CONRAD CUSTER

Conrad was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania in 1690.  His father sent him to the Freinds School, taught by the learned Francis Daniel Pastorius who was a Quaker.

As the Germantown area became settled,  Conrad and his family and some of the other original families of Germantown departed, c. 1714, to an area twenty miles west of Philadelphia further up the Shuykill River. These German Mennonites brought the linen making business to the community, along with their farming skills, to the vicinity of Perkiomen Creek and Skippack Creek to a point where travel by boat became impossible because of shallow water. This point is where Skippack Creek crosses Skippack Pike in Skippack Township. The origin of the name "Skippack" came from early German settlers, originally spelled Schippach, named after a town of the same name in the Bayern region of Germany South East of Frankfurt.

                                  SKIPPACK CREEK


Conrad married Susannah Adams soon after moving to this new location.  Some time later, Conrad Custer appears as a signer of the Faulkner's Swamp Petition in 1728 seeking protection from the Indians at Skippack (now Montgomery County). On January 14, 1732/3 he paid quick rents (3 shillings and 4 pence and 5 shillings for 102 acres in the Skippack area for 10 years in full. He was listed in 1734 as a landholder of 100 acres in Franconia Township of the Philadelphia County (at that time).

 In 1738 he lived in Bucks County, PA near the Delaware River having "a hundred and a half acres"  along Tinicum Creek in Tinicum Twp. In 1754 he acquired 100 acres and 50 acres in Mockamixon Twp. 

Conrad and a few of his children moved to Brock's Gap, VA in 1762 where he bought 160 acres from Joseph and Rachell Dictom for 130 pounds on the North Branch of the Shaenandoah near Clover Lick, Augusta County (now in Rockingham County). He died February 1, 1772. Having left  no will, his wish by his own words was carried out, the estate was sold and the money divided among his children. The story goes that he had many children - three daughters and from twenty-four to twenty-seven sons, and the sons supposedly fought in the Revolutionary War. 

CONRAD CUSTER
BORN:1695 in Germantown, Philadelphia, PA
MARRIED: 1715 in Skippack, Montgomery, PA
DIED: 1 Feb 1772 in Brock's Gap, Augusta, VA
SOURCES: Book:Mrs. Elsie Foster, "Our Brokaw/Bragaw Heritage"; FamilySearch.org "The Biography of Conrad Custer"