Good guess, Sandra. I was going to guess it was related to Saint Vincent, who has an interesting 17th century history of evangelizing to country folk, convicts and charity for the poor: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15434c.htm But the township is indeed related to Mathias Vincent. See: <http://www.westvincenttwp.org/History.htm> Note the site is about West Vincent, formed later, but includes this history. "William Penn's vast lands were divided first into counties (Chester, Bucks, Philadelphia, and Montgomery), and then into townships. Vincent Township was divided roughly in half in 1832, with about 12,000 acres in the western portion. Algonquin and Lenni Lenape Indian tribes held this land before European settlement: Conestoga Road (Route 401) and Nantmeal Road (now Horseshoe Trail) were Indian trails. The Township takes its name from Sir Mathias Vincent, who purchased his lands from his friend Penn. English, German, Swiss and Welsh settlers were welcomed here, making their homes primarily in the eastern portion of the original undivided township. Streams and rivers were important for transportation and industry, which was based on local iron works like those at Warwick, Reading, and Valley Forge. West Vincent's map profile is distinctive: the enormous "missing" square is the result of a boundary dispute in 1715, when Vincent and others failed to pay taxes to William Penn. Suit was brought against these men by the Clerk of the County Court, and 467 acres were seized. The "missing" piece lies on the border of Upper Uwchlan Township." Also, as an aside, given the interest in early German settlers we see on the list, I wonder if people are aware of the 1710 immigation to what became a Lancaster area county area of a group of German imigrants that included Marie Ferree and the Slaymaker family. The Slaymakers settled in the on the White Chimneys plantation, in an area near the later Leacock and Pequea Churches. The area later became largely PA Dutch and Mennonite but this early group received one of the first grants in a valley in westerm Chester County in 1710 via Penn and included a curious early German imigration party there. The Slaymakers have some marriages to my Scottish lines such as Humes, Hamiltons and McIlvaine and included some prominent lawyers in Lancaster County. There are extensive archives of old family papers at the Lancaster County Historical Society. I tried posting something last week about the Boyd estate detailed extensively in those archives but it didn't make it to the list. I'll resend that later. One outline of that 1710 Palatine related immigration can be found here: http://members.aol.com/SHelveston/Ferree.html A much more detailed history of that area including many surnames in the party can be found here along with an explanation of why the German Stasburg township was ignored and included in Leacock when Lancaster County was formed even thouhg Strasburg predated the county by more than a decade: http://www.horseshoe.cc/pennadutch/places/pennsylvania/lancasterco/townships /strasburg/strastwp.htm I just wanted to share it as it's an early Palatine group that, as the second document notes, appeared largely undocumented in early years but is likely to account for a cluster of German surnames relevant to those reasearching early German families in PA.