made available for sale, he bought two along Cook's Creek, of nearly 500 acres, adjacent to his earlier purchase. They erected a house and raised their family on the acreage. Records of family births, deaths and marriages were kept in a large German Bible.

During the American Revolutionary War, Henry went to Durham to sign an Oath of Allegiance to the new nation on May 27, 1778. He is believed to have served in a Pennsylvania militia unit, circa 1781, Capt. George Heinlein's Company of Durham. 

Wrote a great-granddaughter in 1931, "He had a busy life, buying and selling much property, running mills, farm, distillery and forge, and his six sons were kept so strictly and severely at work, that each of them, as he came of age, went out of the homestead to work for himself... [to] escape from parental control. It is commonly said that the Bucks County Haupts went north, south, east and west." 

Henry was burdened with kidney disease in his final years. He passed away at the age of 64 on New Year's Day 1809. Interment was in a private burial grounds near their home.

Maria Catharine survived him by six years. Stricken with heart disease, the angel of death cleaved her away in Springfield Township on Jan. 20, 1815, at the age of 66. 

Durham Furnace area near the Houpts' homeplace

Younkin Family News Bulletin, 1938

Their and their offspring's early burials were in the private grounds. Then after the Durham Lutheran Church was incorporated, on Sept. 15, 1862, the coffins were removed and reburied near other loved ones at Durham, and new stones erected in their memory.

Their genealogy was chronicled in 1931 by a great-granddaughter, Anita (Smith) Eyster. She shared her materials for publication in the Younkin Family News Bulletin of the 1930s and her materials later were deposited in the Spruance Library at the Mercer Museum in Doylestown, in affiliation with the Bucks County Historical Society. Other records were typed under the title "Haupt family in America" by Rev. William H. Haupt of St. Andrew's Rectory in Charition, Iowa, with a copy deposited at the Somerset County (PA) Historical Society. The Colonial Haupt Association at some point published a book, entitled Descendants of Sebastian Haupt who arrived at Philadelphia September 9, 1738.

The Houpts were known by the founding committee of the Younkin National Home-coming Reunion of the 1930s. Writing in the April 30, 1938 edition of its companion newspaper, the Younkin Family News Bulletin, editor and reunion secretary Charles Arthur Younkin said that "In future issues, we hope to tell you of much inter-married families... The Younkin and Houpt... Any person having any data on any of the above, should send it to your secretary."

Then in 1996, Ray Haupt of Greensboro, NC, a high school teacher, published his research in the 466-page book Haupt Family Origins in the Rheinland-Pfalz and their American Descendants. In this work, he included a coat of arms that had been presented to a Heinrich Haupt "who was ennobled to become a Bohemian Knight in 1693. Heinrich was a descendant of an old Silesian family" but who had no direct connections to our Haupt/Houpt group. The book also names Maria Catharina, spelling her maiden name "Jungst" and "Youngken" and also names her parents Herman and Eva.

~ Son Henry Haupt ~

Son Henry Haupt ( ? -1818) was born on (?). 

He is said to have relocated to Alabama and died unmarried in the fall of 1818. 

Nothing more about him has been located on the paper research trail.