Chester County, Pennsylvania tax transcripts show John Sa[u]nders as a laborer and inmate of the Township of Coventry,634 about 35 miles from Plumstead. He owner two horses and one cow.635 Because the events that follow are successive and consistent with patterns for the life of a young man growing up, I am inclined to believe that this John Saunders is one and the same with the individual who shortly later appears in nearby Smithfield, Pennsylvania. On the other hand, none of the names of other residents is familiar or plausibly related to other family associsations, so it is not clear what might have taken him there.

John Saunders is shown in the 1785 Federal636 tax lists for Lower Smithfield in then Northampton County, Pennsylvania. He had 15 acres of land, a horse, and a cow. He was assessed for a tax of 3 shillings and 4 pence. By 1788, he had 70 acres and one cow, without a horse.637 The 1790 Federal census shows him as head of a household with 1 male older than 16, 3 males under 16, and 6 females.638

John Saunders and his wife Mary had all of their children baptized together in 1788,486 If this is as it appears to be from the record, it raises the question of why they were not christened earlier. One possibility is that the omission reflects Quaker roots, and the absence of baptism in that religion.