Individual Details

George ZEWITZ (Zavitz, Zavietz), the first to come to America, is reported to have "lived within sight of the spires of the famous cathedral in Strasbourg, France." As a Protestant, he and his family were part of a flood of immigrants to the William Penn Colony where rights to religious freedom had been included in the founding constitution as early as 1681. There is no specific documentation that the Zavitz's were Mennonites on arrival although they were part of that community once in America and after 1797 in Canada. Strasbourg seemed to be a "safe haven" for many years to Anabaptists like the Mennonites. There is no record of the death sentence against these individuals in Strasbourg.

Nevertheless, Protestants in that city felt the pull from the new world. The Rhine was just two miles away with its access to Dutch religious freedom, ships to America and there was news of British support for settlement. Undoubtedly, the Zavitz's had heard much about the migration of tens of thousands of Palatine Protestants down the Rhine to Holland and Britain and then on to a "good life" in these colonies and Anabaptists, much attracted to the prospect of escaping the harshness of European society, the lack of productive farm land and the security to raise a family. They must also have been aware of the long waits in refugee champs before ships would be available to take them, the thousands who embarked who never made it to the new world, many as forty percent of those attempting the crossing died of disease at sea and the settlement mismanagement that plagued many who did survive the Atlantic crossing.

There is no record of George ZEWITZ and his wife, Barbara, on the immigrant ship list nor of his arrival in Philadelphia. Since these records were started in 1727, we may assume he arrived before that time. The first record of him in the new world is his purchase of three hundred acres in 1732 from a Caspar Wistar, near Center Valley about 50 miles north of the city in a new district in a fertile valley along the Saucon Creek, Upper Bucks county, about six miles south of what was later to be the site of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. As a miller, he looked for mill sites. He and the small group of Mennonite settlers he was with were also influenced by the opening of the Durham Iron Works about fifteen miles away. The local native tribes, Saucon, Lenni-Lenapes and Shawnees were friendly at this time, and did not resist the arrival of these "white settlers" in their hunting grounds.

About 1731, George built a grist mill in Center Valley, Pennsylvania. He naturalized on 29 March 1735. George and Barbara died on the homestead, he in 1759 and she about 1766. George's will was probated on 13 June 1759. He is buried in a Mennonite Cemetery less than a mile south of his homestead. As the immigrant progenitor he had lived about half of his life in Europe and half in Pennsylvania where he experienced religious toleration. All of their eight children lived to adulthood and married. Most were still in Bucks county, close to their parents. All probably spoke German, exclusively.

Birth	Abt 1695	Strasbourg, Bas-Rhine, Alsace, France
Religion	Bet 1700 and 1759	Mennonite - Strasbourg, Bas-Rhine, Alsace, France and Pennsylvania
Marriage	1717	Strasburg, Alsace-Lorraine, France - Barbara
Occupation	1731	miller - Center Valley, Lehigh, PA
Land Record	6 Aug 1731	150 acre tract of land on both sides of the Saucon Creek, Bucks, PA
Naturalization	1735	, Bucks, PA
Will	24 May 1759	Center Valley, Lehigh, PA
Death	Jun 1759	Saucon Creek, Bucks, PA
Burial		Mennonite Cemetery, Saucon Creek, Bucks, PA

Spouse	Barbara (1700 - 1766)
Child	Henry Zavitz (1723 - 1771)
Child	John Zavitz (1725 - 1777)
Child	Abraham Zavitz (1727 - 1777)
Child	Jacob Zavitz (1728 - 1800)
Child	Esther Zavitz (1729 - 1817)
Child	Mary Zavitz (1731 - )
Child	George Savitz Jr. (1735 - 1830)
Child	Joseph Zavitz (1735 - 1794)

Father	John Zewitz (1670 - )
Mother	Catharina (1670 - )

Notes