Boßler , also spelled Bossler or Bosler in some family branches or testimonies of earlier centuries, is the changed name of a patrilineal lateral branch of the patrician family Rüde based in the electoral palatinate chief administrative city Mosbach. Again, the Mosbach line, and thus its Boßler named branch, originates lawfully from the aristocratic House of the Rüden von Bödigheim (Uradel).
Crafts and trade were reserved for the burghers and forbidden to the German nobility. In order to establish themselves successfully in these trades the Mosbach Rüden deliberately obscure off their old nobility. Its branch the southern Hessian family was particularly notable in the manufacture of air guns, in the field of music journalism and music engraving and in German inland passenger and freight shipping on the rivers Neckar and Rhine. In addition, individual members of the family achieved importance in scientific or cultural terms over the course of time.
The unbroken line of the family dynasty, which settled in 1738 with a branch in colonial British Pennsylvania and has had another branch in France since 1791, has been documented in the area of the historic district of Lichtenberg (district Darmstadt-Dieburg) since 1616. Members of the dynasty appeared there as local lower and higher judicial court officials, as princely state officials in the forestry and cameral system of the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt and as burgraves belonging to the hesse court officials. Due to their social standing, they belonged to the regional notables.
History The Origin of the Family
Rüde is a nomen gentilicium, which was changed for business reasons and to conceal family relationships to the dialectal occupational surname Boßler at the request of the bearer of the name between 1633 and 1640. The Boßler family represent a lawful patrilineal branch of the patricians Rüde, who had lived in Mosbach since 1482.
The Rüden, who ranked among the wealthiest burghers of the chief administrative city, practised crafts and trade. As councillors and mayors, the patrician family was involved in the local government and was one of Mosbach's lenders. The Rüde family of Mosbach also became part of the patriciate of the imperial city of Heilbronn and were related to the Heilbronn patriciate as well as the patriciate of the imperial city of Hall and families ennobled by imperial letters patent.
Rüde is a nomen gentilicium, which was changed to the dialectal occupational surname Boßler at the request of the bearer of the name between 1633 and 1640. The Boßler family tree begins in 1616 in the Hessian Amt Lichtenberg. At Asbach, now a district of the municipality of Modautal the family survived the Thirty Years' War unharmed.Hermann von der Au: Zur Besiedelung des Pfarrdorfes Nieder-Modau nach dem Dreißigjährigen Kriege, in: Hessische Chronik. Monatsschrift für Familien- und Ortsgeschichte in Hessen und Hessen-Nassau. Sechzehnter Jahrgang. Darmstadt 1929, , p. 63–64.
Martin Rüde dictus Boßler (1616–1694) is the progenitor of the family. He had four sons: Christian (1643–1690) burgrave and gunsmith, Matthaeus (1645–1716), Peter (1654–1697) and Johann Valentin (1661–1719). All four of them were born under the freely adopted surname Boßler, which had replaced the nomen gentilicium Rüde.
One of the first families of America
Johann Wilhelm (1714–1782) from Ernsthofen, the youngest son of Johann Valentin Boßler,Diethard Köhler: Familien in Ernsthofen 1635–1750, in: Familien in Herchenrode, Ernsthofen, Neutsch, Allertshofen und Hoxhohl 1635–1750, Ober-Ramstadt 1987, was among the pioneer settlers of the Province of Pennsylvania.William Henry Egle: Names of foreigners who took the oath of allegiance to the province and state of Pennsylvania 1727–1775, with the foreign arrivals, 1786–1808, Harrisburg 1892, , p. 172–173, 679, Online In 1767, William Bossler farmed his 150-acre plantation in Windsor Township.William Henry Egle: Proprietary and State Tax Lists of the County of Berks, for the Years 1767, 1768, 1779, 1780, 1781, 1784, 1785, Harrisburg 1898, , p. 45, Online By 1779, William and his son John Heinrich (Henry) Bossler (1747–1790), also named Bassler,William Gabriel Long: History of the Grim family of Pennsylvania and its associated families including the following: Merkle [and others], Pottsville 1934, , p. 46, 51, Online owned a combined 280 acres of plantations and no slaves.William Henry Egle: Proprietary and State Tax Lists of the County of Berks, for the Years 1767, 1768, 1779, 1780, 1781, 1784, 1785, Harrisburg 1898, , p. 295, Online
The German inscription on the 1773 decorated Pennsylvania–Dutch chest belonging to Catharina Bossler (1750–1836) reflects her upbringing in a prosperous family of plantation owners. Monroe H. Fabian: The Pennsylvania-German Decorated Chest, New York 1978, , p. 187. (inscription: Cadarina Bosler I am named Windsor is my Fatherland Here I am very well known.) Alfred J. Bossler (1836–1895), through his grandfather Jacob (1784–1846) a great-grandson of the farmer Henry Bossler,Richard Williams: The Pennsylvania Traveler-Post. Records, family history and data relating to Pennsylvania and surrounding States, vol. 16, no. 1, November 1979, , p. 28. “belongs to an old and respected ancestry, the American branch of which has always resided in the eastern part of the State”.Samuel T. Wiley: Biographical and portrait cyclopedia of Schuylkill County Pennsylvania. Comprising a historical sketch of the county, Philadelphia 1893, , p. 500 Online
Among the veterans of the American Revolutionary War is William's son George Bossler (1749–1805) and one of his sons-in-law.Charles A. Fisher: Early central Pennsylvania lineages. Section One, Selinsgrove, PA 1948, , p. 23.Frederick A. Virkus: The Compendium of American Genealogy, First Families of America. A genealogical encyclopedia of the United States, Baltimore 1942, , p. 544.Lineage book. National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, vol. LXV (64001–65000), Washington, D.C. 1907, , p. 138. George's son John Bassler (1780–1859) married Catharina (1789–1856), the eldest daughter of Captain John Conrad Weiser († 1803) and thus a great-grandchild of Conrad Weiser.Charles A. Fisher: Early central Pennsylvania lineages. Section One, Selinsgrove, PA 1948, , p. 24.Charles A. Fisher: The Snyder county pioneers, Selinsgrove, PA 1938, , p. 97, OnlineFrederick Sheely Weiser: The Weiser family. A genealogy of the family of John Conrad Weiser, the elder (d. 1746) Prepared on the two hundred fiftieth anniversary of his arrival in America, 1710–1760, Manheim 1960, , p. 52. Georges granddaughter Catharina Bossler (Bussler) (1815–1892) was the mother of Wilson Arbogast,John W. Jordan, Edgar Moore Green, George T. Ettinger: Historic homes and institutions and genealogical and personal memoirs of the Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, New York 1905, , p. 241, Online co-founder of the Arbogast & Bastian slaughterhouse. Georges daughter-in-law Catharina Weiser was related to the Muhlenberg family.
William's youngest son Christian Bossler (1758–1808) married Elizabeth Rieser (Reeser) (*1760).Lida Bosler Hunter: Children of Joh. Wilhelm Bossler & Catharine (Weiler) Bossler, in: The rainbow of romance. A genealogical study of the family Bosler, 1500–1930, San Francisco 1931, , p. 30.Warren Patten Coon: Genealogical Record of the LeVan Family. Descendants of Daniel LeVan and Marie Beau (Huguenots), Natives of Picardy, France, who Settled in Amsterdam, Holland, 1650 to 1927, , New Jersey 1927, p. 22, Online Elizabeth Bossler was a cousin of Susanna Rieser (Reeser) (1761–1823), married Hiester, both through her maternal line (LeVan) and through her father's family.Warren Patten Coon: Genealogical Record of the LeVan Family. Descendants of Daniel LeVan and Marie Beau (Huguenots), Natives of Picardy, France, who Settled in Amsterdam, Holland, 1650 to 1927, , New Jersey 1927, p. 17–18, OnlineJacob Rieser of Cumru, Berks Co. PA (1726–1793) and his descendants, in: National Genealogical Society quarterly, vol. 76, no. 2, 2 June 1988, , p. 123–125. Christian Hiester (1756–1827), who with Susanna Rieser had a maternal and paternal cousin of Elizabeth Bossler as his wife, belonged to the third generation of the Hiester family and was therefore a cousin of Daniel, John and Gabriel Hiester.Valeria Elizabeth Clymer Hill: A genealogy of the Hiester family, Lebanon, PA 1903, , p. 22, Online Elizabeth Bossler, née Rieser, had an aunt on her mother's side, Esther LeVan (1752–1798),Warren Patten Coon: Genealogical Record of the LeVan Family. Descendants of Daniel LeVan and Marie Beau (Huguenots), Natives of Picardy, France, who Settled in Amsterdam, Holland, 1650 to 1927, , New Jersey 1927, p. 24, Online whose first marriage was to diplomat Conrad Weiser's nephew Benjamin Weiser (1740–1782).Henry Melchior Muhlenberg Richards: The Weiser family. Prepared by authority of the Pennsylvania-German Society, , Lancaster, Pa. 1924, p. 24, OnlineFrederick Sheely Weiser: The Weiser family. A genealogy of the family of John Conrad Weiser, the elder (d. 1746) Prepared on the two hundred fiftieth anniversary of his arrival in America, 1710–1760, Manheim 1960, , p. 833.
The influential families Muhlenberg and Hiester are political, religious and military dynasties of the United States. Samuel Keagy Royer (1816–1896), whose grandfather Samule Royer (1738–1823) served as a captain in the Revolutionary War, had married Elizabeth Bossler (1820–1889), a granddaughter of Christian Bossler.Gayla S. Nieminen: Indirect Evidence Connects Frances Shaffer to Her Grandfather, Michael Bossler of Blair County, Pennsylvania, in: National Genealogical Society quarterly, vol. 104, no. 4, 16 December 2016, , p. 39–40.Lineage book. National Society Daughters of the American Colonists, vol. XXII (21001–22000), Fort Worth, Tex. 1977, , p. 298. Elisabeth Bossler Royer's husband was a nephew of the Ironmasters and state legislators of Pennsylvania Daniel (1762–1838) and John Royer (1778–1850),W. Roy Metz: The Royer family, ironmasters of Blair County, Pennsylvania. Historical sketch of Springfield Furnace, Cove Forge, and Franklin Forge, 1951, , p. 9–10, 11, 14, OnlineKenneth W. Keller: Rural politics and the collapse of Pennsylvania federalism, Philadelphia 1982, , p. 52, Online father-in-law of Edward D. Hamilton and through his wife's family in relation to Edmund Alexander de Schweinitz.W. Roy Metz: The Royer family, ironmasters of Blair County, Pennsylvania. Historical sketch of Springfield Furnace, Cove Forge, and Franklin Forge, 1951, , p. 9, 14–15, OnlineJohn Blair Linn: History of Centre and Clinton Counties, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia 1883, , p. 181, Online
Coat of arms As rightful male side line and thus a member of the agnatic legal community of the aristocratic House of the Rüde von Bödigheim, the Boßlers bear the same coat of arms, which shows a right-facing, white or silver head of a Rüde with a red tongue on a red shield. On the helmet with its red and silver mantle.
Formal the Mosbach line changed its coat of arms to obscure its aristocratic ancestry to a black, smooth-haired Rüde pointing upwards towards the jump with open mouth, craving red tongue and tail curved over itself on a yellow or golden escutcheon with a frog-mouth helm.
To use aristocratic rights even as burghers in 1607, prince-elector Frederick IV of the Palatinate confirmed the above blazoned family coat of arms by grant of arms with feudal fief article and granted an augmentation of honour consisting of a tilting helmet with black mantling on the outside and a yellow or golden on the inside, from which two black horns emerge at the top and a yellow or golden six-pointed star between them.