Peter Stephens was born Peter Steffen in
Steinsfurt, then part of the
Electoral Palatinate (present day
Germany) on March 3, 1687. Besides his birth in
Swabia, little is known about Stephens before 1699 when he and his parents emigrated to America on
William Penn's second shipload of families for the purpose of populating the then
Colony of Pennsylvania. Peter would then migrate to what is now
Frederick County, Virginia, and settle south of present-day
Winchester, Virginia (which would not be founded for several more years past Stephens arrival). After buying from Jost Hite, the act of which was challenged by land baron
Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron, though settled amicably between Lord Fairfax and Stephens, Peter settled and founded, then unofficially called "Stephens town", in the early 1730s. It would be later chartered by the
Virginia General Assembly at the request of his son Lewis and called "Stephensburgh". Today, "Stephensburgh" is called
Stephens City and celebrated its 250th anniversary, on October 12, 2008. His wife, Maria Christina, would have seven children, four sons and three daughters, six of whom would be born in Frederick County, Virginia. Only their first son, Lewis, was born possibly in New York. Stephens died at the age of 70 in December 6, 1757, just under a year before the town he founded would become chartered in October 1758. ==References==