Jacob Roller

  General Notes:

Jacob Roller emigration to America in 1749 was due to the difficult times in early eighteenth centrury Wurtemberg. It had suffered badly during the Thirty Years War losing up to a third of its population. Religious differences between the court and population, which was 70% protestant, were heightened under the Catholic rule. The threat of religious repression, followed by and equally perilous threat of bankruptcy and civil chaos caused many people to seek relief by emigration to America.
Jacob Roller, the federal head of this history, was a native of Wurtemberg, Germany: born of poor parents, though established ancestry, the family enjoying the distinction of a coat of arms. He came to America on the ship Ranier and arrived in Philadelphia on 26 Sept. 1749. He was 21 years of age. He sold his time to a farmer, working three years faithfully to pay his passage across the Atlantic. Soon after this he married Miss Mary Hammer, a German lady who was also from Wurtemberg, Germany. By this union they became the parents of seven sons and two daughters, The above parents lived and died in Pennsylvania. Settling in York County, Pa., Jacob Roller engaged in chopping cordwood at Grubb's Iron Works; he afterwards removed to Bedford County, now Huntingdon County, Pa., just before the Revolutionary war, and being on the frontier they had to live in forts. Their fort was named Standing Stone, now the city of Huntingdon, and during the seven years of the Revolutionary struggle to throw off the British yoke and become a free people the Roller family were ready and willing at every call to respond to the cause of liberty, and for the seven long years they never went out to work but with their guns to quell the Indians.
In 1776 upon the opening of government land, Jacob Roller purchased a section known as Sinking Valley, now Blair County, where his home was established.

Jacob married Mary Agnes (Maria) Hammer, daughter of Johann Melchior Hammer and Margaretha Nusslin, on 8 Jan 1753 in St.Michael & Zion Church, Germantown, Philadelphia Co. PA. (Mary Agnes (Maria) Hammer was born on 25 Feb 1725 in Wurttemberg, Lower Saxony, Germany and died about 1796.)