According to one source, the Betschart family began as members of the
peasant class when the Habsburgs (the ruling family of Austria) ran the show in the area now known as Switzerland. Alois Gwerder writes in his sketch of Muotathal's history in the book "'üsäs Muotithal'" that the Betscharts are "Alte Landleute vom alten Land Schwyz," or old landspeople of the old land of Schwyz. The families of Muotathal tend to be very closely interconnected, so it's worth a few more bytes to add some of their names. Other "alte Landleute" families include Föhn, Gwerder, Imhof, Rickenbacher, Suter, Schmidig, and Ulrich, all of whom could be found in Muotathal by 1500. The Hedigers, Gwerder writes, arrived shortly after 1500 from Hedingen, Zürich, via Zug. The Enders came from Appenzell in 1550, and the Langeneggters came around 1600, also from Appenzell. From other parts of Schwyz came the Bürglers and the Heinzers.
Starting with the
formation of the Swiss Confederation in 1291, they began to play
a greater role in their little country. Betscharts fought in the historic battles of Morgarten in 1315 and Sempach in 1386 -- in fact, brothers Toni
and Uli Betschart are listed among the "heroes" of Sempach. Both were both
killed in the siege of Rapperswil. Jost Betschart was missing and presumed
dead in the battle of Marignano in 1515. Lt. Karl Emmanuel Betschart fought
in the battle of Villmergen in 1712. And when France invaded Switzerland
in 1798-1799, twelve Betscharts were killed in action.
The Swiss were known as mercenaries as well. The first Betschart known to have entered foreign service was Hans Lienhard Betschart, who was a
member of one Col. Heller of Schwyz's company. He went to fight the Turks
in 1688 and later spent most of his life abroad in service of one country
or another. Subsequently, several Betscharts were in the service of Spain,
and a few have even served as Papal guards. Still others served in the
civil sector as officials of their villages and of Kanton Schwyz -- the Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz (Historical Encyclopaedia of Switzerland) has ten entries under "Betschart," mostly dating back to the 16th and 17th centuries.
-- Libby Betschart Manthe and her son, Peter Manthe, September 8, 1999.
Erni's eldest son, Werni, was still in Schwyz in 1518, but afterwards he owned "the Zingeln" in Muotathal. (Don't ask me what that is.) Werni's eldest son, Ueli, owned the Lustnau. Ueli's son, Ulrich, had a son, Leonhard, who was very prolific -- he had three wives and 28 children, 23 of whom lived to adulthood. A son by his second wife,, Martin, was Hans Lienhard's father.
Eventually Hans Lienhard came back to his native Muotathal and sired a son, Lienert Leonzi, who was a shoemaker and advertised himself as as Lunzä Betschart.
Lunzä may be a pun or a nickname for Leonzi, and/or it may be derived from the term "luntz"which means either strange, eccentric, or a dolt. (The modern Swiss-German term "löönli" is translated as "idiot.") Now I'm not intending to imply that all or even most of the Lunzä Betscharts are strange or eccentric -- though if the shoe fits, wear it, I say. (Pun intended.)
There are three branches of the Betschart family called Lunzä: Lunzä Peters Walchwil, Lunzä Peters Riemenstalden, and Lunzä Schützenhaus. I come from Lunzä Schützenhaus. This is how we got the "Schützenhaus" part of the name: Leonzi Betschart and his brother, Xaver, owned an establishment called Das Michelnhaus, which was located near the church in Muotathal. It didn't last long -- as a result of the Commune in France wanting to protect French-speaking Protestants in Switzerland from persecution at the hands of the German-speaking Catholic majority, the French invaded Switzerland. Some of them came to Muotathal, and while there, burned Das Michelnhaus down, and shot Xaver on May 28, 1799. (They burned other buildings and shot other Muotathalers -- there were 11 other causalties in the Betschart family alone. I don't want to give the impression that the French came for the express purpose of killing Xaver and destroying his business, as if they didn't like the service.) Xaver's wife, Magdalena, went back to her father's home in Hinterthal. Lienert rebuilt his establishment
and reopened it as Das Schützenhaus in 1802. It remains in the family
to this day, having been owned by his youngest son, Josef Maria; Josef's
only son, Georg Anton; Georg's second son, Xaver; Xaver's son, also named
Xaver; and is today run by his daughter, Marie Theres. (In the Betschart family, at least, primogeniture be damned -- property almost always went to a younger son or was split among the younger sons. I suppose the logic was that the elder sons had time to establish themselves before their fathers died.)
Georg Anton was married twice; his first wife was his 7th cousin, Brigitta Betschart.
Brigitta was descended from Georg's ggggggg-grandfather Leonard's next younger brother, Melchior. Melchior had a son named Paul, who lived for a time in the neighborhing canton of Glarus. Paul's son, Franz, returned to Muotathal, but always spoke the Glarus dialect and was called "Glarner" as a result. Franz's son Franz Carli was a judge and a church leader. (There have been a few judges in the Betschart family -- one of the first was a fellow named Hans (ca. 1580-1650), nicknamed Amman Hans, who attained his high position despite being "a crude, immodest, dictatorial, sarcastic man who had no respect for either clergy or the laity" and despite having a daughter out of wedlock. ) He had a son and a grandson both named Josef Franz; the grandson was also a church leader and a judge. He also said something that tagged him with the nickname "Vorspächen" for advertising himself as follows: "1784 bin ich zu einem Vorspräch wehählt worden." Frankly, I have no idea what this might mean.
His son, Georg Anton, had 17 children, including Brigitta. (Until recently, the Swiss weren't very creative with their names. Not only were Brigitta's father, husband and third son all named Georg(e) Anton, so was one of Brigitta's nephews. You see why the nicknames became almost necessary. To add to the confusion, both Brigitta's and her husband's mothers were Suters, albeit from different branches of that large family -- her mother was from Beschen Peters; his from Josebmartels.)
Child mortality in those days was very high, but some families had it worse than others. Brigitta's parents had 17 children, but 11 of them died before age 5, and of the six who lived until adulthood, only two made it past age 40. Brigitta, unfortunately, was not one of them -- she died at age 38.
Brigitta left four small children -- Peter, Xaver, Katharina and George. Their father married again, but the next three sons all died very young, and then the second wife died as well.
By the time Georg Anton was ready to retire, he only had one son left to pass the business on to -- Xaver. Peter and George had gone to America. To read about that, see page 2.
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