Information Source: O.F. Harr Family Record.
In 1709 Hans and seven other Mennonites bought 10,000 acres of land in
Pennslyvania from William Penn. Sailed from Gravesend, England in April 29,
1710. Landed in Philadelphia, in Sept 1710. Name of the ship : Mary Hope,
Mastered by John Annis.
HANS HERR was born in 1639, in Switzerland, at or near Zurich. He became a member of the Mennonite religious society and a prominent minister of that denomination. When persecution became unendurable, many of his congregation emigrated with him to the Palatinate in Germany, which was then governed by a ruler who promised religous freedom. This was satisfactory until the Palatinate fell into the hands of other rulers, and the Mennonites were again subject to persecution. When this occurred, a number of them visited William Penn in London, in 1707, and arranged terms with him to colonize a portion of what is now Lancaster county. In 1709, Hans Herr, John R. Bundely, Hans Mylin, Martin Kendig, Jacob Miller, Hans Funk, Martin Oberholtzer, Wendel Bowman and others bought 10,000 acres of land on the south side of Pequea creek. A warrant was issued for the land October 10, 1710, and it was surveyed October 23, 1710. In the meantime, Martin Kendig traveled to Europe and returned with members of the families of those who had come over in 1709. Hans Herr settled near LAMPETER, and later lived with his son, Christian Herr, near WILLOW STREET, where the latter built a large stone dwelling in 1719, which is still standing. Here the venerable Hans Herr died in 1725." (Taken from Genealogical Record of Hans Herr, by Theodore W. Herr, originally published 1908, pp. ix-xi; available from the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society for $40.)
A memorial in the Willow Street Mennonite Cemetery, where HANS HERR is presumed to have been buried, was erected by a Herr reunion group. It gives September 17, 1639 and October 11, 1725 as his respective birth and death dates, and May 1, 1639 and June 9, 1730 for Elizabeth Mylin Kendig Herr. Theodore Herr [compiler of the 1908 Herr genealogy] gives 1644 for her birth date and 1730 for her death. The reunion group's, Theodore Herr's, and Martin G. Weaver's sources for all these dates are currently unknown. In response to this situation, numerous researchers within the past 50 years have attempted to document the existence of Hans Herr. The tradition of his being the aged father of his Herr family in America stems from oral history recorded in 1844 by I. Daniel Rupp (History of Lancaster County), who in the course of his research interviewed 'Pequea' Christian Herr, a Mennonite bishop and Herr descendant. Rupp's version of the Hans Herr story was repeated with variations by many later historians." (Taken from the 1994 Supplement to the Third Edition of Genealogical Record of Hans Herr, by Theodore W. Herr, originally published 1908, p.787.)
