During the Revolution, John Peter served under his father in the 6th Company, 4th Battalion, of Northumberland County Militia in Pennsylvania. His mother performed public service during the Revolution by preparing American soldiers bodies for burial.

   The family moved to Ohio in about 1801, suffering great hardship when most of their worldly goods and money were lost in an accident while rafting across the Ohio River during a flood.

   Eventually completing their journey to the frontier of Ohio, John Peter secured and cleared lands in Fairfield County in 1803 and settled Reading Township. He and his brother-in-law, Peter Witmer, provided public lands and buildings for the, then forming, community of Overmeyersettle, later to become New Reading, Ohio. He participated in the settling of the lines-of-demarcation for the new Perry County, of Ohio which was formed from Fairfield County in 1818.

   John Peter died on September 8, 1843, the father of 12 children.