Johan Georg Mann was born on 8 August 1724 and baptized on 12 August 1724 in Hüffenhardt, Mosbach, Baden, Germany.¹  

His parents were Hanss Joerg and Evae Catharinae (Sigmann) Mann, who had been married in 1723 in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hüffenhardt.
George Mann arrived in Philadelphia on 26 September 1753 on the ship Windsor, which had sailed from Rotterdam. On the Captain’s List, he is listed as John George Man. On the lists for the Oath of Allegiance and the Oath of Abjuration, he is listed as Johann George Mann.² He would have been about 39 years old at that time. Since the lists only included adult males, it is possible that other family members were with him.

In 1764, he married Maria Catharina Kiefer, who had been born in approximately January 1725. They were reportedly married on 31 January 1764 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.³ Their known children were:

• Eva was born in about 1760 
• George⁴  was born about 1761 and married Hannah [surname unproven].
• Johann “John” was born on 4 February 1768 and married Anna Compher. 
• Clara Catherina was born about 1779.

By 1771, George was living in Loudoun County, Virginia. “George Mann” appears on the Loudoun County Tithables listing for the years 1771-1777, 1779, 1781-1782, and 1784-1785.⁵  

Confirmation records for the Lutheran Church at the Short Hill [Lovettsville] maintained by Evangelical Lutheran Church in Frederick, Maryland, contain entries for Eva Mann, age 14, confirmation and first communion on 7 November 1773; and Clara Catherin Mann, born August 1761,  confirmation and first communion on 20 May 1775.⁶  

He paid Supply Tax to support the revolutionary military forces in 1782 and 1783.⁷  

“George Man” is listed on the personal property tax list for 1787 (the “1787 Census”) in close proximity to a number of other Patriots, including John Compher, Anthony Lambach, Christian Ruse, Jacob Slater, and Jacob Stoneburner (Steinbrenner).⁸  

As was common in this area, it appears that George was living on (some might say “squatting”) and farming a tract of land owned by a British-titled family for many years before he was given the legal protection of a lease. This was the Bennett family, one of whom bore the title of the Earl of Tankerville. Their tract of land, some 12,000 acres, was called “Catoctin Manor.” 

In April 1789, Henry Ashley Bennett “of the Kingdom of Great Britain,” an agent for the Earl of Tankerville, granted George a formal lease for 91 acres of land in the Catoctin Manor, the land which he was already occupied. According to the Indenture filed at the Loudoun County Courthouse, George had obtained a judgment awarding him a lease for 100 acres of land, and the Indenture (lease) was in compliance with the judgment. This was a lease “for three lives,” for the lives of George, George Mann Jr., age 25 years, and John Mann, age 22 years. The rent to be paid was £2 15 shillings. George was required to keep a dwelling house made of square logs, with dimensions 26 by 22 feet; a barn or granary 36 by 24 feet; an orchard with 100 good apple trees and 100 good peach trees, fencing, etc.  And he was required to keep all improvements in good order and repair.⁹  

Seven years later, in 1796, George was finally able to purchase the land that he had been farming for many years. He purchased the land from Henry Ashley Bennett and Charles Bennett (the Earl of Tankerville), for £113 and 15 shillings.¹⁰  Thus, 20 years after the Declaration of Independence, George was finally independent from his British landlord.

He signed the congregational articles (constitution) for “the Ev. Luth Church in the Schart Hill community” on 25 March 1786.¹¹ It is significant that the first constitution for this church was adopted a little more than two months after the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (“An Act for Establishing Religious Freedom”) was adopted on 16 January 1786. This statute disestablished the Anglican Church in Virginia and guaranteed religious liberty to all other religious faiths.

Georg was frequently listed on the Communicant Rolls for the Lutheran Church, which was later known as the “New Jerusalem Lutheran Church.”¹²   
In 1793, the Fairfax family finally gave the Lutheran Church a deed for the land which it had been granted decades earlier. (This was the same year in which the Fairfax family allowed many of the German settlers and leaseholders to buy their property.) A deed was drawn up selling 12 acres of land to the trustees of the “German Lutheran Church.”  George was one of the five named trustees of the church, as were Patriots George Shaffer and Adam Householder.¹³   

The New Jerusalem burial records list a burial for Maria Catharina Manin (“in” is German feminine ending) on 24 May 1792, age 67 years and eight months.¹⁴  

The Patriot died on or shortly before 9 May 1810. The New Jerusalem Burial Register lists: “Old Georg Männ, 85 years, 8 months, 3 weeks, 2 days.”¹⁵   
 

Sources:

1. His christening date, and those of his children, are given in German Lutheran Church records cited on FamilySearch.com. His birth and baptism dates are given on Ancestry.com.
2. Strassburger and Hinke, Pennsylvania German Pioneers: A Publication of the Original Lists of Arrivals to the Port of Philadelphia from 1727 to 1808. (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1980), Vol. I, pages 555-558.
3. The marriage is listed on Ancestry.com, but no source document is provided. The Kiefer family appears connected to the Mann family is church records as baptism sponsors and later marriages.
4. Although Ancestry.com gives Johan Georg Jr.’s birth year as 1761 in Virginia, without any source, a more reliable source states he was born on 3 June 1764 of Georg and Maria Catharina Mann, and baptized at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Lancaster County Births (Washington, D.C.: Humphrey Publishing, 1997). 
5. Hiatt, Marty, Loudoun County, Virginia Tithables, 1758-1786. (Athens, Georgia: Iberian Publishing Col, 1995).
6. Frederick S. Weiser, “Records of Confirmations by John Andrew Krug in the Evangelical Lutheran Church-book, Frederick, Maryland 1770-1795, Maryland Magazine of Genealogy, Vol. 3, No. 2 (1980), pages 58-59.
7. Patricia B. Duncan, Loudoun County, Virginia Personal Property Tax Lists (Westminster, Maryland: Willow Bend Books, 2004) 1782B, p. 18, and 1783A, page 36.
8. 1787 Loudoun County Personal Property Tax list.  (This list is referred to as the “1787 Census of Virginia,” because it was the first time that the tax commissioner was directed to call on every taxpayer; prior to this, taxpayers took their payment to the commissioner.) Netti Schreiner-Yantis and Florene Speakman Love, The 1787 Census of Virginia, Loudoun County (Springfield, Virginia: Genealogical Books in Print, 1987), “Preface” and page 71.
9. Loudoun County Deed Book R 437-441.
10. Loudoun County Deed Book W 384-387.
11. Kretsinger, Rev. Michael, “A People of God in Mission,” Vol. II (Lovettsville, Virginia: New Jerusalem Lutheran Church, 1990), p. 5. [church constitution]
12. New Jerusalem Lutheran Church Register, Vol. 1, “Communicanten.”
13. Loudoun County Deed Book Y 212-214. 
14. New Jerusalem Lutheran Church Register, “Burials,” 24 May 1792, page 228.
15. New Jerusalem Lutheran Church Register, “Burials,” 9 May 1810, page 239.