John Reister was born in 1715 in Germany, where he was educated and learned of many different rural living skills. In September of 1738, Reister sailed from Rotterdam to Philadelphia in hopes to start a new life. In Philadelphia, he met and married his wife, Margaret Sohn, in 1746. Reister decided to buy land on which to start a family when he came across a patch of land in Maryland. He came across this land on his way to Annapolis from his land in Frederick County (now known as Carroll County). In the same year of his marriage, John Reister had bought fifty acres of land to the west of the nearby and upcoming town of Westminster. Over twelve years he cultivated the land into a suitable farming spread, while raising his family of six children.

During that twelfth year, 1758, he acquired a smaller, twenty acre piece of land located on the other side of Conewago Rd. (now known as Reisterstown Rd.). Calling his newly received land Reister’s Desire, he built an Inn/Tavern as the land was too small and of poor quality to farm crops. By 1763, Reister purchased his largest quantity of land, 83 acres, with the money raised through his inn and tavern with the purpose of adjoining his two prior properties. With his total land acreage of 150 acres, Reister could now start the building of businesses within his land to gain larger profits and expand his property.

In his later years, John Reister retired to a new home which is near what is now 365 Main Street. He died at his new home in 1804 and sadly enough, the original of this house was torn down some years later. Reister’s choice of this piece of land can be analyzed down to a few key factors of how this area could flourish. On his way to Annapolis, Reister had noticed an unclaimed piece of land next to another piece of land that must have been for sale. Using his knowledge of rural living from Germany, he had also noticed that these pieces of land were located off the road that connects from Baltimore Town to a fork in the road, splitting off into Pipe Creek Road (now known as Westminster Pike) and an old road to Pennsylvania. With the flow of travel from these two roads into Baltimore Town, Reister realized that it was an ideal frontier for an inn and tavern. While living on his fifty acre farm, he needed the twenty acre unclaimed land because he knew that it connected to the Patapsco River which already had an Indian trail (now Cockeys Mill Rd.) that lead to the river. He also knew that while owning the most convenient inn and tavern on this road, he would make larger profits allowing for quicker property acquisition. With his growing property and business ownerships in the area, the Electors of Baltimore County acknowledged Reister’s community officially as Reisterstown in the year of 1787.