Caspar Wistar was a German-born glassmaker and landowner in Pennsylvania.. One of the first German colonists in Pennsylvania, he became a leader of that community and prospered in land transactions. He “arrived in Philadelphia in 1717 with nearly no money; at the time of his death in 1752, his wealth outstripped that of the contemporary elite more than threefold...an immigrant’s path to achieving the American Dream." He was the father of Richard Wistar, Sr., glassmaker and landowner in Pennsylvania and the grandfather of Caspar Wistar, the physician and anatomist after whom the genusWisteria is named.
Biography
Caspar Wistar, the son of forester Hans Caspar Wüster, spent his first 21 years in Waldhilsbach, a village in the Palatinate near Heidelberg under the reign of the Elector of the PalatinatePrince Philipp Wilhelm. According to family tradition, he was born in the village's Foresthaus. He grew up during the tumultuous Nine Years' War and the War of the Spanish Succession which caused hardships and instability for the people of the Palatinate due to invasions by the French and British. Wistar served as a foresters' apprentice, but government reforms limited his professional opportunities, so he decided to emigrate to the United States. He left the Palatinate in 1717, forgoing his father’s hereditary title and position to seek out a new life across the Atlantic Ocean. He arrived in Pennsylvania in 1717. Upon his arrival, he was registered under the surname "Wistar". He worked at various manual trades, including soapmaking and the manufacture of brass buttons. He became a British subject in 1724 and joined the Religious Society of Friends in 1726. He married Catherine Jansen in 1727; they had seven children. With the support of Quaker merchants and political leaders, he set up a glass factory and began buying land and selling it to new immigrants from Germany. His land deals made him one of the richest men in Pennsylvania. His brother, John settled in the Germantown district, and was registered under a variant of the surname, “Wister.” To this day there exists two spellings of the family name. While Caspar anglicized his name to "Wistar", John spelled his "Wister". The two each founded prominent Philadelphia-area families, and the difference in spelling persisted.
