Casper Shafer

Casper Shafer[1] (c. 1712— 17 December 1784) was among the first settlers of the village of Stillwater along the Paulins Kill in Sussex County, New Jersey, United States.

He was among tens of thousands of German Palatines who escaped conditions of war and poverty in southwestern Germany throughout the eighteenth century and journeyed up the Rhine River to Rotterdam seeking passage to the New World.

[2] From Rotterdam, Shafer emigrated to the American colonies aboard the ship Queen Elizabeth commanded by Alexander Hope, and entered Philadelphia on 16 September 1738.

[4] Shafer, his father-in-law, Johan Peter Bernhardt, his brother-in-law John George Wintermute (1711-1782),[5] and their families settled along the Paulins Kill in northwestern New Jersey circa 1742.

[9][10] Shafer also established large orchards on his property in Stillwater, mostly of apple trees that were later described as growing to "a majestic size, some of them attaining to over three feet in diameter at the butt.

[11] Each year, Shafer would navigate down the Paulins Kill and Delaware River by flatboat "carrying flour and other produce down to the Philadelphia market" and returning with "such goods as the wants of the country in its primitive state seemed to demand.

According to Schaeffer, "he journeyed in that direction some fifty miles over the mountains and through the almost trackless wilderness, until he finally arrived at the veritable town...where he commenced trading in his small way.

"[7]: p.33  It was not until 1756-1757 that a military supply road built by Jonathan Hampton during the French & Indian War opened up a connection for trade between Elizabeth and Morristown with the northwestern frontier.

[12] In 1775, Shafer was a member of the Committee of Safety for Sussex County, and was charged with raising £10,000 to "purchase arms and ammunition and for other exigencies of the Province.