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New information has recently come forward in regard to this Peter Stephens. His birth name was Hans Peter Steffen/Stephan/Steffan born March 8, 1687 in Steinsfurt, Wurtemberg, Germany. This is a small town near Heidelberg. Peter Stephan from Frederick County, Virginia was supposed to be from Heidelburg on the River Mayne in the Empire of Germany according to his naturalization paper. Heidelburg is on the Neckar River and the Main River is where Frankfurt is located. However the naturalization clerks did not know the geography of Germany so maybe that is what accounts for the error. The last name of his wife is unknown at this time, so it is probably not Rittenhouse. The Rittenhouse Assoc. has no record of any such person as Maria Christina Rittenhouse. This name Rittenhouse was suggested in a book by Dan Stephens and was carried forward as a fact and not a suggestion by others. Peter was married in Germany as his sons were naturalized in Virginia. The latest research shows that this Steffen/Stephan family was originally from Switzerland and I know others have the same information but it is incorrect.
Peter's wife Maria Christina ? was also born in Germany.
6 DEC 1757 in Frederick Co., Virginia, (This is when Peter's will was probated not date of death).
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Ancestors of Daniel W. Bly
Mar. 21, 2000
Peter Stephens, one of the earliest settlers in the Shenandoah Valley, is ancestor of an extensive family that has spread throughout the United States. The name Stephens is the anglicized form of his German name, "Steffen", the name that Peter signed on known documents.
HANS PETER STEFFEN was born at Steinsfurt in the Kraichgau region of the German Rhineland (a few miles south of Heidelberg), 3 March 1687. (There is no need to convert this date to so-called "New Style" because this part of Germany already used the Gregorian calendar). He was the youngest of eleven children of GABRIEL STEFFEN and his wife, BARBARA BÄR, who settled at Steinsfurt as a young couple about 1670. They were of Swiss ancestry.
A great deal of speculation and conjecture has been made about the whereabouts of Peter Stephens before he came to Virginia but very few facts are known. About all that is known and can be documented is that he was living in the Skippack area of present-day Montgomery County, Pennsylvania by the Spring of 1730. His older sister, Magdalena and her husband, Christian Neuschwanger as well as their brother, Ulrich Steffen, were there by 1728. There is absolutely no evidence that Peter ever lived in New York or New Jersey or that he married Maria Christina Rittenhouse as a second wife, in Germantown, PA. His wife was named Maria Christina but they probably married in Germany and her family name is unknown.
Another member of the Skippack community was Jost Hite, who acquired the right to settle land in the Shenandoah Valley and by 1732 recruited sixteen families to settle there. Among them were Peter Steffen with his family and his brother-in-law and sister, Christian and Magdalena Neuschwanger and their family.
Peter Steffen (Stephens) acquired land where the town of Stephens City now stands in Frederick County, VA. He died there in the fall of 1757 and his will was probated in Frederick County Court in December 1757. His wife, Maria Christina was still living at the time and he named all his children in his will, designating "oldest", "second" "youngest", sons then daughters.
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Davis Uriah I | Born 1707
1687 - Bef 1757 (< 70 years)