Author Francis Daniel Pastorius was the founder of Germantown, Pennsylvania, after purchasing the land from William Penn in 1683. He was a very eclectic academic, and his manuscripts were often patchworks of his interests in gardening, geography, education, and literature. He was also one of the first white men in America known to advocate for abolition. Read more here.

Grafton, Anthony. “The Republic of Letters in the American Colonies: Francis Daniel Pastorius Makes a Notebook.” The American Historical Review. 1 February 2012. 2 September 2020.