This period is important because, after the British were defeated and the colonies attempted to form a new government, Andreas’ views about the change in governance, economic conditions, and the continued and rapid growth in Maryland were formed. The years under the Articles of Confederation were likely difficult from an economic perspective. The ensuing debates over the proposed Constitution likely caused Andreas to form opinions about whether he preferred a strong central government, as favored by some, or a nation where state governments had more primacy over decision-making and laws. Many farmers in the period 1789-1793 were strongly opposed to adoption of the U.S. Constitution and feared that Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists would form a strong central government that would work against the interests of farmers and rural Americans.

The 1790 US Census is difficult to interpret in terms of who was living where and with whom, since only the head of household is listed. The other family members are included according to gender and age. In those times, it is likely that married children might still have been living at home, working on the farm, or that cousins or orphaned children could be living with family members or grandparents.

Here is a list of names from the 1790 Census, taken in April 1791, for Jefferson Township in Frederick County, Maryland:

You can see that there is an Andrew Kesler, likely Andreas on p. 34. There is an entry for John Kesler on p. 12 and a John Fessler on p. 38. Others include Jacob Kesler pm p.20, George Keisler on p.41, and George Kepler on p. 48.

Andreas’ children in 1791 were: Andrew 21, John 19, Mary 17, George 15, Peter 13, Jacob 9, William 7, Samuel 5, Thomas 3, and David 1. So, it is unlikely that any of them are listed in the 1790 census, since they would not have been old enough to have the children listed by the names above. Could John Kesler, age 19, on p. 12 be married to Nancy Waskey and operating a nearby farm? Could his father Johannes who was still alive in 1790 be one of the males over age 16? Could Andreas’ oldest sons be living on John’s farm, working as farm hands? That could explain the discrepancies in some of the numbers of males and females of different age groups. It is simply not possible to understand the circumstances that existed in 1790.

Situation in 1790 When First U.S. Census was Conducted

After breaking from England, the American colonies adopted the Articles of Confederation on March 1, 1781 which created a weak central government, hindering the ability to repay war debts, conduct interstate commerce, and stimulate economic growth. Consequently, during the summer of 1787, state representatives at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia drafted the U.S. Constitution, and after lengthy debate, it was ratified by June 1788. The new Constitutional government commenced on March 4, 1789. Land on the Potomac River bordering Maryland and Virginia was designated to be the new federal government location, and Washington, D.C. was founded on July 16, 1790.

The Kessler family, residing in Jefferson, a small community located six miles west of Frederick, Maryland, was certainly aware of these events and the potential consequences, both in terms of how the new nation would be governed, its politics, and the proximity of the new national capital to their community, which was located only 50 miles to the west, closer to Frederick than they were to Baltimore, Maryland, which was located 65 miles east.

Article 1 Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution called for an “enumeration” of the population to determine how many representatives each state could send to the House of Representatives. Congress enacted the 1790 Census Act, which governed census taking until 1840. The first U.S. Census was conducted on August 2, 1790 by the U.S. marshals. Every household was visited, and the completed census was then posted in public locations such as on courthouse doors so that citizens could review and verify that the information was correctly recorded.

Literacy rates in 1790 at the time of the first U.S. census were surprisingly high, ranging from 70 to 90 percent. Literacy was higher in cities than in rural areas. Devout families valued literacy as a means of reading the bible.

Literacy was an important census data accuracy factor. If the person whom the census-taker interviewed was not literate, the census-taker could only rely on the phonetic enunciation of family names. Since the U.S. marshals conducted the early census’, it is also possible that the census-taker had limited literacy.

The compound issues of trying to correctly record the spelling of names based only on how they sounded to the listener, and modest education levels of the census-takers themselves, created significant potential for census errors.  Hence the Kessler surname was recorded at different times as Kessler, Keslar, Kesler, Kefler, Kepler, Fessler, Hessler, and Keisler. Some writers tended to shape the letter “s” as an “f” because they placed a slash through the middle of the “s.” Similarly, a slanted letter “s” with a slash through it can easily be mistaken for the letter “f.”

During the period after Johann and Anna Catharina and their children first immigrated, the family likely spoke German in the home. Over time, however, the children and grandchildren were less likely to speak German than were their parents and grandparents. The Kessler family literacy levels of the earliest generations are not known.

It is likely that as the sons reached adulthood they focused on purchasing additional farmland, building their own homes, and expanding the family’s farming efforts. During the 1770s and 1780s Andreas, who married Anna Maria Rehman (Mary) in 1769, fathered nine boys and one girl. The role of farmer and father likely kept him busy and only tangentially focused on the activities that occurred during the 1770s and 1780s.

This information is relevant to our genealogical history because these factors likely played into Andreas’ decision, in 1796, to move to western Pennsylvania. His father died in 1792 and this likely made Andreas long for the past, when Jefferson was considered the wilderness and most of the colonial population was clustered along coastal cities and towns. He might have resented that the area where he settled was no longer as remote as it was when he was growing up and sought to relocate to a less-developed area.

Perhaps his motives were political. The Germans were fiercely independent and resistant to being controlled by government authorities. In 1796 George Washington completed his second term as President. In the 1796 election John Adams, a Federalist who advocated a strong federal government defeated Thomas Jefferson who advocated a restrained federal government and who was an advocate for farmers such as Andreas. The Residence Act of 1790 had determined that the emerging federal government would be located on the banks of the Potomac and not far from Frederick, Maryland. It is entirely possible that Andreas resented what was happening, spurring his decision to relocate to the frontier.

In the Official Poll of the Presidential Election of 1796 Andrew Kessler’s name appears as a voter, substantiating his appearance in the Census of 1790.  He is listed as a Federalist which is the same party as George Washington and Alexander Hamilton. I believe that this is Andreas’ son (also listed in this census are Andreas’ other sons, Jacob and John). It is possible that Andreas and his son Andrew had substantial disagreement over the election which might partially explain why he and some of his children accompanied Andreas to western Pennsylvania while Andrew and others did not.

In 1783, a deed was recorded in Springhill, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania in the name of Petter Keslar, obviously not Andreas’ son, Peter, who was born in 1778. Could this have been one of Andreas’ cousins or nephews? Is it possible that Petter returned to Jefferson and described the wildness and opportunity available on what was the western frontier at that time? Certainly, this could have been a catalyst for causing Andreas to begin thinking about relocating. Perhaps as the Revolutionary War concluded and America fumbled its way toward a constitutional government, Andreas became more convinced that he and his family should escape the chaos of a newly forming republic and start over in western Pennsylvania.

We can never know for certain what factors drove Andreas to give up his home of over 40 years or how he convinced a large number of his sons to travel 150 miles northwest of Jefferson with him to western Pennsylvania. We also have no way of knowing how he learned about Donegal Township in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. Perhaps he had relatives who had explored the area and returned to tell him about opportunities in that area. In the 1790s, western Pennsylvania was still a wilderness. There were few developed roads and just years before Indian attacks were still common.

John and Andreas’ father, Johann George Bernhard died in 1792. A few years later Andrew and some of his children and their families relocated about 150 miles northwest to Donegal Township, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania in 1796. Donegal Township is located in Westmoreland County about 50 miles southwest of present-day Pittsburgh. He lived and farmed in Donegal Township until his death in 1809.

Andreas was a member of the Evangelical Reformed Church.  He is buried in the Keslar Family Cemetery located near Salt Lick Township, Fayette County, Pennsylvania.

Why Did Andreas Kessler Move from Frederick to Donegal in 1796?

Westmoreland County is located about 150 miles from Frederick, Maryland so it was no small decision to relocate from the family home of almost 50 years to the western wilderness that was to eventually become the Pittsburgh area. Roads were non-existent at the time and consisted of old Indian trails that had been somewhat widened when the British Army traveled to the region to fight the French and Indian War in the 1760s. So, the decision to make the move was significant. 

When Andreas Kessler arrived in what would become Jefferson Township, Maryland in 1751, he was a child of six, growing up on what was then the western edge of settlement in Frederick County. Over the next four decades, Andreas witnessed the transformation of the region from frontier farmland into a settled, regulated agricultural community. By the 1790s, the conditions that had once drawn German families westward—abundant land, relative autonomy, and opportunity for expansion—had largely disappeared from central Maryland.

By 1796, Andreas was in his early fifties, and his sons had reached adulthood. The family faced a common dilemma among long-established German-American farming households: land that had supported one generation could not easily sustain the next. Inheritance customs among German settlers typically favored preserving the integrity of the homestead rather than subdividing it beyond viability. As a result, families often adopted a dual strategy—retaining one branch on the original farm while assisting other sons in establishing themselves elsewhere.

Not all members of the family relocated. Andrew Kessler, the direct ancestor who remained in Frederick County, likely represented the stabilizing branch of the family. By remaining on the homestead, Andrew preserved the family’s original landholdings, community ties, and local standing. His decision reflects not reluctance but pragmatism—an acknowledgment that prosperity could be maintained through continuity just as effectively as through expansion.

Taken together, the partial migration of the Kessler family illustrates a broader pattern among German-American settlers in the late eighteenth century. Rather than abandoning their origins, families adapted to changing economic and demographic realities by dividing risk and opportunity across generations. The westward movement of Andreas Kessler and several of his sons in 1796 was thus not a rupture, but an extension of the same frontier logic that had first brought the family to Maryland forty-five years earlier.