Pioneer Pennsylvanian Settler, Public Servant, Author, Abolitionist. He led the first organized settlement of Germans in Pennsylvania and drafted the first protest against slavery made by a religious body in the English colonies. The son of a prominent lawyer, Pastorius was born in Sommerhausen in what was then the German region of Franconia. He studied law and practiced his profession in Windsheim and Frankfurt. Although he was raised as a Lutheran, he became acquainted with Quakers in Frankfurt and eventually adopted the Quaker faith. In 1683, he became agent for a group that wanted to buy land in Pennsylvania for a settlement of German Quakers and Dutch Mennonites. Landing at Philadelphia in August 1683, Pastorius quickly completed the purchase of a large tract of land from William Penn for the settlement of Germantown, which is now part of Philadelphia. As one of Germantown's leading citizens, Pastorius served in many public offices. In 1688, he drafted the now-famous protest against slavery on behalf of the Germantown Quakers. Signed by Pastorius and three other Germantowners, it declared, "...to bring men hither, or to robb and sell them against their will, we stand against." The protest was carried to the monthly, quarterly and yearly meetings of the Religious Society of Friends, but no action was taken on it. Skilled in several languages, Pastorius wrote extensively on topics ranging from beekeeping to religion. He authored a primer on English that was probably the first schoolbook written in Pennsylvania. His poetry appears in the New Oxford Book of Seventeenth-Century Verse. Pastorius married Ennecke (Anna) Klostermanns (1658-1723) in 1688. They had two sons. Pastorius is known to have died in late December 1719 or early January 1720. He is generally presumed to have been buried in the "Friends old burying-ground in Germantown;" but some writers think that he might have been buried in the Geissler Burying Ground, a private cemetery near his home that was later partly built over by St. Michael's Episcopal Church. Pastorius is celebrated in John Greenleaf Whittier's poem, "The Pennsylvania Pilgrim."