Back to Sources PageThe name Bushart is German in origin. The German spelling is Bußhardt. There are two possible meanings. It can mean literally a command to "bust hard!" ("Bust" as in "I'll bust [meaning strike or hit] you in the chops!"). Or it could be German for "soaring hawk." Today the name is pronounced like the English words "bus" and "heart", but that is from over two hundred years in America, softened by the use of English from the more guttural German, in which it probably sounded more like "buzz" and "art". This led to the name being spelled at first in America as "Buzzard", which is not a very nice name in English! (In America, people often confuse buzzards with vultures. In Europe, a buzzard is a type of hawk.) Other early spellings in early records reflect the changing pronunciation of the name, including Bossert, Boshart, Boshard, Buzhart, Bushardt, and Busheart. Also, German had a different alphabet than English (though modern German uses pretty much the same alphabet). As is the case with any language not using our alphabet, their is a variety of ways a name may be spelled in English. Here are the "ingredients" to spell the name Bushart which should illustrate the various possible spellings:
B + U + S + (H) + A + R + T (Note that the H is
P O SS E D optional.)
Z EA DT
ZZ O TH
If you use the different substitutions shown above, you can come up with many spelling variations of the same name. Indeed, there are many families in the United States with the Bushart name spelled in a different way, even though it is pronounced more or less the same. By 1850 or so, however, the spelling "Bushart" had become predominant for Jacob Bushart, Sr. and his descendants, though an occassional spelling of "Busheart" still appeared in the records now and then. A system called "Soundex" has been developed by the government, for many different reasons, which is used to index names by the way they sound, and not the way they are spelled. In Florida, the Soundex code is the first part of anyone's driver's liscense number. For the name Bushart, and all its spelling variations, the Soundex code is B263.
Some of the spellings which appear in records are simply errors which occurred when records were copied. Handwritten records were copied by hand, and the person copying had to be able to read what the first person wrote. Mistakes like "Buchart" or "Bushait" are these kind of errors.
The first Bushart ancestor in America was probably John Bushart, father of Jacob Bushart, Sr. He may have come from any of the areas in Europe where German was and still is spoken, including modern day Germany, Austria, or Switzerland. The first Bushart was Lutheran in religion and probably left Europe for America, like many other Germans, to escape the persecution from Catholic France under Louis XV of Protestant Germans. The British, looking for people to fill the American colonies, and always eager to snubb their French rivals, helped the Germans settle in America. As of yet, it is unknown for certain who was the first Bushart ancestor to come to America and when he came. There are a couple of different legends:
It has been said that two or three Bushart brothers came from Germany to Pennsylvania. It has also been said that four Bushart brothers left Hamburg, Germany and went to Ireland where one married, then all four came to Pennsylvania.
It is unknown if there is any validity at all to these legends, but the idea that the Bushart ancestor came first to Pennsylvania makes sense, because it is a historical fact that most Germans who came to this country before the Revolution entered through Philadelphia, and then they or their children or grandchildren gradually spread south, down the Shenandoah Valley, into Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas.
Here are some quick notes about the German colonist in America. They were Protestants, either Lutherans, Calvinists, or Moravians. They settled in communities of their own kind and kept their language and traditions alive in America for a few generations before assimilating into the English- speaking culture. They were generally more literate than other immigrants, partly from their religion which encouraged them to read the Bible.
The Germans tended to marry a little latter than other immigrants; girls were usually eighteen or older and boys in their early to mid-twenties, and they also tended to marry other Germans. The first names they gave their children were traditional German names for the first few generations. Germans followed the same general naming practices of most immigrants. The first son was named after the husband's father, the second son after the mother's father, the first daughter after the husband's mother, and the second daughter after the wife's mother; subsequent children might be named after the siblings of the husband or wife. Usually, the son named after the husband ("Junior") was at least the third son. Because so many children died in infancy, it was not uncommon for a child not to be named until its baptism at about one year of age.
Often, when the Germans moved west across the Appalaichans to new places where their particular church did not exist, they adopted a new church, usually either Baptist, Methodist, or Presbyterian.
The earliest mention known to date of John Bushart in North Carolina is 22 Sep 1763, on which date Jacob Bussard and Jacob Fulenwider were both naturalized as British subjects in the Rowan County Courthouse. The following are possibilities as to when the Bushart family came to America, but the records are too scanty to know which, if any, of these is correct.
From "Pennsylvania German Pioneers, Vol I"
[Note that all the different spellings are just variants of Bushart. These are ships which brought German immigrants to Philadelphia, PA. Some of the ship captains listed everybody on board, and some just listed adult males.]
p.27-30 Ship "Allen" 11 Sep 1729 Jacob Possart, male over 15 John Possart, male under 15 Susanah Possart, female Eve Possart, female Marilis Possart, female p.250-5 Ship "Jamaica Galley" 7 Feb 1739 Felix Bossart, age 48 Jacob Bushart, age 20 Johannes (Hans) Ulrich Bossart, age 19 p.331-4 Ship "Francis and Elizabeth" 30 Aug 1743 John Bushart, age 24. This may be the ship on which Jacob Fullenweider traveled to America: p.397-9 Ship "Priscilla" 11 Sep 1749 Heinrich Wollenweider Jacob Folenweider
We can be fairly sure that John Bushart was born in Europe and came to America as either a grown man, or as a boy with his family. This is because the Bushart family moved to North Carolina. Almost all early German immigrants came to this country via Philadelphia, PA. Earlier German immigrants stayed in Pennsylvania for the most part. However, Eastern Pennsylvania soon filled up (from the point of view of farmers, who needed lots of acreage). Western Pennsylvania was still controlled by Indians. Newer German settlers had to go elsewhere for land. They had to find land not occupied by earlier settlers and not contested, at least not too much, by the Indians. Western New York and Western North Carolina was where most of the newer settlers headed. Thus, since the Busharts were a North Carolina family, and not a Pennsylvania family, they were fairly recent arrivals (within 30 years or so) when they showed up in North Carolina in 1763. Actually, the Bushart family was probably in North Carolina for a few years before appearing in official records (Margaret Bushart, daughter of John, married Mathias Bushart about 1762, so they were in North Carolina then). They may very well have lived in Pennsylvania, or even Western Maryland or Virginia for a number of years before eventually settling in North Carolina, but the records simply do not exist.
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