USA > Pennsylvania > Historical notes relating to the Pennsylvania Reformed Church, V. I > Part 5
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1811.
82. January
13. Samuel Fries and Magdalina Wiantt.
83. January
15, Walter Howell and Polly Hamsher.
84. January 15. Peter Dager and Maria Hitner.
85. January
27. Jacob Strong and Elizabeth Schneider.
86. February 87. February
17. Jacob Sper and Cathrine Suesholds.
88. February
24. Michael Steever and Elizabeth Hartman.
89. March
10. Henry Moser and Maria Clemens.
90. March 15. George Bachman and Elizabeth Glemmer.
91. June.
2. William Berkheimer and Margareth Hilgend. (To be Continued. )
74. August
19. Jacob Kope and Sarah Klinker.
75. October
7. John Aman and Bolly Surver.
3. John Leiteap and Saly Aderhold.
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HISTORICAL NOTES.
The Church at Market Square.
Read at a meeting in the Chapel of Market Square Presbyterian Church, Germantown, Philadelphia, on Thursday Evening, November 17, 1898,
BY HENRY S. DOTTERER.
Religious considerations held a large place in the plans of William Penn for the colonization of Pennsylvania. This is well known. Francis Daniel Pastorius, the founder of Germantown, was actuated by ideals equally lofty. Pathfinder, colonizer, lawgiver, magistrate, scholar, philo- sopher-all these Pastorius was. His genius established here a munici- pality upon a foundation, wise, practical, just, adequate which has yielded its citizens an unbroken prosperity of more than two centuries. But he was more. He was a Christian-pre-eminently a Christian. He loved his God and his neighbor. In his letters to his co-partners of the Frankfort Company and to his parents, his purpose of benefiting his fel- low-man and glorifying his God is over kept in view. In the letter to his parents of March 7, 1684, after speaking of his work, his aims and his hopes for Germantown, he says : Betrachtet nun, liebwertheste Eltern, ob ich auff diese Weiss Gott und meinem Neben-Menschen nicht weiterepriess- lichere Dienste leisten möge -- Consider now, parents most worthy of love, whether in this way I can not render praiseworthy service to God and my fellow-creatures. His religion was broad. He welcomed godly men of every faith. Under his liberal rule several denominations established themselves soon after the founding of the town. From that day to this, Germantown has been noted for the religious bearing of its people and the number and prosperity of its churches.
Of the Churches which then took root here, one is now extinct. It is the Reformed Church. Concerning this once prominent but now ahnost forgotten factor in Germantown's religious history, it is my purpose to speak. And I will ask your patient attention to some facts that I have grouped-some of them, familiar to you ; others, discovered by me in the course of a three-months' rummage in the archives of the Reformed Church of the Netherlands, (Hollands) where they had been buried for a century and a half and longer. These facts deal with the beginnings of the Reformed congregation having its house of worship on Market Square. the vicissitudes attending the infant church, an allusion to its subsequent prosperity, and a reference to its transformations later into a full-fledged Presbyterian church.
ORIGIN OF THE REFORMED CHURCH.
The Reformed Church, let me premise, had its origin in the great up- rising in the Sixteenth century against the Romish hierarchy. Ulric Zwingli, Swiss Reformer and patriot, at Zurich ; John Calvin, French
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HISTORICAL NOTES.
Protestant, at Geneva ; Guillaume Farel, Reformer at Neuchatel ; Admiral de Coligny, leader of the Huguenots ; William the Silent, Prince of Orange, founder of the Dutch Republic ; Frederick the Pions, Elector of the Palatinate-names that shine with fixed and lustrious light in his- tory-are a few of the heroes and martyrs of that Protestantism which became the Reformed Church of Germany, Switzerland, Holland and France.
THE REFORMED CHURCH IN AMERICA.
This historic Church was brought to America by the Hollanders who settled Manhattan island in 1623. Forty-four years before Penn established his government on these shores, a Reformed Churchman, Poter Minuit. inaugurated a colonial enterprise on the banks of the Delaware river. He was the first governor of New Amsterdam (now New York ). Afterwards he entered the service of the Government of Sweden, which sent him to found a colony on the South or Delaware river, which he did in 1638. This Swedish settlement, and others made subsequently, Penn found here upon his arrival. Peter Minuit was born in the city of Wesel on the Rhine, and was an officer in the Reformed Church there.
There are traces of immigrants of the Reformed denomination in this locality prior to the coming of Penn. There is a tradition among the members of the widely-dispersed Reiff family, that John George Reiff. their ancestor, came to Pennsylvania before Penn set up his government. Jacob Reiff, a son of John Reiff, was prominent in the establishment of the Reformed church in Skippack in 1727, and had important relations with the Skippack and Philadelphia congregations afterwards. . He occu- pied responsible public office under the provincial government.
THE BEHAGELS.
Reformed Churchmen became interested at its inception in the scheme which led to the settlement of Germantown. Among the original asso- ciates of the Frankfort Company was Daniel Behagel, who was of Hugue- not or Walloon stock. In 1562, Jacob Behagel, his grandfather, a victim of the persecutions of the Reformed, fled from the neighborhood of Lille. taking refuge in the vicinity of Frankfort on the Main. Daniel Behagel was born November 18, 1625, in Hanau, Germany, and married, May 20. 1654, at Mülheim near Cologne, Magdalena von Mastricht. Jacob von der Wallen, another original purchaser, was a brother-in-law of Daniel Behagel. In 1655, Jacob von der Wallen, from Rotterdam, and Johanna Behagel, a stop-sister to Daniel Behagel, were married. In 1661, Daniel Behagel and Jacob von der Wallen applied to the conneils of Frankfort on the Main and of Hanau, for permission to establish the manufacture of faience, and four days later Hanau granted their request. Their produc- tions found high favor. To this day, the name Behagel is identified with
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HISTORICAL NOTES.
the porcelain business in Frankfort. Von Mastricht was the surname of Daniel Behagel's wife, and Dr. Gerhard von Mastricht was another partner of the Frankfort Company. In 1730 and later Isaac and Carl Behagel, merchants and bankers of Frankfort, were designated to receive moneys contributed in Germany and Holland for the use of the needy Reformed churches in Pennsylvania. An estimate of the high standing of this family may be formed from the record of its acknowledged loyalty and services to the reigning sovereigns. In 1697, Isaac Behagel was decorated with a gold medal and gold chain, by William the Third, King of Great Britain, and their High Mightinesses the Stadtholders of the United Netherlands, for services rendered in the war from 1688 to 1697 ; and February 26, 1706, he was similarly honored by Frederick I., King of Prussia, with two gold medals-one commemorating the capture of Gueldres (Gelders) from the Dutch in 1702, the other for services rendered in 1705 in connection with the obsequies of Sophia Charlotte, Queen of Prussia, sister of George I., of England, a lady noted for her literary and philosophical tastes.
.
ISAAC DILBECK.
Isaac Dilbeck, who came in the same ship with Pastorius, and who was one of the original dwellers in Germantown, was of the Reformed faith. He was in the employ of the Frankfort Company. The ship America, in which he came, it will be remembered, reached Philadelphia before that which brought the Crefeld immigrants, who were the main body of original settlers of Germantown. It sailed from Deal, England. on the 10th of June, 1683, and was ten weeks in making the passage. On the 16th of August, 1683, its passengers first descried America, on the 18th they arrived in Delaware bay, and at twilight on the evening of the 20th, they reached the town of Philadelphia. Pastorius, in his letter to his parents dated March 7, 1684, which I found in Switzerland and which I have not met with on this side of the Atlantic, says : "Isaac Dilbeck. who apparently was the strongest in the company, was down (with sea- sickness) the longest." And in another part of the same letter he says : "Isaac Dilbeek has been somewhat indisposed the past eight days." Dilbeck was a weaver. He soon became a landowner in Germantown. On the 27th of Third month (May), 1686, Francis Daniel Pastorius, as attorney and partner of the Frankfort Company, in fulfillment of the contract between Dilbeck and the Company, conveyed to Isaac Dilbeck, twenty-five acres of land in Germantown-twenty-acres within the inhabited part of the town and five acres in the side land (including a half town-lot), both bounded southeasterly by lands of Paul Kastner and northwesterly by lands of Francis Daniel Pastorius, the twenty aeres hay- ing a breadth of 7 perches 2 feet, the five acres a breadth of 3 perches 12 feet. . It was subject to a yearly rent of a piece of eight or one Reichsthaler, payable, on first day of First month (March) of each year, to the Frank-
1
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HISTORICAL NOTES.
fort Company. There was another condition attached which is notable for its moderateness : "In addition, Isaac Dilbeck promises for himself, aua his posterity who may be inclined to work by the day, to work for our Frankfort Company in preference to all others for the same wages that they can earn from anyone else." ["Anbey verspricht Isaac Dilbeck vor sich und sein posterität dass wofern dieselbe geneigt seyen würde umb taglohn zu arbeiten, sie vor allen anderen unserer Frankfurt Cie werken wollen vor dergleichen lohn welchen sie by jemand anders verdienen könnten."]
Isaac Dilbeck's half lot was on the east side of Germantown road. In a list made April 4, 1687, it was numbered 15, his neighbors being Cornelius Bom, No. 14. and Enneke Klosterman, No. 16. The lot out of which Market Square was afterwards taken was No. 10. Isaac Dilbeck participated in the initial labors of planting the new town. He took kindly to the new life in these primitive wilds. He was a model colonist. His wife was Mary Blomerse. They were married in Europe, and they brought with them to this land their two sons, Abraham and Jacob. On the 7th of Third month, 1691, he was naturalized. On the first day of the Fifth month, 1696, Isaac Dilbeck, with the consent of Maria, his wife, sold the 25 acres of land to Daniel Geisler, for £12 14s. current silver money of Pennsylvania, subject to the original quit rent. Evidently he preferred the activities. of a large farm. On the 8th of February, 1700, he purchased of George Keith five hundred acres of land in the adjacent township of Whitemarsh, on the Plymouth road. On the 28th of September, 1709, Isaac Dilbeck and Jacob Dilbeck, whom we take to have been the pioneer's sons, were naturalized by act of the Assembly of Pennsylvania. In the year 1710, Isaac Dilbeek and his wife, Mary Blomerse, were members of the Whitemarsh Reformed congregation, organized by Paulus Van Vleey. the Dutch minister at Neshaminy. He was the junior elder. In 1725 he was an officer of the German Reformed congregation at Whitemarsh under the pastoral care of John Philip Bachm.
( To be Continued. )
BOYS IN THE COUNTRY.
And where are the boys? Down along the brook digging and wall- ing up wells. Or in the road building forts out of dust. Or at the mud- pool making marbles and birds. Or under some tree digging graves, and holding a funeral over a dead beetle about to be buried ! This is child- hood. It is not changed. It is the same in all ages, and in all places. We can enter into it all. It touches our sympathies. While we have outgrown this sense and substance of life, we can still easily realize how interesting, how real, and how earnest all these things are to them.
-HENRY HARBAUGH.
HISTORICAL NOTES
RELATING TO THE
PENNSYLVANIA REFORMED CHURCH.
VOL. I. No. 2. June 10, 1899. $1 00 PER ANNUM.
Edited by Henry S. Dotterer.
Perklomen Publishing Co., 1605 N. THIRTEENTH STREET, PHILADELPHIA.
In the twelfth and last number of Volume One of the Historical Notes, we shall print a list of the subscribers who supported this publication, giving, in addition to their names, their professions or occupations, titles and addresses. This will show each of our friends who are in sympathy with this class of liter- ature. At least fifty bound copies of the Volume will be distributed among an equal number of the greatest libraries of the world. Thus, all who contribute to its pages and who subscribe money to its treasury, will become permanently known to a circle infinitely greater than the comparatively few persons who are its present readers.
It is a pleasure to note instances of a just appreciation of the excellence of our origin as a denomination. Some of our men seem to think that we are not more than a petty sect confined to a few con- tracted hamlets inPennsylvania. Whence we came or whither we tend does not concern them. Our Church is inter- national and interracial. It should be so regarded. Its history of nearly four hundred years is replete with instances of lofty heroism and Christian achieve- ment. Our people should be so taught.
Dr. Good, of Reading, author of the Ilistory of the Reformed Church in the United States, just from the press, will make his seventh visit to Europe this Summer.
The list of Huguenot sufferers will appear in our next.
George Schall, who was killed in the railroad accident at Exeter, near Read- ing, on May 12, 1899, was a member of the Reformed Church of the Ascension, Norristown. He was a soldier in the Civil War, and was postmaster of Norris- town for a term of four years, from about 1887. His father, General William Schall, was a member and supporter of the Reformed Clinrch; and this can be said of the Schall connection generally.
Miss Minerva Weinberger, of College- ville, has kindly translated the German verse on page 19. She gives a close ren- dering and happy interpretation of Father Helffenstein's poetic thought:
The Fathers, far, in Netherlands, With thoughts of us in Western lands, Sent shepherds true, in glad accord With Christian teaching, from the Lord.
According to the published reports from Tiffin it appears that the Western end of our Church gave the delegates a generous reception. £ Evidently these good people are abreast of the times. They do not feel that apologies are call- ed for for being Reformed. They know no better Church than ours. In this spirit they work and win.
Dr. Zartman's able articles in the Philadelphia Public Ledger immediately prior to the recent meeting of the Gen- eral Synod, and his special reports of the proceedings of the Tiflin meeting, were prepared in a broad spirit. He hit upon the salient points and omitted the mub- bish thrashed over a thousand times before.
18
HISTORICAL NOTES.
A Day at Einsiedeln. BY HENRY S. DOTTERER.
Einsiedeln, in Switzerland, was the scene of Zwingli's labors during the period that his mind and heart opened to the conviction that the Romish Church had fallen into practices contrary to the teachings of Christ. This town of seven or eight thousand inhabitants is but two hours' journey from Zurich. A pleasant way to reach it is to take a steamer at the Utoquai in Zurich at 8.45 in the morning, proceed to Wadensweil, an hour's sail, and there take the railway, which after another hour's ride, entirely up-grade, brings you to your destination. The towns at the lake's edge are charm- ingly set amidst fertile fields, and the glimpses of the lake and the Alps in the distance, seen while ascending the moun- tain side, disclose a wealth of picturesque Swiss scenery. Our trip was made on Ascension Day, 1896. Fruit trees were in full bloom in the many orchards on the mountain slopes. It was a holiday; business was suspended, and an mumsnal number of persons went to the celebrated resort of pilgrims.
votive offerings, religions objects and souvenirs in great variety, which are purchased freely by pilgrims and tour- ists, according to their means and for their various intended uses.
To American eyes the most curion sight is the procession of the devoted pilgrims. They were on this occasion peasants, with the exception of the leader. They came afoot from their homes, which they left on the morning of the holy day. We were told them. companies came from nearby places. They marched through the one principal street until they came to the farther side of the great square before the Cathedral. They formed in two lines, Indian file we would say, one of men, the other of women. They chanted sacred songs and repeated prayers. AA representative from the church came down to receive them, and led the procession up the ascending plaza into the church. Here they clustered around the railing which encloses the healing madonna. After performing acts of devotion they scatter- ed over the vast building, viewing its objects of interest and sanctity. In the great square is a fountain having fom- teen outstretched arms or branches from which water flows. The pilgrims bend down and take a sip from cach of the fourteen jets. It is believed that the Saviour drank from one of the jets.
The abbey is of the 9th century. The town stands in a depression in the moun- tains. Around it rise successive ranges, the snowy Alps bounding the view. The church is at the end of the town, built upon higher ground, and beyond it Although several thousand people. tourists and devotees, filled the space about the cathedral, not the slightest disorder occurred. The hotels, of which there are more than a hundred of various grades, were kept busy in supplying dinner to the crowd. We had an ever- lent meal at one having two nanwe's- Hotel Pevan and Rian Gasthof-both of which names, converted into the Ameri- can language, men Peacock Hotel. gradually rise the mountains. It has two towers, and its interior is richly decorated. Here Zwingli was curate before he renounced allegiance to the Catholic church. A company of some hundreds of pilgrims from the neighbor- ing cantons came to the shrine on the pleasant day of our visit. But it was not a Reformed pilgrimage. The Black Virgin, a madonna carved in black mur- ble, in the cathedral, is reputed to cure the ills of the flesh. To receive health and spiritual blessings is the motive Holland and Pennsylvania. I. which brings many thousand pilgrims every year to this shrine. Outside the ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY BIBLEN DONATED, cathedral and somewhat lower than the At the Synod of South Holland, held plaza before it, arranged in a semi-ciren- in 1738, at The Hague, it was resolved lar arcade, are booths at which are sold that a quantity of German Bibles be
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HISTORICAL NOTES.
purchased and sent to Pennsylvania for distribution there.
At the Synod of 1739, held at Woerden; the interest on the money collected for Pennsylvania (3000 guilders) was appro- priated for the purchase of German Bibles to be distributed in Pennsylvania. The edition of Bibles intended to be purchased for this purpose, it was found, had all been sold, but a new edition was expected.
At the Synod of 1740, held at Yssel- stein, July 5-15, the announcement was made that through the good offices of Mr. Manger, one hundred and thirty Bibles, in the High German language, had been obtained; one hundred and eighteen were bound and twelve un- bound; the cost of these books, inelnd- ing petty expenses (the freight from Frankfort to Cologne was made free by a friend of Mr. Manger), 189 guilders, 8 stivers. The interest for two years ( 150 guilders) on the Pennsylvania fund of 3000 guilders was applied towards pay- ment.
The next year, at the Synod held at Breda, it was stated that the 130 German Bibles, sent to Pennsylvania to be dis- tributed as thought best by Do. Dorsius and Do. Frulinghanzen, cost fl. 189, 8s .; and as the fund loaned yields but fl. 75 interest per annum, the Synod was re- quested by the committee on Pennsyl- vania's needy churches to send consider- able subsidies over, or to give liberal assistance to the emigrants going over.
In 1742, at the Synod held at Dor- drecht, the 130 Bibles were reported as not having reached their destination. The deputies wrote about them to the Messrs. Hope, merchants at Rotterdam, who had undertaken to forward by their first ship.
At the Synod, held at Gorinchem in 1747, a letter from Rev. Michael Schlat- ter, dated 28th September and 3rd Octo- ber, 1746, was read, stating that the 150 Bibles had been found by him in Phila- delphia, and delivered, and, in accord- ance with the instructions, they would be distributed through the country.
Reformed Church Literature.
An | Address, [ to the Congregations, | in | connexion with the Classis of Philadelphia, j of the | German Reformed Church, | in the | United States of Amer- ica. | Chambersburg, Pa. | Printed at the Publication Office of the German Ref. Church. | 1841. Pamphlet, Svo., 14 pp. Copies of the English and German edi- tions owned by Henry S. Dotterer, Phil- adelphia.
At a special meeting of the Classis of Philadelphia, held at White-Marsh, Montgomery county, Pa., on the 24th of December, 1840, it was Rosotrol, That an address be prepared, and published. both in the German and English lan- guages, for the information and editica- tion of the congregations in relation to the Centenary of the German Reformed Church in the United States. The pain- phlet contains an historical address (inr- nishing meagre and indefinite informa- tion), a prayer and a centenary hymn. From the last we qnote:
"Here in these Western wilds, With hope alone in find. Our fathers 'mid great trials Songht a secure abode: And God was with them on their Has kept and prospered to this day.
"On Freedom's soil we here A church in peace possess, A 'school of prophets' dear, And Word of Life to bless.
And shall we not a Mount now mar With Ebenezer written then ?"
On the paper cover is announced the publication of a tract entitled "Letters from Holland-connected with the early history of the Reformed Church in this country."
In the German edition the address is signed by Sammel Helffenstein, S.n .. Johann C. Guldin, Sammel Helffenstein, Jnn .. Committee. The hymn in the German edition, which differs from that in the English, was written by Kov. Samuel Helffenstein, Sen. One stanza is:
"Die Vaeter, fern, in Holland's Land Dachten an uns im Abendland;
I'nd sandten trene Hirten gern. Mit Christi Lehre, von dem Herrn."
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HISTORICAL NOTES.
A Gratifying Report.
In the press report of the Tiffin Synod- ical meeting we find:
A committee appointed three years ago for correspondence with Reformed churches on the Continent of Europe, reported that they have corresponded with churches in Germany, Hungary, France, Holland, Switzerland and Rus- sia. This committee was instructed to continue its work.
And this correspondence, mind you, was not for the solicitation of funds. In Colonial days the call from needy Pen- sylvania was for money. Now it is otherwise. We are of the giving, not the getting, portion of the world's Re- formed Church.
Something about Pastor Leydich.
John Philip Leydich was faithful to the work of the Church. There is noth- ing against him either as a citizen or a clergyman. No scandal is associated with his name or his career. He was, however, but human. His nearest co- laborer, George Michael Weiss, at New Goshenhoppen, lived bnt about six miles distant, and one of the congrega- tions of the charge, Old Goshenhoppen, was not more than three miles away. To-day from the eminence which rises near the former home of Leydich, look- ing castward, you can plainly see the steeple of the present Old Goshenhoppen church; and on the other hand, from a score of points within ten miles, may be scen the Reformed church at Falkner Swamp, which was the home church of Leydich. Against Weiss and his friends Leydich made complaint, more or less open. Yet it does not appear that they ever had any open quarrel. The entente cordiale was maintained through all the ecclesiastical storms which swept over the infant churches, planted upon the hills of the rolling country of the Perki- omen region. No manuscripts the work of Leydich are extant in our country, so far as I know, if I except an ancient Latin paper, the record of the family of Rev. Leonhard Leydich, the father of John Philip Leydich. In the archives of the General Synod of the Reformed
Church of the Netherlands, however, may be seen several letters and reports written by him. His penmanship was neat, even elegant, but he sometimes wrote hurriedly, as do many whos. thoughts press forward more rapidly than their fingers can respond. In the year 1756 he was Secretary of the Cartas. An account of the moneys received from Holland for that year and how disbursed was rendered in Latin, and is preserved. It is a beautiful piece of handwriting.
HENRY S. DOTTERER.
The Perkiomen Region.
Number Two, of Volume Two, of this publication, has made its appearance, with this list of contents:
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