Mathias Grisso (ca.1745-ca.1818) was born either in Berlin or in Alsace, France to a German mother and a French father (the father lived in the French area near Basel, Switzerland). Mathias immigrated, as an orphan, to Virginia, and moved to New Hanover, Pennsylvania, where he met and married Maria Elisabeth Maurer in 1771. By legend, Mathias was bootblack for General George Washington during the Revolutionary War. After the war, he moved his family...