Descendants of Lucas Vetter (1696 - bef 1753)

The Vetter family has been loosely traced back to a Lucas Vetter from Wueutenberg, Germany, who died in 1483. Weurtenberg apparently remained the home of Lucas Vetter eldest sons through eight generations (and through conversion from Roman Catholic to Lutheran) with little else known until our Lucas Vetter appeared. His son, the ninth Lucas Vetter (1723 - bef 1785), emigrated in 1754 to NY, to near Johnston in the Mohawk Valley region of the state, then settling in nearby Stone Arabia. There is where it appears his son Wilhelm Vetter (1756 - 1844) was born - his name at some point Americanized to William Feeter. The family interestingly moved to nearby Amsterdam in 1776 (see Younges section of this compilation). Vetter-Feeter family history indicates William Feeter was an active patriot soldier in the Revolutionary War from 1776 through 1782 in his home territory, apparently alone among his Vetter relatives not taking the side of the British. Those relatives variously exiled to Canada.

In 1782, Feeter married Maria Elizabeth Bellinger from Stone Arabia. They had 11 children, the seventh our Nancy Ann Feeter, who in 1814 married Stone Arabia's William Himes (est 1794 - 1849). The latter couple's westward migration to MI is described under the Himes section of this compilation. It was their son, George H. "G.H." Himes, who moved on, in the 1850s, to Elgin, IL.

The Feeter and Younges families were not the only Kirkland-related family to live in the greater Albany-Mohawk Valley region of eastern NY before migrating to Illinois. Himes and Hewitt ancestors lived there too. See the separate sections of this compilation on these three families for more details.

My source for the above Vetter-Feeter history is John B. Koetteritz's 1901 compilation entitled, "The History of William Feeter, A soldier in the War of American Independence and his father, Lucas Vetter, the ancestor of the Feeter-Feder-Feader-Fader families, in the United States and Canada." A hardcopy version of this study is the Library of Congress. It may also be viewed in full online by googling the title.