...an idea of where the Swiss (who came from the Rhine Valley earlier) lived in that Valley at this time [1731].

Of the congregation of Ibersheim near Worms, the minister was Hans Jacob Heistand and the deacon Abram Burkholder. In the Tribbach congregation, John Neff was minister and Hands Longanecker deacon. Altogether says Muller, there were in the Palatinate (or Rhine Valley) 458 families of Swiss below Manheim and 160 families above Manheim--in all 618 families.

Page 237 of Swiss and German Pioneer Settlers of Southeastern Pennsylvania by H. Frank Eshleman (originally published in 1917 and reprinted in 2000 by the Genealogical Publishing Company of Baltimore, MD).

We the ministers and elders of the Palatinate, assembled acknowledge the foregoing to be proper and advisable, and bear testimony to the same by subscribing to it with our hands. Ubersheimerhoff [another name for Ibersheim], March 13, 1709.

Note: A "Heinrich Hiestant" was one of the signers of this letter. Was he the father of our emigrant ancestor by the same name and, thus, the grandfather of our Daniel Haston. Possibly, but we do not know that for sure.

Page 246 of Swiss and German Pioneer Settlers of Southeastern Pennsylvania by H. Frank Eshleman (originally published in 1917 and reprinted in 2000 by the Genealogical Publishing Company of Baltimore, MD).

Ibersheimerhoff - Other spellings are Ubersheimer, and Ybersheimer.  Ibersheim, a village eight miles north of Worms in Rheinessen, is the location of an old Mennonite congregation established soon after the Thirty Years' War.  ME III, 1-2.

Page 665 of Documents of Brotherly Love: Dutch Mennonite Aid to Swiss Anabaptists, Volume I, 1635-1709. Millersburg, OH: Ohio Amish Library, 2007.

Ibersheim -
once a small farming village is now incorporated as part of the city of Worms.  The village was located about eight miles (13 km) north of Worms, near the Rhine River. 

On Del'Isle's 1704 map of the central Rhine.... At least one small village, namely Ubersheim (today Ibersheim) is distinguished as "Cense de Anabapuits," that is, regarded as Anabaptist, being decidedly contrary to the dominant French Catholic philosophy of the time.
Source: Page 86 of Across the Atlantic and Beyond: The Migration of German and Swiss Immigrants to America by Charles R. Haller (Heritage Books, 2008).

Elector Karl I Ludwig and Palatinate Restoration Following the Thirty Years War

In 1656, eight years after the 1648 Peace of Westphalia treaty that brought an end to the Thirty Years War, Swiss Anabaptist refugees began settling in the village that was later known as Ibersheim.  As early as October 8, 1661, it was evident that the Elector Prince of the Palatinate had an interest in assisting the Swiss refugees living under his domain.  On that date he sent a letter to the government of Zurich on behalf of two of the Anabaptist tenants living on his land, petitioning for the release of their maternal inheritance.

In 1664, Elector Karl I Ludwig decreed that Mennonites ("Mennonists") could settle in his domain if they paid a yearly poll tax of six guilders per family and observed some religious restrictions not required of Catholic, Reformed, and Lutheran groups.  The 1664 decree made the permission for Mennonite occupancy in the Palatinate official.  And the poll tax necessitated census records for these Mennonite families.  In return, the Elector Prince received much needed and very capable help in restoring the Palatine farm lands that had been depopulated and devastated by the war.

The entire Ibersheim estate was leased to Mennonite families and was divided among them in six parts originally (later into 12, and later into 24 parts).  On a 1752 map, the village is designated as "Wiedertaufhof" (Anabaptist Estate) because it was wholly populated by Mennonites since 1661.  The Ibersheim Mennonites were given 12-year leases from the elector, which was a different status than that given to other Mennonite congregations in the Palatinate.  And as early as 1685, it appears that the Mennonites of Ibersheim had the right of ownership of property--a right unknown to other Mennonites in the Palatinate.

In 1671, 430 destitute Anabaptists (or related) refugees from the Bern territory of Switzerland arrived in the Palatinate.  Mennonite families within a circle of about 12 miles of Kriegsheim took them in and provided food and shelter for them, even though most of these Palatine families were poor themselves.  Ibersheimer Hof families played a major role in this sacrificial response to needs of their Swiss brethren.  Source: Page 407 of Documents of Brotherly Love by James W. Lowry.

When the 1683 contract of lease was created, ten names were included in the lease: Heinrich Neff; Konrad Hiestand; Hans Jakob Forrer; Heinrich Gochnauer; Hans Jakob Brubacher; Jakob Dentlinger; Hans Leitweller; Peter Opmann; Heinrich Reif, and Ulrich Hagmann's widow.  Several of these family names have been variously interrelated with the Hiestand family down through the years.

In 1685, the special privileges and rights of the Ibersheim Mennonites were challenged but their right to ownership - not just rental rights - of their land was upheld by the Elector:

"Everyone must give them the testimonial that they live quietly and peaceably, live in harmony with their neighbors, and have proven themselves more industrious than others, obedient to the government, true and constant in all things."

But invading armies again devastated Ibersheim and the Palatinate in the "War of the Grand Alliance" or "Nine Years War" (1689-1697) when France's King Louis XIV vowed to "burn up the Palatinate." Much of the land restored by the Mennonite farmers was again laid waste and many of the Mennonite families were forced to flee their homes.

1693-1698 in Friedrichstadt - Escaping the War of the Grand Alliance

King Louis XIV of France waged the "War of the Grand Alliance" (also called the "Nine Years War") (1688-1697) against a coalition of European nations.  France conquered the Rhineland area of Germany, including Manheim, Worms, Heidelberg, and Mainz, but torched the cities and farmlands when the king realized his army was not going to be able to hold the land he had conquered.  The Mennonites of the Palatinate again found themselves in a devastating war zone.  A September 28, 1689 letter from several "ministers of the Word in the Palatinate" to Mennonites in the Netherlands described the pillaging that was being done by the French army: 

The French again have so horribly burned, and have forced many poor people into poverty.  [Several villages mentioned] ...all burnt and reduced to ashes.  It seems that everything will be burned or destroyed by the French.  Heidelberg...around there they are roaming and plundering everything from the people.  Both sides of the Rhein are completely decayed, especially through fire.  Now all the seed corn, horses, oxen, and cows - everything is gone, so that there can be no ploughing.  People do not dare live in the villages - threaten further to burn everything.  Source: Page 339 of Letters of Toleration by Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs.

Many of them fled the area and some became refugees in the Netherlands.

In 1621, Duke Frederick III had established Friedrichstadt in marshy land of Schleswig-Holstein near the North Sea, 700 km north of Ibersheim.  In order to attract industrious people to Friedrichstadt, the duke offered religious toleration as an incentive.  Dutch Remonstrants (who had rejected Calvinistic theology in favor or Arminianism) were being persecuted in the Netherlands, so the offer of toleration attracted some of them to leave their homeland and become city-builders for Frederick III.  Some Dutch Mennonites were also early citizens of Friedrichstadt. 

In the fall of 1693, two groups of Palatinate Mennonite refugees left Amsterdam for Friedrichstadt in what is now the German Federal State of Schleswig-Holstein near the North Sea.  The October 13 group included some Hiestand families.  And Hanss Henrik Heystand followed a year later.  On April 9, 1698 twenty Mennonite families left Friedrichstadt to return to their homes in the Palatinate. 

Click to download this very interesting and informative article by Sem C. Sutter.

In 1711, Palatinate officials drafted Mennonites as guards and soldiers, but in response to their petition, a decision was made on January 27, 1712 to confirm their rights of exemption for military service.  They were required to continue to pay the Mennonite exemption tax until 1742.