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INTRODUCTION.
For some years it has been the main object with the prime movers of the annual Shoffner reunion to have published a complete history of the family since landing on American soil. Such a history would begin with the landing of Michael Shoffner in Philadelphia, about 1760, and continue down to the present day.
Michael Shoffner, the pioneer, was born in Germany in 1721, near l'rankfort-on-the-Main; and soon after landing at Philadelphia he removed to Orange County, X. C., where lie died in 1800. Here he reared four sons and one daughter?Michael, George, Martin, Peter, and Magdalena. Three of these sons served in the lievolutionary War, under General Greene for the most part, but at times were with Steuben and DeKalb. The daughter married a Mr. Anthony, and was the mother of ten children. These sons also reared families, some of them large, but many of them going to different States, until to-day they are scattered almost throughout the Union/
The third child of Michael, the elder, was Martin, who, in turn, reared ten children. Martin was born in 1758; moved to Tennessee in 1808, where he died in 1838. ITe settled in Bedford County, on Thompson?s Creek, near where the Shoffner Lutheran Church now stands. The chapters of the following history are devoted to the life of the fifth child of Martin Shoffner, or John Shofner and his descendants.