As it seemed to be a duty which could not be avoided, I have written the following history of the settlement of one of the most interesting of the American burghs. A descendant of Hendrick Pannebecker, Abraham Op den Graeff, Paul Kuster, Cornelius Tyson, Peter Conrad, Hendrick Sellen, Hans Peter Umstat and probably of William Rittenhouse, all of them among the early residents of Germantown, for thirty years I have been gradually gathering the original materials from over the world. The task was one of great difficulty, presenting obstacles not encountered elsewhere and requiring the examination of almost inaccessible books and papers in the Dutch, German, French and Latin, as well as the English languages. An article written by me in 1880, since copied en masse as to facts, language and notes, in Cassel's History of the Mennonites, and used by other authors, has here been reconstructed. The careful and thorough investigations of the late Dr. Oswald Seidensticker, the work of Julius F. Sachse upon the German Pietists, the papers of the late Horatio Gates Jones and the article of H. P. G. Quack, of Amsterdam, upon Plockhoy's Sociale Plannen have been used freely. I am indebted likewise to Mr. Sachse for the production of the illustrations.