USA > Pennsylvania > Pennsylvania: The German influence in its settlement and development, Pat VII > Part 17
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" Christopher Saur, " Printer of Germantown."
It will be noted that both the Assembly and Saur averred that some of the members of the Governor's Council were engaged in this most disreputable business, and it may be
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Humanity of Christopher Saur.
that the influence of these interested persons was at the bottom of his rejection of the measures proposed to remedy these evils. On the day following the delivery of the message of the House to the Governor, the latter replied with equal acerbity. He briefly gives his reasons for his action in the matter, but they are lame and unsatisfactory, strengthening the belief that he was trying to take care of his friends.
It is said of the elder Christopher Saur that "on learn- ing from time to time that a vessel containing passengers had arrived in Philadelphia from Germany, he and his neighbors gathered vehicles and hastened to the landing place, whence those of the newcomers who were ill, were taken to his house, which for the time being was turned into a hospital, and there they were treated medically, nursed and supported by him until they became convales- cent and able to earn their own living." 148
148 CHARLES G. SAUER'S Address at Memorial Services at the Church of the Brethren, at Germantown, January 1, 1899.
AN OLD GERMANTOWN LANDMARK.
SPREY
OLD ROBERT'S MILL, NEAR GERMANTOWN.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE MORTALITY THAT SOMETIMES CAME UPON THE IMMI- GRANTS ON SHIP-BOARD .- ORGANIZATION OF THE GERMAN SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA, AND ITS EXCELLENT WORK .- LANDS ASSIGNED TO REDEMPTIONERS AT THE END OF THEIR TERMS OF SERVICE, ON EASY TERMS.
"Er ward in engen Koje Kalt, Kam nie zurück zum Port. Man hat ihn auf ein Brett geschnallt, Und warf ihn über Bord."
"Dem bieten grane Eltern noch Zum letztenmal die Hand ; Den Koser Bruder, Schwester, Freund ; Und alles schweigt, und alles weint, Todtbloss von uns gewandt."
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ARMS OF THE PALATINATE. 149
N a general way, the mortality among the immigrants resulting from the crowded condition of the ships, the bad character of the provisions and water and frequently from the scant supply of the same, the length of the voyage and other causes, has al-
149 The arms, or wappen, of the Palatinate is an imposing piece of heraldic art, sufficient, one would think, to do honor to a land a thousand times the size (256 )
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Appalling Death Rate Among Immigrants.
ready been alluded to. But it is only when we come down to an actual presentation of the records that have reached our day, that we get a correct idea of the appalling char- acter of the death rate upon which the German settlements in Pennsylvania were built. Doubtless something beyond the ordinary was seen in the migration from Europe to other portions of the American continent, but as that migra- tion was more circumscribed in its numbers and the ra- pidity of its inflow, so also was the death rate attending it on a minor scale. It is surprising that the reality, as it be- came known in the Fatherland, did not hold back the mul- titudes anxious to come over. Perhaps the ebb and flow, as we now know it, greater in some years, and then again greatly diminished in others, may be accounted for by the fears that came upon the intending immigrants as letters from friends gradually drifted back to the old home. Some
of the Palatinate. Even the shield of Achilles, as pictured by Homer, was not more elaborate or picturesque. Its manifold armorial divisions arose out of the numerous changes and acquisitions to the original fief. I subjoin a descrip- tion of it in German, without venturing on a translation.
Das Kurpfälsichen wappen bestehet aus zusam mengebrunden ovalrunden Schilden. Der I. ist quadrirt mit einem Mittelschilde, welcher im Schwartzen Felde einem goldenen rothgeprouren Löwen, wegen der Pfaltz am Rhein hat. Das I. Quartier des Haupt-Schilders ist von Silber und Blau, Schraggeweckt, wegen Baiern ; in 2. goldenen ist ein Schwazer gekrärter Löwe, wegen Julich : im 3. bauen ein silbernes Schildchen, aus dem 8. goldene Stabe im Kreis gesetzt, heroorgehen, wegen Cleve ; im 4. silbernen is ein rother Löwe, mit einer blauen Krone, wegen Berg. Der 2. Hauptschild ist quergetheilt. In der abern Hälfte, in goldenem Felde, ist vorn ein Schwarzer Querbalken, wegen der Grafschaft Mors ; hintem im blauen, 3. goldene Kreuzchen, über einem drey- fachen grünen Hügel, wegen Bergen op Zoom. Die untere Hälfte ist 3 mal in die Länge getheilt. Im vordersten silbernen Felde ist ein Blauer Löwe, wegen Veldenz ; im mittlern goldenen ein von Silber und Roth, zu 4. Reihen geschackter Querbalken, wegen der Graffschaft Mark, im hintersten silbernen sind 3 rothe Sparren, wegen Ravensburg. Der 3te rothe Hauptschild enthält den goldenen Reichsapfel, wegen des Erztruchsestenamts. Diese 3. Haupts- childe werden von dem Kurhute bedeckt, und von der Kelte des St. Georgen und St. Hubertordens und des goldenen Bliesses umgeben ; und von 2. Löwen gehalten.
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The. Pennsylvania-German Society.
of them must have been of a character to daunt the courage of even the stout-hearted dwellers along the Rhine. We only know that these people continued to pour into the province for more than a century in spite of all the draw- backs that were presenting themselves during all that time.
Although the first large colony of German immigrants to cross the ocean, and that suffered excessive losses on the voyage, did not come to Pennsylvania, it nevertheless deserves special mention here, because it was the largest single body of colonists that ever reached America, and because many of its members eventually found their way into the valleys of the Swatara and Tulpeh ocken. It was the colony sent to the State of New York at the request of Governor Hunter, who happened to be in England when the great German Exodus to London occurred, in 1709. Even the members of this early colony were re- demptioners, in fact if not in name. They contracted to repay the British government the expenses incurred in sending them over. They were called "Servants to the Crown." After they had discharged their obligations, they were to receive five pounds each and every family forty acres of land.
Three thousand and more of these people were em- barked in midwinter for New York. The exact date is unknown. It was probably some time during the month of January, 1710. The diarist Luttrell says, under date of De- cember 28, 1709, " Colonel Hunter designs, next week to embark for his government at New York, and most of the Palatines remaining here goe with him to people that col- ony." Conrad Weiser, who was among them, wrote at a late period of his life that " About Christmas-day (1709) we embarked, and ten ship loads with about 4,000 souls were sent to America." Weiser was a lad of thirteen
855
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Governor Hunter's Colonists.
years at the time, and wrote from recollection many years after. As he was wrong in the number who set sail, so he no doubt was as to the time of embarcation. These 3,000 persons of both sexes and all ages were crowded into ten ships. No official register of them is known. The vessels were small and as about 300 persons were crowded into each one, the voyage was a dreary one. By the middle of June sever. of the ships had made land ; the latest did not arrive until near the close of July-a five months' voyage, and one, the Herbert, did not come at all, hav- ing been cast ashore on Long Island and lost. The deaths during the voyage were "above 470," writes Governor Hunter, but other authorities place them at a far higher number. Conrad Weiser, in his old age and without actual data for his estimate, places the loss at 1,700, which is much too high. The best authorities place the number at 859, showing a mortality of more than 25 per cent. Boehme states that "Of some families neither parents nor children survive." Eighty SEAL OF GERMAN- TOWN. are said to have died on a single ship, with most of the living ill. It deserves also to be stated that the children of these maltreated immigrants were by order of Governor Hunter apprenticed among the colonists, which act was bitterly resented by the parents. It was one of the first of the long series of wrongs that befell them. It was no doubt the sorrowful experience of these ten ship- loads of Germans that thereafter turned all the immigrants towards Pennsylvania. But one more ship with Palatines went to New York, and that was in 1772. It is even pos- sible this ship was carried out of its course and made port at New York instead of Philadelphia.
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Christopher Saur in his first letter to Governor Morris asserts that in a single year two thousand German immi- grants found ocean burial while on their way to Pennsyl- vania.
Caspar Wistar wrote in 1732: " Last year a ship was twenty-four weeks at sea, and of the 150 passengers on board thereof, more than 100 died of hunger and privation, and the survivors were imprisoned and compelled to pay the entire passage-money for themselves and the deceased. In this year 10 ships arrived in Philadelphia with 5,000 passengers. One ship was seventeen weeks at sea and about 60 passengers thereof died."
Christopher Saur in 1758 estimated that 2,000 of the passengers on the fifteen ships that arrived that year, died during the voyage.
Johann Heinrich Keppele, who afterwards became the first president of the German Society of Pennsylvania, says in his diary that of the 312 72 passengers on board the ship in which he came over, 250 died during the voyage.
But it must not be supposed that all ships carrying immi- grants encountered the appalling losses we have mentioned. In 1748 I find this in Saur's paper : " Seven ships loaded with German immigrants left Rotterdam; of these three have arrived in Philadelphia, making the passage from port to port in 31 days, all fresh and well so far as we know. They were also humanely treated on the voyage."
A ship that left Europe in December, 1738, with 400 Palatines, was wrecked on the coast of Block Island. All save 105 had previously died and fifteen of those who landed also died after landing, making a loss of seventy- seven per cent.
A vessel that reached the port of Philadelphia in 1745, landed only 50 survivors out of a total of 400 souls that
26I
Mortality on Ship-board.
had sailed away from Europe. In this case starvation was the principal cause of the appalling mortality.
In 1754, the sexton of the Stranger's Burying Ground in Philadelphia, testified under oath that he had buried 253 Palatines up to November 14th, to which " six or eight more should be added." It seems the diseases con- tracted on ship-board followed them long after they reached Phil- adelphia. 150
In February, 1745, Saur said in his news- paper : " Another ship arrived in Philadelphia with Germans. It is said she left port with 400 souls and that there are now not many more than 50 left alive."
" On the 26th of December, 1738, a ship AN OLD TAR BUCKET, SUCH AS WAS AL- WAYS CARRIED BY THE CONE- STOGA WAGONS. of three hundred tons was wrecked on Block Island, near the coast of the State of Rhode Island. This ship sailed from Rotterdam in August, 1738, last from Cowes, England. John Wanton, the Governor of Rhode Island, sent Mr. Peter Bouse, and others, from Newport, to Block Island, to see how matters were. On the 19th of January, 1739, they returned to Newport, R. I., reporting that the ship was commanded by Capt. Geo. Long, that he died on the inward passage, and that the mate then took
150 Colonial Records, Vol. VI., p. 173.
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The Pennsylvania-German Society.
charge of the ship which had sailed from Rotterdam with 400 Palatines, destined for Philadelphia, that an exceed- ingly malignant fever and flux had prevailed among them, only 105 landing at Block Island, and that by death the number had been further reduced to 90. The chief reason alleged for this great mortality was the bad condition of the water taken in at Rotterdam. It was filled in casks that before had contained white and red wine. The greater part of the goods of the Palatines was lost." 151
It may be stated in this connection that the ship Welcome, on which Penn came over in the fall of 1683, was of 300 tons. The small-pox broke out on board and proved fatal to nearly one-third of those on board. 152
FORMATION OF THE GERMAN SOCIETY.
Despite all the efforts made by private individuals, and the various enactments of the Provincial Assembly, effec- tual and permanent relief was not destined to come in that way. It was not until a united, influential and determined body of men formed themselves into a corporation and set to work at the task before them with a will, that the dawn at last began to break. It was on Christmas day in 1764 that a number of the most influential German residents in Philadelphia met in the Lutheran School House, on Cherry street and organized the "German Society of Pennsyl- vania." It was legally incorporated on September 20, 1787, but it did not wait for that legal recognition to begin its work. Its first president was Johann Heinrich Kep- pele, an opulent and influential merchant of Philadelphia. His efficiency in conducting the affairs of the Society was so clearly recognized that he was annually reelected to the Presidency for a period of seventeen years.
151 Pennsylvania Gazette, February 8, 1739.
152 WATSON'S Annals of Philadelphia, Vol. I., p. 15.
THE PENNSYLVANIA-GERMAN SOCIETY.
1
HENRY KEPPELE.
2
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The Society Actively at Work.
No time was lost in beginning the work mapped out, to do away with the manifold abuses that attended the immi- gration of Germans, to succor the sick and to lend sub- stantial aid to the needy and deserving. The Assembly was at once taken in hand and certain reforms demanded. The matter came up before that body on January 11, 1765, and an act in nine sections, prepared by the Society, was laid before it, in which the rights of immigrants were pro- vided for while on the sea, and safeguarded after their landing. Objections were at once made by prominent merchants who had previously driven a very profit- 36370 able trade in Redemptioners, and .. who saw in the passage of the pro- posed act an end to their iniquitous but profitable traffic ; but it was en- acted into a law despite their pro- tests. Governor John Penn, how- ever, refused to sign the act because SEAL OF THE GERMAN SOCIETY OF PENN- SYLVANIA. it was presented to him on the last day of the session. It has been sus- pected that his principal reason was that he was unwilling to give offense to his many influential English friends whose revenues it was certain would be interfered with.
But the German Society meant business and was not to be turned down by a single rebuff, from whatever source. During the following summer another bill was brought forward, modifying the former one in some particulars. This one was also passed and this time the Governor's sig- nature was added, May 18, 1765. All immigrants who had complaints to make were invited to present them to the Society, which in turn became the champion of these op- pressed people. In 1785 it succeeded in procuring legis-
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The Pennsylvania-German Society.
lation providing for the establishment of a Bureau of Reg- istration, and the appointment of an official who could speak both the German and English languages. Previ- ously the newcomers had been haled before the Mayors of the city, to take the necessary oaths ; yet Seidensticker tells us that from 1700 to 1800 there were only two Mayors of Philadelphia who could speak the German language. For a time, this active and unceasing energy put an end to the most serious complaints, but later they again came to the front, and in 1818 still another act, and a more strict and exacting one, was passed, after which these long-con- tinued wrongs finally disappeared.
The Society was of much assistance in a financial way to the needy immigrants, aiding thousands to better their condition, and on the whole did an untold amount of good. It solicited outside contributions but most of the money ex- pended was contributed by the members themselves. It supplied bread, meat and other good and fresh food to the needy ones, but sometimes the need was even greater than the Society's means would allow. It sent the sick to spe- cial houses and appealed to the authorities whenever an injustice was brought to its notice. But the Society fre- quently had its own troubles with those whom it tried to succor. Its generous deeds sometimes failed to satisfy the wishes and expectations of the newcomers. They looked for more. They expected that the Society would also clear the rough land for them and hand it over to them according to the terms of their contracts with the Newland- ers, which was of course an impossibility. Some also in- sisted that the Society should buy their time, clothe and keep all the old, poor, infirm and sick, and give them a decent burial when dead. 1.53
153 See MUHLENBERG'S letter in Hallische Nachrichten, p. 998.
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An Old Map of the Palatinate.
Frankfurt
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Darmstadt
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NYOMITS
Tersbach
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Durchham Eringenhein
Wackerrinn
Landsunt
20
admitirit
Homburg
Monsieur
Fite Tool
Sta Sheim
TglF& Germersheim
Hilsback
-Landau,
Rohrbach
igheim
Bruchsal
Bergzabern
Rheinischen
Bitsch
Wegetbùng
Bretter
Weissenbur
Hagenbach
Durla&
Lauterburg
tender
S
Seltz
Rastat
Pfaffenhofen
Huppercherm
1685E
Bischireiter
Stollhating
Mabern
Drüsenhein
'PFALZU MITTELRHEIN zur Zeit der französischen Invasionen - 1674 und 1689/90.
STRASSBURG
Satsback
Maisstab 1: 1.800.000
Molsheim Ductsiein
€ 1674 a 1089,50 zerstörte Orte
MAP OF THE PALATINATE IN 1690.
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-
H.
Deutsche Meilen. LE~1º
25
Ettlingen
Pforzhei
Hagenau F.Louis
· Sdrick
Eppingen
Zweibrücken
Graber
Enden
Leininger
Heppenheim
Loudentre.3 -I
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Thai
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The Pennsylvania-German Society.
Able men presided over the destinies of the Society. The elder Muhlenberg took a warm interest in it and had advised its organization in the Hallische Nachrichten. Two of his sons were among its presidents; General Peter Muhlenberg in 1788 and also from 1801 to 1807 and his brother Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg from 1789 to 1797, at the same time that he was serving as Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives. The Society has continued its good work down to our own time. It has not only a fine Society Hall, but an excellent library and a very considerable endowment.
Friedrich Kapp gives a single example out of the hun- dreds of cases in which the German Society interfered in the interests of persons and families and saw justice done them. It is the case of one George Martin, who, for him- self, his wife and five children, two of whom were under five years of age and who under the regular custom should be counted as one full freight, contracted with the captain of the ship Minerva to be carried to Pennsylvania for the sum of £9 per head, or £54 for all charges. He advanced forty guilders in Rotterdam, or about $16.66. Martin died on the passage across the ocean. When the rest of the family reached Philadelphia, the three eldest sons were each sold by the captain to five years' service for £30, or £90 in all; the remaining two children under five years of age were disposed of for £10 for the two, in all £100 to pay the £58 agreed upon in the contract. But that was not all ; the forty-six-year-old widow was also sold to five years of servitude for £22. The Society secured the widow's release, but she made no objection to the children paying the passage money in the manner indicated. 154
At the present hour steamship companies are doing
184 FRIEDRICH KAPP, Die Deutschen im Staate New York, p. 219.
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Land for Redemptioners.
just what the individual ship owners did one hundred and fifty years ago. They have their regular agents in Italy, Austria, Germany and Poland, who are painting the old pictures over again, holding up the old attractions and, often in ways far from reputable, securing emigrants to fill their coffers. In this way we can easily account for the 500,000 persons who have come to this country during the present year. Before the Chinese exclusion law was passed, thousands of those people were brought here by syndicates and their services sold to those who would have them. The Padrone system which prevails among the Italian immigrants of the poorer classes is also little else than a revival of the old-time methods that prevailed in the goodly Province of Pennsylvania during the period under consideration. As practiced now it is shorn of its worst features by the humanity of the times, but the underlying principles are not widely different.
LAND PROVIDED FOR REDEMPTIONERS.
At some time, and somewhere, either by written page or verbal declaration, it was decreed that bond servants should receive at the expiration of their term of service, fifty acres of land from the Proprietary Government at the exceed- ingly low annual quit rent of two shillings, or about one cent per acre. Nothing in the various regulations and laws prescribed for the government of the Province was more generous and wise than that. It was designed to give the newly freed man an opportunity with every other immigrant to get a good start in life. It cast behind what the man had previously been and recognized him as a free man, entitled to all the rights and privileges of full citizenship. His quit rent was to be only one-half that
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The Pennsylvania-German Society.
which his former master was required to pay. In short, the fullest opportunity was given him to repair his fortunes if his industry and thrift so inclined him.
But all my researches to trace the origin of this practice of bestowing these fifty acres of land upon bond servants, have been unavailing. There are many allusions to it scattered throughout the laws regulating the affairs of the Province, as well as among more recent writers, but it is always alluded to as an already existing law. The original decree or place of record is nowhere revealed. For in- stance, in Penn's "Conditions and Concessions" the seventh section reads as follows : "That for every Fifty Acres that shall be allotted to a Servant at the End of his Service, his Quitrent shall be Two Shillings per An- num, and the Master or Owner of the Servant, when he shall take up the other Fifty Acres, his Quitrent shall be Four Shil- lings by the Year, or if the Master of the Servant (by rea- son in the Indentures he is so obliged to do) allot out to the GOURD FOR SEINE FLOAT. Servant Fifty Acres in his own Division, the said Master shall have on Demand allotted to him from the Governor, the One Hundred Acres at the chief Rent of Six Shillings per Annum." 155 Grahame
155 " Certain Conditions and Concessions agreed upon by William Penn, Pro- prietary and Governor of the Province of Pennsylvania, and those who are the Adventurers and Purchasers in the same Province, the Eleventh of July, One Thousand Six Hundred and Eighty One."
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Conditions to Renters.
makes an emphatic declaration about such a law in a para- graph discussing this very article in the " Conditions and Concessions." "' 156
Benjamin Furley, the English Quaker and a life-long friend of Penn, whose principal agent he was for the sale of lands in the newly acquired Province, in a letter to a friend sets forth under date of March 6, 1684, certain ex- planations concerning the conditions granted to settlers. Among other things he has a paragraph relative to
RENTERS.
" To those who have enough money to pay the expense of their passage as well for themselves as for their wives, children, and servants, but upon their arrival have no more money with which to buy lands, the Governor gives full liberty for themselves, their wives, children and servants who are not under the age of sixteen years, whether male or female, each to take fifty acres at an annual rent in per- petuity of an English dernier for each acre, which is less than a Dutch sol. It will be rented to them and to their children in perpetuity the same as if they had bought the said land. For the children and servants after the term of their service will have expired, in order to encourage them to serve faithfully their fathers and masters, the Governor gives them full liberty for themselves and their heirs in per- petuity, to take for each 50 acres, paying only a little an- nual rent of two English shillings (Escalins) for 50 acres, which is less than a farthing for each acre. And they and
156 " To the constitutional frame was appended a code of 40 conditional laws. Among them it proclaimed that the rank and rights of freemen of the Province should accrue to all purchasers of a hundred acres of land : to all ser- vants or bondsmen who at the expiration of their engagements should culti- vate the quota of land (50 acres) allotted to them by law." (GRAHAME'S History of Pennsylvania, pp. 333-334. )
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The Pennsylvania- German Society.
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