MARSTELLER -> MOSTELLER

Johan Peter was the oldest son born to Christoph Marsteller and Anna Catharina Hamann. (Christoph was a smith (ironworker) who had achieved the status of Mastersmith in the Smith’s Guild.) The day was May 8, 1705--during the War of Spanish Succession--and the location was the small town of Pfungstadt, Germany. Four days later, infant Johan Peter was baptized at Pfungstadt’s Lutheran Church.

Flashback: Christoph had been born on December 9, 1673 in Pfungstadt; Anna Catharina Hamann had been born about two years later; and they married in Pfungstadt on January 11, 1702. They already had two daughters when Johan Peter arrived.

The Marstellers lived during troubled times, one war after another. Johan Peter saw his youngest sister Elizabeth (b1711) and his youngest brother Johann Nicolaus (b1709) die before they were even a year old. Nothing is known about the family or their whereabouts after the Churchbook’s last mention of them in 1711. We understand that Christoph died at age 52 on January 24, 1726--when Johan Peter was 20 years old.

Meanwhile, enterprising ship captains were taking full advantage of William Penn’s desire to fill his new lands in Pennsylvania with disgruntled Germans by promising them freedom, religious tolerance, and cheap land. It is clear that economic hope brought our Marstellers to America. Some of the other Marstellers began fleeing to America during the next few years. In the spring of 1737, 32-year-old Johan Peter Marsteller deserted his homeland of Pfungstadt. At that time, it was tradition for the oldest son to inherit the family land, so he must have been very disenchanted with life in Germany. He cruised up the Rhine River to Amsterdam--a trip that took three to four weeks. At some point afterwards, he found an English ship captain named Thomas Thompson who took Johan Peter aboard his single-masted bilander-type merchant vessel "Townsend" to Philadelphia (not to be confused with his cousin by the same name who came over on the "Harle"). Voyages across the ocean were disgusting with nausea, diseases and deaths. The Townsend finally docked in Philadelphia on October 5, 1737--roughly six months after Johan Peter left his home in Pfungstadt. By then, intolerance and discrimination toward German immigrants had become blatant.

There is no record of Johan Peter’s activities during his first five years in Pennsylvania. Perhaps he was an indentured servant. Sometime between 1737 and 1740, he married Eva Elizabeth (we believe her surname was Sachs but have no proof). Johan Peter first became a land owner in December of 1743 --50-acre tract #136 in the Upper Saucon Township near the present town of Coopersburg. The family farm consisted of greens, turnips, onions, cabbage, cows--enough for their survival. On February 11, 1745, he bought another 86 acres about five miles from his first purchase. During this period, he was a member of a group of 14 men who founded a Lutheran congregation in a log church building (later to be known as St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church as well as the "Blue Church").

Johan Peter and Eva Elizabeth’s children were:

1) Barbara--born in 1740 in PA

2) Peter--born in 1740 in the Upper Saucon Township

3) Conrad--born about 1742 in PA

4) John--born about 1743 in PA

5) George--born in 1745 in PA

6) Susanna Elizabeth--born 2/8/1747 in Montgomery County, PA, and died the next year; baptized at New Hanover Lutheran Church, where she is also buried

7) Michael--born 12/21/1751 in Lehigh County (then Bucks County) and baptized at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church (the "Blue Church") in the Upper Saucon Township

Sometime around 1760, Johan Peter and Eva Elizabeth moved 125 miles southwest from Upper Saucon Township to York County, PA. There they settled in a community called Sherman’s Church in West Manheim Township (slightly north of the Maryland border) where they accumulated 150 acres by 1768. But the Marstellers were not satisfied in York County. There was talk among their friends that North Carolina was the place to go. So, in the fall of 1770, they sold their crops, bought a large Conestoga wagon, packed their valuables, and took the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road through the Shenandoah Valley to North Carolina where they cut over to the Catawba River and found some suitable land in Tryon County (presently Lincoln County) at Long Shoals.

After a life of wars, ridicule, hard labor, and uprooting into unknown territories three times, Johan Peter died about 1772.