Most of my information on Sebastian Heeter and his 15 children and 133 grandchildren is from The Heeter Family Letters, edited by Lester H. Binnie, Rt. 4, Albion, Indiana, 1978. I have not entered that book as a source on most of these individuals, to avoid repetition. See also pp. 84-86 of Vol. 4, Miami Valley Genealogies, by Lindsay Brien.

His stone in the New Providence Lutheran Cemetery in Perry twp, Montgomery Co., OH, reads: "Sebastian Heeter, died June 5, 1846, age 86 yrs 4 mo 5 days." It was marked by the DAR in 1935.

The appendix to The Heeter Family Letters gives Sebastian Heeter's date of birth as 1 Feb 1760, citing the stone above. In correspondence, Keith C. Rarick, Rt. 5, Box 85, Nashville, IN 47448, has it as 31 Jan 1760. (This is the date I would infer from the stone, so I am using it instead.) The LDS Ancestral File (submission AF91-002448, from Mrs. Brent Ossman, 15256 Hyacinth Place, Dumfries, VA 22026) gives his birthdate as 23 Feb 1760. The Ancestral File record does not include a death date, so perhaps Mrs. Ossman's 23 Feb 1760 date is based on a christening record. And finally, the Wabash County History, in an article by Mary Louise Heeter Leckrone, says that Sebastian was born Jan 6, 1760.

According to Keith C. Rarick, Sebastian was about 3 years old when his parents moved from Frederick Co., MD, to Bedford Co., PA, and settled in the area that is now Huntingdon Co., Pennsylvania.

Sebastian served as a Private in the Revolutionary War, and is listed in the DAR Patriot Index. He was issued a land grant for 200 acres on 11 Sep 1786, in what is now Hopewell twp, Huntingdon Co. His first wife, Elizabeth Dilts, died after the birth of their son George. About 4 months later Sebastian remarried. On 14 Apr 1814, he sold the farm in Huntingdon Co. and went down the Ohio R. to Cincinnati. He traded 4 horses and a wagon for 60 acres west of Dayton.

The will of Sebastian Heeter, dated June 1, 1837, and recorded in Montgomery Co., Will Bk D, p. 315, on Aug 25, 1846, names wife Elizabeth; "all my children (in all fifteen)", naming specifically John, Barbara, heirs of Margaret; George, Henry, Frederick, Abraham, Catharine, David, Daniel, Mary, Jacob, and Sally. The two youngest children, Samuel and Sebastian Jr., are not named, perhaps because at the time of writing they were under 21. The sons George and Jacob are the executors.

Lester Binnie's "The Heeter Family Letters", and the LDS Ancestral File, and Keith C. Rarick all give Elizabeth Rarick's lifespan as 25 Feb 1777-17 Feb 1868. But the only primary record I am aware of is her gravestone, which reads: Elizabeth Heeter, wife of Sebastian, died Feb 17, 1868, age 90 yrs 11 mos 17 days (from Lindsay Brien's Miami Valley Genealogies.) If the transcription is correct, the inscription is ambiguous. The normal way of calculating age at death would never describe someone as x years 11 mos <d> days old on Feb <d>. The usual way to interpret the age would be that on Jan 31, 1868, 17 days before she died, she was exactly 90 years and 11 mos old, which would mean that she was born on "Feb 31", an impossible date. If someone were born on Feb <n> for n <= 29, generally on Jan <n> they would be described as x years 11 mos old, on Jan <n + d> they would be x yrs 11 mos d days old, and thus on Jan 31 they would be x yrs 11 mos <31-n> days old, on Feb 1 they would be x yrs 11 mos <32-n> days old, and on Feb <m>, for 1 <= m <= n-1, they would be described as x yrs 11 mos <31+m-n> days old, and since n is always <=29, the days value is always at least 2 more than <m>. So if Elizabeth was really born on 25 Feb 1777, then on 17 Feb 1868 she would be age 90-11-23, and she would be 90-11-17 on 12 Feb 1868.