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Descendants of Leonard Spare

Generation No. 2

      2. Philip² Spare (Leonard¹)² was born January 25, 1718/19 in Europe, and died September 28, 1799 in his home in Worcester Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. He married Dorothea ........ She was born January 18, 1729/30, and died October 19, 1777.

Notes for Philip Spare:
He was the only son of Leonard and Elizabeth Spare who survived his parents.

That he helped to found Wentz's Reformed Church, Worcester Township, is evident from the fact that he was one of six trustees to whom the two acres donated as a site for the church was transferred, in 1762, as has been told in the account of the founding of Wentz's Church.

Philip Spare was one of nine laymen who, together with the Rev. John Philip Leydich, of the Falkner Swamp Reformed Church, and the Rev. John George Alsentz, of the Germantown Reformed Church, signed an appeal for contributions for the new church, termed the Evangelical Reformed Church on the Skippack. Those who signed the appeal, in addition to Philip Spare, were: Jacob Wentz, Philip Wentz, Peter Wentz, Heinrich Conrad, Jacob Weber, Jacob Schneider, John Lefeber and Isaac Lefeber. Collectors were sent through the Perkiomen region and also into New Jersey.

Though the church was dedicated in 1763, its construction was not completed until 1770. That year Philip Spare was a member of the auditing committee that examined the accounts of the building committee.

Following the death of Leonard Spare, in 1770, his son Philip bought the father's 140-acre farm for 542 pounds, 10s, his three sisters releasing their rights to him.

He had previously bought a near-by farm, for in the assessment of 1768 he is credited with owning 100 acres, two horses and two cows.

Evidently he also bought other land, for in 1774 he was assessed for 290 acres, three horses and five head of cattle.

In the assessment of 1780 a valuation of 5300 pounds was placed upon his real estate in Worcester, which was one of the largest valuations in the township. A year later he was assessed as the owner of a distillery. This was no doubt a distillery such as many farmers had, the products thereof being for the consumption of the family. It is known that Leonard Spare's first pastor, the Rev. John Philip Boehm, had a distillery on his farm.

Philip Spare, in 1769, bought at sheriff's sale a farm of fifty-nine acres in that part of Providence Township west of Perkiomen Creek, which later became Upper Providence Township. On April 26, 1790, he deeded this farm to his son Leonard for a consideration of 5 pounds.

On March 21, 1796, he deeded to his son Henry 130 of the 140 acres of his father's farm, and the remaining ten acres, together with 115 acres adjoining, which he had bought in 1774, he transferred to his son Daniel.

He had previously made provision in his will, written in 1785, to leave these three farms to the sons named, but evidently concluded later to give them deeds for the properties while he still lived. In the will the three properties are thus described:

      "I give and bequeath to my son Leonard the plantation whereon he now lives, in Providence Township, Montgomery County, containing fifty-nine acres and some perches."
      "I give and bequeath to my son Daniel the plantation whereon I now live, a part of the old plantation whereon my father lived."
      "I give and bequeath unto my son Henry the plantation that my father formerly lived, adjoining the upper place whereon I live, to him my son Henry, his heirs and assigns forever, yet with the proviso that a part of the lower place shall be joined to the upper place, and that my executors shall choose three sufficient men to take a piece from the lower plantation to the upper to make the plantation equal in acres and to the best advantage of timber for both plantations."

It would be interesting to know how the Spare family fared in the autumn of 1777, when the fortunes of war brought the American army into Worcester Township. At that time Philip Spare's sons Leonard and Daniel were members of the Pennsylvania militia, which had been called into service.

The British had invaded Pennsylvania, and after defeating the Americans at Brandywine, September 11, 1777, had taken possession of Philadelphia. With the intention of attacking the British at an opportune moment, Washington advanced his army from its camp along the Perkiomen at Schwenksville on September 29 as far as Skippack Creek, and three days later the march continued down Skippack road into Worcester Township, the army going into camp below the present village of Center Point, a mile and a half from the Spare farm. The night of October 3 the army moved on to Germantown, where the battle resulting in the defeat of the Americans was fought on the 4th. Then the Americans retreated to the Perkiomen Valley.

After partly restoring his shattered forces, Washington gave thought to the idea of making another attack upon the enemy. He moved his army into Towamencin Township, and then, on October 16, the former campground in Worcester Township was again occupied.

Just at this time the Spare family had poignant sorrows of their own, for on October 19, 1777, occurred the death of Dorothea, wife of Philip Spare. It may be that when the body was buried at Wentz's Church the church building was in use as a military hospital, for virtually all church buildings of the locality were thus utilized.

The American army remained in Worcester until October 21, proceeding then southward into Whitpain Township, and later into the Whitemarsh region, following which came the winter camp at Valley Forge.

In his will Philip Spare made the following bequests to his children, besides those already described: Catherine, 115 pounds; Margaret, 135 pounds; Christina, 135 pounds; Mary, 125 pounds; Barbara, 125 pounds; Benjamin, 200 pounds; Jacob, 200 pounds. The testator directed that after his death his personal property should be sold at public sale and the proceeds applied to the payment of the legacies in installments of 25 pounds a year. The sons Leonard and Daniel were appointed executors.

Aged 79 years, 8 months and 13 days.

More About Philip Spare:
Burial: Unknown, Wentz Reformed Church, Worchester, Pennsylvania
Naturalization: April 1761, at a session of the Supreme Court of the Province of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia

Notes for Dorothea .......:
No information is at hand as to the family of Philip Spare's wife. Her tombstone shows that her name was Dorothea, that she was born January 18, 1730, and died October 19, 1777.

More About Dorothea .......:
Burial: Unknown, Wentz Reformed Church, Worchester, Pennsylvania

Marriage Notes for Philip Spare and Dorothea .......:
Two children were baptized by the pastor of Augustus Lutheran Church, Leonard in 1850 and Anna Christina in 1855. This was the interval between the dissolution of the Skippack Reformed Church and the founding of Wentz's Reformed Church. The fact that these two baptisms took place according to the Lutheran rite suggests that perhaps Dorothea was of a Lutheran family, for ministers of the Reformed faith were available at a distance no greater than Trappe was from the Spare home.

Children of Philip Spare and Dorothea ....... are:

+	6	i.	Leonard³ Spare, born April 22, 1750; died June 18, 1811.
	7	ii.	Catherine Spare, died Unknown.
	8	iii.	Margaret Spare, died Unknown.
+	9	iv.	Anna Christina Spare, born January 08, 1755; died 1823.
+	10	v.	Daniel Spare, born February 03, 1760; died October 24, 1812.
	11	vi.	Mary Spare, died Unknown.
+	12	vii.	Barbara Spare, born Bet. 1746 - 1768; died Unknown.
+	13	viii.	Benjamin Spare, born February 05, 1766; died June 10, 1798.
+	14	ix.	Henry Spare, born April 16, 1768; died March 10, 1823.
	15	x.	Jacob Spare, born March 08, 1771; died April 07, 1853. He married Catharine .......; born 1775; died 1839.

Notes for Jacob Spare:
An apprenticeship indenture recorded in the docket of Frederick Conrad, justice of the peace in Worcester Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, in 1796 shows that Jacob Spare was a tailor.

More About Jacob Spare:
Burial: Unknown, Lower Skippack Mennonite Church

More About Catharine .......:
Burial: Unknown, Lower Skippack Mennonite Church

3. Christiana² Spare (Leonard¹) was born Bet. 1718 - 1731, and died Unknown. She married Jacob Styger October 23, 1746, son of Stephanus Styger and Catharine ........ He was born September 23, 1719 in Worcester Township, Philadelphia County now Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, and died March 13, 1777.

More About Jacob Styger:
Burial: Unknown, Methacton Mennonite Church, near Fairview Village, Pennsylvania

Marriage Notes for Christiana Spare and Jacob Styger:
The name Styger, also written Steiger, later became Styer. Like the Spares, the Styers were pioneer settlers of Worcester Township. Stephen Styger, father of Jacob Styger, arrived in Germantown, Pa., between 1712 and 1714, having come, it was said, from Bohemia, where he was born in 1688. His father, John Nicholas Styger, was an officer in the Prussian army in the war with Austria. Freas Styer, Esq., of Norristown, had, in 1931, in his possession the original certificate attesting that in 1688 a Catholic priest who was an army chaplain had christened Stefanus Styger, son of John Nicholas Styger, master of horse, and his wife Catherine. In Pennsylvania, how- ever, Stephen Styger identified himself with the Mennonites. He lived in Germantown until 1727, when he bought from Thomas Shute, of Philadelphia, a tract of 200 acres in the southeastern part of Worcester Township, then Philadelphia County. The site is north of the present Fairview Village, on Germantown Pike.

Stephen Styger died May 5, 1736, leaving a widow, Catharine, and six minor children.

Tradition says that Stephen Styger was buried in a private burial ground which he had set apart on his farm and which later became the burial ground of Methacton Mennonite Church, near Fairview Village. Numerous old graves in this ground are marked with field stones, but among the later inscribed stones are some bearing the name of Styer, the family having been members of Methacton Church. The name of the church is that of the hill on which it is situated.

In 1739 Jacob Stire, as the name appears in the records, and his mother, Catharine, granted thirty-two perches of land from the Styer farm to a group of trustees, the deed designating that the land was "for the use and behoof of the Dutch Anabaptist Society of the Township of Worcester," meaning the Mennonite congregation. The same year Henry Rittenhouse, who owned an adjoining farm, transferred to the same trustees another tract of thirty-two perches bordering that conveyed by the Styers. These two tracts are now (1931) part of the grounds of Methacton Church.

Jacob Styer tilled the Worcester farm after his father's death. There he and his family lived until 1768, when he moved to a tract of 264 acres in Whitpain Township, which he bought from William and Richard Thomas for 1500 pounds, the deed being dated June 4 of that year.

Whitpain adjoins Worcester on the southeast. The farm which Jacob Styer bought extended southwest from the northeastern township line to Morris road, on both sides of Plymouth road, between Gwynedd Valley and Blue Bell. Part of this tract remained in the Styer ownership until early in the 20th century.

No doubt the attention of the Styers was directed to Whitpain Township by the Yosts, who lived in that township a mile west of the farm which Jacob Styer bought. Elizabeth Spare, sister of the wife of Jacob Styer, had married Daniel Yost some years before the Styers moved to Whitpain.

There is a family tradition that Leonard Styer, youngest son of Jacob and Christiana Styer, was born in the new home in Whitpain the night after the family moved thither. The date of his birth is given as March 18, 1768.

Jacob Styer built a house on the east side of Plymouth road, a short distance north of Morris road. The initials "J. S." and the date 1768 were cut on a stone in the southwest gable.

In 1931 Dr. Joseph Leidy owned most of the original Styer tract, and several buildings remained which were erected at the time of the Styer ownership. The house which Dr. Leidy occupied was an enlargement of an old house which had a stone bearing the date 1808. In a wall of the barn was a stone with the date 1792. The barn was a well constructed stone building, and in one wing the stone was set to represent the bust of George Washington.

Jacob Styer remained a Mennonite throughout his life. It has been said he was a preacher of the denomination. His wife evidently continued to be a member of the Reformed Church, for an entry in the books of Boehm's Reformed Church, Blue Bell, near the Styer home, shows that "Christina Steier" was sponsor for Mrs. Lowisa Bez at baptism and confirmation, April 13, 1775, and at the same time her brother, Philip Spare, and his wife Dorothea were sponsors for "Mrs. Catharina Sperr" at baptism and confirmation. The latter may have been the wife of Leonard Spare, son of Philip and Dorothea Spare.

Jacob Styer lived only nine years after making his tiome in Whitpain Township.

By his will he left his wife 918 a year, "with use of two rooms in my house, a cow, ten bushels of wheat yearly." To his son Henry he bequeathed "my whole dwelling place," and to his son John the remainder of his lands. The sons Stephen and Henry were appointed executors.

More About Jacob Styger and Christiana Spare:
Marriage: October 23, 1746

Children of Christiana Spare and Jacob Styger are:

Susanna³ Styer, born October 23, 1747; died April 12, 1750.

More About Susanna Styer:
Burial: Unknown, Methacton Mennonite Church, Worcester Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania

+	17	ii.	Stephen Styer, born May 15, 1750 in Worcester Township, Philadelphia County now Montgomery County, Pennsylvania; died Unknown.
	18	iii.	Mary Styer, born March 09, 1753; died Aft. 1812.
	19	iv.	Henry Styer, born December 14, 1755; died October 30, 1811.

Notes for Henry Styer:
He prospered, and was said to have been the richest man in Whitpain Township.

More About Henry Styer:
Property: By the will of his father he inherited the house which his father had built, together with 159 acres, consisting of the northeastern part of the original tract.

+	20	v.		John Styer, born November 01, 1758; died May 26, 1816.
	21	vi.		Jacob Styer, born September 07, 1762; died May 06, 1791. He married Elizabeth .......; died Unknown.

Notes for Jacob Styer:
Little is known about his family other than that his wife's name was Elizabeth, and that Henry and Elizabeth Styer were administrators of his estate.

In 1784 Jacob Styer, described in the deed as a tanner, of Horsham Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, bought from Samuel Morris a farm of twenty-eight acres at the south corner of Skippack Road and the road to Lancasterville, in Whitemarsh Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. The administrators of his estate sold this farm in 1794 to Stephen Styer, brother of Jacob, then living in Sussex County, Delaware. It is likely, Stephen Styer never lived on this Whitemarsh farm, as he sold it a year later to Anthony Morris.

+	22	vii.	David Styer, born May 20, 1765; died August 25, 1825.
+	23	viii.	Leonard Styer, born March 18, 1768; died June 06, 1843 in Berwick, Columbia County, Pennsylvania.
	24	ix.	Barbara Styer, died Unknown.

Notes for Barbara Styer:
some accounts say that Jacob and Christiana also had a daughter Barbara.

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