Anna Charlotta was the name of John Hamsher’s wife. John had several land transactions that would seem to indicate that he was close to Jacob Hecker. When Jacob Hecker died in 1775, he named a daughter Charlotta in his will.

I believe Charlotta Heckert was John Hamscher’s only wife and that she survived him. Many people reading that statement will think I am wrong because “the Internet” knows that she died in 1769 and John married second her sister, Lydia. I am going to make the case that there was no Lydia and that Charlotta, later in life, came to be called Lydia -- it’s as simple as that.

• Jacob Hecker wrote his will in 1775 -- he named Charlotta in his will and I just have to believe he would have said so if she were deceased. She was alive in 1775.

• Jacob Hamsher was believed by the author of “Destiny in Texas” to have been born before 1765 based on Census listings after he moved to Louisiana and the fact that he believed Jacob was quite a bit older than Hannah Lee and perhaps had been married prior to meeting her. The Louisiana baptism record for the children of Jacob and Hannah said he was the son of John Hamscher and Lidie Hackart of Germany.

• We also know that Jacob -- and Barbara -- were minors when their father, John, died in 1785. I believe the age of 16 was usually used as the dividing line but we also know that Barbara married in 1782 -- if she was only 16 in 1785, then she married at age 13. So in this case, I think Barnet was using the age of 21 or so as the dividing line, right or wrong. For sure, Jacob was not born in 1755 or even up through the early 1760’s but any later date up to 1785 is not ruled out.

• Jacob, though, was listed in the 1850 Census Mortality tables (people who died shortly before the Census was taken) having died in Jul 1850, and it says at age 95. This is consistent with his age of 80-90 as given in the 1840 Census. Those two Census listings therefore suggest a 1755 or so date of birth for Jacob, but his minority when his father died prove those ages to be overstated. Still, I think those two Census facts simply rule out a post-1775 birth date.

• The 1769 date of death for Charlotta, as stated by others, is simply a made up date, in my opinion, to fit the idea that Jacob was born about 1770 and Lydia -- the fictional second wife -- was his mother. Thus Charlotta must lately have died. But there is no evidence of any kind that anything happened to Charlotta in 1769 or that John was a widower at some point in his life. And there is evidence that Charlotta was quite alive in 1775 -- clearly the wording of her father’s will implies that is the case.

• If he was born before 1775, he must have been the son of Charlotta.

• One of the instances where Charlotta (I believe) was called Lydia was when she renounced her appointment as John’s administratrix in favor of “my beloved son Barnet”. If this were John’s second wife, Lydia, would she have phrased it that way if he were her step-son and came into her life when he was over 20 and had only been a part of her life for at most 10 years?  

• Now, people suggest there was a clear gap in the birth years of John’s children, a clue sometimes that a first wife died and a second wife entered the picture. Jacob was born supposedly after that gap as were John, Barbara and Maria -- the minors at the time of John’s death. I think it’s more likely one or two children of John and Charlotta died young and there was no real gap.

Another thing the Internet says is that Charlotta was supposedly born in 1738, yet had son George in about 1755 and Barnet, the eldest, before that. So I have real doubts about that date. I think the evidence that she was indentured out as a servant when she arrived America with her father also points to an earlier date of birth -- and I am guessing that she must have been age 10 or even a little higher to have been of value as an indentured servant.

John Hamscher of York County had a son named Barnet Hamscher who was appointed administrator of John’s estate when his widow Lydia renounced.

A different man entirely, Adam Hamsher, of Northampton County, named a son Barnet. Adam arrived in 1753 and yet another Hamsher, Anton, arrived in 1748 at age 24.

So, from the time I came to know these three men, I concluded that Adam, John and Anton were probably brothers and that since the name Barnet seemed important to this family, to go totally wild, I invented a name for their father back in Germany; I called him Barnet.

I also guessed that John, whose name never appeared as a passenger on any of the Palatinate ships that arrived Philadelphia starting in 1727, came with either Adam or Anton, whose names did appear, but that John was too young to be listed among the passengers in his own right. I even guessed that he had been born in about 1733, thus would have been but 15 in 1748 and too young to be listed -- and that therefore he came with Anton. I felt if he was born later and came at age 15 with Adam, he would not really have been old enough to have married in the early 1750’s, had son George in 1755 and Barnet a year or two earlier.

It turns out that everything I guessed, with the exception that Anton turned out to be a cousin and not a brother to John and Adam, was basically proven because it matches almost exactly documented information about the German Hambscher family including Bernhard who had a son John born in 1732, a younger son Adam and a nephew Anton. The German records even seem to say that Anton is known to have gone to America.

IMMIGRANT. I believe John came to America with his cousin Anton and arrived on the ship Patience and Margaret 25 Oct 1748. There is one little problem with my theory though.

It turns out that John, in fact, was 16 when he arrived. By 1748, captain’s of the German Palatinate ships typically only listed adult men on board, though by law they were supposed to list every passenger -- man, woman and child. I have always thought the definition of adult in this context was 16 -- so if John was aboard, why wasn’t he listed? I have considered that maybe there was a Julian/Gregorian calendar issue relating to John’s birth. But Germany had already long since adopted the Gregorian calendar, only England held out until 1752.

So maybe I should consider this a discordant note -- that since John was 16 and should have been listed as a passenger on the Patience and Margaret, that maybe I have the wrong John, or he came some other time. But I think there must be some other reasonable explanation and that our John really was 16 when he arrived America. I’m not overly concerned about it.

Whether John was 15 or 16, in either case quite young, it would seem reasonable that he might have initially lived with or near his cousin, who he came with, and who settled in Montgomery County. But John was never named in any Montgomery County record that I have found and he married the daughter of a Lancaster County man and then settled there near his in-laws. Did he head off for Lancaster County right off the ship or did he tarry a while in Montgomery County, and if that, how did he meet his bride?

I believe a clue to the answer to those questions lies in a document -- a newspaper ad -- our cousin Kevin Hampshire found saying that in 1750, Jacob Hecker of Lancaster County was trying to find his daughter Charlotta who he had put out as an indentured servant to Johann Conrad six years prior.

There is evidence of a large Conrad family in Montgomery County by the 1750’s. And that makes the following scenario I have invented possible -- not proven -- but possible. John may well have settled first with or near his cousin Anton in Montgomery County where he met the indentured Charlotta. When adults entered indentured servitude back then, it was typically for six years, but when children were indentured out, it was until they attained the age of 21. John and Charlotta may well have married in Montgomery County and then decided to seek out her father. Maybe that 1750 ad helped bring all these people together.

This scenario would explain how John came to end up in Lancaster County, separated from the rest of his family.

He died before the first Census was taken.

Becky says his will proved 30 Jul 1785, but I only found where LOA were issued to son Barnet after widow and relict Lydia renounced.

On LDS film 22097, York Deeds Vol D p.172. John Penn on 19 Aug 1756 gave a warrant to Ludonwick Wisang for 150 acres in Manchester Twp in Springettsbury Manor which passed to John Hamsher for 140 pounds and then he sold it to Abraham Neff on 22 Sep 1769.

I also found on the same same film Vol C p.501 that on 11 May 1768, it appears that Jacob Hecker of Lebanon Twp Lancaster Co cosigned for John Hamsher of Manchester Twp York Co for a series of payments to Ludonwick Wisang of Manchester Twp. Then on p. 502-503, on 30 Sep 1768 John Hampshire gave his mortgage to Ludonwick Wisang (some mention of Jacob Hecker) for 150 acres of land. On 13 Sep 1768, a very similar document was recorded. This one shows a release signed by Jacob Hecker, undated so far as I can tell.

On 8 Dec 1764, John Hamshire and wife Anna Charlotta of Lebanon Township in Lancaster County acquired a 91 acre parcel of land in Lebanon Twp by signing a note for 276 pounds 13 shillings. The land had been owned by Godlieb Thorm of Tulpehocken Twp, Berks County and was now being sold by Frederick Weiser and Jacob Hecker as Guardians for Godlieb’s minor children.

Gotlieb Thorn’s will was proved in Berks County 5 Feb 1763. He mentioned wife Anna Maria and unnamed children. There was no mention of Frederick Weiser or Jacob Hecker.

On 29 May 1766, John Resley and wife Susannah of Lebanon Twp wrote an identical indenture to Frederick Weiser and Jacob Hecker as that written by John Hamshire and wife Anna Charlotta. Same 91 acres and same price.

In the book where the deed from John Hamshire and Anna Charlotta to Frederick Weiser and Jacob Hecker was recorded is this additional recording: “We Godfried Eichelberner and John Resly Executors of the ...will...of Jacob Hecker beng fully satisifed that ..the mortgage..has been satisfied..hereby release the land...thereby mortgaged...6 May 1789.”

And there is a record of John Hamscher assessed in Worcester Township, Philadelphia County in 1782 — this area later became part of Montgomery County. This may be a different John.

We know there was a John Hamscher who died in York County in 1785 and his wife Lydia renounced administration of his estate. In Lancaster County records, we find a John Hamscher and wife Anna Charlotta who took a mortgage on 91 acres in 1764 in Lebanon Township, Lancaster County. This land was sold by the guardians of the estate of Gotlieb Thorm, one of whom was Jacob Hecker. Later, after Jacob died, naming a daughter Charlotta in his will, the executors of Jacob’s estate indicated that John Hamsher had satisfied the terms of the mortgage.

Then on 11 May 1768, John Hamsher of Manchester Township, York County had recorded that he signed a series of notes guaranteed by Jacob Hecker of Lebanon Twp, Lancaster County to Ludwig Wisang for the purchase of land in Manchester Township.

So, we can track John Hamsher. I think it is proven that John Hamsher who was of Lebanon Township, Lancaster County in 1764 and at the time married to Charlotta is the same John Hamsher who by 1768 was of Manchester Township, York County. The Jacob Hecker connection makes it clear. And I think we can take as proven that his wife Anna Charlotta was in fact the Charlotta mentioned in Jacob Hecker’s will.

I further believe that Charlotta was one and the same as Lydia, said to be John’s widow -- I think her name simply evolved over time. I have come to believe that there never was a Lydia -- that Charlotta was John’s one and only wife and that she came to be called perhaps Lotta or Lottie and later Liddie.

The name John Hamscher also appears in the tax records of Penn Township (now in Snyder County and the area where many of Dad’s ancestors moved to in the 1770’s-1790’s) — as a nonresident landowner in 1776-1781.

After John died, his eldest son Barnet of York County petitioned the Northumberland County Orphan’s Court to either divide John’s land among his children or appraise it. He said John left a widow Lydia, himself, George, John, Jacob, Pebbey (Barbara) intermarried with George Fry and Maria and that only he and George were of age.

York church records confirm that Barbara married George Frey at Trinity Reformed 13 May 1782. And in 1792 Anna Maria Warner (nee Hamsher) wife of Martin baptized son John at the First Moravian Church.