Jacob Boehm (ca. 1693-1781)
History of the East Pennsylvania Conference of the Church of
the United Brethren in Christ, Phares Brubaker Gibble, 1951,
pp. 11-12. Jacob Boehm, father of Martin, was of Swiss Mennonite
extraction. He landed at Philadelphia in the year 1715, tarried some
time in Germantown, then settled in Conestoga (now Pequea) Township,
on a three hundred and eighteen-acre tract located approximately six
miles south of Lancaster City, (about one and one-half miles south of
the present village of Willow Street). Later he purchased an
additional tract of one hundred and two acres and one hundred and
forty-four perches adjoining his original purchase on the southwest.
These plantations were removed by but one from the earliest of the
more remote inland settlements that commonly known as the Pequea
Settlement of the year 1710. The influence upon American history by
the coming of the good ship, "Mayflower," to the shores of
New England on December 21, 1620, is equalled in significance by the
coming of the ship, "Maria Hope," to Philadelphia on
September 23, 1710. The combined passenger and crew list on the Maria
Hope numbered ninety-four persons. Among them was a small group in
which our interest centers. Soon after arrival, their representative
appeared before the Penn's property commissioners and obtained
warrants for the survey of 10,500 acres of land, to be divided among,
"Swissers lately arrived in this Province." By July 1711,
patents for 5,500 acres plus six per cent additional for roads, etc.,
had been issued. This formed the Pequea Settlement. This historic
event was commemorated in the year 1910 by the Lancaster County
Historical Society placing a marker at the entrance to the grounds of
the "Brick," or Willow Street Mennonite Church. The tablet
shows the land to be located on the Pequea Creek and crossed easterly
and westerly by the old Philadelphia and Conestoga Road.
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