on the invitation of the liberal-minded William Penn they transported themselves and families into the province of Pennsylvania as early as 1683. Those who came that year and in 1698 settled in and about Germantown.”[1] Says Haldeman: “Whether the first Taufgesinneten or Mennonites came from Holland or Switzerland I have no certain information, but they came in the year 1683.”[2] Richard Townsend, an eminent Quaker preacher, who came over in the Welcome, and settled a mile from Germantown, calls them a “religious good people,” but he does not say they were Friends, as he probably would have done had the facts justified it.[3] Abraham, Dirck, and Hermann Op den Graeff, Lenart Arets, Abraham Tunes, and Jan Lensen were linen weavers, and in 1686 Jan Streypers wrote to his brother Willem inquiring “who has wove my yarns, how many ells long, and how broad the cloth made from it, and through what fineness of comb it has been through.”[4]
The pioneers had a pleasant voyage, and reached Philadelphia on the 6th of October. In the language of Claypoole, “The blessing of the Lord did attend us so that we had a very comfortable passage, and had our health all the way.”[5] Unto Johannes Bleikers a son Peter was born while at sea. Cold weather was approaching, and they had little time to waste in idleness or curiosity. On the 12th of the same month a warrant was issued to Pastorius for 6000 acres “on behalf of the German and Dutch purchasers,” on the 24th Thomas Fairman measured off fourteen divisions of land, and the next day
