Page:Historical and biographical sketches.djvu/57

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
THE SETTLEMENT OF GERMANTOWN.
53

mantown, because ten months later, Dec. 23d, 1699, he bought of Peter Klever 75 acres in the latter place by a deed in which he is described as a merchant of Philadelphia. This land he as a printer sold to Daniel Qeissler Oct. 20th, 1701. Since the book called “God's protecting providence, etc.,” was printed in 1699 it must have been one of the earliest productions of his press, and the probabilities are that he began to print late in that year. Its appearance indicates an untrained printer, and a meagre font of type. He was the second printer in the middle colonies, and his books are so rare that a single specimen would probably bring at auction now more than the price for which he then sold his whole edition. He left a son, Stephen, in business in Amsterdam, whom he had apportioned there, and brought with him to this country two sons, Tiberius and Joseph, who after the Dutch manner assumed the name Reyniers, and two daughters, Imity, who married Matthias, son of Hans Millan, of Germantown, and Alice, who married John Piggot. His career as a printer was very brief. He died about March 1st, 1706, leaving personal property valued at £226 1s. 8d., among which was included “a p'cell of Books from Wm. Bradford £4 2s. 0d.”[1] We find among the residents in 1699 Heinrich Pannebecker, the first German surveyor in the province, and Evert In den Hoffen from Muhlheim on the Ruhr, with Hermann, Gerhard, Peter, and Annecke, who were doubtless his children, some of whom are buried in the Mennonite graveyard on the Skippack.

Four families, members of the Mennonite Church at Hamburg, Harmen Karsdorp and family, Claes Berends

  1. Raths Buch. Exemp. Record, vol. vi. p. 235. Deed Book E 7, p. 560. Germantown Book, pp. 187, 188. Will Book C, p. 22.