Thones and Elin Kunders were among the 13 original families who founded Germantown PA in 1683. This website is dedicated to their descendants.

These descendants adopted various ways of spelling their last name and no two sons spelled it the same way; Conard, Cunard, Connard and Cunreds have all been in use for generation and still continue. Our forefathers were Quakers who hailed from Crefeld Germany, as city near the border of Holland. While the Quakers controlled the affairs of the province Pennsylvania had its Golden Age: during the seventy years they controlled the government not a single Quaker lost his life, brotherly love and fairness was shown to the Native Americans and comfort and plenty were the rewards for the labors of the inhabitants; while colonies founded at the same time but on different principals suffered wars and famine.

Part One was written by Henry C. Conard and is part of the “Conard Book” that was published in 1939. It was digitized and scanned by the Boston Public Library and Internet Archives as part of the Americana Project. I have updated and added information but resisted the urge to update the old fashioned spelling found in many older documents.

Horsham Friends Meeting 2021

Jim Hallowell and Sam Conard
Jim Hallowell and Sam Conard (both Peter Branch) are farmers and have the hands to prove it! It's rare for a farmer to live to age 65 and keep all ten fingers. Photo taken 9/11/21 at Horsham Friends Meeting.

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Kunders, an humble wool dyer from the banks of the Rhine, who, settling in the untrodden wilds of America, and pursuing the even tenor of a modest and uneventful life, “builded better than he knew.”

Robert Proud, in his history of Pennsylvania says, “Among the first Germantown settlers was Dennis Conrad. The first religious meeting of the Quakers, in that place, was held at his house in 1683. He was a hospitable, well-disposed man, of an inoffensive life and good character.”

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