Author: Larry D. Smith
Jacob and Anna Maria Clar (whose ancestors came from Canton Bern, Switzerland), moved to Mimbach, Zweibrucken where they gave birth to six children between 1727 and 1739. The third child in the Clar family was Johan Simon Clar, baptised on 12 December 1732 at the Mimbach-Webenheim Reformed Church. Following the birth of their last child, Jacob and Anna Maria made the decision to leave their homeland.
Jacob Clar applied to the authorities of the Zweibrucken region of the Palatinate for permission to leave Germany to travel to America and his name was recorded in the Manumissions Protocoll for the year 1740. On their journey to the new world Jacob and Anna Maria must have succumbed to one of the deadly diseases which were common on ships of that day (perhaps small pox or typhoid or scurvy or any of numerous others which spread in the crowded and often unsanitary conditions of ship travel). The only clue that points toward the family’s fate was a single newspaper advertisement that Barbara placed in Christopher Sauer’s newspaper, the Pennsylvanische Geschicht-Schreiber on the 16th of May, 1747. Her ad stated that “Simon Klaar arrived in this country six years ago and was indentured as a servant. His sister Barbara became free two years ago and she seeks her brother.” The fact that Barbara noted that her brother had been indentured as a servant is the basis for assuming that their parents died enroute at sea.
The period of servitude for indentured servants ranged anywhere from four to seven years with the possibility that the servant could choose to stay on with the family after being freed from the servitude. Some indentured servants were given practical training as apprentices to craftsmen with their pay going to the master, but they reaped the benefits of the training. For Johan Simon Clar, who would have been only seven or eight years old at the time, the indentured servitude that he found himself thrust into might have been welcome. Rather than being homeless and having to beg for food and shelter, his new masters probably filled that void formed by his parents’ recent deaths. During his period of indenture, Johan Simon might have learned the trade of hornsmith, with which he made a living after the War.
In the early 1750s Johan Simon Clar married Anna Margaretha Klee and took up residence in the town of Hanover, York County. They gave birth to twelve children.
Johan Simon Clar, in April 1778 was commissioned as Second Lieutenant of the Second Company of the Sixth Battalion of the York County Militia. In June 1779, he was promoted to Captain of the First Company of the Seventh Battalion of the York County Militia. He was active with the militia even after the war ended, at least until 1787.
Johan Simon Clar died on 19 September 1812. He was buried in the churchyard of the Lutheran and Reformed Union Church in Bedford, Pennsylvania.