HONORING THE FAMILY OF CASPER GLATFELTER (1758-1823) 

 

In his will, probated in 1775, Casper Glattfelder identified his namesake as his youngest son.  Unfortunately, since this family kept no records of birth, at least none surviving to our day, and since its pastor, the Rev. Jacob Lischy, left no record that he baptized this child, we do not know exactly when the younger Casper Glatfelter was born. 

 

There is a way to arrive at an approximate date. Young men came of age at twenty-one (women at eighteen) and could be expected to appear on the tax lists soon thereafter. The younger Casper does not appear in 1778, but he is listed in Shrewsbury Township, York County. Since these were early years of the American Revolution and the need for revenue was great, it is reasonable to assume that the assessor enrolled young Casper at the earliest legal opportunity.  If that happened, we can assume he was born in 1758. Earlier, this writer has sometimes given his date of birth as about 1758, but he now believes the “about” can be changed to “in.” 

 

The fact that Casper was able to write his name and that he was appointed to several important township positions is evidence that he had some formal education, but we do not know when or how it occurred.  He was still a minor when his father died in 1775. 

 

From an 1804 document 

 

In 1777 the revolutionary government of Pennsylvania passed a militia law, requiring service from every able-bodied male between the ages of eighteen and fiftythree years. Because only twelve days of training annually were required and because militiamen were subject to call primarily to defend the state against invasion, most militiamen rarely left home and, if so, for only brief tours of duty.  Many if not most of the York county militia records have not survived, but enough do exist to establish that young Casper Glatfelter did what the militia laws required him to do. 

 

1 

 

In this report, we are reserving the old family spelling, which was Glattfelder, for the immigrant ancestor and his wives, while using Glatfelter for the second and later generations, even though many used Gladfelter or other spellings. 

 

We have long known that Casper married a woman named Maria Eva (she was often referred to as Eve) and that he lived on a farm in a part of the old Shrewsbury Township which in 1835 became Springfield.  Within the past quarter century two very valuable pieces of new information have enabled us to be much more specific about both of these facts. 

 

First, in 1976 the present owner of Casper's homestead, Eddie L. Rohrbaugh, permitted this writer to examine a large collection of original land papers pertaining to his property. Perhaps the most valuable of these was the deed, dated June 3, 1785, by which Jacob and Eva Kersh of Shrewsbury township, for the sum of 180 pounds, sold to Casper 

 

Glatfelter two tracts of land. One of these, which had been surveyed in 1767, was named Long Hill and consisted of 100 acres 52 perches. The other, to which Jacob Kersh established a claim (for 40 acres) in 1767, had not yet been surveyed.  This property is located along Larue road in Springfield Township, near the village of Larue. Casper Glatfelter still owned it when he died in 1823. 

 

The second piece of new information emerged from a lengthy correspondence with Dr. Ronald L. Cherry, an economics professor at Juniata College. It began in July 1997 and ended with his untimely death early in 2000. 

 

Professor Cherry was trying to make sense of the confusing sources he was finding for the family of a Jacob Cherry of Sinking Valley, Huntingdon county, whose will was dated November 1, 1803 and probated about three months later, on January 27, 1804.  Cherry provided for his wife (whom he called Maria Evis) and divided the remainder of his estate into six equal shares, one of which was to go to his daughter, Mary Clotfelter. Did the Glattfelder Association know anything, the professor asked, about Jacob Cherry or Mary Clotfelter? 

 

In the correspondence which followed several facts became clear.  First, after selling out to Casper Glatfelter, in 1785, Jacob Kersh disappeared from the Shrewsbury Township tax lists. Second, a deed which the Penn heirs issued in l793 for 190 acres 39 perches in Sinking Valley Manor, then in Huntingdon but now in Blair county, was made out to Jacob Kirsh.  Third, his name appears some six times in this deed, but the first of these references called him “Jacob Kirsh alias Cherry.”  Fourth, although the person who wrote his will in 1803, in English, called him Jacob Cherry, he signed his name to the document in German script: Jacob Kirsh.  Fifth and finally, if one wanted to translate the German name Kersh or Kirsh into English, it would be Cherry. 

 

In a letter dated February 4, 1998, Professor Cherry summarized what he believed the evidence presented in our correspondence with each other had established: "I think this will settle for once and for all that Casper Clotfelter married Eve Kersh."  He could have improved upon this statement only by writing that Casper Glatfelter married Maria Eva Kersh. 

 

This does not mean that nagging questions about Jacob Kersh no longer remain. Why was he never called upon during more than a quarter-century residence in Shrewsbury Township to share with most of his neighbors any one of the one-year tours of duty as a township officer?  Why does his name not appear, even once, either as a parent or a sponsor in the records of either the Lutheran or Reformed congregation at Shuster's church?  And how does one explain that at least some of the Cherry or Kirsh family in Huntingdon County became Roman Catholic?  Jacob left one of the six shares of his residual estate to the Roman Catholic pastor of what he called the “Cloerfield Congregation” and “for the spiritual benefit of said Congregation.” 

 

Shuster's Reformed refers to a church once called the Yellow church, later St. Peter's Reformed, still later St. Peter's United Church of Christ, and now St. Peter's church. It is located in the present Springfield Township, York County, near Seven Valleys.  Shuster's Lutheran refers to a church once called the White church and now Friedensaal.  It is located across the hill from the Yellow church. For a time in the eighteenth century, the two congregations used one building. 

 

*** 

 

As already noted, as of June 3, 1785 Casper Glatfelter possessed two parcels of land, one of which, containing 100 acres 52 perches, had been surveyed in 1767 on the strength of a warrant purchased by Jacob Kersh in 1762.  The other was a tract for which the latter had made a claim about a month after his 1767 survey.  Casper secured a survey for this piece in 1786. The surveyor laid off 40 acres and called it Cherry Hill.  Was he thinking of cherry trees or of the original claimant, Jacob Kersh, alias Cherry?  We shall probably never know. 

 

Casper took one more step to round out the real estate he wanted to be able to call his own.  Only 17 days after the deed from his father-in-law, the Commonwealth issued him a warrant for a small piece of unclaimed adjacent land.  Made in 1789, this survey contained 34 acres 54 perches and was given the name Long Chase.  Between then and the time of his death in 1823, Casper Glatfelter could say that he had a good claim to a farm of 174 acres 106 perches. 

 

At the time of the federal direct tax assessment in the fall of 1798, Casper and his family lived in a one-story log house, with dimensions of 24 by 20 feet. It had 2 windows and a total of 12 panes.  The log barn was considerably larger than the house, measuring 40 by 20 feet.  These buildings were not unlike those occupied at the time by the families of his four brothers who lived nearby. 

 

When called upon, Casper followed these brothers by serving in the township offices to which either the county court or the commissioners appointed him: an overseer of the poor in 1804, constable in 1809, and tax collector in 1810-1813. His name appears on several documents of the Shuster's Reformed congregation, establishing his connection with that church. 

 

The first half of the 1820s were years of economic depression in the United States. Men and women who worked hard and managed well, as perhaps they always had, found it more and more difficult to earn enough money to pay the bills which even in an agricultural society continued to come due. Fields and gardens may have yielded enough to keep the family fed and clothed during the hard times, but not enough to pay the interest and principal on its debts. 

 

As anyone who has read the York newspapers of the times knows, things got so bad that many men had to take advantage of existing laws for the relief of insolvent debtors, as they were called, or yield to the court orders directing the sheriff to sell whatever assets he had, including the family farm. 

 

The law defined the procedures which insolvent debtors had to follow as they sought its benefits. First, they had to petition the Common Pleas Court for relief. The court would then set a hearing date, at which debtors and creditors would agree on an arrangement, by which most of the debtor's assets would he assigned to trustees and committed to debt payment. If the court approved, the arrangement would go into effect. 

 

A sensitive person far removed from days such as these, which occurred with distressing frequency in American history, can gain at least some feeling for the discouragement, even grief, which could beset almost every member of a family who watched as their sense of security and hope faded away, through what they believed was no fault of their own. In time, the worst would pass and an economic upturn ensue, but for many it must have left wounds which were slow to heal. 

 

In previous numbers in this series, we have discussed what the depression of the early 1820s meant for some of the other members of the Glatfelter family, cousins of the children of Casper and Eva.  The focus here is on the latter. 

 

During these years creditors sued a number of members of the family, usually for what later generations would consider small amounts. Using the insolvent debtor law, five of Casper's sons and sons-in-law obtained legal relief from their creditors. But the most disturbing developments reached.  Quarter Sessions Court during the August session of 1823.  Three family members indicted for assault and battery were placed on trial before three separate juries.  Casper and John Glatfelter were found guilty as charged. Each was fined $1 and costs. The third man, Philip Heilman, was acquitted.  We do not know whether the Casper who was charged was the father (1758-1823) or his son (1797-1869), but Philip Heilman was married to a daughter of Casper and Eva. 

 

At the same session Eva and Elizabeth Glatfelter were charged with surety of the peace, each upon the complaint of the other.  In both cases the court ordered that the prosecutrix pay the costs of the suit and “stand committed untill the sentence is complied with.”  In the absence of additional evidence we can only surmise that Eva was Casper’s wife and Elizabeth his daughter-in-law. 

 

Since there are no known supporting documents which might shed more light upon these incidents in the summer of 1823, we must rely simply upon the spare record in the court docket. We do not know how they may have been related to the strains which the hard times imposed upon the Casper Glatfelter family. 

 

The father of this family did not live through the year 1825. We do not know the exact date of his death, but we know he had outlived his brothers John, Felix, and Solomon. Brothers Michael and Henry survived him. 

 

For whatever reason, Casper Glatfelter died without having first made a will. On November 22, 1823 his widow Eva and Jacob Caslow (1783-1861), a neighbor, appeared in the courthouse in York and took out letters to administer on the estate. About three weeks later, on December 16, 1823, Jacob Glatfelter, identifying himself as the oldest son and heir at law of his father, appeared before the Orphans Court and asked for an inquest - this was a customary procedure - to determine whether the real estate of the deceased could be divided equitably among the heirs and, if not, what its fair sale value would be. The petition named the widow and twelve children, all but one of whom were of age. The court awarded an inquest and named a guardian for the youngest child.   Meanwhile, Frederick Bahn and John Frey made the customary inventory of personal property. It consisted of fewer then fifty items and was valued at $460.88. 

 

On January 23, 1824 the twelve men appointed to conduct the inquest - most of them neighbors - to use their own words “went to and upon the lands and tenements” of the deceased. They decided, as most such inquests did, that the property would not “admit of partition or division between all the heirs of the deceased without Prejudice to or Spoiling the hole.”  It would, they concluded, accommodate one of the heirs. They valued the property at $1,044, or $6 an acre. 

 

Since none of the heirs appeared at the appointed time to take the real estate at the valuation, the court awarded its sale.  The administrators carried out the order by advertising the property and selling it on August 14, 1825. The highest bidder, William Warner, bought it for $851, a figure which certainly reflected the depressed conditions of the time. In later years this property changed hands many times and parcels were sold off. Its acreage in 2001 was 97.8. 

 

Their work now finished, Eva Glatfelter and Jacob Caslow presented an account of their administration on August 12, 1825.  The assets of the estate, almost entirely the inventory and the sale of the farm, amounted to $1,388.93.  The charges included $8 to Dr. Francis Koch for medical attendance and 65 cents to John Rouse for medicine, which suggests that Casper did not die suddenly; $7.50 to Jacob Zeller for the coffin; and payments which settled several suits in which Casper was a party at the time of his death. The balance to be distributed among the heirs was $537.48. 

 

We do not know where Casper Glatfelter was buried. The account of the administration contained no payments for a tombstone, and there probably never was one which was intended to be a permanent grave marker. He was probably buried in either the Shuster’s Reformed or Lutheran graveyard. 

 

Her home for about forty years as a wife and mother, and quite possibly her birthplace, having passed out of the family, Eva Glatfelter left it and may have moved to York. The Pennsylvania Republican for November 21, 1832 reported that nine days before Daniel Ziegler, Reformed pastor of several country congregations around York, had married Frederick Geiselman to Mrs. Eva Glatfelter of York.  The groom was the Frederick Geiselman (1761-1845) whose family home adjoined the old Casper 

 

Glattfelder homestead on the south. In Shuster’s Reformed church and elsewhere, the two had known each other for about half a century. Frederick’s name was first on the list of the twelve men who conducted the inquest into Casper’s real estate in 1824. 

 

In 1907 Casper’s grandson wrote to Granville Glatfelter, one of the main contributors to Dr. Noah M. Glatfelter’s 1901 history of the family and an early promoter of the reunion. “I want to find out who my father’s father was,” he said, “My Grand mother’s name was Eve, died near 1851 or 1852, she had married the 2d time at the age of 60.” Frederick Geiselman made no mention of a second wife when he made his will in 1844.  Efforts to locate Eva in the census of 1850, either living alone or with one of her children, or to verify that she died in 1851 or 1852, have thus far been to no avail. 

 

What became of “the Large Bible” which Casper Glattfelder willed to his youngest son in 1775, “exclusive of His other Share” of the estate?  “1 Bibel and Books” valued at $6 were listed in the inventory of Casper’s personal property in November 1823.  The Bible may have been sold at the sale and passed out of the family’s hands, but a veteran director of the family association told this writer many years ago that the book eventually found its way into a woodshed or other outbuilding on the property of one of Casper’s descendants, never to be seen again.  There is a belief that this Bible somehow passed into Solomon Glotfelty’s family.  There is no evidence whatsoever that this ever happened and the claim that it did cannot be taken seriously. 

 

From the time his name first appeared on a York county tax list, in 1779, Casper Glatfelter was assessed in Shrewsbury Township, not in the Codorus Township in which he was born and lived as a child.  We shall probably never know whether he was working for some Shrewsbury Township farmer in 1779 or whether that farmer was Jacob Kersh. In any event, from 1779 through 1782 he was listed with the single men in that township. 

 

In 1783 the name “Casper Klattfelder” - notice the spelling - appeared on the list with the married men, owning no acreage, but with three persons in his household. Late in 1781 or in 1782 he married Maria Eva Kersh. In March 1783 she gave birth to the first of their thirteen children. 

 

Dutifully Casper and Eva brought their children to Shuster's Reformed church for baptism, the first when she was only twenty days old and the later ones when they were a month or two old. The baptism of the first was recorded in the Shuster's Lutheran register, but by the time the second was born the Reformed had their own register.  Ten subsequent baptisms were entered there. The baptisms of two of the youngest children (Charles and Adam) do not appear in either register, but this may well have been because the pastor neglected to enter them or there was a visiting pastor who may not have had easy access to the register. Casper and Eva chose relatives and friends as sponsors for their children and on occasion acted as sponsors for others. For example, John and Catharine Glatfelter were sponsors for three of their children, while they were sponsors for two of John and Catharine’s. 

 

Of the thirteen children born to Casper and Eva, two died young. Of the eleven who reached maturity, only two or three died in York County.  Three moved elsewhere in Pennsylvania, one died in Maryland, one in Ohio, one in Indiana, and two in Illinois. 

 

It is understandable by Dr. Noah could write in 1901 that “our knowledge of his descendants is quite incomplete.”  At that time he knew of only eight of the thirteen children. By 1910 he had learned of the existence of Casper's estate papers and was able to identify the five he had earlier missed, all daughters.  Although he made an attempt in both volumes to trace this family, he was not able to match the thoroughness with which, for example, he presented the families of John and Henry. 

 

Anna Mary (Mary) 

The first child of Casper and Eva, Anna Mary, or Mary, was born on March 3, 1783.  According to the register of Shuster's Lutheran church, she was one of three baby girls baptized twenty days later, on March 23, 1783.  Her uncle and aunt, Michael and Mary Glatfelter, were her sponsors.  The pastor who made this entry spelled the family name the old way: Glattfelder. 

 

Mary married John Shuman. He was born on December 7, 1785, the son of Adam and Elizabeth Shuman. His baptism on January 28, 1786 was recorded in the register of Zion Lutheran church, Manchester, Maryland, as were the baptisms of one brother and two sisters. Between 1786 and 1799, while they were living in Maryland, the parents were regular Lutheran communicants of Zion church. 

 

Adam Shuman was a soldier in the American Revolution. His service began in 1776 and ended only in 1783. Enlisting at Reading, he was in Pennsylvania and Virginia units until being discharged at Lancaster. In support of his eligibility for a federal pension, in l82O he gave sworn testimony, saying that he was a weaver by trade, he and his wife Elizabeth were then the only persons in their household, and his personal property was valued at $49.25.  He was quite specific: it consisted of one cow, one hog, one chest, one table, five chairs, his loom, and a few articles of kitchen furniture. 

 

Eventually, Adam Shuman moved across the Maryland line into Pennsylvania. From 1809 through 1818 he was assessed in Shrewsbury Township and from 1820 through 1831 in Hopewell. In most years he was called a weaver, with one cow. In 1829 he was called a pensioner and not taxed. He died on May 16, 1832. Elizabeth survived him. 

 

As was his father, John Shuman was assessed for the first time in Shrewsbury 

 

Township in 1809. Since his name was not included in the separate listing of single men, we can assume that he and Mary were already married. After 1819 he disappeared from Shrewsbury Township and later appeared in Hopewell. Once he was called a distiller, but more often, a laborer. At no time does he have real estate. As an insolvent debtor, John Shuman obtained the desired relief in the county court in 1823.  After his name in the 1828 Hopewell Township tax list there is only one word: removed.  The Shumans were headed for Indiana County. 

 

The destination they chose for opening a new chapter in their lives should not be a surprising one.  Germans from eastern Pennsylvania were among Indiana County's earliest settlers, and two Lutheran congregations were among its earliest religious organizations.  Familiar York county names found in Indiana County included Cramer, Folkemer, Frey, Geesey, Hildebrand, Overdorff, Roser, and Tyson.  One of John Shuman's sisters and one of Mary's sisters became permanent residents of the county. One of Mary's brothers lived there for several years before returning to York County. 

 

By 1829-1830 the Shumans had established their presence in Indiana County.  The Brush Valley Lutheran church register recorded the marriage of William Shuman and Catharine Bower on August 20, 1829, as well as that of Daniel Cramer and Rachel Shuman on March 4, 1830.  According to the census of 1830, John Shuman was head of a household of two males and five females in Wheatfield Township.  The family of the recently married William Shuman in the same township consisted of husband, wife, and one male child.  In 1830 Wheatfield Township was much larger than it is now. At least three others (Brushvalley, Pine, and West Wheatfield) were later carved out of it. 

 

John and Mary Shuman spent the rest of their lives in Indiana County.  According to the census of l850, John, 64, and Elizabeth Shuman, 66, were living in Brushvalley Township, with no real estate. Elizabeth may have been a second wife, but more probably someone made the not uncommon census error of giving her the wrong name.  The census of 1860 reported a John Shuman, 74, living in East Wheatfield Township. He gave Maryland as his place of birth, had no occupation, and said that he owned $40 worth of personal property.  The three other persons in his household at this time were Isabel, 30; Caroline, 14; and John Shuman, 9. 

 

On May 2, 1869 John Shuman, a son of John and Mary, sent a letter from Armagh, Indiana County, to his cousin Isaac Glatfelter in Springfield Township, York County. 

 

This was in reply to a recent one he had received from Isaac.  "My father is living with me," John wrote, "he is well and the rest of his family is well."  He advised Isaac that if he wanted to correspond with his other Shuman cousins in Indiana County he should send his letters to William, Betsy, and Caroline in Armagh; Mary in Strongstown; and Rachel in Mechanicsburg. John assured Isaac that "them cosant of yours are all well." 

 

In the Armagh-Bethel Presbyterian graveyard there is a tombstone for John 

 

Shuman, Sr. (1783-1869). His birthdate is off by two years from the one given in the Manchester church register, but the dates indicate that John Shuman died soon after his son had written to Isaac Glatfelter.  No record of the death of Mary Shuman has been found. Nor is there record of any estate for her husband. 

 

In a small cemetery between the villages of Mechanicsburg and Heshbon, there are tombstones for Jacob and Susanna Sentz. Jacob was identified as a veteran of the War of 1812 and Susanna as a daughter of Adam Shuman.  She died on February 21, 1877 in her eightieth year.  This information corresponds with the entry in her name in the Manchester church register. 

 

Dorothy 

The second child of Casper and Eva, Dorothy, was born on December 4, 1784 and baptized on January 13, 1785.  Her sponsors were friends and neighbors of the family, Conrad and Dorothy Swartz.  This baptism was the fourth one recorded in the Shuster's Reformed register after that congregation acquired its first record book in 1784. 

 

About 1804 Dorothy married John Everhart, who was born in Codorus Township to John (died 1790) and Catharine Everhart. His birth on October 11, 1779 and baptism on December 26 of that year are recorded in the Shuster's Lutheran register. When he died in 1790, the elder John Everhart left four minor children. 

 

John Everhart made his first appearance in the Codorus Township tax list in 1805, by which time he had acquired a farm of 80 acres.  The acreage soon dropped to 40 and then to 30.  He last appeared in the Codorus Township lists in 1820-1821. In one year he was identified as a tailor. From 1827 through 1832 he was assessed in Shrewsbury Township. Possibly in need of money, in April 1826, in exchange for $55.50, he assigned to Thomas Baumgardner of York all of the claim which he had by right of his wife in the estate of her father. 

 

The baptisms of two children born to John and Dorothy were recorded in the Shuster’s Reformed register: Susanna in 1812 and Leah in 1817.  John's name appeared on an undated, but pre-1815, subscription list of that congregation. 

 

A new chapter in the life of John end Dorothy Everhart opened in 1832. On September 18 of that year Joseph McDonall and wife sold to John, who was described as already living in Indiana County, a tract of 251 acres in Wheatfield Township. The purchase price of $100 suggests that there may then have been no buildings on the land, which was located in a part of Wheatfield Township which became Brushvalley in 1838. When John and Dorothy arrived in Indiana County, John and Mary Shuman had already been there for several years. 

 

The Everharts did not lose track of their relatives and friends back in York 

 

County. On May 5, 1860 the York Gazette reported that John Everhart, formerly of York County, had died in Brushvalley, Indiana County. His age was given as "about 60 years," but actually it was 80, going on 81.  The same issue of the Gazette reported the death of Dorothy's brother, Charles Glattelter, in Illinois. 

 

John Everhart, Brushvalley Township, made his will on May 26, 1859.  He left 

 

his wife the land he still owned, about 150 acres, and made bequests to four children: John, Leah Everhart, Eve Pittman, and Jonathan.  The will was probated on March 7, 1860, about one week after he died.  The estate was reopened on March 30, 1868, when letters were granted to his grandson, Samuel Pittman.  Clearly, this was done because the widow had now died and the remaining real estate had to be sold.  This is confirmed by what John Shuman wrote to Isaac Glatfelter on May 2, 1869: "as for aunt everhart she is ded about one year ago." 

 

The 1860 census described the family six months or so after John died.  In the family of the widow, who was 75, were Leah, 42, and Jonathan, 38.  Eve Pittman, widow of Joseph, was 52. The younger John Everhart was 47. 

 

Assuming that these census ages were nearly correct, Eve was born in 1808 (and named after her maternal grandmother), John about 1813, Leah about 1818, and Jonathan about 1822.  All of these children were born in York County.  Susanna, who was baptized at Shuster's in 1812, must have died young. Jonathan died unmarried in 1865.  John and Leah, who never married and was impaired in some way, were still living when the 1870 census was taken. 

 

What happened to the name of Dorothy Everhart after she left York county is dizzying, to say the least. In the 1859 deed by which she and her husband disposed of part of their land, she is called Dolly at one place and Doledy at another. In his will her husband calls her Dolly.  0ne wonders what name she gave the censustaker in 1860: he wrote it down at Tersa. 

 

Neither of the two estate accounts following John Everhart's death included any payment for a tombstone. None of the available cemetery inscriptions consulted show that there were any when the stones were read in the twentieth century. 

 

John Jacob (Jacob) 

The third child and first son of Casper and Eva was born on April 14, 1786 and baptized John Jacob on June 7 of that year. His uncle and aunt, Felix and Elizabeth Glatfelter, were his sponsors. 

 

Jacob appeared for the first time on a Shrewsbury Township tax list in 1808, as a single man and a cooper by trade. By 1817 he was being assessed for three acres of land. The last time he appeared as a taxable resident of the township, with at least a horse and a cow, was in 1824, when he was still identified as a cooper.  In 1826 and 1827 he was assessed for only his three acres, no horses or cows, which suggests that he was by then a nonresident.  After 1827 his name disappeared entirely and permanently from the Shrewsbury Township lists. 

 

It is remarkable that when his father died in 1823, whoever chose the administrators to settle the estate passed over Jacob in favor of the widow (Eva) and a neighbor (Jacob Caslow), who was his elder by only three years.  Yet it was Jacob who then petitioned the Orphans Court, "as Eldest son and Heir at Law of Casper Glatfelder," to authorize the customary inquest needed to facilitate settling the estate.  In signing this request, Jacob added a middle initial to his name, as shown here. Since 

 

middle initials were uncommon at that time, he may have begun using one to distinguish himself from cousins who shared his first name.  He probably took the K from the name of his maternal grandfather, Jacob Kersh. 

 

In the spring of 1824 Jacob did not appear in court, as eldest sons sometime did, to accept the family real estate at the valuation which the inquest had agreed upon. When no other heir appeared, the court awarded sale and, unlike what happened in the estates of his uncles Solomon, John, and Felix, the homestead passed out of the family.      

 

The Common Pleas Court docket for August term 1826 referred, all too briefly, to a case which had been handled by Justice of the Peace George Klinefelter more than two years before. Jacob Caslow had sued Jacob Glatfelter for payment of a small debt. Klinefelter found for the plaintiff and fined the defendant $6.96, including costs. Apparently it had not been paid and Klinefelter was now referring the matter to the county court. He informed it that “the Defendant has left the County of York and... has left no personal property in the said County of York.”  The defendant had decided to continue his life some 100 miles removed from the county of York. 

 

In l830 Jacob K. Glatfelter (still using the K) appeared in Washington County, Lycoming County, heading a household with three males and five females. By 1860 he was in Porter Township, Clinton County, where he was still listed as a cooper, 74, with no real estate, and $75 worth of personal property. The only other person in the family was his wife Elizabeth, 72. We have yet to determine what became of them beyond this 1860 census. 

 

The traditional maiden name of Elizabeth Glatfelter is Bailey.  This writer had found no evidence to verify the tradition. There were several Bailey families in Shrewsbury Township near the end of the eighteenth century, but none left estates or other evidence which named a daughter Elizabeth who married Jacob Glatfelter.     

 

The Shuster’s Reformed register records the baptism of three children born to Jacob and Elizabeth Glatfelter: Anna Mary (1811), Carl (1815), and Susanna (1818). These are not the names of children known to be theirs. 

 

In preparing his 1901 history, Dr. Noah was told that there were ten children in this family, but he could name only six. By the time the supplement appeared in 1910, he had gathered much more information about these six, but nothing about any other

 

Jacob (1810-1868) married May Gipe and then Elizabeth Pasel. He had nine children. About 1866 he left Clinton County and reportedly died at Rock Grove, Stephenson County, Illinois.  

 

Elizabeth (1811-1885) married Abraham Pittenger (1812-1899) in 1833 and had seven children. They moved first to Lucas County, Ohio, and then to Jacksonville, Morgan County, Illinois.

      

Lydia was born about 1821. She was 39 at the time of the 1860 census and 49 in 1870.  She married Henry Henderson and they had four children. They were still in Clinton County in 1870. Jesse married Hannah Kester, who gave birth to eight children between 1843 and 1861. He later married her sister Esther.  His consistency in reporting his age on three successive censuses suggests that he was born in or about 1824.  The Bellefonte Democratic Watchman for September 10, 1875 reported his death, at 55, on August 28 of that year at Washington Furnace, which was located in Porter Township. 

 

Mary (1825-1914) married Andrew Kettner (1825-1897) in 1846.  They had eight children. She was living in Melbourne, Marshall County, Iowa, when she died.  Whoever gave the information which appeared on her death certificate knew that Mary had been born in Pennsylvania, but not the maiden name of her mother, which appeared on the certificate as Emily Gladfelter. 

 

Sarah Jane married Silas Kester. They had no children. Dr. Noah reported that she was still living in What Cheer, Keokuk County, Iowa, as he was preparing his supplement. 

 

Maria Eva 

This fourth child of Casper and Eva was born on February 29, 1788 and baptized on April 30 of that year. She died young. 

 

Elizabeth 

This fifth child was born on November 10, 1789 and was baptized on January 12, 1790. 

 

The York Recorder for November 23, 1811 reported that twelve days earlier Rev. Yost Henry Fries had married Charles Stroman of York and Miss Betsy Glatfelter of Shrewsbury Township. At the time Fries was Betsy’s pastor at Shuster’s Reformed church. 

 

Less than three years after their marriage, Stroman served in Captain Michael Spangler's militia company, known as the York Volunteers, which took part in the successful defense of Baltimore against the British attack in September 1814. This company, which fought in the battle of North Point, was the only York county unit to be engaged in the defense of the city. 

 

Charles Stroman was the son of John (1756-1843) and Mary Stroman (17591814), who were lifelong residents of York. In 1776 John Stroman enlisted in a rifle company which became part of the famous Flying Camp. Taken prisoner during the battle of Fort Washington, he was released and returned home after about six months. Many years later, he served York county as sheriff (1801-1804), treasurer (1808-1811), state senator (1811-1813), and state representative (1815-1816). When he died in 1843, he was one of the last surviving soldiers of the American Revolution in York County. 

 

Charles and Elizabeth Stroman were the parents of four sons. Henry (1812-1880) was a hatter. He married Eliza Schoffner in 1835. For a year or more he was a member of Company G, 87th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry (PVI).  Isaac (1815-1889) was a tanner. In 1864 he served briefly in Company A, 200th PVI. Charles (1818-1861) was also a hatter.  In 1840 he married Matilda Spangler (1819-1889).  David, the youngest son, also served in Company A, 200th PVI in 1864. 

 

Charles Stroman died in York on March 10, 1834, not 1831, as some sources have it.  In reporting his death, the York Gazette gave his age as about fifty-two years. According to his tombstone, he was born on January 31, 1883.  After being a widow for some thirty-two years, Elizabeth died in York on August 20, 1866.  No estates were created after either death.  Charles Stroman may never have owned real estate. As an insolvent debtor, he obtained the desired relief in the county court in 1819. 

 

There is one tombstone in Mt. Rose cemetery, York, with inscriptions for both Charles and Elizabeth.  There are also stones for his parents and an unmarried aunt. Since Mt. Rose cemetery did not exist when any of these five persons died, the stones must have been moved there from some other graveyard. 

 

Susanna 

Susanna Glatfelter was born on June 24, 1791. Her baptism was recorded in the church register, but no date was given. 

 

The register of the old Reformed church in York recorded the marriage on April 25, 1815 of Philip Liebhart and Susanna Glatfelter. The groom was the son of Valentine (1751-1807) and Appolonia (1755-1834) Liebhart, members of families which had lived in Hellam Township for many years. 

 

Philip and Susanna were renters until about 1819, when he bought a small farm of about 36 acres in Hellam Township. He also owned a lot in Wrightsville.  Here he died four years later, in early February 1823.   He was buried in the family burial ground southwest of Hellam borough. The stones have been moved to the Kreutz Creek cemetery. 

 

The administrators of the estate were Casper Glatfelter, younger brother of 

 

Susanna, and Matthias Brown. It soon became evident that the personal property was insufficient to pay outstanding debts, one of the largest of which was money loaned by Philip's mother, on which interest had not been paid for six or seven years.  The real estate was sold in 1825. 

 

In April 1828 Casper Glatfelter petitioned the Orphans Court to name his sister guardians of her four minor children - Rachel, Catharine, Adam, and Samuel - all of whom were still under fourteen years of age.  When Casper filed his final account, in 1828, there was still enough left after all of the debts were paid to turn over to Susanna the sum of $223for the care of her children. 

 

What happened to Susanna and her children after 1828 has still not been determined. As Widow Liebhart she appeared for the last time in the 1829 tax list. 

 

Philip Liebhart had an older sister, Catharine (1778-1838), who never married. In her will she directed her executor to “get two merbel tomb Stones one for myself and one for my brother Philip Liebhart Decd.” His stone gives the date of his death as February 22, 1823, which is not correct, since the inventory of his personal estate was taken on February 8, 1823, by which date he had already died. 

 

John 

This second son of Casper and Eva was born on July 24, 1793. The church register records the fact of his baptism, but does not give the date. His sponsors were his uncle and aunt, John and Catharine Glatfelter. 

 

John appeared for the first time in the Shrewsbury Township tax list, as a single man, right on schedule, in 1815. A year or so later he married Elizabeth Keiser. For a third of a century thereafter, he and his family were people on the move. 

 

In a biographical sketch published in John Gibson's 1886 history of York County, their oldest son, Samuel, declared that he was born near Hanover in 1819. The record of his baptism on October 30 of that year is in the register of Emanuel Reformed church, Hanover.  His father appeared in the Manheim Township tax lists in 1820-1822, assessed as a miller. 

 

Between about 1823 and 1829 John was back in Shrewsbury Township, described as a farmer or laborer, but without real estate.  During part of this time the family may have been living somewhere on the homestead property. A suit which John entered against his father in 1823 led to arbitration and a compromise settlement, one condition of which was that he would vacate certain premises and turn them over to his father. The bare record of this case in the court docket does not enable us to determine clearly the issues involved. As an insolvent debtor, John obtained the desired relief in the county court in 1826. 

 

Between about 1830 and 1834 the family was living in Manchester Township, where in April1830 John was issued a one-year license to keep a tavern. It was not renewed. 

 

According to Samuel, the family went to the state of Indiana in 1838, probably with the family of Daniel Boyer, who was married to John's youngest sister.  After only a few months, the Glatfelters decided to return to Pennsylvania. On the way back, they visited the Shumans and Everharts in Indiana County. What may have been intended as a brief visit turned into a stay which approached a decade in length.  The census of 1840 found John’s family of four males and two females living in Wheatfield Township, Indiana County. 

 

The next move brought them back to York County. In 1847-1849 John was assessed in Manchester Township for horses, cows, an occupation, but no real estate. Then in March 1849 he bought a farm of about 96 acres in Springfield Township. Less then five months later he sold it to his youngest son, Isaac. When the 1850 census was taken, the two families were living together in one household.  In 1857 John acquired an 8-acre tract, on which he and Elizabeth spent their last years together in their own household. 

 

Keepers of tax records have often had to distinguish among two or more taxables in their district who have the same first name.  For most of the years between 1850 and 1864, the Springfield Township assessor clearly identified John Glatfelter, both for himself and for us, by calling him John of Casper. 

 

Elizabeth Glatfelter died on July 13, 1863. John followed on March 21, 1864. They were buried in the graveyard of Blymire's church, near Dallastown. Next to their stones are two for members of the Keiser family. The one for Samuel (1761-1806) may be for Elizabeth's father.  Her tombstone states that she was 64 when she died.  The newspaper notice of her death stated that she was 65. 

 

There was no estate created for John Glatfelter. Instead, just ten days after his death, all of the heirs joined in signing a deed disposing of his real estate. 

 

Between 1819 and 1825 John and Elizabeth Glatfelter became the parents of three sons and one daughter. 

 

Samuel (1819-1886) returned from Indiana County several years before the rest of the family. In 1844 he married Susanna Heindel (1819-1879) and they had eight children. They spent most of their married life on a farm in Manchester Township. 

 

John (1820-1884) married Mary Wakefield (1817-1873). They had ten children, six of whom died young. After Mary's death, he married Rebecca Goodling Shearer (1828-1907). At the time of the 1870 census John was a coal merchant living in York. He spent his last years on a farm in Windsor Township. 

 

Julian (1822-1888) married Matthias Schwer (1819-1880). They had two children.  Most of their married life was spent in Jersey Shore, Lycoming County, but they were buried in York. 

 

Isaac K. Glatfelter (1825-1895) married Sarah Feiser (1828-1908) in 1849.  They had nine children. Isaac was the recipient of John Shuman's 1869 letter, already quoted. Shuman reminded Isaac of scenes he might have remembered from his days as a teenager in Indiana County: "iam living about three miles from blaklie fornis upon the mountain on ramsies ridg where you ust go to gather huckel berries when you lived on the wakfield farm. " 

 

When he died in York in 1895, Isaac still owned the farm which he had purchased in 1849. It was located on the Dunkard Valley road, near the east branch of the Codorus creek. Later owners were Abdiel Bortner and Albert S. Ness, both sons-in-law. The Ness estate sold it in 1941. 

 

Catharine  

Catharine was born on October 8, 1795. The church register records the fact of her baptism, but not the date. Just as her parents had turned to John and Catharine Glatfelter as sponsors for her brother John two years before, they now turned to them again as sponsors for Catharine. 

 

About 1816 or 1817 Catharine married Philip Heilman, who could not have been a stranger to her family. His Aunt Margaret was the wife of Henry Glatfelter; she was also Catharine's aunt. Philip’s father, also named Philip (1752-1797), lived in Shrewsbury Township and died when his son was only seven years old. 

 

In 1818 Philip bought a mill property with both a grist and a saw mill, containing 125 acres 117 perches and located in both Shrewsbury and Hopewell Townships. During the six years he operated the mill the depression hit, and in the spring of 1824 he sold the property and used the proceeds to satisfy the mortgage against it.  For reasons still unclear, in the summer of 1823 he was charged with assault and battery, but was vindicated when a jury acquitted him of all charges. 

 

The inventory of his father-in-law's personal property in November 1825 included a note of $200 which Philip had borrowed when he bought the mill and interest of $69 which had been accruing since. In an effort to collect this debt, the administrators sued Philip, who accepted the obligation against him, but the final account which the administrators filed in 1825 showed a balance of $190.43 due the estate “by Philip Heilman one of the heirs, being more than his share and he being Insolvent.”  There is no evidence that Philip took advantage of the insolvent debtor law in York County. 

 

Insolvency need not be the end of life, and it was not the end for Philip Heilman and his family.  In 1825 he is no longer an assessed miller in Shrewsbury Township, but he was now assessed as a laborer and beginning in 1829 as a butcher. In that year he purchased a lot in the town of Shrewsbury, where he and his family remained until about 1835, when they moved to Montgomery Township, Franklin County.  He last appeared in the tax list for that township in 1842. 

 

The next move for Philip and Catharine, and it proved to be their last one, occurred about 1843, when they located in Bloom Township, Seneca County, Ohio. Among their new neighbors were many persons who had come from York and surrounding Pennsylvania counties in previous years. 

 

Philip died without a will on February 17, 1883, in his ninety-third year.  He had been born on April 6, 1790. The inventory of his personal estate amounted to $15,413.64. It consisted mostly of notes which were easily turned into cash. After the debts were paid, most of this sum was available for payment to the heirs. 

 

Under Ohio law, certain items which the family used were awarded to the widow without the evaluation customary in Pennsylvania. In addition to beds, stoves, cooking utensils, and tableware, these included the family Bible, pictures, and books in the library. 

 

Catharine Heilman died on October 27, 1887, in her ninety-third year.  She and Philip were both buried in Bloomsville. The date of birth on her tombstone corresponds exactly with the date entered into the Shuster's register.  Catharine was probably the last surviving grandchild of Casper Glattfelder. 

 

All five of the Heilman children were born before their parents left York County. Once moving to Ohio they spent the rest of their lives in that state. 

 

The birth and baptism of John F. (1817-1891) were recorded in the Shuster's Lutheran register. He married Cynthia Sweigart in 1843; they had eight children.  He was a farmer and later a manufacturer of sash and blinds at Fostoria, Seneca County. 

 

Eli (1821-1901) married Catharine Elliott (1828-1903) in 1850; they had eight children. He was a farmer in Wyandot County and died in McCutchenville. 

 

William (1824-1908) married Sarah A. Pennington (1825-1875); they had ten children. He died near Willard, Huron County. 

 

Sarah (1825-1896) never married. She was probably named after an earlier Sarah born to her parents, whose birth and baptism were entered into the Sadler’s church register in Hopewell Township. 

 

Margaret J. was born in 1830 arid married Isaac H. Reiter. In 1897, when her sister died, her address was given as Miamisburg, Montgomery County, Ohio. 

 

Casper 

While Casper and Eva named their first son after her father, they waited for a third son and more than a decade to name one after his father.  Young Casper was born on August 18, 1797. The Shuster's register reports the date of his birth, but not the baptism. There were few Caspers in the neighborhood to act as sponsors for this child. That duty fell to George Geiselman and his wife. 

 

Casper Glatfelter appeared for the first time on a tax list in 1818-1819. It was not one for his home township of Shrewsbury. Rather, it was for Hellam, where his sister Susanna had lived since her marriage in 1815.  For more than a third of a century he was assessed there, sometimes described as a distiller, sometimes as a carpenter, and sometimes as a laborer. 

 

The register of the old Reformed church in York recorded the marriage on November 25, 1819 of Casper Glatfelter and Elizabeth Sultzbach, a member of several old Hellam Township families.  Between 1821 and 1844 they became the parents of twelve children.  Casper transferred his religious affiliation to the Reformed congregation at Kreutz Creek.  The register there recorded the baptisms of most of his children. Regrettably, in the 1820s, when his oldest children were born, there were almost no entries of any kind in this register.  Casper and three of his sons are on record in 1855 as having contributed to the purchase of an organ for this church. 

 

In 1823 his sister Susanna called upon him to act as administrator of her late husband's estate. In part because there were four minor children and real estate involved, this task was not completed until 1828. 

 

In 1834 Pennsylvania passed its first public school law. Each of about 1000 districts in the state could vote to approve or reject these schools. For some years most German districts voted to reject them and the school taxes which inevitably followed. 

 

One Pennsylvania German who was apparently strongly in favor of public education was Casper Glatfelter, who in 1837 wrote to the Secretary of the Commonwealth, complaining that the Hellam Township school directors were refusing to put the new system into operation, now that it had been approved. 

 

According to the 1850 census, Casper Glatfelter, his wife, and eight children were living in Hellam Township. A few years later, this family decided to leave York County for greener pastures in the West.  Assessed for one horse and two cows, but for no real estate, in 1855 Casper appeared for the last time in the Hellam Township tax list.  In 1860 he, Elizabeth, and at least six of their children were counted in the census for Princeville Township, Peoria County, Illinois.  And he was now assessed for $1,500 worth of real estate. 

 

Casper spent the last fourteen years of life in his new home, dying in Princeville on December 23, 1869. He was buried in the cemetery there.  When Elizabeth died sixteen years later, the family elected to put only her years of birth and death on the other side of the stone: 1800-1885. 

 

Their son John was born in 1821. His baptism was recorded in the old Reformed 

 

church register in York; his parents were identified as being from Kreutz Creek.  Two children born to John and his wife Rebecca in 1846 and 1848 were baptized at Kreutz Creek.  John appeared in the Hellam Township tax list for the last time in 1854. He and his family went to Springfield, Ohio, where several more children were born. 

 

George, born in 1824, first appeared in the Hellam tax list in 1846 and last in 1848.  He then came to Illinois with his wife, Elizabeth Hammer, and daughter Helen, who was born in 1846.  According to the census of 1860, there were then seven children in this family. Elizabeth died in 1865, by which time there were eleven.  George probably died in 1898, the date which Dr. Noah used in his 1901 history. 

 

David first appeared in the Hellam tax list in 1848. He left York County with his parents. The census of 1860 lists him as a 35-year old farmer in Princeville, with a wife Catharine, 18, and an infant daughter.  He entered the Union service in 1862 and died at Nashville, Tennessee, two years later. His widow and two children were living in Princeville in 1870. 

 

Magdalena (1826-1894) married her first cousin, Henry Forscht (1826-1868), in 1851; they had one son. She remained in York County. After Henry's death she married Jesse Workinger (1815-1901) in 1872. He was a York County commissioner (1856-1859) and county sheriff (1883-1886). 

 

Anna, or Nancy (1829-1895) married Henry Haag (1828-1921) in York County in 

 

1851. They had ten children, most of whom died young.  About 1880 they left Illinois for Kansas and died there in Havana, Montgomery County. 

 

Jacob S. (1831-1908) also remained in York County. He married Caroline Sprenkle (1857-1918). They had six children. Over many years York city directories call him a laborer. 

 

Elizabeth, born in 1834, was probably married to John Carter and living in Princeville by the time of the 1860 census.  Her recently widowed mother was living with her at the time of the 1870 census. 

 

Casper, born in 1836, married Juretta Hare, a native of Kentucky. They had no children. He was in the Union service from 1862 until 1865. Later, he located in Kansas. He was still living when Dr. Noah prepared his 1910 supplement. 

 

Mary Ann, born in 1837, was not listed with the family in the 1850 census and had probably died by that time. 

 

Susan (1840-1914) married George Tarbox (1839-1910) and lived in Princeville. They had no children. 

 

Frederick (1841-1925) was in the Union service from 1862 until 1865.  He married Julia Ann Bair (1849-1927); they had eight children.  Although his tombstone and other sources give 1844 as his date of birth, it is abundantly clear from census records beginning in 1850 that this is not correct. 

 

Emeline, born in 1844, was living with John and Elizabeth Carter in 1860. 

 

Joseph 

The tenth child of Casper and Eva was named Joseph. The parish register gives the date of his birth (September 18, 1799) and names his sponsors (his uncle and aunt, Henry and Margaret Glatfelter), but not of his baptism. 

 

Joseph is listed as a taxable in Hellam Township for one year, 1819, actually a year before he came of age. In 1822 and 1824 he was assessed as a farmer and a single man in Shrewsbury Township. In 1826 he was called a distiller. The 1825 account of his father's estate included $35 rent from Joseph and another person, presumably for the homestead before it was sold. 

 

Dr. Noah had only the briefest information about Joseph to include in the 1901 history. He wrote that he had one son, also named Joseph, who died unmarried in 1898. There was a Joseph Glatfelter, 48, living in the household of William Kroh in Springfield 

 

Township in 1870. There is a tombstone in the Shuster's Reformed cemetery for a Joseph A. Glatfelter who died in the poorhouse on April 12, 1898, at the age of seventy-six years. 

 

Between 1901 and 1910 Dr. Noah was informed that Joseph Glatfelter began working for Philip Kroh, a paper manufacturer at White Hall, Maryland, and that in 1829 he married Kroh's daughter Rebecca. 

 

The 1850 census lists Joseph, 49; Rebecca, 37; and eight children as residents of the First District of Baltimore County, Maryland. Joseph was listed as a laborer.  In the same census, Philip Kroh was counted in the Second District of the same county and was described as a paper maker. 

 

The Peoples Advocate, a York newspaper, carried this terse announcement in its issue of March 13, 1855: Died “at his late residence at Mount Vernon Factory, Mr. Joseph Glatfelter, in the 56th year of his age, leaving a wife and eleven children to mourn his loss.”  His widow died reportedly in 1868. 

 

The family of Joseph and Rebecca, as presented by Dr. Noah in 1910, with a few additions, consisted of the following:  

 

Elizabeth A. (1830-1896); Reuben (1832-1922); Harriet A. (1834); Peter (1836); 

 

Lewis G. (1838); Rebecca J. (1840-1904); Susanna (1842-1844); Mary (1844); Charles (1846); Salina (1848-1906); Joseph H. (1851-1912); and Rosina F. (18541929). 

 

Charles 

The Shuster's Reformed register contains no record of this child’s birth and baptism. When we consider the promptness and regularity with which Casper and Eva took their children to Shuster's to be baptized - ten in fact without exception between 

 

1783 and 1799 - it becomes probable that there is no entry for Charles because the pastor forgot to make it or because the congregation was being served at the time by a visiting pastor who had no easy access to the book. 

 

Charles Glatfelter appeared in the Hellam Township tax list for the first time in 1826-1827, when he was described as a laborer and assessed for a cow. Where he had been since he came of age several years earlier we do not know. In the 1830s he acquired five acres of real estate.  His last appearance in the township was in 1838-1839.  By that time the real estate was gone and he was called a laborer. 

 

The maiden name of his wife Elizabeth is unknown.  The baptisms of two of their children were entered in the Kreutz Creek Reformed register: John Lee on May 3, 1834 and Charlotte on October 10, 1838.  Soon thereafter they left for the West. Their youngest child was born in Illinois in 1841. 

 

At the time of the 1850 census, this family was in Knox County, Illinois.  It consisted of Charles, 50; Elizabeth, 48; Levi, 23; Catharine, 20; Charlotte, 13; and Joseph, 9.  Knox County is directly west of the Peoria County to which Casper Glatfelter went in the 1850s. 

 

The York Gazette for May 8, 1860 reported the death on April 18 in Stark County, Illinois, of Charles Glatfelter, formerly of Hellam Township, about fifty years old.  This was the issue of the Gazette which also reported the death of John Everhart in Indiana County.  Whoever gave this information to the newspaper made two errors. Charles died in Knox County, not Stark. He was not about fifty years old; he was about sixty years old. 

 

When the 1860 census was taken, Charles had already died. His widow, Elizabeth, 58, and son Joseph, 19, were living in Knox County.  Still in the same county in 1880, at 38 Joseph was the head of a household which included his wife Sarah, 33; five children; and his mother Elizabeth, 76. 

 

In the decade after the Civil War, Levi Glatfelter, who was probably the John Lee baptized at Kreutz Creek in 1834, was living at Caney, Montgomery County, Kansas. In 1880 his household consisted of Levi, 55; Annie, 50; and seven children. 

 

What became of the two daughters of Charles and Elizabeth is unknown. 

 

Adam 

When Jacob Glatfelter petitioned the Orphans Court in December 1823 for an inquest, he listed all twelve of his father's children. He described the last one named, Adam, as the only one "under age." The court awarded the inquest and named George Klinefelter Adam's guardian. That was the last record of his son. Presumably he died soon thereafter. 

 

As is the case with his brother Charles, there is no record of the birth or baptism of Adam in the Shuster’s register. The court record establishes that he was born sometime after December 16, 1802. If he had been born before that date, he would have been of age on December 16, 1823, the date of Jacob's petition. Whether he was older or younger than his sister Rosina we do not know. 

 

Rosina (Rosanna) 

This youngest daughter of Casper and Eva was born on March 5, 1804. The pastor who entered into the church register the record of her baptism (without giving the date) wrote her name as Rosina. This was also the name used in the 1823 petition to the Orphans Court, but her name sometimes appears as Rosanna. Jonathan Glatfelter remembered it that way when he dictated the family tree to his son Noah in 1859. 

 

The family of George (1773-1828) and Mary Boyer contributed three of its members as spouses for grandchildren of Casper Glattfelder. Elizabeth Boyer (18011871) married Michael Glatfelter (1786-1836), son of Henry. Anna Mary Boyer (1805- 

 

1865) married his brother, Jacob (1798-1872). When she was about sixteen years old, Rosina Glatfelter married the oldest son in this family, Daniel Boyer. He was born on October 19, 1799. His birth and baptism were recorded in the register of Christ Lutheran church, York. 

 

Daniel Boyer appeared for the first time in the Shrewsbury Township tax lists in 1821-1822. After that he was described as a distiller and, beginning in 1826, in the quaint language of the assessor, as possessor of a "peace ground." As an insolvent debtor, Daniel obtained the desired relief in the county court in 1825. 

 

Daniel Boyer, distiller, appeared for the final time in a York County tax list in 1838. The last known evidence of him and Rosina in York County is contained in the 

 

York Moravian church register. Its pastor baptized their daughter Sophia on July 29, 1838. The Boyers were headed for East Germantown, Wayne County, Indiana. It is probable that Rosina's brother John and his family accompanied them, but they soon returned to Pennsylvania. The Boyers, on the other hand, had come to Indiana to stay. 

 

All that Dr. Noah could say in 1901 was that Rosanna, as he then called her, had married "Mr. Boyer," borne four children, and moved to Ohio. By the time of his 1910 supplement, he had changed her name to Rosina, credited her with bearing fifteen children, but nowhere stating that the family had gone to Indiana, not Ohio. Because he was able to give years of birth for all of these children and dates of death for several (including one of the oldest who had died young in York County), it is probable that he had access to a family Bible record. 

 

According to Tombstone Inscriptions in Wayne County, Indiana, comp. Beverly Yount, 3:338, Daniel Boyer died on November 2, 1868 and Rosina on February 25, 1884. They were buried in the graveyard of Zion Lutheran church, East Germantown, one of the oldest Lutheran churches in Indiana. Daniel's age as reported from the tombstone (57 years, 7 months, and 29 days) is obviously incorrect. If he had been born in 1811, he would have been on the tax list and beginning to father children at the age of ten. Rosina’s name was inscribed on the tombstone as Rosanna. Her age as reported from the stone (79 years, 11 months, and 20 days) yields a birthdate for her which corresponds exactly with the one given in the Shuster’s church register. 

 

During World War I the name of the post office at East Germantown was changed to Pershing. 

 

Dr. Noah’s 1910 listing of the children of Daniel and Rosina follows: Alexander (1821), Mary A. (1823), Jackson (1825-1865), Thomas J. (1826-1828), Isabella (1828), Amos (1830), Aaron (1833), John (1833), Cornelius (1836), Sophia (1838), Rebecca (1841), Daniel (1843), William (1845-1881), Elizabeth (1845), and Charles C. (1849). 

 

The last five of these children were born in Indiana, 

 

Of these children, Mary A. (1823-1876) either stayed behind when the family moved to Indiana or returned to York County. She married Jesse G. Bortner (1819-1895). One of her sons, Abdiel (1851-1910) married a daughter of Isaac K. Glatfelter and for a few years owned the family farm in Springfield Township. 

 

This Casper and The Casper Glattfelder Association of America 

 

There were no descendants of Casper Glatfelter (1758-1823) among the "many friends" Dr. Noah M. Glatfelter thanked by name for their “generous help” in gathering material for his 1901 family history. Although his 1910 supplement contained much new information about Casper's widely scattered descendants, which he gathered from many sources. Dr. Noah named only one person among them "deserving special mention" for their help. 

 

By the time of the first reunion in 1906, a great-grandson of Casper had begun taking such an extensive interest in the family that he qualifies as one of the chief founders and major early supporters of The Casper Glattfelder Association of America. Samuel F. Glatfelter (1858-1927) was the son of Isaac K. Glatfelter. He was a prominent York builder and contractor, and a member of the United States Congress (1923-1925). 

 

At the first reunion in 1906 Sam was elected corresponding secretary.  When the association was incorporated in 1910, he became one of the first seventeen directors and served until his death. He carried on correspondence with persons in Switzerland who sent him much hitherto unknown information from the church records there.  He began the search of early York County records which yielded much hitherto unknown information about the first several generations of the family in America.  By means of talks, newspaper articles, and magazine stories, he supplemented and complemented the pioneer work of Dr. Noah. When the latter died in 1911, Sam was the obvious choice to succeed him as association historian.  It was Sam who designed the pavilion erected at Heimwald Park in 1913. 

 

Only a few of the more than 100 directors of the association since 1910 descended from Casper Glatfelter (1758-1823). All but one of these belong to the family of Isaac K. Glatfelter (1825-1895).  In addition to Samuel F., his brother, Franklin P. Glatfelter 

 

(1854-1944) was one of the first seventeen directors, serving from 1910 until he died in 1944. His granddaughter, Ethel Clouser, was one of the first two women elected to the board. She served from 1959 until 1995 (for twenty of those years as secretary) and has since been an emeritus director.  The family of Isaac's daughter, Sarah B. Ness, has contributed two directors: Sara F. Hostetter, first elected in 1971 (and registrar since 1972) and Sara L. Ensminger, who was a director from 1976 until her death in 1987. 

 

The family of Isaac's son David L. has contributed a director in the person of Philip H. Glatfelter, a board member since 1967 and vice president of the association since 1974. 

 

Carmen B. Mills, a descendant of Casper through his son Jacob K. Glatfelter, was a director from 1975 to 1984. 

 

A Note on Sources 

 The undersigned thanks the staffs of the Historical Society of York County and of the York County Archives for their unfailing courtesy and assistance in making available the tremendous amount of primary and secondary sources in their care and used in preparing this report. One is tempted to describe the sources in these two places as endless, but however described they are well organized and the staff members are able, as well as more than willing, to retrieve them. 

 

In the Pennsylvania State Library and the Pennsylvania State Archives, Harrisburg, there are microfilm and other copies of county records which have been used to good advantage. 

 

The author also thanks persons who either recently or years ago corresponded with him as historian of the family association, sometimes giving more information than they ever received. Among those deserving special mention are Carmen B. Mills, Adamstown MD, for information on Jacob K. Glatfelter; Eugenia E. Marvin, Conneaut 

 

OH, for data on Catharine Heilman; Theodore W. Cooley, Horton KS, Phyllis Grow, Wichita KS, and Judy C. Richoz, Denver CO for data on Casper and Charles Glatfelter; and Helen L. Fackson, Richmond IN, for data on Rosina Boyer. Staff members at the Indiana County Historical Society and the Indiana County Courthouse were helpful in providing information on Mary Shuman and Dorothy Everhart. 

 

Charles H. Glatfelter  

 

Historian 

 

July 23, 2001