USA > Delaware > Narratives of early Pennsylvania, West New Jersey and Delaware, 1630-1707 > Part 30
USA > New Jersey > Narratives of early Pennsylvania, West New Jersey and Delaware, 1630-1707 > Part 30
USA > Pennsylvania > Narratives of early Pennsylvania, West New Jersey and Delaware, 1630-1707 > Part 30
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Not Johann, but Philipp Theodor Lehnmann (d. 1687), son of Johann Georg Lehnmann, farmer-general of Saxony. In 1680 he and his wife Theophila were living in St. Philip's parish, Bristol, England. He was Penn's private secre- tary on the first visit of the Proprietor to Pennsylvania, 1682-1684, probably coming over on the Welcome in 1682. He remained in Pennsylvania, being men- tioned in 1685 as a Philadelphia merchant. The next year, however he took up his residence on his plantation on Broad Creek, not far from Lewes, Delaware, where he died.
'One finds himself in the primitive forest.
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est,1 and it is not enough to bring money, but we must also bring an inclination to work, and take into consideration the motto of the Emperor Septimius Severus, which is: Laboremus. Absque labor nihil. Quo major, hoc laboriosior.' For that man is best off whom the devil does not find idle.
In the meantime we use the savages for work, hiring them by the day; we are gradually learning their language, and little by little instruct them in the teaching of Christ, invite them to attend our worship of God, and hope soon to be able to an- nounce with joy that the compassion of the Most High God has permitted the light of His Holy Gospel to rise also over these lands, and to shine forth, to the honor of His great name, to Whom alone be praise, honor, thanks, and glory without end.
Further News from Pennsylvania, of the 7th of January, 1684.
I had made known in my last how I was received upon my arrival by the ruler of this province, William Penn, with most affectionate friendliness. I must not now conceal how he per- mitted his kindness to me to be perceived daily more and more by his actions. Also this province pleases me better the longer I stay, so that I often wish to have my most estimable parents and dear brothers and sisters with me, knowing well that such a change would not be regretted by them, whom I love con- stantly and wish to serve. For although I am in the body de- prived of their presence, I am nevertheless at times with them in childlike love, and have them always in my mind and thoughts. I live here in the labors of my calling, in singleness of heart toward God and toward my fellow-Christians. I have bought for myself six hundred acres of land, and brought a good part thereof under cultivation, so that I am able to serve others by giving of the superabundance granted me. I am therefore heartily content with my condition, and have my rest in God, the light of Whose grace I perceive more and more in my heart from day to day, consequently I possess a gracious
1 Properly, "Hoc opus, hic labor est"-"This is the work, this the labor." Virgil, Aeneid, VI. 129.
"Let us labor. Without labor there is nothing. The greater one is, the more laborious he is.
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God and an unscathed conscience, two things which I greatly prefer to all the treasures of Egypt.
Whereby I can further truly assert that my soul is filled with love, reverence, and a desire to serve you and my dear brothers and sisters, whom I herewith greet and embrace from the bottom of my heart, with the assurance that for their sakes I would willingly make the journey once more to bring them hither, if I should only receive some lines bidding me to do so. In the meantime I remain ever under the all-ruling protecting hand of our Emanuel, etc.
Positive Information from America, concerning the Country of Pennsylvania, from a German who has migrated thither; dated Philadelphia, March 7, 1684.1
To fulfill my duty as well as my promise made at my de- parture I will somewhat more circumstantially state what I have found and noted of these lands; and since I am not un- aware that by imperfect relations many of you have been mis- informed, I give my assurance beforehand that I with im- partial pen and without deceptive additions will set forth faithfully both the inconveniences of the journey and the de- fects of this province, as well as that plentifulness of the same which has been praised by others almost to excess; for I desire nothing more in my little place than to walk in the footsteps of Him who is the way, and to follow His holy teachings, be- cause He is the truth, in order that I may ceaselessly enjoy with Him eternal life.
I. Accordingly I will begin with the voyage, which is cer- tainly on the one hand dangerous on account of the terror of shipwreck,' and on the other hand very burdensome on ac- count of the bad and hard fare, so that I now from my own ex- perience understand in a measure what David says in the 107th Psalm, that on the sea one may observe and perceive not only
1 This, to p. 411, is a full version of the unique Zurich print, Sichere Nach- richt, substituted for the abridgment printed in the Umständliche Geographische Beschreibung. Translation by the general editor of the series.
"In a later account he mentions their escape "from the Cruel, Enslaving Turks, once supposed to be at our heels."
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the wonderful works of God but also the spirit of the storm. As to my voyage hither,1 I sailed from Deal the tenth of June with four men servants, two maid servants, two children and one young boy. We had the whole way over, for the most part, contrary winds, and never favorable for twelve hours together, many tempests and thunderstorms, also the foremast broke twice, so that it was ten weeks before we arrived here; yet sat citò, si sat bene,' considering that it seldom happens that any persons arrive here much more quickly. The Cre- felders,' who arrived here on October 6, were also ten weeks upon the ocean, and the ship that set out with ours from Deal was fourteen days longer on the voyage, and several people died in it. The Crefelders lost a grown girl between Rotter- dam and England, which loss however was made up between England and Pennsylvania by the birth of two children. On our ship, on the other hand, no one died and no one was born. Almost all the passengers were seasick for some days, I how- ever for not more than four hours. On the other hand I under- went other accidents, namely, that the two carved lugs over the ship's bell fell right upon my back, and on the 9th of July during a storm in the night I fell so severely upon my left side that for some days I had to keep to my bed. These two falls reminded me forcibly of the first fall of our original parents in
1 Cf. Chap. XVI, ante p. 389.
""Quickly enough, if well enough."
' A company of thirteen families, for the most part Mennonite or Quaker weavers, from Crefeld on the lower Rhine in Germany, not far from the Dutch frontier. A tract of 18,000 acres of land having been purchased from Penn by Jacob Telner, a Crefeld Mennonite doing business in Amsterdam, and five of his associates, these families came over to locate and to settle the land. Their pas- sage having been engaged through the agency of Benjamin Furly of Rotterdam, they went by way of the latter city to England, and sailed about July 25, 1683, from Gravesend, on the ship Concord, of London, 500 tons burden, William Jeffries master. After a voyage of nearly eleven weeks they arrived at Philadelphia October 6. A large number of them found temporary shelter, as Pastorius states, in his newly-erected "dugout" house, at the south end of the town. Then, with the laying out of Germantown that same month, they took up their residence there, thus becoming, along with Pastorius, the founders of that town and the advance guard of the great German migration to America.
"""When the Lion fell upon my Back" is Pastorius's reference to the accident in a poem addressed in 1715 to his fellow voyagers, the daughters of Thomas Lloyd.
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Paradise, which has come down upon all their posterity, and also of many of those falls which I have undergone in this vale of misery of my exile. Per varios casus,1 etc. But praised be the fatherly hand of the divine mercy which lifts us up again so many times and holds us back that we fall not entirely into the abyss of the evil one. Georg Wertmüller? also fell down extremely hard, Thomas Gasper had an eruption of the body, the English maid ' had the erysipelas, and Isaac Dilbreck," who according to outward appearance was the strongest, suc- cumbed for the greatest length of time. So I had a small ship-hospital, although I alone of the Germans had taken my berth among the English. That one of the boatmen became insane and that our ship was shaken by the repeated assaults of a whale, I set forth at length in my last letter. The rations upon the ship were very bad. We lived medice ac .modice." Every ten persons received three pounds of butter a week, four cans of beer and two cans of water a day, two platters full of peas every noon, meat four dinners in the week and fish three, and these we were obliged to prepare with our own butter. Also we must every noon save up enough so that we might get our supper from it. The worst of all was, that both the meat and the fish were salted to such an extent and had become so rancid that we could hardly eat half of them. And had I not by the advice of good friends in England provided myself with various kinds of refreshment, it might perhaps have gone very badly. Therefore all those who hereafter intend to make the voyage hither should take good heed that they either, if there
1 The reference is to the Aeneid, I. 204. "Through various accidents, through so many hazards, we go on toward Latium."
' George Wertmüller, one of the four servants of the Frankfort Company brought over by Pastorius. He was an elderly Switzer, apparently from in or near Berne. A letter of his, dated March 16, 1684, descriptive of his new home, was one of the two letters printed in Dutch in Rotterdam the same year, as Twee Missiven geschreven uyt Pensilvania.
' Frances Simson, servant of the Frankfort Company.
Isaac Dilbeck or Dilbeek, with his wife Marieke, servants of the Frankfort Company, bringing with them two children, Abraham and Jacob. He was a weaver. In 1700 he purchased 500 acres of land in Whitemarsh Township, now Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, and in 1710 was a deacon of the Reformed Church there.
'Medically and moderately.
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are many of them, procure their own provisions, or else agree distinctly with the captain as to both quantity and quality, how much food and of what sort they are to receive each day; and to hold him down the more completely to this agreement, one should reserve some small part of the passage money, to be paid on this side. Also when possible one should arrange with a ship which sails up to this city of Philadelphia, since in the case of the others which end their voyage at Upland, one is subjected to many inconveniences.
My company consisted of many sorts of people. There was a doctor of medicine1 with his wife and eight children, a French captain, a Low Dutch cake-baker,' an apothecary, a glass- blower,' a mason, a smith, a wheelwright, a cabinet-maker, a cooper, a hat-maker, a cobbler, a tailor, a gardener, farmers, seamstresses, etc., in all about eighty persons besides the crew. They were not only different in respect to age (for our oldest woman was sixty years of age and the youngest child only twelve weeks) and in respect to their occupations, as I have
1 Thomas Lloyd, later governor.
"Alone with him, I could in Latin then Commune: Which Tongue he did pronounce right in our German way."-Pastorius. ' Cornelius Bom (d. 1688), Dutch cake-baker, who had lived in Rotterdam (1675) and in Haarlem, came over to Pennsylvania in 1683 with Pastorius in the America, and set up his bake-shop on the western outskirts of the little backwoods town of Philadelphia, on a lot at the southeast corner of Third and Chestnut streets. In 1684 he wrote a letter to Holland which was printed in Dutch at Rotterdam the same year, along with another letter from George Wertmüller, under the title Twee Missiven geschreven uyt Pensilvania. His letter was also printed separately the following year at Rotterdam, with the title Missive van Cornelis Bom Geschreven uit de Stadt Philadelphia (only known copy in America in the collection of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania). "I have here a shop of many kinds of goods and edibles," he states, "sometimes I ride out with mer- chandise and sometimes bring something back, mostly from the Indians, and deal with them in many things. I have no servants except one negro whom I bought. I have no rent or excise to pay. I have a cow which gives plenty of milk, a horse to ride around, my pigs increase rapidly, so that in the summer I had seventeen when at first I had only two. I have many chickens and geese, and a garden, and shall next year have an orchard if I remain well; so that my wife [Agnes] and I are in good spirits and are reaching a condition of ease and prosperity in which we have great hopes."
' Joshua Tittery, from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, broad-glass blower, came over on the America as a servant to the Free Society of Traders, to serve for four years at £88 per annum.
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mentioned, but were also of such different religions and be- haviors that I might not unfittingly compare the ship that bore them hither with Noah's Ark, but that there were more un- clean than clean (rational) animals to be found therein. In my household I have those who hold to the Roman, to the Lutheran, to the Calvinistic, to the Anabaptist, and to the An- glican church, and only one Quaker. On the 11th of August we cast the lead for the first time and perceived that we were close to the great sand bank, and so had to sail back and around and consequently to run more than a hundred leagues1 out of our course.
On the 16th we came with joy in sight of America and on the morning of the 18th arrived in Delaware Bay, which is thirty English miles long and fifteen wide and is of such un- equal depth that since our ship drew thirteen feet of water we sometimes stuck upon the sand.
On the 20th we sailed past Neu Castle, Upland and Duni- cum' and arrived at evening, praise God, safely at Philadelphia; where I on the following day delivered to William Penn the letters that I had, and was received by him with amiable friendliness; of that very worthy man and famous ruler I might properly
II. write many things; but my pen (though it is from an eagle, which a so-called savage lately brought to my house) is much too weak to express the high virtues of this Christian- for such he is indeed. He often invites me to his table and has me walk and ride in his always edifying company; and when I lately was absent from here a week, in order to fetch provisions from Neu Castle, and he had not seen me for that space of time, he came himself to my little house and besought me that I should at least once or twice a week be his guest. He heartily loves the [Germans], and once said openly in my presence to his councillors and those who were about him, I love the [Germans] and desire that you also should love them. Yet in any other matter I have never heard such a command from him. This however pleased me so much the better because it was entirely conformable with the command of God (see John xiii. 23). I can at present say no more than that William Penn is a man who honors God and is honored by
1 Three hundred English miles. ? Tinicum.
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Him, who loves what is good and is rightly beloved by all good men. I doubt not that some of them will come here and by their own experience learn, that my pen has in this case not written enough.1
III. Of the nature of the land I can write with certainty only after one or more years of experience. The Swedes and Low Dutch who have occupied it for twenty years and more are in this as in most other things of divided opinions; laudatur ab his, culpatur ab illis.' Certain it is that the soil does not lack fruitfulness and will reward the labor of our hands as well as in Europe if one will duly work and manure it, both which things are for the most part lacking. For the above mentioned old inhabitants are poor agriculturists. Some of them have neither barns nor stables, and leave their grain for years together unthreshed and lying in the open air, and allow their cattle, horses, cows, swine, etc., to run in the woods summer and winter, so that they derive little profit from them. Certainly the penance with which God punished the disobe- dience of Adam, that he should eat his bread in the sweat of his brow, extends also to his posterity in these lands, and those who think to spare their hands may remain where they are. Hic opus, hic labor est, and it is not enough to bring money hither, without the inclination to work, for it slips out of one's hands, and I may well say with Solomon: It has wings. Inasmuch as in the past year very many people came hither both out of England and Ireland and also from Barbadoes and other American islands, and this province does not yet pro- duce sufficient provisions for such a multitude, therefore all victuals are somewhat dear, and almost all the money goes out of the land to pay for them. Yet we hope in time to have a greater abundance of both things, because William Penn will coin money and agriculture will be better managed. Work- ing people and husbandmen are in the greatest demand here, and I certainly wish that I had a dozen strong Tyrolese to cut down the thick oak trees, for in whatever direction one turns,
1 "How be 't nought in the World could mine Affection quench
Towards Dear Penn, with whom I did converse in French."-Pastorius.
" Over forty years.
""It is praised by these, it is reproached by those."-Horace, Satires, I. 2, 11.
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one may say: Itur in antiquam sylvam.' It is nothing but forest, and very few cleared places are to be found, in which respect as also in some others the hope I had previously formed is deceived, namely, that in these wild orchards no apples or pears are to be found, and this winter (which indeed has been .very cold) no deer, turkeys, etc., were to be had. The wild grapes are very small and better suited to make into vinegar than into wine. The walnuts have very thick shells, and few thick kernels within, so that they are scarcely worth the trouble of cracking. The chestnuts, however, and hazelnuts are somewhat more palatable; also the peaches, apples and pears are very good, no fault is to be found with them, except that there are not so many of them as some desire. On the other hand there are more rattlesnakes (whose bite is fatal) in the land than is agreeable to us. I must also add this, tan- quam testis oculatus,' that on October 16 I found fine (March) violets in the bushes; also that, after I had on October 24 laid out the town of Germantown, and on the 25th had gone back there with seven others, we on the way found a wild grape vine, running over a tree, on which were some four hundred clusters of grapes; wherefore we then hewed down the tree and satisfied all eight of us, and took home with us a hatfull apiece besides. Also as I on August 25 was dining with William Penn, a single root of barley was brought in which had grown in a garden here and had fifty grains upon it.' But all grains do not bear so much and it is as we say in the proverb, one swallow does not make a summer. Yet I doubt not that in the future more fruitful examples of this sort will present themselves, when we shall put the plow to the land in good earnest. I lament the vines which I brought with me, for when we were already in Delaware Bay they were drenched with seawater and all but two were spoiled. The abovemen- tioned William Penn has a fine vineyard ' of French vines planted; its growth is a pleasure to behold and brought into my reflections, as I looked upon it, the fifteenth chapter of John."
" "We go into the primitive forest." " "As an eye-witness."
Cf. Penn's Letter to the Free Society of Traders, ante, p. 228.
' Penn's vineyard on the east bank of the Schuylkill, on the present Lemon Hill, in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia.
""I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman," etc.
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P
IV. Philadelphia daily increases in houses and inhabitants and presently a house of correction will be built in order that those who are not willing to live in a Philadelphian manner may be disciplined, for some such are to be found, to whom fittingly applies what our dear friend [Van de Walle] mentions in his letter, that we have here more distress from the spoiled Chris- tians than from the Indians. Furthermore here and there other towns are laid out; for the Society1 is beginning to build about an hour and a half from here" one bearing the name of Franckfurt, where they have erected a mill and a glass fac- tory. Not far from there, namely two hours from here," lies our Germantown, where already forty-two people are living in twelve dwellings. They are mostly linen weavers and not any too skilled in agriculture. These good people laid out all their substance upon the journey, so that if William Penn had not advanced provisions to them, they must have become ser- vants to others. The way from here to Germantown they have now, by frequent going to and fro, trodden out into good shape. Of that town' I can say no more at present than that it lies on black fruitful soil and is half surrounded with pleasant streams like a natural defence. The chief street therein is sixty feet wide and the cross street forty. Every family has a house lot of three acres.
V. As to the inhabitants, I cannot better classify them than into the native and the engrafted. For if I were to call the former savages and the latter Christians, I should do great in- justice to many of both varieties. Of the latter sort, I have already mentioned above, that the incoming ships are not altogether to be compared with Noah's Ark. The Lutheran preacher," who ought as a statua Mercurialis' to show the Swedes the way to heaven, is, to say it in one word, a drunkard.
" The Free Society of Traders. Cf. ante, chap. viII. of this Description, p. 380, and Penn's Letter to the Society, xxxIII., p. 241.
? From Philadelphia. ' Cf. this Description, chap. VIII., ante, p. 381.
Rev. Jacob Fabritius (d. 1693), a Dutch or Polish Lutheran minister, who went from Holland to New York in 1669, and had charge for a time of a congre- gation in Albany. In 1671 he came to the Delaware, and in 1677 was made pastor of Gloria Dei, the new Swedish church at Wicaco, preaching the first sermon there on Trinity Sunday. In 1682 he became blind, and thenceforth had to be led to the pulpit.
""Statue of Mercury," god and guide of travellers,
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Also there are coiners of false money and other vicious persons here whom nevertheless, it may be hoped, the wind of God's vengeance will in his own time drive away like chaff. On the other hand there is no lack of pious, God-fearing people, and I can with truth affirm that I have nowhere in Europe seen the notice posted up, as here in our Philadelphia, that such an one has found this or that, and that the loser may call for it at his house; often however the converse, Lost this or that; he who returns it again shall receive a reward, etc.
Of these new engrafted strangers I will for the present say no more than that among them some High Germans are to be found who have lived already twenty years in this land and consequently are, so to speak, naturalized, namely, Silesians, Brandenburgers, Holsteiners, Swiss, etc.,1 also a Nuremberg man named Jan Jaquet; ' but will briefly give my account of those who are erroneously called savages." The first who came before my eyes were those two who at Upland came in a canoe to our ship. I presented them with a dram of brandy. They attempted to pay me for it with a sixpence, and when I re- fused the money they gave me their hands, and said, Thank you, brother. They are strong of limb, swarthy of body, and paint their faces, red, blue, etc., in various ways. In the sum- mer they go quite naked, except that they cover their private parts with a piece of cloth, and now in winter hang duffels upon themselves. They have coal-black hair, while the Swed- ish children born here have hair snow-white. I was once din- ing with William Penn where one of their kings sat at table with us. William Penn, who can speak their language fairly fluently, said to him that I was a German, etc. He came ac- cordingly on the third of October, and on the twelfth of De- cember another king and queen came to my house. Also many common persons over-run me very often, to whom how-
1 Chiefly in and near New Castle.
" Jean Paul Jaquet (c. 1615-1620-1685), a native of Nuremberg, whose father came from Geneva in Switzerland, had served the Dutch West India Com- pany for some years in Brazil. In 1654 he brought his family over to New Amster- dam, and in the following year was sent to Fort Casimir (now New Castle, Dela- ware) as vice-director on the Delaware. In 1676 he was made a justice of the court at New Castle, and continued his residence in or near the town until his death.
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