One of the most intriguing traditions associated with an early Pennsylvania Price / Preisz family tells of a German immigrant who married a Native American woman near Indian Creek.
The story preserved in an old genealogy
In A Genealogy of the Descendants of Rev. Jacob Price (1926), George F. P. Wanger recorded a tradition about Johannes Preisz (John Price), an immigrant who came to Pennsylvania with his father in 1719. According to the account, Johannes was thought to be frail, and his father encouraged an early marriage. His wife was described in the family story as a Native American woman.
Wanger did more than repeat an anonymous legend. He recorded conversations with Price descendants and earlier local historians, including Abraham H. Price, Abraham H. Cassel and James Y. Heckler. Some regarded the marriage as family fact; others disputed it. The account describes two sons, Daniel and John, and an early family residence in the Indian Creek area.
The newly recovered image of the original printed page 3 supplies a useful genealogical framework: John Price, born in Germany around 1702, reportedly died in 1724 or 1725; his son Daniel was recorded as born December 11, 1723, and marrying Hannah (Johanna) Weicker on May 22, 1746. These details provide documentary leads to follow through church and probate registers. They do not independently verify the earlier marriage to an Indigenous woman.
Read the complete Price tradition and new source page ↗
Who was the woman?
Later online trees sometimes name her Margaret Rebecca, describe her as Unami Lenape, and even identify her father as Netawatwees, a significant Lenape leader. Those specifics do not appear as documented parent-child relationships in the older Price genealogy.
Historian Erin Gotwals revisited the tradition in an essay published by the Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum in 2022. She traced the story through older books, compared it with the known history of Netawatwees, and concluded that the proposed father-daughter relationship has no supporting evidence in the sources she examined. She did not disprove the older family tradition of an Indigenous wife.
The Lenape had long occupied these Pennsylvania homelands, with Munsee and Unami-speaking communities. For Lenape history itself, the most important voices are those of contemporary Lenape nations and their own historical accounts.
How this fits into Dale's family tree
Dale's family tree includes a Price branch through his paternal grandmother, Mamie Price. The early Preisz marriage tradition is worth preserving as an associated surname story. However, the intervening generations connecting this particular eighteenth-century Preisz household to Mamie Price have not yet been documented in the materials available for this edition.
For that reason, we can preserve the remarkable story, read the oldest account, and continue following the Price records without stating that a specific Lenape woman—or Netawatwees—was Dale's proven ancestor.
Two histories can be appreciated side by side: a longstanding Price family tradition, and the independent history of Lenape peoples whose homelands included eastern Pennsylvania. Their possible connection deserves careful family research rather than a claim made solely from an online tree.
