Balthasar Mercer

Balthasar Mercer / Archibald Merser (b. abt. 1600, d. Bremen 1650) was a wealthy merchant burgess and mayor in Culross (then co. Perth, now co. Fife) on the north shore of the Firth of Forth, Scotland and also a Scottish M.P. for two times. He emigrated in or about 1645 when the British Civil War reached his country for he and his family were supporters of the Stuart dynasty. With his wife Elizabeth née Kennedy (of noble descent, b. abt. 1610, d. Bremen 1660) and six children he went to Bremen, Germany. There he had already been at least in 1634 to act as manager of Sir George Bruce of Carnock, a rich coal and salt mine owner in Culross.

Of Mercer's six children one son died in Bremen and the other two went to the Canary Islands and India but Thomas Mercer perhaps eventually returned to Scotland and abt. 1680 lived as a Quaker in Aberdeen. The eldest daughter Helen Mercer married James Claypoole, a merchant in London and afterwards in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where they emigrated as prominent Quakers in 1683. Elizabeth Mercer, the middle daughter, married the Hessian court preacher and historian Friedrich Lucae. Finally her youngest sister Margaret Elizabeth Mercer became the woman of Jost Christoph Uckermann, a merchant in Wanfried, Hesse. Balthasar Mercer's posterity in Germany and most of all in the United States is immense.

The Scottish Civil War Refugee

Balthasar Mercer and His Family

By Kai Jumaane DREWES, of Braunschweig, Germany

Birth: 1600 Perth, Scotland Death: May, 1650 Bremen, Germany

a.k.a. "Balthasar"

Family links:

Spouse:   Elizabeth Kennedy Mercer (1610 - 1660)*

Burial: Sankt Stephani Churchyard Bremen Stadtgemeinde Bremen Bremen, Germany

Created by: Helen Rineer Record added: Jun 13, 2009 Find A Grave Memorial# 38299783