2026 -21 Before They Were Americans

Johann Matthias Ringer (1692 - 1748) and Maria Magdalena Nischicker (1689 - 1764), my paternal 6th great grandparents.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 21

Prompt: An Unexpected Strength

Before my ancestors fought for American independence, they swore loyalty to a king, crossed oceans under foreign flags, worshipped in their native tongues, and carved farms from wilderness. Before they were Americans… they were something else.

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Johann Matthias Ringer was identified in Eighteenth Century Immigrants: The Northern Kraichgau as a native of Bonfeld, in the historic Kraichgau region of southwestern Germany, and a citizen of nearby Rappengau. Maria Magdalena was from the same area. They married there on 17 Jun 1717 and immediately emigrated with Maria’s daughter and son, settling in the early Pennsylvania German community of New Hanover in what would become Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Germans in a land claimed by the British.

In 1736 he purchased 150 acres there.

After living in Pennsylvania for roughly twenty-five years, immigrant Johannes Matthias Ringer appeared in the Supreme Court at Philadelphia County on 9 April 1743 to complete the process of naturalization as a British subject. Under Parliament’s Plantation Act of 1740, foreign-born Protestants who had resided in the colonies for at least seven years could become naturalized by taking the oaths of allegiance and presenting proof that they had received the Protestant sacrament. The court record specifically notes Matthias’s “time of taking the sacrament,” showing he met that religious requirement. Although he had already been living, worshipping, and holding land in Pennsylvania since at least 1717, formal naturalization strengthened his legal rights as a landowner, protected future inheritance for his wife and sons, and secured his standing under British law. It is easy to forget that long before the American Revolution, German immigrants like Matthias were not automatically British subjects; many consciously chose to become citizens of the British Empire while building new lives in colonial America. In Matthias’s case, his 1743 naturalization appears to have been part of putting his affairs in order during his later years—just six years before his death in 1749.

The family was active in the New Hanover Lutheran Church, with Matthias serving as an elder or deacon. In German Lutheran and Reformed congregations, an elder or deacon was a trusted lay leader who helped oversee finances, discipline, care of the poor, church property, and worship administration. Not clergy, but respected community leadership. For generations, the family’s births, baptisms, confirmations, marriages, and deaths were recorded in the church records. The inventory in Matthias’s probate file included three Bibles and other books.

In 1748, as New Hanover’s Lutheran congregation raised funds for a church bell that would toll for weddings and funerals, immigrant Matthias Ringer added his name to the subscription list. Within a year, the man who helped purchase the bell was gone. I imagine that the bell he helped place in the church tower rang for his own funeral in the spring of 1749.

Johann Matthias Ringer, a native of Germany, died as a British subject in a British colony before the American Revolution. Yet the foundations he and Maria Magdalena built endured far beyond their lifetimes. They left their sons, Matthias and John, not only land and a strong Lutheran faith, but also an unexpected strength: the ability to adapt, survive frontier life, build community, and ultimately raise families who would support the cause of American independence in the next generation.

Matthias Ringer, Sr (1734 - aft. 1810) and Susanna ______.

My paternal 5th great grandparents. (Son of Matthias and Maria, the immigrants)

A county history of Franklin County provides independent confirmation of Matthias Ringer as one of the earliest settlers in what became Washington Township. Under “Early Land Titles,” Matthias is listed with a warrant date of 14 February 1749, matching the original Cumberland County warrant record already identified in Antrim Township. The same history notes that John Wallace, warranted 20 October 1750, had Matthias Ringer listed among his neighbors—an important correlation with another 1751 land record placing Matthias between John Wallace and James Whitehead. Together, these records confirm that Matthias was not merely acquiring frontier warrants, but was actively establishing himself among the first settlers along the Antietam-Antrim frontier during the years immediately following his father’s death in New Hanover.

Between 1749 and 1752, Matthias Ringer appears repeatedly in Cumberland County warrant records, taking up at least four tracts totaling 175 acres in Antrim Township and along branches of Antietam Creek. These frontier warrants place him among the second generation of Pennsylvania Germans pushing westward from the settled communities near Philadelphia toward the Maryland frontier. Together, the records form an important bridge between the New Hanover church community of the 1740s and Matthias’s documented plantation near Frederick-Town, Maryland, by 1768.

Matthias executed a power of attorney in January 1768 to sell his share of the New Hanover land, suggesting he was no longer living there. That sale was finalized in March 1768, at which time his brother John sold his share as well.

In the Maryland Gazette of 17 March 1768, an unexpected newspaper notice places Matthias Ringer Sr. firmly in Frederick County just before the American Revolution. The notice reported that “at the Plantation of Matthias Ringer, living near Frederick-Town,” a stray sorrel horse had been taken up and was being held until claimed by its owner. The advertisement described the horse in remarkable detail—about thirteen hands high, thirteen years old, branded, with a blaze down its face and two white feet. More than a simple lost-and-found notice, this small item reveals that by 1768 Matthias was an established landholder whose farm, referred to in the period as a “plantation,” was well enough known to serve as a local landmark near Frederick-Town. When paired with his appearance on a Frederick County grand jury the following year, the notice paints a picture of Matthias not as a transient settler, but as a respected member of the Maryland German community on the eve of the Revolution.

Matthias Ringer Sr’s Involvement in the Revolution

DAR A096991 — Patriotic Service

DAR recognizes Matthias’s patriotism in two categories:

1) Associator

Matthias Ringer Sr. rendered patriotic service in Frederick County, Maryland, by signing the 1775 Association of Freemen as an Associator. In Maryland during 1775, an Associator was a man who signed the Association of Freemen—essentially a public pledge to support the revolutionary cause and, if needed, take up arms in defense of the colony. These men were not necessarily Continental soldiers, but they formally associated themselves with the patriot movement and local defense structure. Maryland’s revolutionary associators were organized by county committees in 1775.

2)Member of committee for raising money for arms and ammunition

Matthias Ringer Sr. was appointed to the Frederick County Committee of Correspondence for Middle Monocacy to solicit subscriptions for arms and ammunition. Committee members were expected to seek contributions from every freeman in their district and report those who refused to subscribe. This was civil and patriotic service — the kind of local leadership that kept the Revolution functioning behind the scenes through organization, fundraising, and community pressure.

John Ringer/Ringler (1728 - abt. 1801)

My paternal 5th great uncle

This son of Matthias and Maria, the immigrants, remained in York County, Pennsylvania throughout his life. He married Anna Mary Niss/Nyce/Nesen in the New Hanover Lutheran Church on 29 Mar 1748. His children’s baptisms and confirmations are recorded in the church records.

John Ringer’s Involvement in the Revolution

John is identified as John RINGLER in DAR records, where he is assigned Ancestor number A097017. He is recognized for military service as a Private in the York County Militia.

By February 1782, John Ringer appears on the return of Captain Simon Koppenhaffer’s York County militia company. Contemporary county history notes that in 1781 York County militia were ordered out to guard prisoners captured in Virginia and Maryland at the prisoner camp in Windsor Township, suggesting John’s late-war service may have involved guard duty rather than field operations.

Sons in the next generation were also involved in the Revolution.

Matthias John Ringer Jr. (1758 - 1843) and Rebecca Elizabeth Plank (1759 - 1843)

My paternal 4th great grandparents (son of Matthias Sr. and Susanna Ringer)

DAR A096996 — Military Service: Private in Maryland Militia

Matthias Jr. served as a private in the Maryland militia during the Revolutionary War under Lt. Jacob Remsberg and Capt. Daniel Sheeler. In a sworn declaration made in Washington County, Maryland, he stated that he first served a tour of about two months and was later drafted again in March 1781, remaining in service until returning home in May of that year. By the time he applied for a pension in 1836, he was about seventy-seven years old and unable to recall all of the exact dates of service. Although the War Department accepted that he had served, his claim for a pension was rejected because his total documented militia service amounted to only about four months, short of the six months required for eligibility under the Pension Act of 1832. Rejected Pension Application File R8831V. Lack of a pension does not prevent a descendant from joining DAR, and several descendants have joined through his sons David and Thomas.

Jacob Ringler (1754 - 1821)

My 1st cousin 6x removed, son of John Ringler and Anna Maria Nyce/Niss/Nesen

DAR A097016

Jacob Ringler was born in York County, Pennsylvania, in 1754 and married Agnes Haas in 1775. He entered Revolutionary service on 23 April 1777 as a drummer in Captain John Davis’ Company of the 9th Pennsylvania Regiment under Colonel Richard Butler. Muster cards show him “missing since Sept. 11, 1777,” the date of the Battle of Brandywine at Chadd’s Ford. Family tradition later recorded that Jacob’s thumb was shot off during the battle and that he was taken prisoner there, a story consistent with later military pay rolls stating that he was “Taken prisoner 11 Sept., rtd Mch,” indicating he returned the following March. Although his DAR record currently notes a question regarding later service, surviving military records strongly suggest Jacob’s absence resulted from capture rather than desertion.

After the war Jacob became a farmer. The 1800 census shows a large household with six sons and four daughters under the age of sixteen. In November 1801, Frederick Marteeney of Hunterdon County, New Jersey transferred to Jacob a 141-acre tract in Stonycreek Township known as “Springer’s Fortification.” Jacob died in 1821 and was buried in the Stoystown Lutheran Cemetery. (The Casselman Chronicles, Vol. XXXVI, No. 2, 1996, “John Ringler and his Descendents” by Janet Bender.)

An Unexpected Strength

The unexpected strength in the Ringer family was not found in famous battles or high political office. It appeared in quieter ways: in crossing an ocean to begin again, in becoming citizens of a foreign empire, in building churches and frontier farms, in serving on juries and committees, and later in answering militia calls during the Revolution. Before they were Americans, they were Pennsylvania Germans trying to survive and build stable lives for their families. Yet from those beginnings came generations willing to support the cause of independence in whatever ways they could — through military service, civic duty, financial sacrifice, and endurance. The strength Matthias and Maria Magdalena carried from the Kraichgau region of Germany became, over time, part of the foundation of an American family.