In 1671, William Penn and his emissaries travelled to the Netherlands and German states encouraging people to immigrate to the colony of Pennsylvania. Due to Penn’s efforts and England’s liberal colonization policies, massive waves of German immigrants flooded into Pennsylvania and New York. About 20,000 Germans had arrived in Pennsylvania by 1730.
“On Novemer 9, 1738, there arrived at the port of Philadelphia from Rotterdam a ship named the ‘Charming Nancy.’ She was commanded by Charles Stedman, and among the immigrants she had on board was one whose name was entered upon the official records as Jeremiah Zämer. It is not known whether this young German settled, but it is probable that it was in Brecknock Township, Lancaster County, for it is in that part of the country that he is next heard from. When, in 1752, Berks County was formed, the new county line divided Brecknock, making two townships of that name, one for Lancaster and one for Berks County. On April 11, 1763, this same immigrant, then a full-grown and mature man, was naturalized before Judges Allen and Coleman, at Philadelphia, and he was then entered upon the records as Jeremiah Zimmer, of Brecknock Township, Berks County.” (Source: Biographical annals of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania: containing biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens and of many of the early settled families, 1905)
Jeremiah Ziemer was age 27 when he arrived in America from the Palatinate state, RheinlandPfalz, in Germany in November of 1738. His journey took him down the Rhine River to the port town of Rotterdam in Holland, where he boarded a ship to Philadelphia. Travel from Europe to America was expensive, so many who made the voyage faced several years of “indentured servitude” to repay the cost of the trip. But the immigration through the port of Philadelphia by so many people of the same characteristics, and with much the same objects in life, soon crowded the sections more or less adjacent to that growing city. Penetration was not long in coming, through dense forests into Lancaster, Montgomery and Berks counties.
Jeremiah settled among other German immigrants in southeast Pennsylvania and married Anna Barbara Sanders (1707-1787), also a Palatinate immigrant. They would spend the remainder of their lives in Brecknock Township, Berks County, raising three children: Johannes Heinrich Ziemer (1743-1822), who became known as Henry Ziemer; Anna Barbara Ziemer (1746-1793), known as Barbara (Burkhart); and Maria Christina Ziemer (1748-1796), known as Christina (Haller).
Brecknock Township, named after the cathedral town of Brecon, capitol of Breconshire (or Brecknockshire), Wales, was founded in 1740 as a part of Lancaster County. The Township was divided with the creation of Berks County in 1752, with the Ziemer land being on the Berks side of the new county line. The first tax collector for Brecknock (Berks) was Jeremiah Ziemer, and the first tax list in 1752 contained 36 names, all of either German, Alsatian (French side of the Upper Rhine), or Swiss origin. The first federal census in 1790 reported that there were 60 households in the Township.
The German settlers of Pennsylvania were not eager to adapt to the ways of the British colonies, which served as a disadvantage in certain regards. Before naturalization, foreign colonists were limited on their ability to buy or sell land in the British colonies. So in 1763, Jeremiah rode to Philadelphia, and on April 11th of that year, he took the oath of allegiance and became naturalized. This record reflects the name change from Jeremiah Zämer, as it appeared on the passenger list of “Charming Nancy,” to Jeremiah Zimmer.
In January of 1765, Jeremiah Zimmer, now a naturalized citizen, was patented 218 acres of land in Brecknock Township by the sons of William Penn. He deeded 172 acres to his son Henry in 1787. This land became the Ziemer homestead and was passed along to many generations of Ziemers.
Jeremiah remained in Brecknock Township, Berks County, to the end of his days, and became the progenitor of numerous descendants, some of whom still live in the vicinity in which he first settled. He made his will on November 20, 1793, which was probated in the Berks County Courts on March 14, 1796, and recorded in German. In his will, Jeremiah’s name is spelled Ziemer, the spelling variation which all of his descendants yet living in Berks County, and some who live in other parts of the country, still prefer. In his will, he names his son, Heinrich, whom he made his executor, a daughter, Christina who was deceased, and a son-in-law, Andrew Bogart.
Jeremiah Ziemer died on December 26, 1796 at the age of 89 years. He was preceded in death by his wife and both daughters. Jeremiah’s only son, Johan Heinrich Ziemer, married Anna Catharine Scharman (1750-1827). They were known as Henry and Catharine Ziemer, and they had five children, namely: Johannes Heinrich Ziemer, Esq., who was known as John Ziemer, Esq., born February 5, 1773; Catharine, born March 17, 1776; Jeremiah, born January 25, 1778; Peter, born November 21, 1778; and Henry, born March 11, 1780.
Henry Ziemer died July 9, 1822, and his wife, Catharine, died May 12, 1827. Both are buried in the graveyard of the Allegheny Union Church, in Brecknock Township. On his tombstone, the name is Johan Heinrich Ziemer. His father, Jeremiah Ziemer (Zimmer, Zämer) is likely also buried in the same graveyard, as it has been a place of interment for that area since in 1767, at which time the first church building was erected there. Over three dozen Ziemers were laid to rest there; the German inscriptions on many sand stones have been effaced by the elements, and numerous graves have been marked by simple stone slabs containing no name at all. These were the forefathers of our ancestor, John H. Semer, the first in the line to use the Semer variation of the surname.
The Pennsylvania Dutch maintained numerous religious affiliations, with the greatest number being Lutheran or Reformed, but many Anabaptists as well. The Anabaptist religions, Amish and Mennonite, promoted a simple lifestyle and their adherents were known as Plain people or Plain Dutch, as opposed to the Fancy Dutch who tended to adapt more easily into the American mainstream. The Ziemers were likely members of the German Reform Church, but many of their neighbors were Amish or Mennonites.
Like many other churches in the area, Allegheny Church was established as a Union Church combining three denominations in one building, Reformed, Lutheran, and Mennonite. However, the Mennonite congregation withdrew from the union before 1800. The first Allegheny Church was a log building which stood half a block south of the present church. The log church measured 30 by 40 feet. It had two windows, but not a floor nor a stove. In 1800, the Reformed and Lutheran Congregations built a new structure on the present site. In 1845, the Union Church was incorporated and chartered by the Berks County Courts under the name “The Independent German Associate Reformed and German Lutheran Church of Brecknock Township.” The Ziemer families were active in this church, and many of the Ziemer children were baptized there.
The present church building was built in 1878 using local sandstone. Members of the congregation assisted in the construction and contributed their time and materials. The cost of the building was less than $10,000.00.
We know that along with being farmers, several Ziemer family members were involved in the operation of inns and taverns, called “public houses,” for nearly a century. John Ziemer, Esq., 18 was a whiskey distiller and general store and tavern owner in Brecknock Township from the late 1700's to the 1840's. His brother Peter Ziemer took over the business after his death, and the business was handed down to Peter’s eldest of four sons, William R. Ziemer. Peter’s nephew, John H. Ziemer, was an innkeeper there, just before he migrated to Ohio around 1851.
John H. Ziemer was born about 1820, the first child born to Henry Ziemer (1780-1825) and Lydia Hertz (1797- 1872). John’s father died when he and his sister Sarah were very young. His mother Lydia later remarried to John Shearer, and they moved to nearby Reading, Pennsylvania around 1832. Sarah Ziemer was age nine when the family moved to Reading, but her brother John remained with relatives in Brecknock. John married Keziah Catharine Matz; Sarah married Samuel Myers and raised a family in Reading.
During the 1830’s and onward, a great many Pennsylvania Dutch families relocated to Ohio, lured by stories about an abundance of fertile farm land and the unlimited potential there. As word spread, more and more families chose to leave Pennsylvania for the great opportunities awaiting them in the West. John and Keziah Ziemer, along with their four children, William, Edward, John, and Catharine, were among those families, settling in southeast Ohio’s Fairfield County late in 1851. A fifth child, Emma, was born about that time.
But Fairfield County, situated along the National Road, was merely a temporary stopping point for many of these pioneers, and the family’s ultimate destination was further northwest into the untamed frontier of Van Wert County, Ohio. They arrived there in 1852 and began the process clearing land and building a home. They settled in the northeast corner of the county in what would later become Jackson Township, where John Semer was elected the Township’s first treasurer. The Semers would become very instrumental in the early settlement of this corner of Van Wert County.
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