John Conrad Bucher was born on June 10, 1730 at Neunkirch, Switzerland, six miles west of Schaffhausen, the third of the six children of Hans Jacob and Anna Dorothea (Burgauer) Bucher. He was sixth in descent from Claus Bucher of Lindau, who became a citizen of Schaffhausen in the first half of the sixteenth century. His father was made landvogt of Neunkirch in 1745.
Bucher studied at the gymnasium in Schaffhausen, at St. Gall, and at the University of Marburg, where he matriculated July 14, 1752.
John Bucher was last in Marburg, according to his album book, in April 1755. The circumstances under which he came, shortly after, to Pennsylvania are unknown. According to John Christian Stahlschmidt's Pilgerreise zu Wasser und zu Land. Bucher was an officer of Dutch troops that were sent to America to serve as mercenaries under Braddock; and the date of his landing at Philadelphia is sometimes given as November 1, 1755; but the first authenticated fact about his American career is that on April 11, 1758, he was commissioned ensign in the 1st Battalion of the Pennsylvania Regiment.
He took part in the expedition against Fort Duquesne in that year and was stationed over winter at Carlisle. During the next two winters he commanded the garrison at Carlisle. He was commissioned lieutenant of the 2nd Battalion April 19, 1760, participated in the War of Pontiac's Conspiracy, and was commissioned adjutant July 12 and captain July 31, 1764.
He was a trusted and capable officer. When the war ended next spring he resigned. While still in the militia Bucher began to preach; his earliest sermon notes and records of ministerial acts date from March 1763.
In 1766 the Coetus of Pennsylvania, in applying to the Classis of Amsterdam for authority to ordain him, described Bucher as one "made willing by the Lord to serve these people, who devotes himself with all diligence to learn the truth and to expound it to others, and is also content to share the poverty of his hearers". The Classis authorized his ordination in a letter of June 20, 1767. Until 1768 he served congregations at Carlisle, Middletown, Hummelstown, and Falling Spring (Chambersburg).
In 1775 he was secretary of the Coetus. At the outbreak of the Revolution he was a chaplain in the "German Regiment" under Baron von Arnt, but ill health caused him to resign August 1, 1777.
From time to time he made missionary trips westward to Bedford near Fort Cumberland, Redstone (Brownsville), Big Crossings of the Yiogheny, and Fort Pitt, riding hundreds of miles through the forest and over rugged mountains.
He died at Annville of a heart attack during the festivities attendant on a wedding. His body was carried to Lebanon for burial.
John Conrad Bucher was the first minister to preach in German beyond the Alleghanies. After 1770, however, he seldom crossed the Susquehanna. Making Lebanon his headquarters, he ministered to about eleven scattered little congregations, including Quittapahilla, Manheim, Weisseichenland, Hummelstown, and Lancaster.
While a student he paid several visits to some friends stationed at Namur as officers of Swiss troops, and these visits are thought to have awakened in him a desire for military experience.
On February 26, 1760, he was married at Carlisle to Mary Magdalena, daughter of John George Hoke (Hans Georg Hauk). She and four of their six children survived him.
