In 1806, two young men from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Benjamin Eby and Henry Brubacher, made a trip to meet relatives in Block 2. For years at his home on Hammer Creek in Lancaster Pennsylvania, Benjamin had heard stories about his relatives settling in Canada and he wanted to go and see what it was all about. His father supported him but his mother would have nothing to do with the idea. In 1806, he came of age and was old enough to make up his own mind, so with his friend Henry Brubacher he set out on his great adventure.

In what is now Waterloo, he visited cousins, George and Sam Eby, who had come north from Pennsylvania the previous year. George lived on Lot 1 and Sam on Lot 18 (the adjacent lot) of the German Tract. George decided to show the two young people some of the country. In dense forest, they followed the route of the present Highway 85 into what is now Woolwich Township but was then Block 3 of the Six Nations Lands. Eventually they reached the Conestogo River, which George Eby named for a river in Pennsylvania. They made their way northeast to the Canagagigue, then followed it to the Grand River. Following the Grand River south, they heard someone shouting on the other side of the river. It was old Yoch Schneider working in his clearing at what is now Bloomingdale. Yoch's wife Mary was Henry Brubacher's aunt. Yoch had come north earlier that year (1806)and his land was the northernmost of the first wave of settlers.

Benj Eby was so impressed with everything he saw that he bought Lot 2 next to his cousin George. Then he returned home to marry and return with his bride the following year.

About this time, the Mennonites in Block 2 were talking to William Dickson and Augustus Jones about setting up another German Company and buying a piece of another block of Six Nations land, Block 3, from William Wallace, who had not paid the Six Nations for it. When Benj Eby and Henry Brubacher returned to Pennsylvania, they carried a map of Block 3 prepared by Augustus Jones. The map showed the block divided into 130 lots of 350 acres each. The success of the first German Company aroused the interest of the people in Lancaster County and they invested in the new company by placing their names in the lots on the map.

Benjamin Eby returned to Canada in 1807 with his wife and a barrel half full of coins to pay for the new German Company Tract. He later became business agent for the new company, and was also a bishop of the Mennonite Church. The First Mennonite Church of Kitchener-Waterloo stands on what was his land. He was a great leader of his community as a teacher, preacher, source of advice, and benefactor. It is thought that he was responsible for the naming of the community as Berlin, a name that lasted until WW1.