Notes
Note N201
Index
According to SAR informnation of Mrs. Mary Weinantz, per Harriett Wallace.
Notes
Note N202
Index
Is thought to be descendants of Claus and Dorothea Zeller Bucher.
Notes
Note N203
Index
Hauptman uber eine stadt comp. (chief burgess), Wagemeister in der Oberzee waag (weighmaster), Oberzee July 2, 1683 according to source.
Notes
Note N204
Index
Was a goldschmidt according to source.
Notes
Note N205
Index
He was a Landschreiber (clerk of the courts) in Neukirch, in the Canton of Schaffhausen from 1642 to 1648.
Notes
Note N206
Index
Clerk of the cours 1683, Vogt (magistrate) April 15, 1696, Oberlandtmeister (superintendent of woods and forests) April 14 1702, Zumftmeister (master of a corporation or guild) July 1 1703, Obervogt uber Lohn (master of loans) August 24 1705.
Notes
Note N207
Index
Came to America in 1722 with brother Benedict and settled in Lancaster County. Originally of the conton of Berne, Switzerland.
Notes
Note N208
Index
Goldsmith, according to source.
Notes
Note N209
Index
In early life, he was engaged in merchandising; in 1830 elected to represent Dauphin and Lebanon counties in the Twenty-second Congress of the United States; appointed by Governor Porter in 1839 as an associated judge of the courts of Dauphin county, which office he held for twelve years. He was a man of enlarged views and of public spirit, unsullied reputation and unimpeachable integrity, engaged in all the public enterprises of his day, and held various positions of honor and responsibility. Many years a school director and president of the board of education of his native city, Harrisburg. A member and an officer of the German Reformed congregation at home, he was one of the leading laymen in the ecclesiastical councils of the church; treasurer of one of its boards and of its theological seminary.
Attended the Harrisburg public schools; studied law; was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Harrisburg; clerk of the land department of Pennsylvania in 1813; member of the borough council of Harrisburg; member of the board of school directors; elected to the Twenty-second Congress (March 4, 1831 - March 3, 1833); trustee of Harrisburg Academy, Franklin College, Lancaster, Pa., and Marshall College, Mercersburg, Pa.; by appointment of Governor Porter was an associate judge of Dauphin County from 1839 until his death.
Notes
Note N210
Index
Educated for the ministry of the German Reformed Church at the Universities of Marburg and St. Gall. Intending him for the ministry, his father afforded him the best educational advantages of his time and country. His album, still preserved, testifies to his connection with the celebrated institutions of learning at St. Gall, Basle, and Gottingen, and contains among its interesting and valuable contributions the autographs of Wagelin, Zollikoffer, John Laurence Mosheim and others.
At the age of 25 years, he came to America. Arrived in the Province of Pennsylvania Nov 1,1755. Having received a theological education, with the ministry in view as his life work, it is a matter of plausible speculation that through the instrumentality of the Rev. Michael Schlatter, who had a short time previously visited Europe for the purpose of bringing out German Reformed pastors to minister to the spiritual wants of the large German population of the Province, Conrad Bucher was induced to leave the refinements of a home abounding in wealth and comforts and undergo the hardships necessarily attendant upon life in a new country, although there is no positive evidence that he had fully entered the ministry until many years later.
The French and Indian war being in progress, he entered the Provincial army, and was commissioned ensign April 1, 1758, and stationed at Fort Louther, Carlisle, Pa. Beginning with Braddock's defeat, in 1755, the English arms met nothing but disaster. The county of Cumberland,which embraced all the country west of the Susquehanna, was especially exposed to Indian raids and incursions. In 1758, General Forbes, a Scotch veteran, was appointed commander-in-chief of the expedition for the reduction of the French Fort Du Quesne. Served in Forbes' great expedition against Fort Duquesne in the summer and autumn of 1758. The General Assembly of the Province resolved to place at his disposal two thousand seven hundred men. In order that German and Swiss settlers would more readily enter the service, parliament, in 1756, passed an "act providing for the appointment of German, Swiss, and Dutch Protestants as officers" In this emergency, Conrad Bucher entered the provincial service, commissioned as ensign, or second lieutenant on April 1, 1758 in the First Battalion, Pennsylvania Regiment.
The provincial army having achieved success in taking Fort Du Quesne and dispersing the French, established, manned, and equipped Fort Pitt, and returned to Carlisle. In this famous expedition Col. George Washington was in command of the Virginians, Col. Bouquet of the English, and John Armstrong, James Potter, Hugh Mercer, William Lyon, William Maclay, names famous subsequently in Revolutionary annals, held subordinate positions.
April 19, 1760, he was promoted to a lieutenancy. He was stationed at Fort Louther, Carlisle, one of the line of forts erected for the protection of the frontier. Lieut. Bucher participated in Bouquet's expedition, in 1763, for the relief of Fort Pitt, which had been assailed by the combined Indian nations in the war known as Pontiac's Conspiracy, and which was the next active field service of the provincial army. It was on this march westward that the famous battle of Bush Run was fought, on the 5th and 6th of August, in which the Indians undertook to wipe out the little army as they had done with Braddock in 1755,but in which the, in turn, were so thoroughly demoralized and their prestige destroyed,m through the superior tactics of Bouquet, that they retreated without making further demonstrations against the fort.
July 12, 1764, commissioned as adjutant, and promoted to a captaincy on the 31st of the same month. Organization was the Second Battalion of the Pennsylvania Regiment of foot, Asher Clayton, Lieutenant colonel commandant and the Hon. John Penn, colonel. His several commissions on parchment are in custody of his descendants in Harrisburg, Pa. He served in Bouquet's expeditions against the Indians in 1763 and 1764; they fought the battle of Bushy Run, August 5, 1763, the greatest battle on record between the whites and Indians.
While Bouquet's army halted on Fort Bedford, on the 8th of September, 1764, the officers of the Pennsylvania regiments formed an association under a written agreement "to apply to the Proprietaries for a tract of land sufficiently extensive to accommodate each one with a reasonable and commodious plantation, etc". In their formal application they represented that the land thus far purchased from the Indians did not afford any situation convenient for their purpose; they therefore prayed the Proprietaries to make "a new purchase, etc." In 1768, the Fifth Purchase, embracing the territory from the northeastern to the southwestern section of the Province not already purchased, was made, and in 1769 twenty four thousand acres were granted them; of this amount six hundred and sixteen acres in Buffalo Valley (Union County) and five hundred and seventy acres on Bald Eagle Creek (Centre county) were allotted to Capt. Bucher.
As remuneration to the officers for their services, the Proprietaries appropriated twenty-four thousand acres of land to be distributed among them according to rank, of which Captain Bucher drew six hundred and sixteen acres in Buffalo valley, now Union county, and five hundred and forty acres on the north side of Bald Eagle, including mouth of Marsh Creek, in Centre county. this is known as the Officer's survey. Peace with the French and Indians having been secured, he resigned his commission in 1765, and thenceforth devoted his time and labors to the ministry, serving with zeal and self-abnegation the churches at Falling Spring (Chambersburg), Shippensburg, Carlisle, Hummelstown, etc. etc. until the year 1768, when he accepted the call to the German Reformed Church at Lebanon, then Lancaster county, whither he removed his family in 1769. Here he remained, officiating statedly and serving these several congregations in, then, Lancaster and Cumberland counties, until his death, actually dying "in harness" August 15, 1780, and was buried in the graveyard of the church of which he was pastor. An ancient-looking sandstone, inscription in German, in which language he usually preached, marks the spot. He took the oath of allegiance to the State of Pennsylvania June 10, 1778. A noted early divine (minister) as well as an officer during the French and Indian War.
"...though his life work does not dazzle, it nevertheless endures, and he has his reward."--Notes and Queries, Historical and Genealogical, vol II, pg 416