LEE R. GANDEE,
Hexenmeister
LETTER
10 March 1975
To
LURA GLASS
Regarding John George Smithpeter
and
The Weberite Heresy
Lexington, South Carolina
Compiled by: Brenda Helen Keck Reed
Lee R. Gandee, a self-avowed "hexenmeister" of the Dutch Fork, corresponded with Lura Glass, a Smithpeter descendant and genealogist, about the role of John George Smithpeter (Johann Georg Schmidtpeter) in the Weberite heresy of 18th century Saxe Gotha, South Carolina.
For many years Lee Gandee resided in Lexington County, South Carolina. In the later years of his life he moved to West Columbia. He died on 15 October 1998 at the age of eighty-one years. His collected papers were sold at an estate auction to several bidders.
On 29 June 2000, Lura Glass generously gave her permission to reprint the following letter on this website. Shortly before his death in 1998, Mr. Gandee told Mrs. Glass that he felt that in his writings and research, to include his book, Strange Experience, The Autobiography of a Hexenmeister, he had done a great disservice and made many mistakes in writing about John George Smithpeter's life and role the Weberite heresy. He stated that he knew he had harmed John George Smithpeter by his wild assumptions and assertions.
Gandee's book, Strange Experience, can be found in several libraries in the area of West Columbia and Lexington County. Subsequent accounts of the Weberite heresy have since followed his stream of consciousness, recounting much of his myth and little of the historical record. I shall let you be the judge as to the clarity and integrity of Gandee's thinking after you have read the following letter..
Please note that Gandee takes many liberties with the name Johann Georg Schmidtpeter (John George Smithpeter). Never in any historical records, to include church records in Germany, found to date has Johann Georg Schmidtpeter been called by the name "Hans Peter Schmidt" or any variation thereof. One may assume that any articles about the Weberites written after 1975 that refers to John George Smithpeter as Hans have based their findings on the writings and research of Lee Gandee.
The letter is copied as written, to include typographical and grammatical errors.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Route 7, Box 242
Lexington, S.C. 29072
10 March 1975
Lura Glass
(address withheld)
"Dear Mrs. Glass:
"Your letter sent cold chills up my back, for I am a great believer in Jane Roberts' 'Seth' [reference to the author Jane Roberts who channeled an entity named Seth] and had just read last night that 'Information does not exist by itself. Connected with it is the consciousness of all those who understand it, perceive it, or originate it. So there are not records in terms of objective, forever-available banks of information into which you tune. Instead, the consciousness that held, or holds, or will hold the information attracts it like a net. The information itself wants to move toward consciousness. It is not dead or inert. It is not something you grab for, it is also something that wants to be grabbed, and so it gravitates to those who seek it. Your consciousness attracts the consciousness that is already connected with the material . . .'"This letter of yours seems uncanny evidence that Seth was saying nothing more than the truth. And already about the same time you were writing the letter, I was visited by an entity who claimed to be Hans Georg Schmidt, Pater, Smithpeter, (or whatever his name really was.) This spirit claims that he now is reincarnated in the person of a man named Roger Dyer; who is in Longdon, England, and he came to warn me that I am about to do Hans Georg Schmidt the same injury, in ignorance of the facts, that the existing Church histories do him deliberately, beseeching me to exonerate him in the interests of justice, claiming that Schmidt was a visionary, a man of poetic speech, and a Utopian, but that all he did was motivated by the most unselfish and humanitarian impulses, and that only seen in that perspective can his life here really make an iota of sense to anyone, or his church seem less than filled with idiots or madmen. (That is the plain truth.)"For something like 18 years I have researched this movement, and I think I have read every word that is on record in South Carolina about Hans Georg Peter Schmidt and the Weberites. I have interrogated every old person who would even admit having heard any traditions, Read Bernheim, Hazelius, the new Luthan History, the History of Newberry County, the History of Orangeburg County, the Charleston newspapers of 1758-1761, and every document in the State Historical Archive and the Caroliniana Library of the University of S. C. -- and still it makes no sense as it seems to appear. Only if the entity, who claimed to have reincarnated once as Barrister James Richardson, in Sheffield, England, after having died here as Hans George Schmidt, before being reincarnated as Dyer, gave the true facts could it make any sense, and if what the spirit told me is true, then Hans George Peter Schmidt did indeed suffer calumnious defamation of character after his murder and his spirit deserves vindication. I am not satisfied that the written records all have come to light. It is known that Pastor Theus of the Reformed Church promised the Rev. Melchior Muhlenberg to write him an account of the Weberite Heresy, and if he promised to, Theus would have written it. Yet this Muhlenberg report never has been produced by anyone, and the Lutheran Church in Pennsylvania can shed no light on its whereabouts. Also, Pastor Theus must have corresponded with his former associates in the Chur-Zweibruckischer Classis of the Reformed Church in Switzerland, and though I know a Theus descendant and she has visited Chur and found Theus better known in Switzerland than he is here, she did not think to inquire as to old letterbooks in the archives of the Seminary at Chur, where Theus studied.2
"It occurred to me that in most places that still have their records pension applicants filed at the county seat and the applications often remain, so if you would write to Elizabethton, Tennessee to the County Clerk of Carter County, Tennessee, he might be able to supply you a copy of the original declaration made by John Michael Smithpeter. Also, I would write to the State Historical Archive of N. C. in Raleigh, and ask if John Michael Smithpeter filed claims for Revolutionary Military Service, or was given a land grant, or if any Smithpeter grant of 1760-1790 was issued. His mother may have filed for land, or there may be a Smithpeter whose name you do not know who was his father. We only assume that he was a son of John George, though I am convinced of it." [See Smithpeter Land Records for proof of John Michael's parentage.]"The first time I go to Columbia, I'll see if I can find Schmidt's application for his land."I was checking for a description of the land, and found that I do know what happened to the land that was granted to John George Smith Pader as he is called in the Quit Rent rolls of 1767. [See Smithpeter Land Records.] My note says that before the rent was due, (10 years after granting) Archibald Dunbar bought the 100 acres that were granted John George, and wow! this is for coincidence? Also the 50 acres granted JOHN KHELE. This John Khele is Johann Kolle, the man I believe I was in that lifetime. Now tell me this is a coincidence! So Archibald Dunbar bought the land from somebody and at the same time bought my land, and James Richardson said I was Schmidtpeter's agent in Charleston. I was dead before 1767, in fact before Schmidtpeter but doesn't it look as if somebody was handling both tracts of land? But now have I got to find out if the deeds were recorded, and who did the sell if it says. The very fact that the land was sold proves that Schmidtpeter was survived by legal heirs, for if he died without any it would have reverted to the Crown. If those deeds were recorded, they'll be in Charles County records, and the way they wrote them then, they'll say one of three things: the name of his widow, the name of her husband if she remarried here, or name her and the person she gave the power of attorney if she left the colony, and bless my soul, I may find out if my wife Maria Regina was still living when Dunbar bought my little 50 acre tract. In that life I had only one child, a daughter. In my will, I provided for her and for my brother Jacob's boys who lived up here. I bet Jacob sold both the tracts of land to Dunbar. It it says that John Doe, who since has remarried to Catherine Smithpeter, widow of John George Smithpeter, sells the land, and John Doe disappears here soon after, we can look in N. C. to see if he got land there, and if s, maybe come upon a will in which George Michael [correct name is John Michael Smithpeter] is named as her son."Do you think it is coincidence that I happened to find this note made several years ago and forgot I had. As seth said, the information wants to get to the people who need it. We're not dealing with dead people, you know. They want us to find out everything, and I bet before we are through we do. It seems sort of implied that Schmidtpeter's widow left here before 1767, for even if she'd married some man with plenty of land, she probably would have held on to the 100 acres that belonged to Hans George to give her son, if she had one. [See Smithpeter Land Records.]"It just occurred to me that if you'd write to the Fackenthal Library at Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, Pa. and ask the Research Librarian to check the card index it maintains, he might find you some reference to the Smithpeters in Pennsylvania, and by tracing it down find out when he came to America."I'd better let this do for now, for if I run onto anything more that startled me as much as the Dunbar purchase, I'd not sleep later."Signed Lee R. Gandee~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please let me hear from you with your comments, additions, or corrections to this website.
Copyright 2000. All rights reserved. Brenda Helen Keck Reed.
