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from a record of the Hiester family by Mr. H.M.M. Richards of Reading, PA The origin of the Hiester Family was the Silesian knight, Premisclorus Husterniz, who flourished about 1329, and held the office of Mayor, or Town Captain of the city of Swineford. A.D. 1480, the Patrician and Counsellor of Swineford, Adolphus Lousi, called "der Hiester", obtained from the Emperor Frederick, letters patent whereby he and his posterity were authorized to use the coat-of-arms he had inherited fromhis ancestos, to whom it was formerly granted, with the faculty of transmitting the same as an hereditary right and privilege to tall his descendants. The Hiester family was afterward diffused through Austria, Saxony, Switzerland and other countries bordering on the river Rhine. Several of the members were distinguished statesmen and ministers of religion and among the Senators of Homburg, Bremen, and Ratisbon, where many of the same name were found who afterward held the highest and most important offices in said cities. The Hiester Arms, as used in 1637 by Dr. Lawrence Hiester, a distinguished German surgeon of his day, are: Arms: Azure, a sun or, Crest: Between two horns, surmounting a helmet affonte, a sun, as in the Arms. The Hiester Arms, as used by the American branches, and obtained by them from their early ancestors, are: Arms, azure, a pair of horns proper over a star of eight points, or, Crest: Between two horns surmounting a helmet afronte, the horns and star as in the Arms. When we bear in mind the fact that in the early days of heraldry it was customary for an attendant esquire to blazen or blow a horn, to attract the attention of the audience whilst the armorial bearings of the contestants in tournaments were proclaimed, and that hence, in Germany especially, it became the rule amongst the nobles to place their crest between two horns surmounting the helt, we can readily see that the arms of the American Hiester family are practically the same as those in Europe, which possibly are correct. The slifght discrepancies in the American Arms are doubtless owing to the emigration of the family, and their subsequent separation from the fountain head. The two horns in the field of their escutcheon are unnecessary, not being a part of the armorial bearings. It is sufficient to have them as part of the crest. It may be probable that the eight-pointed star of the American Arms is a corruption of the original sun in the European Arms, which it so closely resembles.
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