USA > New Jersey > Essex County > Newark > A History of the city of Newark, New Jersey : embracing practically two and a half centuries, 1666-1913, Volume II > Part 46
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We have seen that the Germans settled within the present boundaries of New Jersey as early as the first and second decade of the eighteenth century. They soon spread over the State, and many distinguished Ameri- cans have descended from the old New Jersey Germans. One of them was General Frederick Frelinghuysen, grandson of the Rev. Theodore J. Freling- huysen (who spelled his name Frelinghausen, and was born at Liegen, East Friesland, within the present limits of Prussia). He was prominent as a soldier of the Revolutionary War. He took part in the battle of Trenton, where he shot the Hessian Colonel Rahl; and was afterwards in command of the militia. He took part in the skirmishes at Springfield and Elizabeth, and in the battle of Monmouth Courthouse, June, 1778. He was a member of the Continental Congress, of the Convention of 1787, and of the United States Senate, 1793-96. Governor Werts, of New Jersey, was the great-great- grandson of the Rev. Johann Conrad Wirtz, born in Zurich, Switzerland. He was the first German Reformed preacher in Lebanon and German Valley before 1750, of whom there is any record. The richest man, perhaps, in the world, and certainly the wealthiest capitalist in the United States, John D. Rockefeller, the founder of the Standard Oil Company, is a direct descendant of the early Germans in New Jersey. But recently (1906) Mr. John D. Rockefeller erected a monument to the memory of his ancestor, Johann Peter Rockefeller, "who came from Germany about 1733 and died in 1783." The monument is erected in the village of Larrison's Corner, near Flemington, Hunterdon county, New Jersey, on a piece of land which Johann Peter Rockefeller gave as a burial ground for his family and his neighbors.
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A great many Germans who saw in America the land of hope and freedom, did not possess the means of defraying the expenses of the voyage, and were obliged to avail themselves of the then current practice of debtor's servitude to attain the goal of their desires. A system was established very early in American colonial history, by which an immigrant could get to the promised land, though not in possession of the means to pay for his or her passage. He would agree to serve from three to seven years in the colonies, until the price of his transportation was paid off to the shipmaster who had advanced it. At the end of his term he was released, given a suit of clothes, sometimes money or land, and awarded all the rights of a
free citizen. Hence the term "redemptioners" (became redeemed) was applied to this class of immigrants, who were then known as "indented servants." At first the system seemed humane and liberal, yielding the poor ultimately the same opportunities as the well-to-do. It had been advocated by Furley, the agent of William Penn, and had been in vogue in Virginia since the first decade of the colonies' existence. The system, however, soon became an instrument of oppression for unscrupulous sea captains, as well as for those people in the colonies who were willing to take advantage of the helplessness and ignorance of the poor immigrants. England strove by all the means in her power to colonize her North American dependencies as quickly as possible, and for that reason not only sent all kinds of vagabonds and criminals to the New World, but, also gave permission to the ship captains, who, often at that time assumed the role of the modern emigration agents, to bring people without means to the New World, on condition that they should there work off the debt for their passage. With the prevalent lack of inspection, this privilege was in most cases misused, and conditions arose in comparison to which the negro-slave trade appears as a benefit. The captains made all sorts of promises to the emigrants; they told them that on their arrival in America they would have no difficulty in obtaining positions where their employers or masters would be only too glad to pay their passage money, as a fee for engaging them, so that within a few months they would again be their own masters; that, moreover, they would have the right of hiring themselves out only for such work as was agreeable to them. But usually on their arrival the situation appeared very different. Only in rare cases did a particularly skilled artisan succeed immediately in finding work on his own conditions, and thus im- mediately obtaining a steady position and good wages; but in far the greater majority of cases, the owner of the ship did not permit the poor emigrants to land until the passage money had been paid, generally £9 sterling. Naturally the defrauded emigrants had no means of freeing them- selves and, in accordance with the law, the captain now had the right to sell these people as servants for a period of years to the highest bidder.
The system began to be applied extensively to German immigrants about 1728. Muhlenberg describes the arrival of a ship in Philadelphia in the following manner: "After the immigrants had been taken to the City Hall and compelled to take the oath of allegiance to the King of Great Britain, they were brought back to the ship. Those who have paid their passage are released, the others are advertised in the newspaper for sale. The ship becomes the market-the buyers make their choice and bargain with the immigrants for a certain number of years and days, depending upon the price demanded by the ship captain or 'other merchants' who made the outlay for transportation, etc. The Colonial government recog- nizes the written contracts, which is then made binding for the redemp- tioner."
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There were two kinds of redemptioners: "indented servants" who had bound themselves to their masters for a term of years, previous to their leaving the old country; and "free willers" who, being without money and desirous of emigrating, agreed with the captains of the ships to allow them- selves and their families to be sold on arrival for the captain's advantage, and thus repay the cost of passage and other expenses. The former-in- dented servants-were often trapped into their engagements by corrupt agents at home, who persuaded them to emigrate under false promises of good treatment and under assurance of remunerative employment at expira- tion of service. The immigrants often discovered on arrival that they were grossly deceived. This class of servants often groaned beneath a more than Egyptian bondage, as their masters, knowing that their servitude could last only a few years, treated them worse than their black slaves, to whom, being actual property, they were more lenient. The "free-willers" suffered even worse. They had been induced to sign an agreement with the captain, that if they did not succeed within a certain number of days in securing employ- ment, they could be sold for a term of years to defray the charges of their passages. Except in a very few cases these people were sold to several years of tedious labor and servitude. Those who were sold became in every respect the possession of their masters, with the single exception that they had no propriety rights over the person of these unfortunates. Yet every attempt to escape was punished with such gruesome cruelty, that white slav- ery, was, in fact, worse than negro slavery. For the man who bought a white domestic had no interest in his physical welfare, since, at the end of a limited period of years, he had, after all, to give him his freedom, whereas the negro slave was always a negotiable possession, whose value would be depreciated by cruel treatment.
Advertisements announcing redemptioners for sale are frequently to be found in the newspapers of the eighteenth century. One in the "Pennsylvania Magazine" of April 4, 1776, offers for sale: "A young girl and maid-servant, strong and healthy; no fault. She is not qualified for the service now demanded. Five years to serve." The same paper, on January 18, 1774, contains the following notice: "Germans-we are now offering fifty Germans just arrived-to be seen at the Golden Swan, kept by the widow Kreider. The lot includes shoemakers, artisans, peasants, boys and girls of various ages, all to serve for payment of passage." As late as September, 1786, the following advertisement appeared in the "Pittsburgh Gazette": "To be sold (for ready money only) a German woman servant. She has near three years to serve, and is well qualified for all household work. Would recommend her to her own country people, particularly as her present master has found great inconvenience from not being acquainted with their manners and language. For particulars enquire at Mr. Ormsby's in Pittsburgh."
Benjamin Franklin had many ways of earning a penny, and one of these was the traffic in slaves and redemptioners as the columns of his newspaper, the "Pennsylvania Gazette," bear witness. He would occasionally purchase the time of redemptioners and then advertise the same for sale in his paper. Though there was at that time a positive sentiment in Philadelphia against buying and selling of human beings, Franklin was not adverse to profit by that sort of traffic, and he made many a venture in the purchase and sale of negroes. (From "Slavery and Servitude in New Jersey," by Alfred M. Hes- ton, of Atlantic City, member of the New Jersey Historical Society).
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Not only tillers of the soil and artisans became serfs for their passage money,-students and schoolmasters also were often sold in this labor mar- ket. The Rev. Mr. Kunzenaively writes that he had entertained the thought, if ever he became the owner of seventy pounds, of buying the first German student who would land at Philadelphia, put him into his garret, and there with his help begin a Latin school, which he was sure would quickly pay off the outlay .-- But, curiously enough, in spite of the intense religious enthusiasm which prevailed at the time and of the great lack of schools in the new land, which was felt in all its gravity, schoolmasters were almost a useless article of import. Farmers and artisans did not have to wait long for masters, but the schoolmaster, often enough, had to exchange the rule for the axe, if he wished to view the new country on land instead of from the deck of the ship.
While the immigration increased, strangely enough the expenses of a sea passage rose from six to ten, to fourteen or seventeen louis d'or (accord- ing to Murlenberg), thus putting work-people into the redemptionist class. With over-speculation came crowding of large bodies of immigrants into vessels, much too small for their numbers. Sickness ensued and the mor- tality increased terribly. Sauer in his newspaper in 1749 announced that in that year over two thousand had died during transportation, mostly because they were not treated like human beings, being packed close to- gether so that the sick breathed another's breath, and that, from all the uncleanness, stench and lack of food, diseases broke out, like scurvy, dysen- tery, smallpox and other contagious sickness.
Heinrich Keppell, the first president of the German Society of Pennsylvania" arrived in America in 1738, and wrote in his diary, that of the 312 1-2 passengers (a child was counted one half) 250 died, not in- cluding those who died after landing. Sauer reports the loss of 160 people in one ship; 150 on another, and only 13 survivors on a third. In 1785 a ship was destined for Philadelphia with 400 German passengers, of whom only 50 survived. Mr. Helberger says: "Children from one to ten rarely survived the voyage, and many a time parents are compelled to see their children die of hunger, thirst, sickness, and then see them cast into the water. Few women in confinement escape with their lives; many a mother is cast into the water with her child." The main cause for the enormous mortality was the packing together12 of immigrants much as negro slaves were later huddled together by African slave-dealers.
The conditions were probably no worse for the German immigrants than for those of other nationalities. The Germans of Philadelphia, how- ever, after repeated agitations, succeeded in improving somewhat existing conditions for German immigrants. They formed in December 1746 the "Deutsche Gesselschaft von Pennsylvania" the first of those charitable Ger- man organizations in the seacoast cities of America, that were founded to extend a helping hand to the immigrants of their own country.
The terms and conditions of service differed in the different colonies. Among the archives of the Pennsylvania Historical Society, are some original bonds or agreements, between ship captains and redemptionists. From
11 Mr. Helberger claims that a large number of shipwrecks were not reported in Germany, for fear that It might deter the people from emigrating and induce them to stay at home; p. 36.
13 "Packed like herrings and sold as slaves." says Pastor Kunze, "Hallesche Nachrichten," p. 1.377. Under date of May 16, 1773, he says: "Last week I heard of a ship bearing 150 Germans, of whom 110 died at sea."
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them we learn that the usual price paid in that colony, for three years' service, was twenty pounds, one shilling and sixpence. When his time was expired a man was entitled to receive two suits of clothes, a hoe and a new axe. Children sold at from eight to ten pounds and their masters were required to see that they were taught to read and write and had, at least, one quarter's schooling. In New Jersey, according to Leaming and Spicer, a white servant, if sold or bound after seventeen years of age, could serve about four years-if under that age, they were to be free on reaching their majority. At the end of that period of servitude the masters had to provide their former servants with two good suits of clothes, and to give them a good axe, a hoe and seven bushels of seed corn. Furthermore, a servant who had been so badly treated by his master that he had lost an eye or a tooth had to be freed immediately. On the other hand, the law punished with the utmost severity the flight of such a hired slave and what- ever aid he received from sympathetic persons. The benevolent friend who helped a servant to freedom, was fined £5 sterling, and in addition had to pay the master of the fugitive ten shillings indemnity for every day of his absence-an expensive pleasure under the circumstances.
Notwithstanding these lamentable conditions, it was not a rare thing for thrifty Germans who possessed the passage money to prefer to go with- out expense across the ocean as hired slaves, and to serve several years in the new land, and thereby become familiar with the language and customs, instead of emigrating to America at their own expense. Mellick mentions in his book, among other things, an article which appeared in the "Pennsylvania Messenger" of January, 1774, and shows in what light this servitude was regarded.
Considered broadly, those Germans who did not let themselves become embittered by several years of dependent labor and toil did well in their decision, for it is a well-founded fact that the majority of the Germans worked themselves up into well-to-do, prosperous farmers or artisans; their forced apprenticeship taught them, in a severe school, the very virtues which the settler in a new land needs before all others, whereas their wealthier countrymen, who perhaps, were originally more accustomed to commanding than working, often sank deeper and deeper and finally ended by becoming the servants of those who had formerly been their dependents.
After the immigrants had bought land, which, as incidentally remarked, was, in New Jersey at least, by no means so cheap, they set to work at erect- ing a homestead and naturally followed their native traditions. The old New Jersey farmhouses in the region of the German settlements are as similar to North German farm-houses as is possible under American condi- tions. Unfortunately, only meagre remains of these original houses are in existence; the War of the Revolution and the "humane" warfare of the English, customary even then, have destroyed them from top to bottom. The primeval forest fell beneath the axe of the settler, and in its stead rose blooming fields and gardens, upon which the fruit ripened for a rich harvest. At the time treated of by this paper the settlements were still few in number and widely scattered. The roads which joined the individual farms with one another and with the market town, consisted, for the most part, of narrow bridle paths, which led through the woods, while only one large highway bound New York to the colonies lying farther south. During the first half of the eighteenth century the forests were still full of wild animals. The lonely rider, who was going to Perth Amboy or New Brunswick, often enough encountered on his journey a bear or a timid
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stag, while wolves were still so numerous that the county authorities were obliged to offer bounties for their extermination.
Upon the farms themselves life did not differ very essentially from the social conditions, which prevail even today, in the remoter regions of the United States. New Jersey, which is today one of the most productive corn- lands of the world, possessed even at that time the germ of its present renown as a berry and apple country, but the berries grew wild in the fields and woods and were not cultivated; there were apples and pears in abun- dance, but they were not improved except in a few regions notably here in Newark. The farmer, especially the German farmer, raised corn and wheat and bred cattle for which he could always find a market. The vegetables of the time were small in quantity and quality. Potatoes and cabbages were almost the only vegetables, and as yet there was no thought of tomatoes,
rhubarb and sweet corn. They were better provided with meats. Hams, bacon and sausages filled the smokehouse; if a neighbor slaughtered an ox, he generally sent his nearest neighbor a piece of it and expected in return a similar civility at the next slaughter. The woods provided the farmers with game and the streams with trout. Chickens, eggs and cheese were naturally not wanting on the table, and hot cakes, buttermilk, cakes and pies were there in abundance. The chief beverage of the time was, at least for the well-to-do classes, Madeira wine; whereas the poor man consoled himself with Jamaica rum. Mellick mentions a favorite dish among the Germans of the colony, which would by no means suit modern taste; it consisted of sausages cooked in chocolate and served in the soup. Tradition informs us that when the first tea was brought to New Jersey, the settlers regarded it as a vegetable, cooked it like cabbage, poured off the water and ate the tea- leaves. In our days of dyspepsia a constitution which could not only digest such dishes but enjoy them with zest, arouses our just envy.
The German women of the colony did not enjoy what one would call a life of ease. Not only did the care of the household, the kitchen and the dairy rest on their shoulders, but they also spun their own yarn, wove the family linen and woolens, manufactured candles, brewed beer and made soap. Their pleasures were limited, for they consisted generally of gather- ings of the neighbors' wives, at which certain tasks were attended to with the combined help of all, for the completion of which the domestic forces were insufficient; as, for example, the paring of the fruit at the time of the apple harvest, or the preparation of the meat when the pigs were slaugh- tered; then the housewives and girls of the neighborhood came together and completed their task amid jest and song, and in the evening joyous festivities followed, consisting of a substantial meal and a dance, which kept old and young together until early morning.
The clothing, too, was simple and in keeping with its purpose. For their daily work the men wore buckskin clothes or the products of the domestic loom, but, on Sundays they were resplendent in white, blue or purple coats with plush small clothes. The women wore homespun flannels and on Sundays, satins or other imported fabrics. The contemporary writers inform us that the German farmers' wives of the time woro from twenty to thirty petticoats.
Those worthy Germans, who, in the beginning and middle of the eigh- teenth century contributed in their modest way, so much to the develop- ment of the province, when the land, threatened in its most precious rights, arose to shake of England's unbearable yoke, have not only left behind an Imperishable monument in the ground cultivated and developed by them,
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but it was they also who immediately thought of the erection of churches and schools, and shunned neither toil nor sacrifice to serve God in a worthy manner. Even today in New Germantown in Somerset county, there stands the old and venerable church, which the German farmers built in 1749. Mellick in his oft-quoted book tells us interesting facts, drawn from the parish register of the corporation of Zion in New Germantown in West Jersey. In this pulpit there preached among others, the famous pastor, Henry Muhlenberg, father of the war-like preacher and general in the War of Independence. But the old register also contains names less famous, but not less worthy in their way, to wit: the names of the German founders of the parish, of the builders of the first German House of God in New Jersey, of the first settlers in this wild country.
The preaching of the times was done by no means exclusively in German, but also in the English language, for the pastor of the parish had to minister to a large number of places. One of the servants of God, the universally loved Pastor Graff, had more or less strained relations with the English language, and once, when he was delivering a sermon in English on the temptation of Eve, he is said to have been unable to think of the English word for the German "Schlange." Finally, after the worthy gentleman had made several unsuccessful starts, he broke out with the words, "Dot old, dot old, dot old Teufel, der snake." Graff was the servant of the parish for thirty four years, and died mourned and not forgotten in the village where he had worked so long. Beside him have rested, for over a hundred years, those men, who transplanted German fidelity and German industry in the new land across the sea and whose memory is honored by no monu- ment, although they are more honestly deserving of one than many a one to whom the "grateful" present has erected a marble memorial. Another interesting product of the prevailing colonial conditions was the Rev. Gaspar Wack. He was called to the Great Swamp Church in 1771. When he first came to German Valley, the preaching was all in German, but in the latter part of his ministry he preached only occasionally in German. It must have been a peculiar jargon; for an English officer, having heard that the Rev. Mr. Wack was a German, went to his church in order "to hear what a German sermon would sound like." He came away rejoicing. "He never know before that German was so much like English; he could understand a great deal of what Mr. Wack said." On that day Mr. Wack had preached an English sermon, or at least what he took to be English. In later days, however, the Rev. Mr. Wack is said to have been in command of good English. Mr. Wack was musical, taught in a singing school, carried on a farm and drove an oil and fulling-mill, using for power the stream on his land. No eight hour laws prevailed with him, and he was out in his fields before the peep of day. When the breakfast bell was heard, he would say, "now boys, a race," and he was rarely beaten.13 An instance of exemplary devotion to the patriotic cause was the action of the Rev. Mr. Nevelling, who served the Amwell church at the beginning of his ministry. He converted all his property into money, amounting to five thousand pounds. He loaned it to the Con- tinental Congress, and, losing the certificate of receipt of the government, he never recovered any of the amount. He served as chaplain in the army- was highly esteemed by Washington, and he was such a dangerous man that a large reward for his capture was offered by the British.14
" Chambers, p. 112.
14 Chambers, p. 40.
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The influx was certainly not of an element whose character was weak and indifferent in itself. For though poor almost to starvation and made more helpless through their foreign language, the prey of land-sharks, press gangs and the remorseless cruelty of the redemptionist "slavery," with their numbers decimated by incessant sickness and privation, with families torn asunder and separated for years; these forsaken refugees finally overcame all difficulties and settled down in well earned but hard- won security and peace. No more sufferings, no harsher treatment than they had to endure, were experienced either by Puritans or Huguenots. And their final success was just as much a product and proof of their pre-emi- nent sturdiness of moral and intellectual character.
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