Samuel was listed in a Chester (later Lancaster) County, PA tax list in 1724, which proves that he did immigrate to Pennsylvania. Also listed in that tax list was a man named James Varner/Verner/Vernor, whose relationship to Samuel is not known. The tax was a property tax that was based on the assessed value of the person's estate. Pequea as a separate entity first showed in a tax list of 1720, which listed the estate values of the men being taxed. The assessment was threepence per pound of value. Multiple other lists of other years and townships also imply that the taxes were property taxes. The 1724 list proves that James owned property and that he was probably born by 1703. He died in 1736. Janice Palmer (now McLellan) theorized that James was a son of Samuel who had immigrated with Samuel from Ireland, and she listed him as Samuel's eldest son. While that might be true, one must remember the man named Robert of the 1722 deed. If Robert was a son of the immigrant Samuel, then he was probably Samuel's eldest son. It is also possible that James was more distantly related, e.g. a nephew or distant cousin. There was a James Verner in the Irish records who would have been born by 1665 and who could have been the man in Pennsylvania. There was another James Verner, the eldest son of a Henry Verner who died in County Armagh in 1724, but that son was probably too young to have been the man in America, based on the fact that Henry's will specified funds to be used for his son's education. Regardless of the relationship, it does appear that James immigrated to America before the Robert who showed in later Pennsylvania records. I will discuss James further below. Samuel's son David was not listed in 1724, but he was old enough to acquire his father's land in 1725. While it is possible that David immigrated between the time of the 1724 tax list and the 1725 land grant request, it is more likely that he was living with his father in 1724 and that he did not own his own property at that time, so his name would not have appeared on a property tax list.
The immigrant Samuel died before September 1725, presumably in Chester (later Lancaster) County, PA, as proven by the following record. On 2 Sep 1725, Samuel's son David applied for the grant to his deceased father's land. The original document is in Pennsylvania Land Records on microfilm 25-21 in the section about Minute Book I of the Board of Property records. The heading on the page indicates that the year was 1725, and in the margin is written as "brd 9:2", meaning that the action was at the Board meeting of September 2nd. The original record states, "Sam'l Verner (from Ireland) requests the Grant of a parcell of Land for a Settlement on Pecque, he has set down for Some time. He produces good Credentials, both from our Frds in Ireland & others. Sam'l Verner being Dead, his son David requests the Grant, 200 a's." What I can not show in that quote is that the clerk first wrote the name of the son as "Jacob", marked through that name, and wrote "David" above it. It is possible that the clerk misunderstood David's name and had to correct the entry, but the crossed-out name suggests that Samuel might have had a son named Jacob. It is possible that the request was submitted under Jacob's name and that he had died by the time of the Board meeting or that he and David had decided that David was to get the grant. The name Jacob Verner did not appear again in Lancaster County records until 1752.
I looked at the original record, because previous authors quoted a transcribed version that appeared in Pennsylvania Archives, 2nd Series, Volume XIX, dated 1890, page 734. The 1890 publication is a series of transcripts of the original records that was published under the direction of the Secretary of the Commonwealth. I was particularly interested to see if the parenthetical phrase "(from Ireland)" was in the original record, or if it was an abstraction by the transcriber. I was surprised to learn that the clerk did use the phrase in the original recording. However, the transcription differs from the original record in several ways, only one of which is significant. It listed the date as "9b'r, 2d, 1725", which is not the way the date was recorded in the original record. Also, the transcriber spelled out the word "Friends", whereas the original has the abbreviation "Frds". Of importance to me is that the transcriber did not include the crossed-out name Jacob that was written under David's name. While that might not be of importance from a legal standpoint, it is of extreme interest to a genealogist.
Pennsylvania was at that time controlled by its Legislature, and requests for land grants had to be approved by the Board of Property. Men would usually have to live on a piece of land for a period of time and meet certain requirements before they could acquire a title or "grant" to the land. I do not know the requirements of early Pennsylvania, but Samuel and/or David had obviously lived on the land for the required length of time. The term "Frds" presumably referred to Quakers in Ireland, since the Quakers controlled Pennsylvania. However, there is nothing in the records to suggest that Samuel was a Quaker, although he apparently had good relations with Quakers in Ireland. Both groups were persecuted in Ireland, and Presbyterians often had to hide their beliefs and to use the churches and meeting places of other groups, e.g. those of the Quakers. According to Janice Palmer (now McLellan), Chester County was part of the original land that was settled by William Penn and belonged to his son Thomas Penn. The Quakers were tolerant of other religions and allowed immigrants of other faiths to settle on the frontier west of the Quaker settlements. The eastern part of Chester County had been settled earlier by Quakers from England, so later immigrants had to go farther west. By the time Samuel and David arrived, the frontier was mostly in the region between the Pequea and Conestoga Creeks and to the north of those areas. The Pennsylvania frontier was settled mostly by French Huguenot, Scotch-Irish, Welsh, and German Protestants. The Quakers used those groups as a barrier between themselves and the Indians and other enemies. The cultures of the groups were very different, and the groups originally settled in different areas. All of those groups were at one time on lands along the Pequea Creek. Most of the Huguenots finally settled in the area around Paradise, PA, and the Welsh migrated to the northern townships to get away from the other groups. Many of the later German-speaking immigrants were from Switzerland. The German settlements can generally be identified by their names. The Scotch-Irish were more aggressive and independent-minded than the other groups and eventually dominated the area and culture wherever they went. According to one history reference, most of the other groups tended to settle in the flatter bottomlands, whereas the Scotch-Irish tended to settle in the hills where the water was purer.
The exact location of Samuel's land is not known, but it was obviously on or near Pequea Creek. The source of present-day Pequea Creek appears to be a ridge north of the town of Mount Airy, PA. It flows roughly southeastward and then southward, passing between the towns of White Horse and Compass, then turns and flows westward past the town of Paradise, then turns southwestward, and finally joins the Susquehanna River south of Lancaster at the present-day town of Pequea. Do not confuse past locations with the present-day township of Pequea, which was not created until 1853. The name Pequea was also the original name of the town now called Paradise, which was created in 1843, but the name was not used for long. Thus, trying to find locations of 1725 is confused by the evolution of the various settlements and land divisions of the past three centuries. Based on the correlation of various data, it appears to me that Samuel's land was probably in the vicinity of present-day Salisbury Township in Lancaster County. At the southern end of Salisbury Township is the town of Gap, PA, which is at a gap between hills where one of the old roads from Philadelphia entered the valley. The town of Compass, PA is just north of Gap, and in 1729 Samuel's son David helped to found a church at Compass. One of the old migration trails passed near Compass. It is unlikely that David had moved between 1725 and 1729, so it seems reasonable to assume that Samuel's land was within riding distance of the church. A history of the church states that the men who founded the church were originally settled in the Pequea Township of Lancaster County and the Salisbury Township of Chester County. However, it appears to me that the name "Salisbury" was a mistake or misread by the author and that the township was actually Sadsbury, because Salisbury Township is in present-day Lancaster County and did not exist when those men settled. That part of the church records was probably written after Salisbury Township of Lancaster County was created in 1729. There was obviously an original version of Pequea Township that was later broken into several other townships, and the name ceased to be used for awhile. The name was later used for the present-day Pequea Township, which was created in 1853 from the Conestoga Township and lies south of Lancaster, PA. The location of the original version can be inferred from two references. The internet site of Earl Township says that the original Pequea Township was formed in 1721 from the area that now includes Caernarvon, Brecknock, and East Earl Townships. The Salisbury Township website says that Salisbury Township was formed in 1729 from Pequea Township. Thus, the original Pequea Township must have included the present-day townships of Salisbury, Caernarvon, Brecknock, East Earl, and possibly some others to the west and north. The latter three townships are north of Salisbury Township and were originally settled mostly by Welsh. Watson's Annals of Philadelphia, Volume 2, written in 1840, says that Pequea was settled mostly by Irish immigrants, meaning the Scotch-Irish. The church is located in Chester County, east of and just barely across the county line from Lancaster County. Some of the founders presumably lived east of the church in Chester County, which is further support for the assumption that the founders lived in Pequea Township of Lancaster County and in Sadsbury Township of Chester County when the church was established.
The 1725 record proves that Samuel was from Ireland, that he had a son named David, and that he had died by 2 Sep 1725. That in turn implies that Samuel was the man of the 1722 County Armagh deed and that he died sometime in 1725, presumably in Chester County (later Lancaster County), but we do not know how he died. He lived on the frontier where life was primitive and harsh, so there are many possibilities, including disease, old age, an accident, or hostilities. The crossed-out name Jacob suggests that Samuel might have had a son with that name.