The Legion Bollinger Family of the Catawba River Valley, Vol. I

Within these pages is a chronicle of the history and people of the Legion Bollinger Family who settled and still live in and around the Catawba River Valley of North Carolina. This family history has been divided into two volumes, the first covers generations one through nine, 1658 to about 1900 and the second covers generations ten through thirteen, from around 1900 to the present. Legion came to North Carolina in the late 1790s and settled with his family in Lincoln County (now Catawba County), west of the Catawba River. It is through Legion's family that we trace our family tree back to the seventeenth century to the Aar River region of Aargau, Switzerland. Jacob Bollinger (Legion's great, great, great grandfather) lived in Switzerland in the late 1600s. His fourth child, Bernhardt Bollinger moved his family to the Western Palatinate region of Germany in the early 1700s. From the Palatinate, three brothers, Christian, Hans Jacob, and Rudolph immigrated to America in the 1730s and settled in Pennsylvania to raise their families. Several generations later Legion's mother, Margaret Bollinger, migrated down the Great Wagon Road with her children to North Carolina.