Gentleman farmer
Wentz family’s church, tavern and burial ground examples of quiet living
Peter Wentz moved into what is now Worcester Township, Montgomery County, sometime in the first decade of the 18th century.
Generally speaking, wealthy families tend to leave more footprints in history than those of average means. This was not the case with the Wentz family. Except for deeds and wills and estate documents, little is known of them. If there were letters, diaries or journals they have not survived. Nor are there any portraits or miniatures. On a personal level they are as elusive as an evening mist.
However, their name survives in other ways. On the south side of Pennsylvania Route 23 (Skippack Pike), about a mile west of Peter Wentz’s farm, is Wentz’s United Church of Christ. According to Theodore Bean’s “History of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania,” published in 1884, this congregation can trace its roots back to 1727 when it was the Skippack Reformed Congregation and worshiped in a log church.
Years later the church building was gone, the cemetery plowed up by farmers and the congregation was no longer organized. Then, in 1760, a “few isolated members” held a meeting to see if it was possible to build another church and rekindle the congregation’s flame.
The new church was located on land donated by two property owners: John Lefevre and his wife, Christina, who, according to Bean, was supposed to have been a Wentz, and Jacob Wentz and his wife, Elizabeth. The deed, recorded on Jan. 2, 1762, conveyed the property to five men, two of whom were Philip and Peter Wentz.
In colonial times, Jacob Wentz had a tavern nearby on the south side of Route 23. The property is now long gone.
On Fisher Road, on the west side of Route 363, not far from Philip Wentz’s farm, there is a farmhouse of which the oldest part was built in 1760, most likely by Abraham Wentz, another brother of Peter.
Not far away from that house is the Wentz family burial ground, a tiny cemetery surrounded by a stone wall containing about two dozen tombstones, including those of Peter Wentz Sr. and his son, Peter Jr. That cemetery is on ground now owned by Meadowood Senior Living but is open to the public.
To see the extent of the Wentz land holdings, find Peter Wentz’s farm on Google Maps. From there look slightly to the northwest for Fisher Road where it turns off Route 363 for the approximate location of Jacob Wentz’s 1760 farmhouse. From there look south to Meadow Farms for the location of the family’s cemetery and then look west to find Wentz’s Church.