Feb. 10th, 1702-3, Arnold Van Vossen delivered to Jan Neuss on behalf of the Mennonites a deed for three square perches of land for a church, which, however, was not built until six years later.
In 1702 began the settlement on the Skippack. This first outgrowth of Germantown also had its origin at Crefeld, and the history of the Crefeld purchase would not be complete without some reference to it. As we have seen, of the 1000 acres bought by Govert Remke 161 acres were laid out at Germantown. The balance he sold in 1686 to Dirck Sipman. Of Sipman's own purchase of 5000 acres, 588 acres were laid out at Germantown, and all that remained of the 6000 acres he sold in 1698 to Matthias Van Bebber, who, getting in addition, 500 acres allowance, and 415 acres by purchase, had the whole tract of 6166 acres located by patent Feb. 22d, 1702, on the Skippack. It was in the present Perkiomen Township, Montgomery County, and adjoined Edward Lane and William Harmer, near what is now the village of Evansburg.[1] For the next half century at least it was known as Bebber's Township, or Bebber's Town, and the name being often met with in the Germantown records has been a source of apparently hopeless confusion to our local historians. Van Bebber immediately began to colonize it, the most of the settlers being Mennonites. Among these settlers were Heinrich Pannebecker, Johannes Kuster, Johannes Umstat, Klas Jansen, and Jan Krey in 1702; John Jacobs in 1704; John Newberry, Thomas Wiseman, Edward Beer, Gerhard and Hermann In de Hoffen, Dirck and William Renberg in 1706; William and Cornelius Dewees, Hermannus Kuster, Christopher Zimmerman, Johannes Scholl, and Daniel
- ↑ Exemp. Record, vol. i. p. 470.
