Germantown Township, also known as German Township, was a

township A township is a form of human settlement or administrative subdivision. Its exact definition varies among countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, this tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Canad ...

that was located in

Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania Philadelphia County is the most populous of the List of counties in Pennsylvania, 67 counties of Pennsylvania and the List of the most populous counties in the United States, 24th-most populous county in the nation. As of the 2020 United State ...

, United States. The municipality ceased to exist and was incorporated into the

City of Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

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 t ...

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. The 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, Philadelphia, Germantown, Pennsylvania, now part of Philadelphia, the first permanent German-American ...

, agent for the Frankfurt Land Company, and 13 German families, known as the "Original Thirteen Families", from

Krefeld Krefeld ( , ; ), also spelled Crefeld until 1925 (though the spelling was still being used in British papers throughout the Second World War), is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, in western Germany. It is located northwest of Düsseldorf, its c ...

, Germany and nearby areas. The 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 km) of land. The Frankfurt Land Company was designed to inspire German settlers to settle their Pennsylvania lands. In the end, however, 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 km). 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''
*

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