Johan Balthasar Hetzler, also known as Balser Hetzler, was born about 1730 at Erbach, Germany.  As a young man he became part of a wave of immigration that would later be called the Pennsylvania Dutch.  Spurred on by advertisements from the Pennsylvania Company, he sailed for America, arriving at Philadelphia, September 2, 1749.  His father, Johan George Hetzler, brought his mother and sisters the following year.  Balthasar married Anna Barbara Dohm November 5, 1755, at Heidelberg Township, Lancaster County.  Over the years he bought and sold property in several nearby communities.  By the time of his militia service in 1778, Anna had given birth to the last of their eight children.  Baptism records, handwritten in German, still exist for two of them at St. Luke’s Evangelical Lutheran Church at Schaefferstown.  

Balser Hetzler was listed as a Private on the roll for Captain Volicks’ Company of Colonel John Huber’s Ninth Battalion of the Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Militia, October 28, 1778.  His eldest son, Frederick, was in the same company.

In a 1779 tax record, he was the owner of 100 acres of land at Londonderry.  He was taxed on the land, two horses, two cows, and four sheep. 

Several years after the revolution and following the death of his father, Balthasar Hetzler moved his family about 60 miles northwest, following the Susquehanna River, to Haines Township, Northumberland County.  New land was being settled there and opportunities existed for his large family.   His wife, Anna, died at Northumberland County in 1794 and was buried at the Stover Cemetery at Aaronsburg.  Cemetery records indicate Balthasar died there August 28, 1818 at the age of 68 years.

Service Source:  Published Pennsylvania Archives, Series 5, Vol. 7, Pg. 885-886.