He was born in Swabia, southern Germany and studied medicine for three years before entering the Society of Jesus at Landsberg in September 1743.
[2] Steinmeyer made horseback tours throughout eastern Pennsylvania and northern and central New Jersey every spring and autumn, ministering to the scattered groups of Catholics at Mount Hope, Macopin, Basking Ridge, Trenton, Ringwood, and other places.
Parish archives of Old St. Joseph's Church in Philadelphia record his trips to the Revolutionary War depot near Fishkill, New York in 1781, where he baptized over a dozen children of French-Canadian and Acadian parents.
Most of the men were members of the 1st Canadian Regiment of the Continental Army, recruited in 1775 by James Livingston in anticipation of an invasion of Quebec.
[4] In 1779, Farmer was appointed one of the first trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, while as a philosopher and astronomer his reputation had reached the learned societies of Europe with whom he corresponded.