History of York County, Pennsylvania : from the earliest period to the present time, divided into general, special, township and borough histories, with a biographical department appended, Part 45

Author: Gibson, John, Editor
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: F.A. Battey Publishing Co., Chicago
Number of Pages: 1104

USA > Pennsylvania > York County > History of York County, Pennsylvania : from the earliest period to the present time, divided into general, special, township and borough histories, with a biographical department appended > Part 45

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Tarller (Michael), Tysen, Ulrick, Vogel, Wolf, Webber, Walter, Wanner, Weis, Wor- ley, Wyant, Warner, Weightman, Woldman, Wentz, Weyser, Wilhelm, Wannamacher, Wirtz, Westheber, Witmar, Weaver, Wagener, Wild, Weyer, Weybrecht, Young, Zugg, Zell, Zaartıan, Zinn, Ziegler, Zimmerman, Zigell.

In view of the temper of the times, the jealous precautions adopted by the provincial government were, perhaps, neither unjust nor surprising, but the objectionable manner in which the immigrants came and "dispersed themselves immediately after landing" (with- out producing any certificates from whence they came or what they were; and first land- ing in Britain and again leaving it without any license from the government, or so much as their knowledge), seems to have betrayed a thoroughly German characteristic, both simple and amusing. Conscious of their own honesty and fidelity, they assumed the same virtues in others, and utterly failed to realize or appreciate, as their descendants largely do to this day, the importance or necessity for any more "red-tape" formalities in affairs of state than in the commonest affairs of every. day life. And to the lasting credit of our German ancestors (many of whom, as appears from these same records settled here, in what was all Lancaster County then), so far as they were concerned as a "people," all the fears and apprehensions of the colonial govern- ment as to their "numbers," their " charac- ter" and their "intentions" were wholly groundless. The governor and council were pleased to speak of them as "strangers, ignorant of our language and laws," who, "pouring iu daily and settling in a body together," make, as it were, a distinct people from his Majesty's subjects, and whose pres ence rendered it highly necessary to concert proper measures for the peace and security of the province, which might be endangered thereby." Had the governor and his coun- cil not been ignorant of the language aud true character of these people, no such measures would have been deemed necessary; on the contrary, the very fact that they were Germans, Palatines, would have been a snffi- cient "certificate from whence they came and what they were," as well as guarantee of their honest intentions; and instead of enact ing laws in restraint of their immigration, or looking for some " remedy from home to pre- vent their importation," his Majesty's col- onies would have received and welcomed them with open arms. It was not long, however, until the colonial authorities learned the high character and noble intentions of these "strangers," nor were they slow to acknowl-

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edge them; for at a meeting of the council on January 13, 1729-30, a petition of several Germans, praying to be naturalized, having been presented to "The Hon. Patrick Gordon, then lieutenant-governor," his honor, after strict inquiry into their characters and ad- vising thereon, thought fit to send the fol- lowing message to the house:

" Upon application made to me in behalf of several Germans, now inhabitants of the county of Lancaster, that they may enjoy the rights and privileges of English subjects, and for that end praying to be naturalized; I have made inquiry and find that those whose names are subjoined to a petition that will be laid before your house are principally such who, many years since, came into this province under a particular agreement with our late honorable proprietor at London, and have regularly taken up lands under him. It like- wise appears to me by good information that they have hitherto behaved themselves well, and have generally so good a character for honesty and industry as deserves the esteem of this government, and a mark of its regard for them. I am therefore inclined from these considerations to favor their request, and hope you will join with me in passing a bill for their naturalization.

"I have likewise received a favorable char- acter of John Neagley, Bernard Reser aud John Wistre, of Philadia County, whose names be inserted in the said bill with those now recommended." (Col. Rec. Vol. iii, p. 374.)

A similar message was sent by the gover- nor to the legislature on January 9, 1730-31. (Id. pp. 392-93.)

Among these immigrants will be readily recognized the names of very many of our best citizens of all occupations and profess- ions at the present day, especially farmers and mechanics, and it is evident that their ancestors were among that large number of hardy, fearless, and enterprising Palatines and Swiss immigrants, who, after landing at Philadelphia and subscribing the declaration of allegiance, boldly pushed onward in the face of the treacherous aborigines into what was called the "back parts" of the settle- ment, all the territory of which was then em- braced within the limits of Chester County, and out of the western parts of which Lan- caster, York, Cumberland and other more western counties have been since erected. The honor of having made the first settle- ment in York County has been claimed for the English (see Carter & Glossbenner's History), though the much more rapid influx of the Germans, as well as their superior

success as farmers, has been generally con- ceded. A close examination of the record, however, will show that it is by no means certain that our first settlers were English. Day, in his valuable and authoritative Penn- sylvania Historical Collections (p. 693, York County), says : " John and James Hendricks, in the spring of 1729, made the first author- ized settlement in the county, on Kreutz Creek, in Hellam Township, on the same tracts from which the squatters had been removed. They were soon followed by other families, principally Germans, who settled around them within ten or twelve miles, along Codo- rus Creek. The rest of the lands were in the undisturbed possession of the Indians ; even in the white settlements they had their huts." That the Hendrickses may have been, and most probably were Germans, is evident from the fact that the name Hendrick, either as a Christian, or surname, frequently occurs in the lists of German immigrants found in the Colonial Records. Thus : Hendrick Hass ; Johan Hendrick Schmidt ; Hendrick Meyer ; Hendrick Wolfe ; Hendrick Pen- hort ; Hendrick Fultz ; Hendrick Hoffman ; Hendrick Warner; Hendrick Slingloff; Hen- drick Sootera ; Hendrick Holstein ; Hen- drick Peter Midledorf ; Hans Hendrick Ubera ; Hendrick Plino ; Hendrick Doabs ; Christopher Hendrick ; Jarick Henrick ; Jur- gen Hendrick. So also in Rupp's Collection of 30,000 names of immigrants, etc. Hen. drick Wookman, George Henderick, Abraham Hendrick, John Nicholas Hendrick, John Hendrick, etc. The difference in spelling (Hendricks) cannot weaken this notion in view of the well known great and numerous modifications in the spelling of proper sur- names ; e. g., Meyer has changed to Meyers, Myer, Myers, Mayer; Schmidt to Smith ; Hefner to Potter ; Simon to Simons, Sim- mons ; Spingler to Spangler, etc. But it is unnecessary to rest this view on inference alone, for we find among a large number of German "inhabitants of the province of Pennsylvania," who were naturalized by " an act for the better enabling" of them " to hold and enjoy lands, tenements and plantations in the same province,"-September 29, 1709- (beginning with the name of the afterward celebrated Francis Daniel Pastorious, the founder of Germantown), the names of William Hendricks and his sons Hendrick Hendricks and Lawrence Hendricks. (Col. Rec. Vol. II, p 493.) And in Rupp's Col- lection (Appendix No. 11, p. 351) where the names, copied from the original lists, are doubtless spelled correctly, we have them thus : Wilhelm Hendricks, Henrich Hen-

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THE PENNSYLVANIA GERMANS.

dricks, Loren(t)z Hendricks, showing con- clusively by the German spelling of the Christian names, Wilhelm and Lorenz, that the Hendrick, or Hendrickses credited with the honor of the first settlement in York County were not English, but German peo- ple.

The "squatters" (Mr. Day mentions) were Michael Tanner, Edward Parnell, Paul Williams and Jefferey Sumerford, who had acted under Maryland titles. The name of Michael Tanner, however, is found among the German immigrants. The weight of evidence would, as to the first settlement of our county, therefore, appear to be in favor of the Germans.

Carter and Glossbrenner in their history say: "Most of the German immigrants settled in the neighborhood of Kreutz Creek, while the English located themselves in the neighborhood of Pigeon Hills. In the whole of what was called the Kreutz Creek settle. ment (if we except Wrightsville), there was but one English family, that of William 'Morgan." But it would, probably, be diffi- cult to locate the alleged English settlement "in the neighborhood of Pigeon Hills," for it is well known that a more thoroughly German settlement than that, is not to be found in the county. The Germans settled, not only in the neighborhood of Kreutz Creek (which takes its rise in Windsor Town- ship, and flows, by an exceedingly winding course, through Spring Garden and Hellam Townships and empties into the Susquehanna near Wrightsville), but westward throughout this broad, rich, limestone valley extended, and indeed, wherever the best farming lands, whether of limestone or red shale, were to be found; but chiefly along the principal streams -the Codorus, the two Conewagos and their branches; though doubtless their first princi- pal settlements were upon the finest farming lands in the county-in the Kreutz Creek valley, where, as early as 1734-35 two Ger. mans, John Schultz and Martin Schultz, each erected a (lime) stone dwelling-house, oue of which, still standing and somewhat modernized, is the old revolutionary relic of Continental Congress fame (belonging to the Glatz estate) and bearing the names of the builders, "Johannes Schultz und Chris- tina his E-Frau" on a stone tablet set in the rugged wall, under the front cornice; and was, according to both history and tradition, the first stone house erected within the limits of the county.

It were useless to repeat here the oft- told tale of the wrongs, the hardships and the sufferings endured by our Pennsylvania

German ancestors during those early times, not only at the hands of the unfriendly and treacherous Indians, but at those of the neighboring colonists of Maryland, and, even of the local government itself .*

The uralt ancestors of our Pennsylvania Germans undoubtedly belonged to what is known as the Indo-Germanic, a branch of the great Aryan race. Sime, in hi's history of Germany says: "die Deutschen are a branch of the Teutonic race, which, again, belongs to the Great Aryan family." The name, Deutsch, was first applied by the Gauls to a particular German tribe with which they were at war, and afterward to the whole people. The word (Deutsch) meant the people. The ancient German tribes, though without a common name, claimed a common origin as the children of Mannus, the first man, and son of the god Tuisco. Mannus had three sons, from whom sprang the three principal Germanic groups, the Istovones, the Ingœvones and the Hermi- nones, each including many tribes. The former occupied both sides of the Rhine. The Ingœvones were settled along the shores of the North Sea and on the banks of the Weser and the Ems. The Herminones, em- bracing many more tribes and much more numerous ones than either of the other two, were dwellers in what is now Central and Eastern Germany, Bohemia, Lusatia, Bran- denburg, the Thuringian forest, etc., etc.

In stature, the ancient Germans were tall and vigorous, "with long fair hair and fiercely blue eyes. They wore mantles of fur or coarse woolen stuff, thrown over the shoulders and fastened by a thorn or pin. Their dwellings were wooden huts of slight construction, the inner walls of which they roughly colored, and in which cattle were sometimes accommodated with the family. War and the chase were the favorite occupa- tions of the men; and when engaged neither in fighting nor in hunting they often lay idly by the hearth, leaving peaceful work to women and to males incapable of bearing arms. They liked social gatherings, but after a time, conversation usually gave way to drunk- enness, quarrelling or excessive gambling. Although violent and cruel in moments of excitement they were rarely treacherous and in the ordinary intercourse of life they ap- pear to have been kind and considerate. They cherished the memory of illustrious ancestors and listened often with delight to songs celebrating their famous deeds." (Enc. Brit. Vol. X, p. 425.) Some of these rough traits may be noticed in the Pennsylvania

*See General History, Chapter V.

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HISTORY OF YORK COUNTY.

German character even at the present day, but so also their bravery, their religious de- votion and their attachment to home and kindred.

Such were the great ancestors of the Ger- man emigrants, who, driven by oppression and persecution from their beloved Vater- land "transported themselves and their fam- ilies into the Province of Pennsylvania," (and, many of them, into these parts of it, now York County), "in hopes and expecta- tion of finding a retreat and peaceable settle- ment therein. "

No more just, true, and graphic descrip- tion of the character of the German emi- grants can be given than is found in the writings of an eminent historian of a neigh- boring State,* from which copious extracts are here given.

"It is almost agreed by historians and philosophers that the capacity of a race of people to adjust itself to new environments is the proper test of the race's vitality. Dead races, as population increases and new Iand to take up diminishes, rot off and disap: pear, as has been the case with our American Indians. Living races transplant themselves into a new place, emigrate and continue to thrive. Judged by this test, the Germans have a greater vitality than any other race, for they have been the emigrating, race par excellence, ever since the authentic history of * * man began. * * The Germans, when they came into Europe, probably were deterred from entering Asia Minor by the barrier of the Caucasus, and when they had flanked that, the serried legions of Rome in Dacia and Pannonia pushed them far to the north. Behind them the Sclavonians pressed for an outlet as they do to-day, and behind the Slavs the Mongols pressed. Warlike as the German races have been, it has been solely upon compulsion. They have had, and still have the pacific impulse to sit down upon and improve and enjoy the land which they occupied. * *

* All the great emi- grations have pursued a westward course, and the Germans have been the greatest of the migratory races. * * The Slavonic races are continually advancing in Europe and the German races continually recede before them. The Mennonite immigrations into this country, of the last few years, are the immigrations of German colonies in Russia, squeezed out by the Slavs. * * The pressure upon the rear of German Europe is steady and irresistible and it is responded to by German immigration into the United States. * * *

As Hegel says in his well known lectures on the Philosophy of History, "The German spirit is the spirit of the new world. Its aim is the realization of absolute truth as the un- limited self-determination of freedom-that freedom which has its own absolute form it- self as its support. The Greeks and Romans had reached maturity within, ere they direct- ed their energies outward. The Germaus, on the contrary, began with self-diffusion, del - uging the world and overpowering in their course the inwardly rotten, hollow political fabrics of the civilized nations. Only then did their development begin by a foreign culture, a foreign religion, polity and legis- lation. This receptivity of the German races made them the best immigrants in the world. Wherever they went they conquered the peo- ple, but adopted and assimilated their insti- tutions. They became Gauls in Gaul, Brit- ons in Britain, and they learned how to be- come Americans in the United States.

"Penn was a very shrewd mau, who looked before and after. When he came to plant his colony and found that there were not Quakers enough willing to migrate to make his proprietary government profitable, he re- membered the German Quietists whom he had studied in his travels in youth. Less liberal, but more practical than Lord Balti- more, he sought successfully to fill his colony with people who, if not exactly coreligion- aries, were as nearly as possible assimilated in faith to his own. He remembered that in his travels he had met and approved the doc- trines and practices of the Labadists of Here- ford and he esteemed highly the quiet pietists of the Palatinate, even where they were not of that particular sect. He was strongly in- clined toward the German Protestants of all sects, but he did not fancy the violent prac- tices of Knipperdoling, nor the wild fanati . cism of the Anabaptists of Munster. He re- membered that in the course of his tour, he had met and admired the followers of Simon Menno, who have commanded sympathy re- cently by their migration out of Russia into Kansas and Minnesota. He remembered also the tenets and practices of the Baptists of the sect of the pious Spener, the Dunkers and many other of the contemporary sects. These were the people whom Penn invited into his colony when the Quaker immigra- tion failed to bear sufficient fruit, and from these people descended the earliest and the best of the German settlers in Maryland and Baltimore. It was not until about the pe- riod of the war of the Revolution that the new immigration set in from Bremen and Hamburg.

*Col. J. Thomas Scharf of Baltimore, Md.

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THE PENNSYLVANIA GERMANS.

"At first the immigration of Germans into Pennsylvania was confined to the Sectaries, the Quietists and the other religious denomi- nations, who, on account of their extremity in doctrines of (and) practice, found it diffi- cult to get along with their more conservative Protestant brethren. The Labadists, for in- stance, were followed by the Mennonites, who took up much land, and formed many com- munities in York, Lancaster and Adams counties; by the Seventh Day Baptists, the followers of Spener, who established their monastery at Ephrata, by the Voltists and the Cocceians, and by the hundred other sects of the day. But after these Sectaries came the deluge. The Germans had found out that there was a land of peace on the other side of the Atlantic, and they knew by sad experience that their own country was a land of war. The peace of Westphalia had turned out to be only a hollow truce after all, as far as Protestant Germany was con- cerned. A man was not only deprived, practically, of the enjoyment of his own re- ligion, he was robbed also incessantly of the fruits of his labor. No matter how fore- handed, how industrious he might be, he could not certainly lay aside anything for a rainy day. This was a state of things which he naturally rebelled against, and emigration afforded him relief.

"The religious fanaticism of Louis XIV, which so long desolated the low countries and which deprived that monarch (when he revoked the edict of Nantes) of half a million of his best and most thrifty subjects, broke in upon the Palatinate in the shape of the most deso- lating war of which we have any authentic record in history. What is told of Tamerlane was practiced by the "enlightened" monarch and his able but savage lieutenants. Tur- enne, Saxe, Vendome, Villars, Villeroy, Tail- lard, Marsin, Berwick, Noailles, Luxembourg, each in his turn helped to desolate the Pala- tine and. to contribute immigrants to the col- onies. The homeless and ravished peoples of Germany sought and found homes in the new land of peace and plenty. At one time the immigration of German Palatines into Pennsylvania and Maryland was in excess of all other immigration. As a rule they brought their own means with them, but sooner than not immigrate they were glad to indenture themselves as redemptioners. Many hundreds thus came into Maryland, many thousands into Pennsylvania. They came chiefly from the harried Palatinate, but also from Alsace, Suabia, Saxony and Switz- erland. There were Wittembergers and peo- ple from Darmstadt, Nassau, Hesse, Eisenberg,

Franconia, Hamburg. Manheim-all classed as 'Palatines.' They brought the Heidelberg catechism with them even if they brought nothing else, and many of them were so plundered in transitu that they were not able to bring anything else. Prof. Rupp, in his notes to Dr. Rush, says: "Many who at home had owned property were robbed by ship-owners, importers, sea captains and neulander. The emigrant's chests, with their clothes and sometimes their money, were put on other vessels and left behind. These chests were rifled of their contents. The German emigrants thus treated, ou their arrival at Philadelphia, were obliged to submit to be sold as Loskaeuflinge Redemp- tioners, they and their children, to pay their passage money. This was the practice for more than fifty years."

"The number of these immigrants was prodigious. In 1731 there were 15,000 members of the Germau Reformed Church in Pennsylvania from the Palatinate. Rupp and Kapp note, in order to show the rapid rate of the depopulation of these provinces on the Rhine, that in 1709, from the middle of April to the middle of July, there arrived in London 11,294 German Protestants, males and females, who were vine dressers and hus- bandmen, bakers, masons, carpenters, shoe- makers, tailors, butchers, millers, tanners, weavers,locksmiths, barbers, coopers, saddlers, lime burners, glass-blowers, hatters, brick- makers, smiths, potters, turners, etc. More than one-half of these came to this country. In 1790 there were 145,000 Germans in Pennsylvania, the total population not exceeding 435,000. These included the Sectaries above referred to, the Palatines, the Dunkers and the Hes- sian soldiers who preferred not to be exchanged after the Revolution. These Ger- man Huelfs-truppen or subsidiary troops, were bought in Brunswick Hanau, Anspach, Wal- deck, Anhalt, Hesse-Cassel, Hesse-Darmstadt, Brandenberg, etc., in large numbers. They cost George III $8,100,000 and 11,000 of them died or perished in battle. A great many of these people settled in Pennsylvania, Mary- land and the Valley of Virginia after the war. The other immigrants were German Calvin- ist-, Moravians, Schwenkenfelders, Omisb- ites, Dunkers, Mennonites and Separatists (or Seventh Day Baptists).

"Up to about 1760 the Germans in Mary- land were supplied from these plentiful sources. A good many Palatines came in by direct consignment to Chespeake Bay, but the great majority of the Germans drifted down from York and Lancaster. They came into Baltimore county in small parties, but they

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settled in Frederick County and the Valley of Virginia by the wholesale. Many of our best people came to Baltimore in this way from Frederick Connty. We need only allude to such names as the Schleys, Steiners, Shrivers, Slingluffs, Warners, Pipers, Raborgs. Reinharts, Lurmans, Miltenber- gers, Yeisers, Littigs, etc."

To show still further, the enterprising spirit and intelligence of onr Pennsylvania Ger- man ancestors, some additional quotations from the historical writings of Mr. Scharf may be appropriate, and, in view of the existing and increasing social and commer- cial relations between our people and those of Baltimore, will, it is hoped, not prove wholly uninteresting to the former, Among the Germans named in connection with the early history of that great and growing city, will be recognized many worthy and honora- ble ones, familiar to our readers at the pres- ent day.

" The immigration of Germans must have been rapid. In 1748 we find Leonard and Daniel Barnitz, from York, Penn .. erecting a brewery on the corner of Baltimore and Hau- over Streets. In the next year Thomas Schley (from Frederick), in partnership with Maj. Thomas Sheradine (ex-sheriff and one of the most considerable men in the county, presid- ing justice, town commissioner, etc.,) bought eighteeu acres from Hurst and added them to the town. In 1752 the town of Baltimore looks very small and insignificant on Mr. John Moale's map, but the county then had a population of 17.238, and the town had much more than the twenty-five houses and 200 people given it by Mr. Moale. That probably only included the little nucleus of a town around the basin; but the part east of the falls was larger and more populous and there the majority of the Germans congregated. In that year, among known inhabitants, were the following Germans: George Strebeck, wagoner; Jake Keeports, carpenter (afterward rich, and purchasing agent for the Continental Army. He built a house in South Gay Street in 1757): Conrad Smith (also built on South Gay Street); Philip Littig (whose wife was the German midwife) and Hilt Stranwick. Next year we find mention of George M. Myers ( Meiers), a Pennsylvania German, and Valentine Loersch (Larsh) coming to town. Myers went into the milling business. Larsh built a tavern, corner Baltimore and Gay Streets. In the same year came in Andrew Steiger, butcher, who built corner Charles and Baltimore Streets, but in 1756 bought 'Steiger's meadow,' a sixteen-acre tract, then east of the Falls and still called 'The

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History of York County, Pennsylvania : from the earliest period to the present time, divided into general, special, township and borough histories, with a biographical department appended, Part 45

Author: Gibson, John, Editor Publication date: 1886 Publisher: F.A. Battey Publishing Co., Chicago Number of Pages: 1104

Author: Gibson, John, Editor
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: F.A. Battey Publishing Co., Chicago
Number of Pages: 1104