Mary Clemens

  Noted events in her life were:

• birth, 1710. ^{110,111,112,113} I was born in Rhineland-Pfalz also known as the Palatinate. My surname; “Clemens” is of English and Scottish origin and is derived from the Biblical name Clement who was a fellow worker with Paul in Philippi. The name Clement meant merciful. The name became well established throughout Europe due to four Popes who carried the name before the end of the thirteenth century and one saint from the first century.

My family attended church at the Lower Salford Meeting House that was built in 1725.

• Colonial Life. The Mennonites that lived in Lower Salford and the neighboring villages of Germantown, Skippack, and Conestoga frequently visited one another. Two or three times a year the Conestoga Mennonites loaded up their market wagons with furs from the friendly Conestoga Indians along with wheat, butter, and hemp to make the two day trip to Philadelphia. In Philadelphia these items were sold and loaded onto ships bound for Europe. Once we completed the task of selling our products, we would visit the Philadelphia stores to buy items we needed.

The seventy-mile ride to Philadelphia could be treacherous, especially in wet weather, when the wagon wheels made huge ruts in the road. On one trip Bishop Burkholder's son fell from the wagon and was killed when the wagon ran over him. Another time brushfires destroyed some of the wagons traveling from Conestoga. Although there were inns between Lancaster and Philadelphia, as Mennonites we usually slept in or beside our large wagons. While in Germantown, we wound be invited to spend the night at the homes of fellow Mennonite brethren and former "ship mates."

We lived along the Perkiomen Creek. The name Perkiomen is of Indian origin, which is said to mean in Delaware or Lenape, "Where the cranberries grow". The earliest mention of the name is found in a deed of June 3, 1684, where it is called Pahkehoma. On a map dated 1704, it appears as Perquamink; a map dated 1734, as Parkiomen, and a map dated 1749, as Perkiomy, by which latter name it was more familiarly called by those of us who settled here. Later, in 1741 it appears on an old record that Perkiomen was also called Perkasie, which might account for the latter name. The Perkiomen creek flows through the Township from north to south while the Skippack passes through the southeastern section, thus in 1734 this locality was known by the double name of "Perkiomen and Skippack" though the former is the most commonly used.
Some years after its settlement, this region was known as BebbersTownship or Bebbers Town. The town was name after Matthias Von Bebber, the Dutch Patroon, who purchased and later patented the whole six thousand and more acres comprising the entire Perkiomen Township and reselling the land to his friends and compatriots.

• death, 1789, Lower Salford, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Letters of Administration on my estate were granted to my son Christian, on 11th of May 1789. Burial for John and Mary took place at the Salford Mennonite Meeting House.

• Notes of Interest. 1.A historian whose credentials have proven to be false claimed that the Clemens family was linked to Clement of Toft from Lincolnshire, England. The Clemens Family Association considers the validity of data found linking the Clemens family to Clement of Toft to be questionable. Jacob Clemens life is well documented and is the accepted earliest recorded ancestor for the Clemens family.

2.Clemens is a Mennonite family name, which appears in the early Palatine Mennonite census list. The list indicates that as early as 1664 a person named Jan Clemens was living at Niederflörsheim, Germany. In 1672 Johann Clemeintz as deacon signed a letter of appeal sent to the Amsterdam Mennonites. In 1685 he is listed as still living as an old man at the same place. The Clemens family has been involved in the Mennonite denomination for many years as attested by the following: Four deacons named Clemens served the Mennonite churches in the Waterloo Township., Onterio, Canada district during the 19th century. They were Abram C. (1803-72), Abram L. (1781-1845), Abram S. (1790-1867), and Henry L. (1802-76). A very active member of the Clemens family in Mennonite Church affairs was Jacob Cassel Clemens (1874-1965), who served as the first secretary of the Franconia Conference 1909-50, a minister in the same conference beginning in 1906, a member of the Mennonite Publication Board for many years, and author of the Clemens family history.

3.The Clemens family appears on the Taufer (Anabaptists) censuses of the early 1660's--these censuses were taken to identify Anabaptists, for the purpose of extra taxation and/or expulsion from the area. The same family is found before that in the 1650's in the Siebengebirge area, (north of Mannheim) in a similar census; they were expelled from there after that 1650's census.

4.The Clemens family was among those driven from the "low countries" during the 90-year Dutch/Spanish war that ended in 1645. Like all Mennonites, the Clemens family was never allowed to hold any citizenship in any country in Europe. They emigrated up and down the Rhine River in order to try to find a place where they would have the freedom to think for themselves and to practice their own faith.

5.John and Mary Bergey's graves were marked with fieldstones until July 1907, when a granite monument was erected on the spot by the Bergey family association, and unveiled with appropriate ceremony September 27, 1907.

Mary married John Hans Ulrich Bergey, son of Hans Burgy and Maria Burki, before 1726 in Pennsylvania. (John Hans Ulrich Bergey was born on 21 Apr 1700 in Langnau Im Emmental, Canton Of Berne, Switzerland,⁷⁸ died on 11 Dec 1762 in Lower Salford Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania ^79,80 and was buried in Salford Mennonite Cemetery, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.)