chiefs, stockings, and a new hat. Bom wrote to Rotterdam Oct. 12th, 1684, “I have here a shop of many kinds of goods, and edibles. Sometimes I ride out with merchandise, and sometimes bring something back, mostly from the Indians, and deal with them in many things. I have no regular servants except one negro, whom I bought. I have no rent or tax or excise to pay. I have a cow which gives plenty of milk, a horse to ride around, my pigs increase rapidly so that in the summer I had seventeen when at first I had only two. I have many chickens and geese, and a garden, and shall next year have an orchard if I remain well, so that my wife and I are in good spirits.” The first to die was Jan Seimens, whose widow was again about to marry in October, 1685.[1] Bom died before 1689, and his daughter Agnes married Anthony Morris, the ancestor of the distinguished family of that name.[2] In 1685 Wigard and Gerhard Levering came from Muhlheim on the Ruhr,[3] a town also far down the Rhine near Holland, which, next to Crefeld, seems to have sent the largest number of emigrants. The following year a fire caused considerable loss, and a little church was built at Germantown. According to Seidensticker it was a Quaker meeting house, and he shows conclusively that before 1692 all of the original thirteen, except Jan Lensen, had in one way or another been associated with the Quakers. In 1687 Arent Klincken arrived from Dalem in Holland, and Jan Streypers wrote: “I intend to come over myself,” which intention he carried into effect before 1706, as at that date he signed a petition for naturalization.[4] All of the original Crefeld pur-
- ↑ Pastorius' Beschreibung, Leipsic, 1700, p. 23, Streper MSS.
- ↑ Ashmead MSS.
- ↑ Jones' Levering Family.
- ↑ Jan Streypers and his son-in-law, H. J. Van Aaken, met Penn at Wesel in 1686, and brought him from that place to Crefeld. Van Aaken seems to have been a Quaker Sept. 30th, 1699, on which day he wrote to Penn: “I understand that Derick Sypman uses for his Servis to you, our Magistrates at Meurs, which Magistrates offers their Service to you again. So it would be well that you Did Kyndly Desire them that they would Leave out of the high Dutch proclomation which is yearly published throughout ye County of Meurs & at ye Court House at Crevel, that ye Quakers should have no meeting upon penalty, & in Case you ffinde freedom to Desire ye sd Magistrates at Meurs that they may petition our King William (as under whose name the sd proclomation is given forth) to leave out ye word Quackers & to grant Leberty of Counsience, & if they should not optaine ye same from the said King, that then you would be Constrained for the truth's Sake to Request our King William for the annulling of ye sd proclomation Concerning the quackers, yor answer to this p. next shall greatly oblige me, Especially if you would write to me in the Dutch or German tongue, god almayghty preserve you and yor wife In soule and body. I myself have some thoughts to Come to you but by heavy burden of 8 Children, &c., I can hardly move, as also that I want bodyly Capacity to Clear Lands and ffall trees, as also money to undertake something Ells.” An English translation of this letter in the handwriting of Matthias Van Bebber is in the collection of Dr. W. Kent Gilbert.
