Heritage

Casper (Kaspar) Glattfelder was born to Felix and Barbara (Gorius) Glattfelder in Glattfelden, Canton Zurich, Switzerland. He was baptized in the Reformed Church on July 25, 1709. We are uncertain of Casper’s date of birth. He attended parish schools and, as far as we know, became a small farmer. Casper and his brother Hans Peter were the only sons to reach adulthood. On April 3, 1731 he married Elisabetha Laufer. Before leaving Switzerland, the couple had seven children.

We can only speculate the reasons why Casper, Hans Peter and their families decided to leave Switzerland. There is a family tradition that Elizabeth was ready and willing to go to the New World because she did not want her sons conscripted some day and sent, as were many thousands of other Swiss in the eighteenth century, as mercenary soldiers to foreign lands.

In 1743 six families of Glattfelden made their way down the Rhine River to Rotterdam, where they boarded the ship Francis and Elizabeth for the perilous ocean crossing. The previous year Casper’s brother Hans (or John) Peter Glattfelder (1700-1742) died in a drowning accident before crossing the Swiss border.

Those who survived the voyage, which typically took between seven and twelve weeks, arrived in Philadelphia in August of 1743. Provincial regulation in force since 1727 required that entering foreign males sixteen years and older take an oath of allegiance to the King of Great Britain and one of fidelity to the proprietors of Pennsylvania. Among those who took the oath on August 30, 1743 were the five male heads of families who had left Glattfelden together, including “Gasper Gladfelter.” He was described as being sick on this day.

Casper’s wife Elizabeth and their youngest son John, who was less than one year old when they left Glattfelden, died either before their ship arrived in America, or very shortly thereafter.
Just two weeks later on September 13, 1743, brothers-in-law Casper Glattfelder and Henry Walter purchase a tract of 224 acres of land along the Conewago creek in what is now Newberry township, York County. There they lived, possibly with the fatherless family of Hans (John) Peter, for about three years. On August 20, 1746 they sold the property and, according to family tradition, sought a place that reminded them of the hills of home. They settled along the south branch of the Codorus creek.

Casper remarried. The name of the wife who joined him in the deed disposing of the Newberry township property in August 1746 is Mary, and in more than six subsequent references she is called Anna Maria. Her maiden name remains unknown.

Casper was a farmer, as the inventory of his estate, made in 1775, testifies. On April 11, 1763, Casper returned to Philadelphia to become a naturalized British citizen. This step, which entitled him to vote, was one which most of his fellow-German and Swiss neighbors in colonial York County never took. Even before being naturalized, Casper had begun doing his duty as a good citizen, accepting, however reluctantly might have been the case, the assignments which the county court from time to time gave him. In 1757 and again in 1771 he was road supervisor for Codorus township and in 1766 he was constable.

Casper Glattfelder was baptized into the Swiss Reformed church and there is every reason to believe that he adhered to its tenets during his lifetime.

This information is a short overview of Casper taken from the book by Dr. Charles H. Glatfelter entitled “THE EARLY GLATTFELDER FAMILY IN AMERICA: An Overview.” Please see links below.