JOHN JACOB WILDESINN

The above oil on canvas was painted by Wayne Fettro.  It depicts 18th century buildings that at one time existed in the colonial town of Manheim. Also shown are forms of the glass that may have been produced by Henry William Stiegel at his American Flint Glass Manufactory.


John Wildesinn was born on the 8th of April in 1747 in Hanover, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the son of Johannes Jacob and Catherine Barnitz Wiltensinn. (The surname was spelled a variety of ways, depending on who was writing it, I suppose.) He was christened at the St. Matthew's Lutheran Church on the 27th of April, 1747. The witness of the baptism was Hans Jacob Scherer.

John's bride, in 1770, was Catherine Motter. They were married in Mannheim, York County, PA.  Some of the first settlers of this southwestern part of York county, emigrated from the Grand-Duchy of Baden, near the historic old town of Manheim, on the Rhine. Catherine and John, both of German heritage, grew up among many German-Pennsylvanian families. In fact, the clerks at the immigration offices in Philadelphia, began to  send the numerous German emigrants specifically to York County when the coastal Pennsylvania counties became too populated. The books that I have read about these ethnic neighborhoods state that the people depended on one another in order to cope with the language and cultural differences that surrounded them. For instance, it was comforting to have folks living nearby that could speak their former language, while at the same time, most Pennsylvania-Germans made great efforts to learn the English words, too.
John and Catherine reared a fine family of eleven children successfully. About the year 1813, John died at the age of 66.

John Jacob Wildesinn
Born: 8 Apr 1747 Hanover, Lancaster, PA
Married:      1770  Manheim, York, PA
Died:            1813 Manheim, York, PA
Sources: Book: ""York County, Pennsylvania Church Records of the 18th Century", Vol I, pg 188;  Record of John Jacob Wildesinn's Will.