During the colonial era, two different Seidensticker/Seidenstricker families migrated
to Pennsylvania.
Johann Heinrich Seidensticker, who could not write his own name, migrated from one of the
predominantly Protestant-German states to Pennsylvania in the summer of 1750.
According to research done by Dick and Carol Keister, this man was from Siegen in
Westphalia and he was accompanied by his wife Anna Catherine and perhaps an infant son
named Henry. The group sailed from the port of Rotterdam aboard the English ship,
"Nancy", and after arriving at Philadelphia, Johann Heinrich Seidensticker took
the required oaths of allegiance at the courthouse on 31 August 1750, signed with his
mark, and the clerk wrote his name as "J. Henry Seydensticker".
Another immigrant, Sebastian Seidenstricker, apparently migrated to Pennsylvania
prior to 1757 but there is no record of the ship he travelled on or the date he
arrived. He first appears in the tax records of Rapho township of Lancaster County
in 1757. According to research done by Jack Silknetter of Lancaster,
Pennsylvania, this man was from Bad Dürkheim in the Rheinish Palatinate and he was
probably accompanied by his wife Anna Margaretha and perhaps two or three young children.
Persuaded perhaps by letters from Sebastian, his brothers, Johann Philip and Otto Philip,
decided to migrate to Pennsylvania in the summer of 1764. They sailed from the port
of Rotterdam aboard the English ship, "Britannia", and took the usual qualifying
oaths at the courthouse in Philadelphia on 26 September 1764. Although they signed
their names to the oaths, a fellow passenger named "Henry Seidenstricker" signed
with his mark, and the clerk wrote his name down as "Henry Seidenstreicher".
This Henry may have been a cousin. Maria Magdalena Seidenstricker, a sister of
Sebastian, John Philip, and Otto Philip, who was married to a man named
"Miller", may have come to Pennsylvania with her husband and family aboard the
"Britannia" in 1764. or at some other date.
John Philip Seidenstricker, a shoemaker, settled first in Coventry Township of Chester
County where he was recorded on the list of taxables in 1766 as owning a cow. He moved to
Caernarvon Township of Berks County in 1773 and died there sometime after 26 April 1775,
which is the date he signed his will. He left his wife, Catharine, her choice of the cows,
an advance, their bed, and her clothes—as well as a third of his estate. But the
other two-thirds of his estate were willed to "my three blood relations, namely,
Sebastian Seidenstricker, Otto Philip Seidenstricker, my brothers, and my sister, Maria
Magdalena Millerin." He also left his godson, Philip Seidenstricker the younger, his
gun and an advance.
Evidently John Philip Seidenstricker had no surviving children.
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