Sebastian Caquelin

Sebastian Caqueline was born in 1686, in Waldersbach, Bas-Rhin, France. He married Marie Jean Banzet, who was also from a long-established family in the region, and they immigrated to Pennsylvania, along with several siblings.

There had been a great upheaval in the Waldersbach community not too long before. Wartime had depopulated the village, and in the late 1500's and early 1600's, a few families resettled there. These families had many children and intermarried extensively. But between 1620 and 1630, accusations of witchcraft were made, and ancestors of both Sebastian and his wife Marie Jean Banzet had been accused. The accusers were, of course, cousins, and although not every accused witch was put to death, quite a number of them were, and the community apparently never recovered from that schism.

By the time passage to the New World could be obtained, the Caquelins were more than ready to get out of Waldersbach. I had originally thought that they, too, must have been Huguenots, but that is not clear.