Francis Daniel Pastorius - PLAQUE. Francis Daniel Pastorius founder of Germantown, 1651-1719, built here in 1683 on a lot 102 feet front a dugout *his first American home* in which, October 25, 1683, the thirteenth original settlers of Germantown drew lots for their new homes. He placed ... (missing)

"The most famous denizen of these riverside hovels was Francis Daniel Pastorius (1651–1720), the German scholar and lawyer who came to America in 1683. He was the agent of a group of German investors—the German Society, aka the Frankfort Company—who were interested in procuring land from William Penn. Pastorius did so and founded the community of Germantown, where he went to live in 1685. (An ardent abolitionist, he drafted the first protest against slavery in America there; the town is now part of Philadelphia.) Before leaving for Germantown, Francis Pastorius lived in an elaborate cave somewhere near modern-day Front and Lombard. It was located on one of three bank lots that Penn sold to the German Society, together with tracts in Philadelphia County and fifteen thousand acres elsewhere in Pennsylvania. ...... The thirteen original settlers of Germantown drew lots for their new homes at this place on October 25, 1683. In 1924, members of the Site and Relic Society of Germantown and the Pennsylvania Historical Commission placed a tablet on a wall at 502 South Front Street to commemorate Pastorius’s connection to that spot. The plaque is long gone, as is the house. Newer housing is on the west side of Front nowadays. The Delaware Expressway is on the east side." - Harry Kyriakodis, Philadelphia's Lost Waterfront (2011)