Schenk-Redd-Groshong-Sappington

The Grosjean family history since the 16th century was most closely associated with two villages in the Upper Saar Valley just one mile apart. Today both are in the Grand Est region of France: Kirrberg in the departement Bas Rhin (Lower Rhine), and just to the south, Hellering-lès-Fénétrange in the departement Moselle.

Kirberg (or Kirrberg) was one of the seven ghost towns (or better ghost villages) chosen by the Lutheran Count Adolf of Nassau, who had assumed control of the County of Saarwerden, for resettlement by the persecuted Huguenot (French Calvinist) community fleeing from France's Western Lothringen/Lorraine area around Metz. These seven villages were largely French speaking and at times were provided with a French-speaking Calvinist pastor, at first even with Israel Achatius as theologian and superintendent (quasi bishop) for the Huguenot community in the county. The project marked an early success in the history of Lutheran-Reformed ecumenism. More difficult were the relations with the Roman Catholic communities, whether French- or German-speaking. These tensions were felt already from 1559 on, when at Count Adolf's death the County of Saarwerden came under the control of Adolf's Catholic brother, John. These tensions would intensify during the Thirty Years' War and during the Wars of Reunion by which France incorporated all the territories west of the Rhine (and at times some on the eastern side). In order to reduce those tensions, the village was later included in a kind of geographical bubble (Das Krumme Elsaß) extending from Alsace proper (which had an established Calvinist community) westward into Lothringen/Lorraine. Abraham's birth in Bischweiler (in Calvinist friendly Alsace proper) occured during a period in which the Calvinist community of Kirberg sought refuge there for some years.

Just a mile to the south is the village of Helleringen (Hellering-lès-Fénétrange), which was in Lothringen/Lorraine, but in the middle ages had been under the authority of the Benedictine abbey at Lixheim, which, however, in 1550 had ceased to exist. In 1608 George Gustave of the Palatinate-Veldenz, who controlled the area, established a Reformed community and city at Lixheim for the Calvinist refugees from Western Lothringen/Lorraine. When in 1623 and 1624 Lixheim and surroundings reverted back to Lothringen and soon to the staunchly Catholic Johann von Guise, tensions between the religious communities gradually increased, even after the territory of Lixheim in 1629 became one of the smallest territories of the Holy Roman Empire, in 1702 again part of the Duchy of Lothringen or – just after emigration – in 1766 part of France.

Albert Girardin has traced some of the Grosjean (or earlier Laramée) family history, as it played out as part of the French Huguenot exodus from around Metz, settling in Lixheim, Hellering and Kirberg, not seeming to have many problems in crossing or even relocating across the border between the two villages, prior to the emigration of "French Jacob" from Hellering still in the Dutchy of Lothringen in 1751.