Among those excited by the prospect of actually moving to America were Quakers from Merioneth County in northern Wales. Among the first purchasers were other Welsh Quakers who had established meetings at Merion, Haverford, and Radnor in the 1680s and 1690s. One of the émigrés Hugh Roberts returned to Wales in 1697 and encouraged others to emigrate. In the Spring of 1698 William Jonex and Thomas Evans were dispatched to find land in Pennsylvania which would resemble what they were leaving in Wales. The ended up buying 17 square miles of timberland from Turner for 508 £. Twelve families left for America from Dublin on May 1, 1698, arriving in Philadelphia on July 17. They established themselves that summer and fall, naming the area Gwynedd (meaning white or fair land) in an area which today encompasses both Upper and Lower Gwynedd. By 1700 this group applied to the Quaker Meeting in Philadelphia for recognition, and had built a log meeting house in the vicinity of Route 202 and Sumneytown Pike.
It is also said that in that year William Penn actually came to this meeting to worship with his daughter Letitia.

In neighboring Whitpain, Richard's relative John had managed to challenge some of the creditors who seized Richard's land. Thomas MacCarty had married into the Whitpain family and appears to have been the first settler of that township along what would soon be Skippack Pike near Plymouth Township. MacCarty listed his occupation as barber-surgeon and his holdings as 435 acres.

The area now identified as the Borough of Ambler was purchased together with several other tracts by George and William Harmer in 1682. Unlike most other ''first purchasers'' the Harmer brothers appeared to be interested in settling on, rather than speculating, in land. They built a home here and William Harmer appears to have been a leader in the community, erecting a mill in the Southwestern corner of present day Ambler, near the Wissahickon.