Germantown, Virginia
Germantown is a historic unincorporated rural community in Fauquier County, Virginia, United States. It is the resting place of John Jacob Richter (also spelled Rector). He was buried there in 1729. It is located in and around current-day C. M. Crockett Park, which contains the popular local fishing destination of Germantown Lake. Chief Justice John Marshall was born in Germantown. Archeological sites relating to the settlement are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Pennsylvania Dutch
The devastation of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) and the wars between
the German principalities and France caused some of the immigration of Germans to America from the Rhine area. Members of this group founded the borough of Germantown, in northwest Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, in 1683. They settled on land sold to them by William Penn. Germantown included not only Mennonites but also Quakers.
This group of Mennonites was organized by Francis Daniel Pastorius, an agent for a land purchasing company based in Frankfurt am Main. None of the Frankfurt Company ever came to Pennsylvania except Pastorius himself, but 13 Krefeld German (Dutch-speaking) Mennonite families arrived on October 6, 1683, in Philadelphia. They were joined by eight more Dutch-speaking families from Hamburg-Altona in 1700 and five German-speaking families from the Palatinate in 1707.