Fayette County PA Archives Photo Document.....Land Warrant - Pennsylvania To John Hesther. November 15, 1787 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/pafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Ralph Cokonougher rcokon@hotmail.com January 26, 2011, 10:59 am Source: Warrant # 56, Survey Book C79-179, D62-211, Patent Book P14-310, Fayette County, Pennsylvania. Image file size: 162.0 Kb The text on this land warrant for survey reads: "THE Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, ff. Whereas John Hesther of the County of hath requested to take up Two hundred and twenty seven Acres of Land, including an Improvement adjoining lands of William Rayle, Nicholas Smith, James Henthorn and others in Manallin Township in the County of Fayette (PROVIDED the Land is not within the last Purchase made of the Indians) for which he agrees to pay, immediately, into the Office of the Receiver General, for the use of this State, at the rate of Ten Pounds per Hundred Acres, in Gold, Silver, Paper Money of this State, or Certificates; agreeable to an act of assembly, passed the first day of April, 1784: Interest to commence from the first day of March 1784. THESE are, therefore, to authorise and require you to survey, or cause to be surveyed, unto said John Hesther at the place aforesaid, according to the method of Townships appointed, the said quantity of Acres, if not already surveyed, or appropriated, and to make return thereof into the Secretary’s Office, in order for confirmation, for which this shall be your Warrant. IN WITNESS whereof the Honorable Peter Muhlenberg Esquire, President of the Supreme Executive Council, hath hereunto set his Hand, and caused the lese Seal of the said Commonwealth to be affixed, the fifteenth day of November in the year 1784. To JOHN LUKENS, esquire, SURVEYOR GENERAL } (Seal) (signed) P. Muhlenberg" The date of return on this document was Sept. 24, 1788. Additional Comments: More about John Hester can be learned in this exerpt from pages 3 to 5 of the "History and Genealogy of the Descendents of John Lawrence Hester and Godfrey Stough. 1752 - 1905" by Martin M. Hester. 1905. (I found a copy in the State of Ohio Library.) : "1. My great grandfather, John Lawrence Hester (Hoerster, in German) was born in the kingdom of Hanover, Germany, about 1738. He and his wife, Mary Margaret, and three children emigrated to America A.D. 1771. They took ship at Amsterdam and arrived in Philadelphia. Not being able to pay for their passage, which was $300, he and his family were sold into servitude for a term of six years to pay the debt. The following article will show that this was not a rare case, 'EARLY SETTLERS IN PENNSYLVANIA. by John R. Commons. Another colony to which all races and religions were welcomed was Pennsylvania. William Penn established this colony both as a refuge for the persecuted Quakers of England and as a real estate venture. He was the first American to advertise his dominions widely throughout Europe, offering to sell one hundred acres of land at two English pounds and a low rental. His advertisements called attention to popular government and universal suffrage; equal rights to all regardless of race or religious belief; trial by jury; murder and treason the only capital crimes, and reformation, not retaliation, the object of punishment for other offenses. Thus Pennsylvania, although settled a half century later than the southern and northern colonies, soon exceeded them in population. Penn sent his agents to Germany, and persuaded large numbers of German Quakers and Pietists to cast their lot in his plantation, so that, in twenty years, the Germans numbered nearly one-half the population. Again, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, when Louis XIV overran the Palatinate, and thousands of Germans fled to England, the English government encouraged their migration to America. In one year four thousand of them, the largest single emigration of the colonial period, embarked for New York, but their treatment was so illiberal that they moved to Pennsylvania, and thenceforth the German migration sought the latter colony. These people settled at Germantown, near Philadelphia, and occupied the counties of Bucks and Montgomery, where they continue to this day with their peculiar language, the "Pennsylvania Dutch." Not only William Penn himself, but other landowners in Pennsylvania, and also the shipownwrs, advertised the country in Germany, and thousands of the poorer sort of Germans were induced to indenture themselves to the settlers, to whom they were auctioned off in payment for transportation. Probably one-half of all the immigrants of the colonial period came under this system of postpaid transportation, just as, at the present time, nearly two-thirds come on prepaid tickets. It was in Pennsylvania that the largest portion of the Scotch-Irish settled, and before the time of the Revolution that colony had become the most populous and most diversified of all the colonies. It was the only colony, except Maryland, that tolerated Roman Catholics, and with all the phases of the Christian religion and all branches of the Teutonic and Celtic races, Pennsylvania set the original type to which all of America has conformed - that of race intermixture on the basis of religious and political equality. -- Chautauguan. ' The Hester Family were treated with great cruelty by their master; but towards the end of the first year, kind friends loaned them the money to procure their redemption; but the cruel master would not reduce the claim one cent, on account of the year's service, already performed. The husband and father died A.D. about 1785, aged 46. The widowed mother was very strong physically, a woman of great energy and thrift and of deep piety. She kept her family together and reared them to honorable and useful manhood and womanhood. She died about 1800. They were members of the Lutheran Church and lived and died in Greene county, Pa. SECOND GENERATION To them were born ten children, being the second generation. 2. JOHN HESTER, Sr., b. February 9, 1763; m. Elizabeth Mason. She was b. March 25, 1766; d. August 8, 1847, a. 81. He d. March 19, 1834; a. 71. 3. MARY MAGDALENE, b. 1765, d. ----; m. John Van Deman, son of a minister from Holland. 4. MATTHIAS HESTER, b. July 4, 1766; m. Susannah Huckleberry, 1793. She was b. 1775; d. August 21, 1859, a. 84. He d. November 22, 1823, a. 57. The above three children were born in Germany. After coming to America, there was born to them five more children, viz: 5. ELIZABETH, b. September 13, 1772; m. to Coonrad Coleman; lived seven years in Detroit; d. April 30, 1870, near Charlestown, Ind., a. 97; was 70 years a widow. 6. ANN, b. 1774; m. Andrew Spangler; d. in Fayette county, Pa. 7. SUSAN, b. 1776; d. January 1, 1845, a. 69; m. to Martin Huckleberry; lived near Charlestown, Ind. 8. HENRY, b. May 24, 1781; d. August 25, 1833; m. Rebecca Roberts. She was b. 1780; d. 1833. Three other children were born to them, one in Germany, one on the ocean and one in America; all died in childhood. Names unknown." Henry Hester was my ancestor. He moved to Lower Twin Creek in Ross County, Ohio where he operated oil, grain, and saw mills. Some of his descendants still live today on part of his original land purchase. More about my branch of John Hesther (sic Hoerster and Hester)'s descendants can be found in my 2009 book "THE GENEALOGY OF THE FAMILY OF RALPH WILLIAM COKONOUGHER" available at Amazon.com. This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/pafiles/ File size: 8.1 Kb