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Germantown Township, also known as German Township, is a defunct
township A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Ca ...
that was located in
Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania Philadelphia County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is the most populous county in Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, Philadelphia County had a population of 1,603,797. The county is the second smallest county in Pennsy ...
. The municipality ceased to exist and was incorporated into the City of Philadelphia following the passage of the
Act of Consolidation, 1854 The Act of Consolidation, more formally known as the act of February 2, 1854 (P.L. 21, No. 16), is legislation of the Pennsylvania General Assembly that created the consolidated City and County of Philadelphia, expanding the city's territory to ...
.


History

Germantown Township occupied the area known as the Germantown Tract surveyed by Thomas Holmes in 1683, and depicted on his map of about 1687. That survey was prepared for
Francis Daniel Pastorius Francis Daniel Pastorius (September 26, 1651) was a German born educator, lawyer, poet, and public official. He was the founder of Germantown, Pennsylvania, now part of Philadelphia, the first permanent German-American settlement and the gatewa ...
, agent for the Frankfurt Land Company, and thirteen German families, known as the "Original Thirteen Families", from Krefeld, Germany and nearby areas. Board of directors for the Frankfurt Land Company included Jacobus van der Walle, Johann Jacob Schutz, Johann Wilhelm Ueberfeld, Daniel Behagel, George Strauss, Jan Leureiss, Abram Hasevoet. They had purchased a total of 2,675 acres (11 km²) of land. The intent of the Frankfurt Land Company was to send German Settlers to settle their Pennsylvania lands. In the end, they sent no settlers, and none of the directors ever came themselves. The Settlers from Krefeld had obtained a similar sized parcel, and arrived on the ship Concord, on 6 October 1683, and almost immediately began to clear their land. Additional settlers would begin arriving the following spring. The Germantown Tract was divided into four settlements, including: Germantown, and the villages of Cresheim, Sommerhausen and Crefelt, laid out in sequence from the south east to the northwest. The villages were named after the hometowns of some of the earliest settlers. The later three villages eventually combined to form the "Upper Ward" of Germantown Township. The Town of Germantown became known simply as the Borough of Germantown. The greatest length of the Germantown Township was 5½ miles; the greatest breadth, ; area, 7,040 acres (28 km²). The township was bounded on the northwest and northeast by Springfield Township, Montgomery County on the northeast partly by Bristol Township; on the southeast by Penn Township and Roxborough Township. Within Germantown Township were the settlements known as Germantown, Cresheim (afterwards Mount Airy), Sommerhausen (later called Chestnut Hill) and Crevelt, a rural section north of Chestnut Hill.


References


Resources


''Chronology of the Political Subdivisions of the County of Philadelphia, 1683–1854''
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courtesy o
ushistory.org
'

- excerpted from the book at the ushistory.org website {{Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania Municipalities in Philadelphia County prior to the Act of Consolidation, 1854 1683 establishments in Pennsylvania 1854 disestablishments in Pennsylvania Palatine German settlement in Pennsylvania