The German Immigration into Pennsylvania though the Port of
Philadelphia: 1700-1775
Chapter VIII.
It was customary to take the immigrants upon disembarkation to the Court House
in Philadelphia to be qualified, but this practice was varied. Sometimes this
ceremony occurred at the office of the Mayor, and again
at the office of some attorney, no doubt authorized for that purpose.
42
The names of the incoming Palatines were published in the Colonial Records from
September 21, 1727, until August 30, 1736, when the practice was discontinued.
Chapter VIII.
The German Immigration into Pennsylvania though the Port of
Philadelphia: 1700-1775
Chapter VIII.
Where Some of Them Went.
It is interesting to follow these people after reaching Pennsylvania. The little
colony of 33 persons who planted
Caption: Conestoga Team and Wagon. themselves at
Germantown under the headship of Francis Daniel Pastorius, in 1683, was slowly
augmented during the following two decades. But by 1702, as Judge Pennypacker
tells us, they began to penetrate into the regions beyond their own limited
domain. The acquisition of land seems ever to have been a prominent
characteristic with the Germans, and it may be said to
continue to this very hour. Even then the spirit of speculation was rife among
them. Their early cleared farms had become valuable. There were always those
who, having money, preferred to buy farms from which the heavy timber had been
cleared and on which good buildings were erected. The
prices for wild lands were so reasonable that men were tempted to sell their
early holdings and, with the aid of their sturdy sons and
daughters, to enter upon and conquer new lands in the
interior.
Then, too, the inflowing tide became so strong that there were no longer lands
near the older settlements to be taken up, and they
were perforce compelled to move far into the backwoods. Lancaster County, Berks
County, Lebanon County, York and Dauphin, Schuylkill,
Lehigh and Northampton all heard the tread of the
invading hosts.
One characteristic of these German immigrants deserves especial mention. While
many of them were handicraftsmen, by far the greater number were bauern-farmers
-and to this calling they at once betook themselves.
Indeed, the first thing upon their arrival in Philadelphia was to find out the
nearest route to the unsettled lands of the Proprietary, and
thither they betook themselves at the earliest possible moment. The backwoods
had no terrors for them. As a race of tillers of the soil, they were well aware
that the character of the timber was an indication of the nature of the ground
on which it stood. They were not afraid to work. The felling of the trees and
the clearing of the land neither intimidated nor deterred them from locating
where these impediments to farming were greatest. The fatness of the land they
knew was greatest where trees were largest and stood
thickest. The mightiest forests fell at the resounding blows of the woodman's
axe, even as the arch enemy of mankind shrunk at the potent thrust of Ithurial's
spear. Their presence was manifested in every fertile valley. Wherever a cool
spring burst from the earth, on every green hillside and
in the depths of the forest, their modest homes appeared. The traditional policy
of the Proprietary Government also pushed them to the frontiers-the places of
danger. Let the truth be told, even as history is to-day writing it. It is the
boast of the historian that so mild and generous was
the dealing of the Quaker with the aborigines that "not a drop of Quaker
blood was ever shed by an Indian."
43 Shall I tell why? It was because
the belt of Quaker settlement was enclosed in a circumference described by a
radius of fifty miles from Penn's city on the Delaware. Beyond that point came
the sturdy Germans, the Reformed, the Lutherans, the Dunkers, the Mennonites and
the Moravians, whose settlements effectually prevented the savages from spilling
Quaker blood. Instead, the tomahawk and scalping knife
found sheath in the bodies of the sturdy children of the Palatinate. Let the
sacrificed lives of more than three hundred men, women and
children from the Rhine country, who fell along the Blue Mountains between 1754 and
1763, give the true answer to the Quaker boast.
44
There were many entire settlements throughout eastern Pennsylvania as early as
1750 where no language but the German was heard. They went to the north, the
south, and to the west. Soon they reached the
Appalachian chain of mountains, climbed its wooded sides and
debouched into the wild regions beyond until the Ohio was in sight. But on,
still on, went that resistless army of Commonwealth-builders. To-day they are
spread over the fairest and most fertile lands of the
great West. Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and
other states, the entire continent in fact, count among the best of their
citizens the men who went out of Pennsylvania with Luther's bible in their hands
and the language of Schiller and
Goethe upon their lips. Wherever they went their fervent but unobtrusive piety
went with them. As early as 1750 there were already forty well-established
German Reformed and thirty Lutheran congregations in
Pennsylvania.
45 Of the minor church
organizations, or rather of those who had no such organizations, "the sect
people," like the Mennonites, the Dunkers, Schwenkfelders and
many more, we cannot speak. In the aggregate they were very numerous and
in their quiet way brought credit on their country and
on their lineage, wherever they located themselves; and
all that was said of them at that early period attaches to them to-day.
Chapter IX.
The German Immigration into Pennsylvania though the Port of
Philadelphia: 1700-1775
Chapter IX.
The German Population of Pennsylvania as Estimated by various Writers at various
Epochs. - Often Mere Guesses. - Better Means of Reaching close Results now. -
Some Sources of Increase not Generally Considered. "Ay, call it holy
ground, The soil where first they trod; They left unstained what there they
found Freedom to worship God." O mighty oaks centennial, On field and
fell that stand; Keep watch and ward perennial Above
that faithful band.
Dow many Germans came to Pennsylvania during the eighteenth century? That query
will probably occur to many readers, because it is one of the most interesting
of all the questions connected with this subject. In the absence of direct and
indisputable evidence every effort to solve the problem must of necessity be in
the nature of an approximation, or if you will, only a guess. A score of writers
have tried their hands at the problem, and their
guesses are as various as the writers themselves. In fact, these estimates are
hopelessly discordant and some of them are here given
that the reader may understand the situation and
exercise his own judgment in the matter from the evidence that has been laid
before him in the course of this narration.
Sypher, for example, says "in 1727, nearly 50,000 persons, mostly Germans,
had found a new home in Pennsylvania,"
46 which I venture to think
exaggerates the number at that time so far as the Germans are concerned. Dr.
Charles J. Still‚ has estimated the population of the State in 1740, at
100,000, and he adds, "of the inhabitants of the
Province one-fourth or one-fifth were Quakers, about one-half Germans and
the rest emigrants from the North of Ireland."
47 Governor Thomas, who ought to be
good authority, expressed the opinion that in 1747 the population numbered
120,000 of which three-fifths or 72,000 were Germans. I find an estimate in the
Colonial Records, on what authority is not stated, which gives the population at
220,000 in 1747 of which it is said 100,000 were Germans. In 1763, a Committee
of which Benjamin Franklin was chairman, reported to Parliament that 30,000
laborers, servants and redemptioners had come into the
Province within twenty years and yet "the price of
labor had not diminished."
48 This is an interesting fact and
is conclusive evidence that nothing was so much needed in the growing Province
in those early days as men who knew how to work and
were willing to do so. In 1776 Dr. Franklin's estimate was 160,000 colonists of
whom one-third or 53,000 were Germans, one-third Quakers and
the
Caption: German Immigration Into Pennsylvania. Domestic Utensils. 1
Wrought Iron Candle Stick. 2 Pat Lamp on Earthenware Stand. 3 Wall Sconce. 4 Pat
Lamp on Portable Base. 5 Lard Lamp. 6 Can for Warming Lard. 7 Wooden Lamtern. 8
Tin Candle Stick. 9 Fish Oil Lamp. 10 Bunch of Sulphur Sticks. rest of other
nationalities. Michael Schlatter, the eminent missionary and
organizer in the Reformed Church, in 1751 gave 190,000 as the total population
of Pennsylvania, of whom one-third or 63,000 were Germans.
Proud, the historian, who ought to be a very competent authority, estimated the
entire population of Pennsylvania in 1770 at 250,000, with the Germans as
one-third of that number or 83,000. Menzel, in his history of Germany, informs
us that from 1770 to 1791, twenty-four immigrant ships arrived annually at
Philadelphia, without reckoning those that landed in other harbors.
49 This is a wholesale exaggeration
of the actual facts. This statement indicates the arrival of more than 500 ships
during the 21 years mentioned. We know that is more than the total recorded
number from 1727 to 1791. From 1771 until 1775 there were only 47 arrivals.
There were hardly any German arrivals during the Revolutionary War, and
comparatively few from 1783 until 1790. We know there were only 114 in the year
1789. It is easy for historians to fall into error when they draw on their fancy
for their facts. According to Ebeling, the German inhabitants of Pennsylvania
numbered 144,660 in the year 1790.
50 Seidensticker gives the
inhabitants of the Province in 1752 at 190,000, of which he says about 90,000
were Germans. The Lutherans in 1731 are supposed to have numbered about 17,000 and
the German Reformed 15,000.
51 In 1742 the number of Germans
was given at 100,000 by Hirsching.
52 Rev. J. B. Rieger estimated the
number of Germans in the Province in 1733 at 15,000. In the notes to the
Hallische Nachrichten, we find this: "If we estimate the Germans of
Pennsylvania, at the middle of the eighteenth century, at from 70,000 to 80,000,
we shall not be far out of the way."
53
Franz L”her, in his Geschichte und Zust„nde der Deutschen in Amerika, has
some interesting remarks on this subject.
54
Amid this multiplicity of estimates the writer of to-day is reluctant to enter
the field with some of his own. The observant men who lived here between 1725 and
1775, should certainly have been more capable of forming an accurate estimate
than those who came a century or more after them. But it is evident that many
made mere guesses, without actual knowledge, and their
views are, therefore, without special value. The tendency in almost every case
was to exaggerate. But to-day we know with tolerable accuracy the number of
ships that reached Philadelphia, and have the ship
lists. We know, too,
Caption: Pennsylvania and New Jersey Described.
Title-Page of Original Edition of Gabriel Thomas' Account. that many were here
when the registry law went into operation and who go to
swell the whole number; that in addition, others came from New York prior to
1700.
In the year 1738 sixteen immigrant ships reached port, bringing from 15 to 349
each, or a total of 3,115. The average per ship was about 200. It is reasonable
to suppose that was also a fair average for previous and
succeeding years. Between 1727 and 1750, the latter
year and that of 1745 when there were no arrivals not
included, there were 134 arrivals of ships of all sizes. Allowing these an
average of 200 each, we get as a result 26,800 souls, or an average of about
1,220 annually. As has elsewhere been stated the number of arrivals in 1732 was
2,093, and in 1738, 3,257. In 1728, 1729 and
1730 the arrivals were 390, 243 and 458 respectively,
which, of course, counter-balance such big years as 1732 and
1738.
We are in the dark as to the ship arrivals between 1714 and
1727, but the accounts are agreed the number was considerable. I am inclined to
accept the Rev. Rieger's estimate of 15,000 in 1727, instead of in 1733, where
he places it. That number added to estimated arrivals between 1727 and
1749, both years included, gives us in round numbers about 42,000 in 1750, to
which must be added the natural increase which was, perhaps, 5,000 more, or a
total German population of 47,000 souls in the Province in 1750. Between 1750 and
1775, both years inclusive (but not counting 1757, '58, '59 and
'60, during which there were no arrivals) we have a total of 196 ships in 21
years, which reckoned at the average of 200 to each vessel gives us 39,000
arrivals or rather less than an average of 1,900 yearly. This added to our
previous estimate for 1750 gives us with the natural increase fully 90,000
Germans in the Province when the Revolutionary war broke out. Indeed, I am
inclined to believe the number was nearer 100,000 than 90,000, for these early
Germans were noted for their large families. There is, however, considerable
unanimity in one particular among most of the authorities, and
that is that the Germans at any and every period
between 1730 and 1790 constituted about one-third of
the total population. This statement is unquestionably correct as we approach
the years nearest the Revolutionary period. The English Quakers and
the Welsh had not been coming over in any considerable number, and
the same may, perhaps, be said of the Scotch-Irish. The Germans formed the bulk
of the immigrants and necessarily increased their
numerical ratio to the total population of the Province which, according to the
first census in 1790, was 434,373. Accepting the ratio of one-third being
Germans, we get 144,791 as the German population at that period.
There is still another large increase in the German population of Pennsylvania
prior to 1790 which writers do not reckon with, but which must not be left out
of our estimates. It is those German soldiers who remained in the State at the
close of the Revolutionary War. The number of these men who were sent to America
and fought under the banner of George III., was,
according to the best authorities, 29,867.
55 Of that number, 17,313 returned
to Europe in the autumn of 1783. The number that did not return was 12,554.
These have been accounted for as follows:
Killed and died of wounds. 1,200
Died of illness and accident 6,354
Deserted 5,000
Total 12,554
Here we have five thousand men, most of whom remained scattered among their
countrymen throughout Pennsylvania. The few hundred who perhaps settled in other
states were more than made up by those German soldiers who, by agreement with
the several German States, enlisted in the English regiments, some of which had
recruiting stations at various places along the Rhine, and
who were not counted in the financial adjustment of accounts between Great
Britain and the German Princes, nor compelled to return
to Europe.
56
It is well known that during the first quarter of the nineteenth century the
German immigration to this State was well sustained so that probably the Germans
and their descendants have pretty nearly kept up the
percentage of population accorded them by general consent so long as one hundred
and fifty years ago.
The opinion seems to prevail very generally that in 1700 all the Germans in
Pennsylvania were those who were gathered at the Germantown settlement, along
the Wissahickon and immediately around Philadelphia.
Rupp expressly states that there were only about 200 families of Germans in the
Province in 1700. I do not coincide with that view. The colonists which Sweden
had begun to send to the Delaware as early as 1638, were not composed of Swedes and
Finns only; special privileges were offered to Germans and
these, too, came along.
An examination of the Colonial History of New York and
O'Callagan's Documentary History of New York, shows that a number of settlements
had been planted on the delaware by the City of Amsterdam. Colonies of
Mennonites are mentioned as having settled in New York prior to 1657. In a
report on the State of Religion in New York, dated August 5, 1657, addressed to
the Classis of Amsterdam, I find this: "At Gravesend, on Long Island, there
are Mennonists * * * yea they for the most part reject infant baptism, the
Sabbath, the office of preacher and the teachers of
God's word, saying that through these have come all sorts of contention into the
world. Whenever they meet together one or the other reads something for
them."
57 I also find that Governor
Fletcher, of New York, wrote in 1693 that "more families are daily removing
for Pennsylvania and Connecticut to be eased from taxes and detachments."
58 The Rev. John Miller writes in
1696 that "the burdens of the Province (N. Y.) have made two or three
hundred families forsake it and remove to Pennsylvania, and Maryland chiefly."
59
Here we are told of the migration of as many German families from New York to
Pennsylvania prior to 1693, as are credited to all Pennsylvania in the year
1700. I regret that time has not allowed me to examine more fully the documents
here mentioned. There are a great number of references in them to Mennonites in
New York, and as these disappeared from that colony at
an early date, there seems to be abundant reason for believing that they nearly
all found their way into Pennsylvania, swelling the German population to no
inconsiderable extent. We undoubtedly have here a factor which must be reckoned
with in any summary we may make of the early population of Pennsylvania.
I am therefore not ready to accept the generally believed statement that the
colony of Crefelders who settled at Germantown in 1683 were the only Germans
around Philadelphia at that time. The evidence is scattering but none the less
direct. Watson tells us that one Warner had settled at William Grove, two miles
beyond the city limits as early as 1658. Also that Jurian Hartsfelder took up
350 acres of land in March, 1676, nearly six years before Penn's arrival.
60 Pennypacker says he was "a
stray Dutchman or German, who had been a deputy Sheriff under Andross in
1676."
61 Rupp tells us that one Heinrich
Frey had reached Philadelphia two years before Penn's arrival, and
a certain Plattenbach somewhat later.
62 There was a large general
immigration in 1682, about 30 ships having arrived with settlers.
63 We can no more divest ourselves
of the belief that there were many Germans among these than we can that there
were many Germans among the Swedes and Finns who first
came fifty years earlier, because we know Gustavus Adolphus asked the Protestant
German princes to allow their subjects to join his own subjects in forming the
Swedish settlements on the Delaware. Johannes Printz, who succeeded Peter
Minnewit as Governor, was a German, a Holsteiner, and
he brought with him fifty-four German families, mostly from Pomerania.
64 It is a very logical supposition
that these were only a portion of the Germans who planted themselves along the
Delaware at various times between 1638 and 1682. When
therefore Rupp tells us that there were only about 200 German families in
Pennsylvania in 1700, I cannot accept his statement, because I cannot escape the
conclusion from all the evidence accessible, that those figures should be
increased several hundred per cent. Neither do I doubt that in the fullness of
time an abundance of confirmatory evidence of this view will be forthcoming.
Chapter X.
The German Immigration into Pennsylvania though the Port of
Philadelphia: 1700-1775
Chapter X.
Their Detractors and their Friends. - What Both Parties
have said. - The Great Philosopher Mistaken. - How the Passing Years have
Brought Along their Vindication. "Vergessen soll die Feindschaft Sein
Vergessen dann das Schwert; Wir wollen uns wie Brder freu'n-Uns freun an einem
Heerd."
It will hardly be questioned, I suppose, that Benjamin Franklin was the greatest
American of the Revolutionary era. He certainly was from a political point of
view. Coming into the Province in 1723 and dying in the
State in 1790, his residence here covers almost three-quarters of a century. He
literally grew up with the Province, saw it in almost every phase of its career,
from its earliest struggles until the strong Commonwealth was established, let
us hope for all time. The proprietary period was by no means an ideal one. The
student of that early time is confronted on almost every page of our history by
the quarrels and disputes between the Governors of the
Province and the Provincial Assemblies. The former in
standing up for the rights of the Penn heirs, and the
latter jealous of the rights and interests of the
people, presented a condition of turbulence hardly equalled in any of the
American colonies.
Franklin was on the spot when the great German immigration set in. He saw it all
and could hardly help understanding it. He could not
avoid coming in contact with these people. He did, in fact, come into very close
and profitable relations with them. For years he owned and
conducted the best equipped printing establishment in the Province, if not in
the entire country. This brought him into very close business relations with the
Germans, for there were many men of high culture among them, who wrote learned
books which Franklin printed for them at his establishment. Had he understood
the Germans better he might have appreciated this more. At all events he seems
to have misunderstood them, and through that
misunderstanding to have done them a great wrong. It may not have been willful,
but it was, nevertheless, inexcusable.
Other men prominent in affairs, Secretary Logan and
some of the early Governors, have had their fling at the German colonists, but
they also in time paid ample testimony to their excellent qualities. But from
none of them came so severe a blow as from Dr. Franklin. Under date of May 9,
1753, he wrote a letter to his friend Peter Collinson, in which he speaks thus
unkindly of these people, the very bone and sinew of
the great State that was to be:
"I am perfectly of your mind, that measures of great temper are necessary
touching the Germans, and I am not without
apprehensions, that, through their indiscretion, or ours, or both, great
disorders may one day arise among us.
Caption: German Immigration Into Pennsylvania. Benjamin Franklin. Those
who came hither are generally the most stupid of their own nation, and
as ignorance is often attended with great credulity, when knavery would mislead
it, and with suspicion when honesty would set it right; and, few of the English understand the German language,
and so cannot address them either from the press or
pulpit, it is almost impossible to remove any prejudices they may entertain.
Their clergy have very little influence on the people, who seem to take pleasure
in abusing and discharging the minister on every
trivial occasion. Not being used to liberty, they know not how to make modest
use of it. * * * They are under no restraint from ecclesiastical government;
they behave, however, submissively enough at present to the civil government,
which I wish they may continue to do, for I remember when they modestly declined
intermeddling with our elections; but now they come in droves and
carry all before them, except in one or two counties.
"Few of their children in the country know English. They import many books
from Germany, and of the six printing houses in the
Province, two are entirely German, two half German, half English, and
but two are entirely English. They have one German newspaper, and
one-half German Advertisements intended to be general, are now printed in Dutch
(German) and English. The signs in our streets
(Philadelphia) have inscriptions in both languages, and
some places only in German. They begin, of late, to make all their bonds and
other legal instruments in their own language, which (though I think it ought
not to be), are allowed in our courts, where the German business so increases,
that there is continued need of interpreters, and I
suppose in a few years, they will also be necessary in the Assembly, to tell
one-half of our legislators, what the other half says. In short, unless the
stream of importation could be turned from this to other colonies, as you very
judiciously propose, they will soon outnumber us, that all the advantages we
will have, will in my opinion, be not able to preserve our language, and
even our government will become precarious."
65
The wisest mortals are sometimes short-sighted and Dr.
Franklin must be allowed a place in that category. His letter is unsound
throughout. First he calls them stupid and ignorant;
later he admits they import many books. If so ignorant and
stupid what did they want with so many books? If so steeped in mental darkness,
how is it that there were more German newspapers printed in the Province at that
very hour than in English? The generally shrewd philosopher, patriot and
statesman involved himself in contradictions such as not even the
"stupid" Germans would have done. I may even go further and
say, that at the time Dr. Franklin's letter was written there were many Germans
in Pennsylvania incomparably superior to him in the learning of the schools. He
does not appear to have thought of that. Perhaps he did not know it-could not
comprehend it.
Well-nigh one hundred and fifty years have come and
gone since his unjust tirade against the German colonists. Not one of the fears
that seemed to have possessed his soul has been realized. It is true the Quaker
no longer governs the land. He went to the rear as the Germans came to the front
and assumed control of the Government. They became the
dominant race, and they are so to-day. They did no
violence to the laws; they upheld them and enforced
them. They have made the State the grandest of all the forty-five. Dr. Franklin
lived to see how idle his predictions were, and even he
recanted.
Caption: Falckner's Continuation of Gabriel Thomas. Falckner's
Congtinuation of Gabriel Thomas' Account.
There were a number of others whose views coincided with those of Franklin, at
least in some particulars. On the other hand there were those who spoke and
wrote as decidedly in their behalf. Among these was the historian Macaulay, who
calls them "Honest, laborious men, who had once been thriving burghers of
Mannheim and Heidelberg, or who had cultivated the vine
on the banks of the Neckar and Rhine. Their ingenuity and
their diligence could not fail to enrich any land which should afford them an
asylum."
Against the jaundiced views of Dr. Franklin I set those of a man of our own
times, one who from his public position and his
superior opportunities for forming correct views of the early German immigrants
is eminently entitled to be heard on this question. I mean Dr. James P.
Wickersham, for nearly fifteen years Superintendent of Public Instruction in
Pennsylvania. Of Quaker descent, he was nevertheless broad-minded and
liberal, and did not strive to close his eyes to the
good qualities of the early Germans, with whose descendants he became so
intimately connected and acquainted. He says:
"Pennsylvania as a land of promise became known in Holland, Germany and
Switzerland. * * * But it was not long until numbers of the oppressed
inhabitants of nearly all parts of Germany and
Switzerland, and especially of districts along the
Rhine, began to seek homes, with wives, children and
all they possessed, in the wilds of Pennsylvania. Among them were members of a
dozen different religious denominations, large and
small. They all came with the common object of bettering their condition in
life, and securing homes in a country where they could
enjoy unmolested the right to worship God as their consciences dictated. In
Pennsylvania, if nowhere else, they knew they would secure civil and
religious liberty. Some of them were very poor, even coming without sufficient
money to pay the expenses of their passage, but others were well to do, bought
land, built houses, and soon by patient industry had
about them the comforts to which they had been accustomed. The German immigrants
were mostly farmers, but among them there was a smaller proportion of different
kinds of mechanics. They brought few books with them, but nearly every
individual possessed a Bible and a Prayer or Hymnbook, and
many had in addition a Catechism or a Confession of Faith. These were the
treasures that could not be left behind, and they are
still preserved as heirlooms in hundreds of old German families.
"When they came in bodies, they were usually accompanied by a clergyman or
a schoolmaster, or both. They were not highly educated as a class, but among
them were some good scholars, and few could be found
who were not able to read. The impression has prevailed that they were grossly
ignorant; it is unjust; those who make the charge either do not take the pains
to understand, or wish to misrepresent them. Their average intelligence compared
favorably with that of contemporary American colonists of other nationalities.
If they did not keep pace with others in subsequent years, their backwardness is
easily accounted for by their living for the most part on farms, frequently many
miles separated, and extending over large sections of
country; their division into many religious denominations, among which there was
little unity; their inability, scattered and broken as
they were, to support ministers and schoolmasters, or
even to secure the advantages of an organized community; their use of a language
which in a measure isolated them from the neighboring settlers, and
shut them out from the social, political and business
currents that gave life to the communities around them; their unacquaintance
with the proper forms of local self-government, and the
habit brought with them, in all public concerns, of deferring to some outside or
higher authority; and above all, perhaps, their quiet,
confiding disposition, quite in contrast with the ways of some of the more
aggressive, self-asserting classes of people with whom they were brought in
competition. * * *
"Although invited to settle in Pennsylvania, the Germans, arriving in such
large numbers and spreading over the country so
rapidly, seem to have created a fear on the part of other settlers and
of the provincial authorities that they would form an unruly element in society,
and eventually work the overthrow of the government, or
assume possession of it, as their countrymen had done long before in England.
Laws restraining their immigration were passed, and the
alarm disturbed even such well-balanced minds as those of Logan and
Franklin. It is almost needless to add now that such a fear was groundless and
arose wholly out of the political and sectarian
prejudices of the day. On the contrary, it is only just to say that to all that
has gone to build up Pennsylvania, to enlarge her wealth, to develop her
resources, to increase her prosperity, to educate her people, to give her good
government from the first, the German element of the population has contributed
its full share. Better citizens cannot be found in any nation on the face of the
globe."
66
No truer tribute was ever paid the German immigrants than this one, before the
Assembly on January 2, 1738, by Lieutenant-Governor George Thomas when urging
the establishment of a hospital for sick arrivals: "This Province has been
for some years the Asylum of the distressed Protestants of the Palatinate, and
other parts of Germany, and I believe it may with truth
be said that the present flourishing condition of it is in a great measure owing
to the industry of these People; and should any
discouragement divert them from coming hither, it may well be apprehended that
the value of your Lands will fall, and your Advances to
wealth be much slower; for it is not altogether the goodness of the Soil, but
the Number and Industry of the People that make a
flourishing Colony."
67
Caption: Specimen of Early Pennsylvania Pottery.
Chapter XI.
The German Immigration into Pennsylvania though the Port of
Philadelphia: 1700-1775
Chapter XI.
The Germans as Farmers.-Answer to a Recent Historian who Asserts They, a Race of
Farmers, did not Take the Same Enjoyment in Agricultural Pursuits as the
Scotch-Irish and Some Others!! "Oft did the
harvest to their sickle yield, Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund did they drive their teams afield! How bow'd the woods beneath their
sturdy stroke!" "Und der Vater mit frohem Blick, Von des Hauses
weitschauendem Giebel šberz„hlet sein blhend Glck, Siehet der Pfosten
ragende B„ume, Und der Scheunen gefllte R„ume, Und die Speicher, vom Segen
gebogen Und des Kornes bewegte Wogen."
This chapter is supplementary. It had no place in the original plan of the
writer. It has been called forth by a brief sentence found in a recently
published history of Pennsylvania, and is the last
written chapter of this book-written long after the rest. While not germane to
the general title, it yet deserves a place here inasmuch as it strikes at one of
the innumerable errors and misrepresentations
concerning the early German population of Pennsylvania which crowd the pages of
some recent writers. These errors, I am persuaded, are more the result of
ignorance than of design, but they are errors nevertheless, and
should be killed at their birth. That is the only plan known to me to keep down
the abundant crop of ignorance which springs up as often as writers draw on
their imagination for their facts. It is rarely, however, that anything so gross
as the blunder to which I shall refer appears in print, as genuine history.
I was much surprised to find in a recently issued history of Pennsylvania, the
following surprising statement: "The Germans perhaps were less given to the
enjoyment of agriculture than the Scotch-Irish and
other settlers, yet in their own way they enjoyed existence, etc."
68 By no conceivable possibility is
such a statement likely to be accepted by any one who has actual knowledge of
the German immigration into this or any other country in America. It shows such
a superficial acquaintance with the subject discussed as to carry its own
condemnation with it. Yet, lest future writers of our history be lured into
making similar statements, I shall take it upon myself to adduce such proof in
contradiction of the statement quoted, as will, I believe, set the question at
rest effectually and permanently.
I think it will be conceded, as a general proposition, that men in all
civilized countries follow those pursuits to which they are best adapted and
most inclined, whether for profit or enjoyment. It is true that when Roman
civilization first came into contact with the Germanic tribes, the latter were
more given to war and the chase than to agriculture.
But even then they grew corn and lived largely upon the
products of the field. In time they became agriculturists and
for hundreds of years parts of Germany have been among the best cultivated
portions of Europe, even as they are to-day. In the seventeenth century, the
Palatinate and the Rhine provinces generally were the
garden of Europe. They hold the same rank at this very hour. Other pursuits were
followed, it is true, but outside the cities the prevailing pursuit was
agriculture. The German immigration to Pennsylvania was very largely from the
Palatinate, not only in its early stages, but subsequently.
Lying before me are lists of those who reached London during the great German
Exodus in 1709, on their way to America. One of these gives the pursuits of the
2,928 adult males; of that entire number 1,838 were farmers, while the remaining
1,073 were classified under 24 other distinct mechanical and
other professions. Another list containing 1,593 had 1,083 farmers and
510 men trained to 26 other pursuits; more than 67 per cent. of the entire
number were farmers.
I think it is entirely within bounds to say that 75 per cent. of the German
colonists in Pennsylvania were agriculturists. The first thing they did was to
take up land, generally in the legally prescribed way, but sometimes
irregularly. Nine-tenths of them went into the country, that is beyond the
immediate bounds of Philadelphia, and most of them took
to farming. In fact there was nothing else for them to get at for many years.
Even most of those who had mechanical trades were compelled to take to farming
because there was not much of a demand for bakers, glass-blowers, millers,
engravers, and some other classes of handicraftsmen.
Look at the counties settled principally by these people-Lancaster, Berks,
Lebanon, York, Lehigh and Northampton. They comprise
to-day the great agricultural region of the Commonwealth, and
the men who are doing the farming on their fertile acres are the lineal
descendants three, four or five generations removed from the first farmer
immigrants. It was in every instance the agriculturists that pushed and
were pushed to the outskirts of civilization. Did they go there for the profit and
enjoyment they had in farming or for the fun of the thing, as we are asked to
infer? What is more, they were the best and most
successful farmers Pennsylvania had during the eighteenth century, just as they
are the best and most successful farmers in United
States to-day, and yet we are deliberately and
the gravely informed they did not enjoy agriculture as much as the Scotch-Irish and
other settlers! What is the record? Where are all the Scotch-Irish farmers
to-day? Why are they not on the ancestral acres as the Germans are? Cumberland
county was settled mainly by Scotch-Irish. In Northampton county there were many
Irish and Scotch-Irish. Three-fourths of all the land
in both these agricultural counties are to-day tilled by Pennsylvania-Germans.
There are several townships in Lancaster county once largely occupied by
Scotch-Irish of the best class. One can ride through them an entire day now
without finding one farm tilled by an Ulster Irishman. Nine-tenths of the
farmers in eastern Pennsylvania to-day are descendants of the men who, we are
gravely informed, did not find the same enjoyment in agriculture as the
Scotch-Irish, Welsh, English and others. If such an
array of facts, susceptible of verification by any one who cares to make the
test, is not deemed sufficient, I will produce further evidence from
contemporary sources to fortify the position here taken.
The most eminent medical man in Pennsylvania, if not in the United States during
the last century, was Dr. Benjamin Rush. In the course of a very busy life he
found time to write and publish a little volume dealing
with the Germans of this State and especially with the
German farmers.
69 I will be pardoned if I quote
numerous passages from this book, written by one who had a thorough personal
knowledge of all he tells us.
"The principal part of them were farmers. * * * I shall begin this account
of the German inhabitants of Pennsylvania by describing the manners of the
German farmers. The Germans, taken as a body, especially as farmers, are not
only industrious and frugal, but skillful cultivators
of the earth. I shall enumerate a few particulars in which they differ from most
of the other farmers of Pennsylvania. In settling a tract of land, they always
provide large and suitable accommodation for their
horses and cattle, before they lay out much money in
building a house for themselves. * * * The first dwelling house upon this farm
is small and built of logs. It generally lasts the
lifetime of the first settler of a tract of land; and
hence, they have a saying, that `a son should always begin his improvements
where his father left off,' that is by building a large and
convenient stone house.
"They always prefer good land, or that land on which there is a large
quantity of meadow land. From an attention to the cultivation of grass, they
often double the value of an old farm in a few years, and
grow rich on farms, on which their predecessors of whom they purchased them had
nearly starved. They prefer purchasing farms with improvements to settling on a
new tract of land.
Caption: German Immigration Into Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania-German Farm
Life. Raking the Bake-Oven.
"In clearing new land, they do not girdle or belt the trees simply, and
leave them to perish in the ground, as is the custom of their English or Irish
neighbors; but they generally cut them down and burn
them. In destroying underwood and bushes, they
generally grub them out of the ground, by which means a field is as fit for
cultivation the second year after it is cleared as it is in twenty years
afterwards. The advantages of this mode of clearing, consists in the immediate
product of the field, and in the greater facility with
which it is ploughed, harrowed and reaped. The expense
of repairing a plow, which is often broken, is greater than the extraordinary
expense of grubbing the same field completely, in clearing.
"They feed their horses and cows well, of which
they keep only a small number, in such a manner that the former perform twice
the labor of those horses, and the latter yield twice
the quantity of milk of those cows, that are less plentifully fed. There is
great economy in this practice, especially in a country where so much of the
labor of the farmer is necessary to support his domestic animals. A German horse
is known in every part of the State; indeed, the horse seems `to feel with his
lord, the pleasure and the pride' of his extraordinary
size or fat.
"The fences of a German farm are generally high and
well built, so that his fields seldom suffer from the inroads of his own or his
neighbors' horses, cattle, hogs or sheep.
"The German farmers are great economists in their wood. Hence they burn
it only in stoves, in which they consume but a fourth or fifth of what is
commonly burnt in ordinary open fireplaces; besides their horses are saved by
means of this economy, from that immense labor of hauling wood in the middle of
winter, which frequently unfits the horses of their (Scotch) neighbors for the
toils of the ensuing spring. Their houses are, moreover, rendered so
comfortable, at all times, by large close stoves, that twice the business is
done by every branch of the family, in knitting, spinning and
mending of farming utensils, that is done in houses where every member in the
family crowds near a common fireplace, or shivers at a distance from it, with
hands and fingers that move, by reason of the cold,
with only half their usual quickness. They discover economy in the preservation and
increase of their wood, in several other ways. They sometimes defend it, by high
fences, from their cattle; by which means the young forest
Caption: Primitive Lantern. trees are suffered to grow, to replace those
that are cut down for the necessary use of the farm.
"They keep their horses and cattle as warm as
possible, in winter, by which means they save a great deal of their hay and
grain, for these animals when cold, eat much more than when in a more
comfortable situation.
"The German farmers live frugally in their families, with respect to diet,
furniture, and apparel. They sell their most profitable
grain, which is wheat, and eat that which is less
profitable, that is rye, or Indian corn. The profit to a farmer, from this
single article of economy, is equal, in the course of a life-time, to the price
of a farm for one of his children.
"The German farmers have large or profitable gardens near their houses.
These contain little else but useful vegetables. Pennsylvania is indebted to the
Germans for the principal part of her knowledge in horticulture. There was a
time when turnips and cabbage were the principal
vegetables that were used in diet by the citizens of Philadelphia. This will not
surprise those persons who know that the first settlers in Pennsylvania left
England while horticulture was in its infancy in that country. Since the
settlement of a number of German gardens in the neighborhood of Philadelphia,
the tables of all classes of citizens have been covered with a variety of
vegetables in every season of the year, and to the use
of these vegetables in diet may be ascribed the general exemption of the
citizens of Philadelphia from diseases of the skin.
"The Germans seldom hire men to work upon their farms. The feebleness of
that authority which masters possess over their hired servants is such that
their wages are seldom procured from their labor, except in harvest when they
work in the presence of their masters.
70 The wives and
daughters of the German farmers frequently forsake for a while their dairy and
spinning wheel, and join their husbands and
brothers in the labor of cutting down, collecting and
bringing home the fruits of the fields and orchards.
The work of the gardens is generally done by the women of the family.
"A large strong wagon, the ship of inland commerce, covered with linen
cloth, is an essential part of the furniture of a German farm. In this wagon,
drawn by four or five horses of a peculiar breed they convey to market, over the
roughest roads from 2,000 to 3,000 pounds weight of the produce of their farms.
In the months of September and October, it is no
uncommon thing, on the Lancaster and Reading roads, to
meet in one day fifty or one hundred of these wagons, on their way to
Philadelphia, most of which belong to German farmers.
71
"The favorable influence of agriculture, as conducted by the Germans, in
extending human happiness, is manifested by the joy they express upon the birth
of a child. No dread of poverty, nor distrust of Providence, from an increasing
family, depresses the spirit of these industrious and
frugal people. Upon the birth of a son, they exult in the gift of a plowman or a
waggoner; and upon the birth of a daughter, they
rejoice in the addition of another spinster or milk-maid to the family.
"The Germans set a great value upon patrimonial property. This useful
principle in human nature prevents much folly and vice
in young people. It moreover leads to lasting and
extensive advantages, in the improvement of a farm; for what inducements can be
stronger in a parent to plant an orchard, to preserve forest trees or to build a
commodious house than the idea that they will all be possessed by a succession
of generations who shall inherit his blood and name.
"From the history that has been given of the German agriculture, it will
hardly be necessary to add that a German farm may be distinguished from the
farms of the other citizens of the State, by the superior size of their barns,
the plain but compact form of their houses, the height of their inclosures, the
extent of their orchards, the fertility of their fields, the luxuriance of their
meadows, and a general appearance of plenty and
neatness in everything that belongs to them."
I think the eminent professor of the University of Pennsylvania, of 1789,
writing with a thorough knowledge of the German agriculture of his time, may be
fairly set against the professor in the same great school, writing in the year
1900, whose statement concerning them is so at variance with the facts, so
incorrect and misleading, that the inference is
irresistible that he wrote without a due examination of the question.
But we need not rely on Dr. Rush alone for evidence that the Germans were the
best farmers in the State, that they were given to enjoyment in agricultural
pursuits and that their descendants are to this day
keeping up the reputation of their ancestors on the ancestral acres. The
evidence is so manifold and so conclusive that I almost
feel like making an apology for introducing it.
Watson, the annalist, says the best lands in Lancaster county, and
deemed, in general, the finest farms in the State, are those possessed by the
German families."
72
Another writer says this:
"The Germans wisely chose some of the best land in the State, where they
soon made themselves comfortable, and next grew quietly
rich. * * * The German population of Pennsylvania, naturally increasing, and
augmented by continual accessions from the Fatherland, has since spread over a
large portion of the State, still inheriting the economy and
prudent foresight of their ancestors, and generally
establishing themselves on the most fertile soils."
73
Bancroft, in speaking of the German immigrants to this country, says: "The
Germans, especially of the borders of the Rhine, thronged to America in such
numbers, that in course of a century, preserving their line of rural life, they
appropriated much of the very best land from the Mohawk to the valley of
Virginia."
74
Caption: Early Settlers and Their Visitors.
Rupp bears this testimony: "The Germans were principally farmers. They
depended more upon themselves than upon others. They wielded the mattock, the
axe and the maul, and by the
power of brawny arms, rooted up the grubs, removed the saplings, felled the
majestic oaks, laid low the towering hickory; prostrated, where they grew, the
walnut, poplar, chestnut-cleaved such as suited for the purpose, into rails for
fences-persevered untiringly until the forest was changed into arable
fields."
75
"The Germans," says Proud, "seem more adapted to agriculture and
improvements of a wilderness; and the Irish for trade.
The Germans soon get estates in this country, where industry and
economy are the chief requisites to procure them."
76
In the fall of 1856, the Philadelphia Ledger, in reply to some stupid strictures
in a New York journal, said: "No one familiar with the German farmers of
Pennsylvania, need be told that this (the article referred to) is a stupid and
ignorant libel. Its author has either never travelled through our State, or has
maliciously misrepresented what he saw. So far from our German farmers being on
a level with the serfs of a hundred and fifty years
ago, they are vastly in advance of contemporary German or French farmers, or
even of English farmers of similar means. On this point we need go no further
for authority than to Mr. Munch, who though hostile in politics to our German
farmers in general, was forced, during his tour through Pennsylvania, to admit
their sterling worth. Mr. Munch is an experienced and
practical agriculturist, so that his judgment on such a question is worth that
of a score of visionary, ill-informed, prejudiced, disappointed demagogues.
After eulogizing the picturesque natural features of the landscape of our German
counties, praising the excellent taste which has preserved the woods on the
hillsides, and extolling the appearance of the farms,
this gentleman adds significantly that he found the population of `a genial,
solid and respectable stamp, enviably circumstanced in
comparison with the European farmer, and very far his
superior in intelligence and morals.' * * * In many
particulars, the German farmers surpass even the people of New England, who, of
late, have put in a claim, it would seem to be the ne plus ultra in all things.
The German farmers understand, or if they do not understand, they observe the
laws of health, better than even the rural population of Massachusetts; and
the result is that they are really the finest race of men, physically, to be
found within the borders of the United States. * * * To be plain, if some of our
crochetty, one-ideaed, dyspeptic, thin, cadaverous, New England brethren would
emigrate to our German counties; follow, for a generation or two, the open-air
life of our German farmers; and last of all marry into
our vigorous, anti-hypochondriacal German families, they would soon cease to die
by such scores of consumption, to complain that there were no longer any healthy
women left, and to amuse sensible people with such
silly vagaries of Pantheism, or a thousand and one
intellectual vagaries which are born of their abnormal physical condition."
77
Still another quotation will be allowed me: "Latterly much has been heard
of an `endless chain,' used in a financial sense. There is an endless chain of
another kind in existence among the substantial Germans in the German counties
of this State. While many of New England's sons have sold or abandoned their
ancient acres and sought new homes in other States, the
lands of these first Palatine emigrants still remain in the possession of their
descendants, held by ancient indentures, supplemented by an endless chain of
fresh titles from father to son, reaching backward to the original patents from
Penn."
78
One of our most eminent historians remarks:
"A still larger number of these German exiles found refuge in
Pennsylvania, to which colony also many were carried as indentured servants. * *
* It was this immigration which first introduced into America compact bodies of
German settlers, and along with them the dogmas and
worship of the German Lutheran and German Reformed
churches. Constantly supplied with new recruits, and
occupying contiguous tracts of territory, the immigrants preserved and
have transmitted to our day, especially in Pennsylvania, the German language and
German manners. Their industry was remarkable; they took care to settle on
fertile lands, and they soon became distinguished as
the best farmers in America."
79
A traveller who passed through the Shenandoah Valley during the French and
Indian War writes as follows: "The low grounds upon the banks of the
Shenandoah River are very rich and fertile. They are
chiefly settled by Germans (and Pennsylvania-Germans at
that, who went there prior to 1748), who gain a sufficient livelihood by raising
stock for the troops, and sending butter down into the
lower parts of the country. I could not but reflect with pleasure on the
situation of these people, and I think, if there is
such a thing as happiness in this life, they enjoy it. Far from the bustle of
the world, they live in the most delightful climate and
richest soil imaginable. They are everywhere surrounded with beautiful prospects
and sylvan scenes; lofty mountains and
transparent streams, falls of water, rich valleys and
majestic woods, the whole interspersed with an infinite variety of flowering
shrubs constitute the landscapes surrounding them. They are subject to few
diseases, are generally robust and live in perfect
liberty. They know no wants, and are acquainted with
but few vices. Their inexperience of the elegancies of life precludes any regret
that they have not the means of enjoying them; but they possess what many
princes would give
Caption: Ox Yoke and Threshing Flail. half their
dominions for-health, contentment, and tranquility of
mind."
80
Dr. Oswald Seidensticker, while living, an honored professor in the University
of Pennsylvania, and who has, perhaps, given the German
immigration into Pennsylvania as much careful and
intelligent study as any one else, has this to say of them as farmers:
"Often as the Germans have been spoken of contemptuously in certain
matters, that was not valid when urged against them as farmers. The very sight
of their farms is sufficient to tell that they are well and
carefully managed, providing blessed and happy homes.
Their knowledge of properly preparing the soil, of growing fine cattle, and
of erecting proper buildings, and their manner of life
led the eminent Dr. Rush to study their character and
habits and in his book to encourage others to imitate
their example."
81
Still another and a recent author writes thus: "In
all they did, they were moved thereto by one great, irresistible desire, and
that was the love of home. * * * Now that they had found this "home,"
they were content to abide on it and to make of it a
very garden spot and horn of plenty for the Province. *
* * Because the Germans were truly in earnest did they persevere until they have
spread abroad over the entire land, supplementing their less stable brethren of
other nationalities. Before even the break of day, during the heat of the
noontide sun they toiled on, and until its rays had
disappeared beneath the western horizon, when darkness made work impossible, and
then they sought their needed rest in slumber, but not before each little family
had gathered about its altar to sing their hymns of praise and
invoke the same Divine blessing upon their future undertaking which had been
showered upon their past.
"Other settlers have likewise toiled and
struggled, but it may well be asked what other settlers can show an equal result
to these Palatine immigrants within the same length of time. Hardly had a decade
of time elapsed, when, on all sides, were to be seen flourishing farms, with
fields of waving grain, orchards laden with fruit, and
pastures filled with well-conditioned domestic animals. The temporary log house
has given place to a two-story stone structure, a most durable, commodious and
comfortable home; in place of the shedding, hurriedly erected, now stands the
great red barn, upon its stone base, and with its
overhanging frame superstructure bursting with plenty; and
everywhere are scattered the many little adjuncts of prosperity and
comfort. How well the fathers then built is evidenced by the existence of scores
of these buildings, still homelike and inviting as of
old."
82
A recent writer, in discussing some changes that have taken place, how German
virility and race-tenacity have resulted in the
elimination of some peoples and the substitution of
themselves, humorously but truly remarks: "Penn attempted to engraft on his
English stock other scions, trusting to the virility of his masterful race to
preserve the English type, but the strong German sap has outworn them all in
Lancaster county. The descendants of the early English who own acres of land
here to-day are becoming rare. The children of the Scotch-Irish by a kind of
natural selection have quit farming and taken to
politics and business, and
their ancient acres are covered with the big red barns that betoken another
kindred. The Welshman has been lost in the shuffle, and
the Quaker is marrying the Dutch girl in self defense. So reads the record at
the close of the nineteenth century. It has taken almost two hundred years to
get there. But `by their fruits ye shall know them.'"
83
Caption: German Immigration Into Pennsylvania. The Oldest House in
Lancaster County. The Christian Herr, Built 1719.
Although the foregoing evidence abundantly disproves the absurd statement that
the German colonists found less enjoyment in agriculture than other
nationalities, the panel of witnesses is by no means exhausted and
the testimony could be expanded into a volume. Most of it is from
contemporaneous sources and deals with the question as
it stood one hundred or one hundred and fifty years
ago. Let us turn from that long-gone time and look at
the situation as we find it at this very hour.
84
I invite the reader to accompany me for a brief interval to Lancaster county, as
typical a Pennsylvania region today as it was one hundred and
fifty years ago. Its earliest settlers were Germans and
Swiss Huguenots. They were agriculturists. They bought lands, settled on them,
farmed them, and their descendants in the fourth and
fifth generations are engaged in the same enjoyable pursuit to-day. Other men
also came into the county: Quakers, Scotch-Irish and
Welsh, but to-day nineteen twentieths of the more than 10,000 farms in the
county are owned and cultivated by the descendants of
the early German settlers. The townships of East and
West Donegal, Conoy, Mt. Joy and portions of West
Hempfield were settled almost exclusively by the Scotch-Irish. To-day there is
not a single farm in any of those districts owned and
farmed by a Scotch-Irishman! In this instance at least, it was "the other
fellow" and not the German farmer that did not
find enjoyment in his vocation. In the townships of Fulton and
Little Britain the settlers were almost exclusively Scotch-Irish; these have
maintained themselves more stubbornly on the ancestral acres, but in recent
years an invasion of German farmers has been steadily encroaching on their
ancient domain, and the fate that has befallen the
Donegals seems to be awaiting them also.
Let the man-or men, if there be more than one-who does not believe the German
pioneers had pleasure, enjoyment and content on their
broad acres, go into that same county of Lancaster and
look the landscape over. He will find a territory of unsurpassed
fertility-another evidence of the sound agricultural judgment of these
people-yielding
Caption: Early Pennsylvania Printing Press. as abundantly to-day as when
it was virgin, two centuries ago. It has enriched every generation of those who
have owned it. There have, of course, been some failures, but the record on the
whole, stands unchallenged. Pride of ownership went hand in hand with
agricultural skill. The land was treated even as their cattle were, carefully and
plentifully. The result is there are no deserted farms and
ruined farmhouses, as may be seen all over New England. Even at the present
depreciated prices for real estate, the farms still sell at $200 and
more per acre. Look at the great barns in which their crops are stored and
their cattle housed! Large as they are they are generally inadequate to contain
the farm products, and a dozen grain and
hay ricks are built elsewhere on the farm until the grain can be threshed. Nor
is the barn the only building besides the dwelling house, on the farm; sheds,
stables, and other outhouses are scattered around until
the farmer's home resembles a hamlet in itself. All the modern farm machinery, and
that too of the best possible type, is there; cunning devices of many kinds that
rob labor of half its terrors.
The farmer's house is generally a model of a farmhouse. There are some that have
all the best modern accessories-steam heat, gas, electric bells, cemented
cellars, and similar improvements. Within, there is not
only comfort but luxury-fine furniture, pictures, costly carpets, imported
crockery, generally an organ and often a piano. There
are books, magazines and newspapers, and
much else. The son, and often the sons, have their
individual teams, and they use them too. No farmer's
outfit in these days is complete without a fine vehicle or two. It may safely be
said that there is no spot encompassed by the four seas that hem in this North
American continent, nay, none be-neath the blue canopy that overspreads the
entire earth, where the agriculturist is better educated, more intelligent in
his calling, better fed and clothed and
enjoys so many of the luxuries of life as the Lancaster county families in the
year of grace, 1900. Go and look at him where he is;
sit at his table and see the fullness thereof, and
you will then be able to give a fitting answer to the calumny, born of
ignorance, that says the German colonists in Pennsylvania did not, and
inferentially do not, find that enjoyment in agricultural pursuits as the races
whose farms they have bought and now own and
cultivate.
One paragraph more will be pardoned: the theme is an attractive one
and
I leave it with reluctance. To understand fully what these Germans have done for
themselves and for the county of Lancaster a few
figures may be introduced. Being official, and on
record they will be accepted. Lancaster county is not one of the large counties
of the State or Nation, but it is the richest so far as its agricultural wealth and
products are concerned of all the three thousand or more within all the States and
Territories. For a quarter of a century it has stood at the head of them all in
the money value of its agricultural products. The census of 1890 gives them at
$7,657,790. Her nearest competitor does not come within a million and
a half dollars of equalling it. The assessors' lists for 1899 give the value of
her real estate, at the usual low estimate, at $86,796,064 and
of her horses and cattle at $1,958,802. Her citizens
report $20,802,634 at interest: the real amount is three times that sum. To give
even a more condensed idea of what these farmers, who took such little enjoyment
in their chosen pursuit, have done to make their county rich, it may be stated
that there are at the present moment on this little area of 973 square miles, 26
National Banks, with an aggregate capital of $3,750,000, and
deposits aggregating $7,000,000; also 3 Trust companies, with large assets, and
7 Building and Loan Associations, controlling large
sums of money.
It is aggravating that it should be necessary at this late day to be compelled
to enter into a discussion of this subject. But we cannot forget that all the
opprobrium and misrepresentation that has been cast
upon the Germans of Pennsylvania has long been borne without a protest. The
chief offenders during the present century are men who have had no intimate
acquaintance with the characteristics of the men whom they falsely deride and
abuse. New England has contributed even more than her quota to the number of
these defamers. Their scurrilous falsehoods have so long gone unchallenged that
some have accepted them as truths and reiterated them
with all their original fervency. The day for that has gone. The faults and
shortcomings of the German pioneers and their
descendants were many and obvious. I do not seek to
extenuate them in the slightest degree, but I do assert-and
the authorities to prove it are legion-that with all their short-comings, they
were the peers of any race of men that set its feet upon the Western Hemisphere,
and that in every qualification that goes to the making
of the highest class of citizenship, they stand at the very forefront to-day.
They brought with them none of the vindictive bigotry that burnt witches and
swung Quakers from the scaffold. They at once made their own the doctrines of
the broad-minded Penn, that religious and political
tolerance were among the natural and inalienable rights
of men. The subjects of kings and princes in Europe,
they left kingcraft behind them and proclaimed the
evangel of freedom in their new home. Let it not be forgotten through all the
years, that these people, whom a few historians and a
host of inconsequent minor scribblers have denounced and
derided as indifferent boors, were nevertheless the first men on the continent
of America to denounce the wrong of human slavery and
petition for its abolition; yea, a century before the sensitive soul of New
England even took thought of the subject, while it was still selling Indians and
Quakers into West Indian slavery and only forty years
after the great celebrity of Massachusetts, Governor Winthrop, disposed of
slaves in his will.
The age of the defamer has not gone by, and most
probably never will. Like the liar and the thief he
will maintain his footing among men even unto the end. The men who have assailed
the good name of the German immigrants to Pennsylvania are, however, in a fair
way to die out. The truth confronts their falsehoods at every stage and
the latter are borne down in the contest. Even now their numbers are growing
fewer and their idle gossip no longer receives credence
as history. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the greatest and
grandest of all the members in the Brotherhood of States, confronts them and
confutes their idle tattle, born of misapprehension and
ignorance, and here I may safely leave them.
Caption: Arms of Great Britain.
Chapter I.
The German Immigration into Pennsylvania though the Port of
Philadelphia: 1700-1775
Chapter I.
Who and What They were.-A Condition Born of Necessity
beyond the Sea and transferred to America.-The serveral
Kinds of Bond Shrvants.-A striking Feature in the History of Pennsylvania.
"Haz gala, Sancho, de la humilidad de tu linage, y no te desprecies de
decir que vienes de labradores; por que viendo que no te corres, ninguno se
pondra a correrte." "Und wenn wir dankbar auch ermessen, Was uns das
neue Heim beschied, So k”nnen wir doch nie Vergess‚n Der alten Heimath, Wort
und Lied."
The German Immigration into Pennsylvania though the Port of
Philadelphia: 1700-1775
Chapter I.
The history of the Germanic immigration to the Province of Pennsylvania
naturally divides itself into two well-defined parts or chapters. Of one of
these, dealing with the arrival and dispersion of these
people, I have endeavored to write with that fullness and
exactitude which the importance of the subject deserves, in the earlier part of
this work. The other, which remains to be taken up, will deal with that portion
of these people whose means were scant even at the outset of their journey, and
wholly inadequate to bear the strain of a long and
tedious sea voyage. Who arrived virtually penniless and
dependent; who had not been able to pay for their passage across the ocean, and
who, upon their arrival, were compelled to barter or sell their personal
services for a stated period of time, at a stipulated price, and
under prescribed legal regulations, to such of their fellowmen as stood in need
of their labor, and who were willing to discharge the
debts they had been compelled to incur through their desire to reach this
promised land, this modern Eden, a new Canaan in a new world.
The inflowing tide of German immigrants to the Province of Pennsylvania, through
the port of Philadelphia, is not secondary in importance to the coming of
William Penn himself and the establishment of his
Government on the banks of the Delaware. Considered in its historic bearings, it
is not only one of the most noteworthy events associated with the colonization
of America, but is besides invested with a more special interest, all its own,
of which I shall attempt to give the more important details.
The first Germans to come to America, as colonists in Pennsylvania, were, as a
rule, well to do. Nearly all of them in the beginning of that mighty exodus had
sufficient means to pay all the charges incurred in going down the Rhine to the
sea, and enough besides to meet the expenses for
carrying them across the ocean, and yet have some left
when they arrived to pay for part or all of the lands they took up.
85 The large tracts taken up by the
colony at Germantown and at Conestoga are
all-sufficient evidences of this. And this continued to
be the rule until about 1717,
86 and
perhaps later, when the great exodus from the Palatinate set in. Then the real
race to reach the New World began. The poorer classes had not been unobservant
of what was going on. If America was a place where the rich could become richer
still, surely it must be a place where the poor also might better themselves. At
all events, nothing could be lost by going, because they had the merest pittance
to begin with. Besides, all the accounts were favorable. Those already in
Pennsylvania sent back glowing descriptions of the ease with which land could be
acquired, the productiveness of the soil, the abundance of food, the freedom
from taxation and the equality of all men before the
law to their natural rights and their religious creeds.