Schieffelin family

Jacob Schieffelin (1757-1835), prominent New York merchant and landowner and founder of a mercantile house which has born the family name to the present day, was the son of Jacob Schieffelin (1732-69) of Weilheim-an-der-Teck, Duchy of Wurtemburg, who emigrated to the Province of Pennsylvania in 1746. The Schieffelin (or Scheuffelin) family, a branch of which located in Geneva in the 16th century, has been traced as far back as the 13th century to Nordlingen, Germany. Jacob's grandfather, Jacob Schieffelin (1702-46), had visited the province earlier in the century but had returned to Germany. Jacob's father, a merchant, settled in Philadelphia where he married (1756) Regina Margaretta Kraften Ritschaurin (d. 1816). In 1770 the family settled in Montreal. Following his father's death Jacob, who was the eldest of three surviving sons (the others being Jonathan and Thomas) was apprenticed to a Montreal merchant. In 1776, at age seventeen, he went to Detroit and entered the mercantile business forming with Thomas Smith the firm of Schieffelin & Smith.

Although it was merely a small stockaded outpost in the western wilderness at the beginning of the American Revolution, Detroit controlled access to the rich lands of the Ohio Valley which were claimed by Canada and coveted by the Americans. Its lieutenant-governor, Henry Hamilton, became acquainted with Schieffelin and was so impressed by his character and capacities that he appointed him secretary to the government in the Indian Department and granted him a commission as lieutenant in the Detroit Volunteers which had just been formed to defend the Western lands. The commission may have been partly in recognition of Schieffelin's prior services for he appears to have participated in the Battle of Bennington (August 1776). In any case his rank and pay were equivalent to that of an officer in the regular army.

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