FIRST-HAND IMPRESSIONS
OF JOHN AND SARAH CONARD

By THEIR GRANDSON, ELLWOOD B. CONARD (68),
Who was the son of Lewis Conard

"My recollection of my grandparents goes back to them in their home at Whitpain. Although I was then quite small, I was old enough to remember that during the life of our grandmother, Sarah Foulke (61) and I played there together. This was when Uncle James (1) lived in a house but a short distance away and in sight of the old home.

"My recollection of my grandmother is as clear as though I saw her but yesterday. I remember her sitting by the lO-plate woodstove in the front room in her long-eared, plain cap and with a white kerchief folded across her shoulders.

“One day she showed me some stone arrowheads, which she said had been used by Indians, and she also told how the wolves used to howl around, when the country was yet much in the woods-she had heard them herself.

"Her appearance was short, I believe, and rather heavy-set, and probably the one of her children that came the nearest to inheriting her countenance was my dear Aunt Elizabeth Walton (9). There was more similarity of feature, and a pleasant smile that always put me in mind of grandmother when I was with Aunt Elizabeth-more than did any of the rest of the uncles and aunts.

"I also recollect Aunt Martha and Aunt Mary very well, and remember being taken to both Uncle Albert's and Uncle Isaac's the same day. One summer's day when the house Uncle Isaac lives in was just being finished and the mortar box for the plastering and the rubbish was yet in the yard, Father and Uncle stood out below the house near the road and talked. Aunt Mary came to the door and said to come to supper. There was cottage cheese (schmercase) and I was helped to some. This was probably in 1855 or 1856.

"We had stopped at Uncle Albert's on the way over, and Aunt Martha gave me a piece of custard pie. I recollect the old mill, and how the same afternoon William took me around, and we saw the waterwheel and went up the run to the old stone bridge across the road, and here we made little boats of burdock burrs and set them afloat in the water to amuse me."


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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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