USA > Pennsylvania > Pennsylvania: The German influence in its settlement and development, Pat VII > Part 20
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It is true we read of " Servants " or " Redemptioners " who fell into the hands of hard taskmasters. No doubt this was the case. It has been the case since the days of Pharaoh and will continue to be while masters and servants exist upon the earth, and that, most probably, will be until the end of time.
But that was not the rule. I cannot bring myself to believe that they were not mostly exceptional cases.176 It was natural that Germans already in the country and in need of help on their farms, or in whatever occupation they may have been engaged, should have preferred their own coun- trymen. The Germans hold together : it is one of their characteristics, and always has been. The employer pre- ferred one who spoke his own language: who can doubt that? ,That he preferred one from his own dorf or locality is also certain. When such came together it could not have been difficult to strike a bargain. And having thus made their engagement, will it be doubted that the faithful service of the Redemptioner, anxious to free himself and his wife and perhaps his children also, was not appreciated by the master, his own countryman, and perhaps even an acquaint- ance? To doubt kind treatment from the buyer to the bought, under these conditions is to impugn German honor, German kindness, and that German sense of right which we know is always true to eternal instincts. We have reason to know that as a rule the existing conditions worked well. It was also the servitor's privilege to find another master when the one he had was not to his liking ..
176 " These indentured servants were not badly treated either by the Swedes , or the Friends. Their usual term of service was four years, and they received a grant of land, generally fifty acres, at the expiration of the term. The system was originally contrived in Maryland in order to increase the labor of the province, and many of the bond servants were persons of good character, but without means, who sold their services for four or five years in order to secure a passage across the ocean to the new land of promise." (SCHARF & WEST- COTT'S History of Philadelphia, Vol. I., p. 134.)
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The Incentives to Industry.
If these men were poor, they were nevertheless honor- able. It was their bounden duty to comply with their con- tracts. Nothing could be gained by shirking their duties, save trouble. Every one was certain that the day of deliv- erance would come, when he in turn would be an indepen- dent land-owner and entitled to all the rights of citizenship enjoyed by any one. He saw around him, men of standing and character in the community, who had stood on the low- est rung of the social ladder where he himself was then standing. They had attained their position by fulfilling their engagements faithfully. They were an example and their successful careers were an incentive to all who knew them, to also do as they had done. The laws of the Prov- ince made no distinction between him and those above him. He could aspire to anything or any place anyone else had attained. In addition to that, they lent him a helping hand when the hour of his freedom arrived and gave him lands, if he wanted them, on the most favorable terms. . There was every incentive for a " Redemptioner " to make a man of himself if he had the will and ability to do so. And why should he not strive towards that end? His hour, the hour so long awaited, had come at last ; the prize he had set out to reach was now within his grasp; the day of fruition was at hand. He had worked hard, but he had done that in the Fatherland also, done it on scanty rations and without any hope of rising or in any way bettering his position. He had passed that point in his new home. He was a free man. The three, four, or five years had rolled away quickly and he was now master of the situation.
And what had others done? They had become the owners in fee simple of estates that ranged from a hundred to a thousand acres of the best and brightest lands the sun shines on to-day. They had become the owners of estates,
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which in Germany would have entitled them to the highest consideration. In all but name, they had in reality become what the Newlander had promised. Nowhere in all North
A CUSTOM IN THE FATHERLAND.
America was such prosperity seen. It had taken years of honest toil to accomplish this, but it had been done and now the independent owner could sit down, literally as well as figuratively, under his own vine and roof tree with the world's abundance of good things about him.
With such encouragement the " Redeemed "-no longer the " Redemptioner"- had but to go to work for himself as earnestly as he had done for him who had taken him into his family. Generally he was a man in the vigor of life, with many years of good work still in him. There was still ample time to go ahead and improve his condition. Released from the indenture that had held him, with his
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earlier ambition to improve still strong within him, his lot was a hundred fold better and more promising than it had
Kort en klaer ontwerp, bienende tot Een onderling Accoort, O M
en arbepo / onrul en moepe- lictheyt/ban Albetley-hand-merce- lupben te berlichten DOOR
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Volck-planting(onder de protectie vande H: Mo: Heeren Staten Generael der vereenigde Neder-lan. den;en byfonder onder het gunftig gefag van de Achtbare Magiftraten der Stad Amitelre. dam) aen de Zuyt-revier in Nieu-ne- der-land op te rechten; Beftaendein
Land- bouwers, Zee-varende Perfonen, Alderhande noodige Ambachts-luyden, en Meeffers van goede konften en wetenschappen.
SteunenDe op De booz-rechten ban bare nichts baergeben (als hier na bolgt) tot bien epnde verleent.
t'Samen geftelt Don Pieter Cornelifz. Plockboy van Zierck- zee, voor bem felver en endere Lief-bebbers van Nieu-neder-land.
t'Amitercam gebucht bp Otto Barenifz. Smient, Anno 1662"
TITLE-PAGE OF PLOCKHOY'S BOOK. Containing a Scheme for Settlement on the Delaware. 177
177 There is, perhaps, no book or tract relating to the history of Pennsylvania that has greater interest for the student of the early history of the State than the little book whose title-page is given in fac-simile above. It is the first de- scription of the country written by one living there at the time, and who died
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been in his old home. He felt it and he fell to work to make the most of it. German industry and German thrift still accompanied him. The greedy ship-master and the avaricious broker could not rob him of these. With them and the ready assistance that was ever forthcoming on the part of the old master and nearby acquaintances, he started out on his independent career.
The result is well known. He prospered as he deserved to do. His cattle multiplied and the soil failed not to pour forth its abundance. The days of adversity passed away. The era of prosperity took their place, and his early hopes and aspirations were realized. That was the career of thousands." Even though some had in earlier days en- countered unspeakable evils, was not this rich fruition of later years infinitely better than anything that could have fallen to their lot in Germany? There they were not bound to a master by indentures, but necessity compelled them to serve him nevertheless from boyhood until inca- pacitated by age, when the poorhouse received their worn- out frames. He was a servant all his life without any rec- ompense at its close, while his food in the meantime was
within its borders after spending most of his life there. The man was Peter Cornelius Plockhoy, a Dutchman who led a colony of Mennonites to Pennsyl- vania at an unknown period and settled at the Hoorn Kill, several miles below Philadelphia. After having been in existence only a few years, Governor Carr, of New York, sent an expedition up the Delaware, which broke up and dis- persed the little colony. What became of Plockhoy, the founder and leader, there are no records to tell. He, however, wrote and had printed at Amster- dam, in the Dutch language, in 1662, the little tract bearing his name, in which he gives a history of his colony and its people. With the dispersion of his little colony, Plockhoy also disappeared, and it was not until 1694, when aged, blind and destitute, he, with his wife, reached the Mennonite settlement at Germantown, where kind and willing friends built him a house, planted him a garden, and where he died. There is not a more pathetic story connected with the history of our State than this one of poor Plockhoy. His little tract is of excessive rarity, the only copy in Pennsylvania being in the library of Judge Pennypacker, of Philadelphia.
See Proceedings of the Pennsylvania-German Society, Vol. II., p. 34.
THE PENNSYLVANIA-GERMAN SOCIETY.
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FRANKLIN COLLEGE, 1787.
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Fame and Fortune Awaited Many.
that of the poor laborer, poor in kind and scant in quantity. Surely, we cannot contrast such an existence with that passed by his fellow laborer, Redemptioner though he was, in the welcoming breezes of Pennsylvania.
Thousands of them achieved both fame and fortune. Often, if he was a good man and true, he married his quondam owner's daughter, and with her got back part of the riches his years of honorable servitude had helped to create. Among his own countrymen he lost no caste by reason of his service. Why should he? In the world around him one-half his fellows were working as hard as he to repay borrowed money or to pay for lands or other valuables they had purchased. He too was paying a debt voluntarily incurred and there was no disgrace attached to it.
Our early history is filled with the story of Redemp- tioners who grew rich by their honest toil and left honor- able names to their descendants. I have at this moment an autobiographical sketch lying before me, written by one of these people. He came to the town where I was born, and for nearly half a century lived within easy speaking distance of my own home. He was well educated. He was honest and faithful. The community honored him with public office, while his enterprise, energy and thrift brought him a large estate. He founded a family and his descendants to-day are honorable and honored, the wealth- iest people in the community. 178 These are things we
178 So few Redemptioners, so far as I have ascertained, left records of their careers, that I am tempted to throw in the form of a note a part of what the one spoken of above says of himself. After telling of his birth at Diedelsheim, in the Palatinate, on January 16, 1750, he proceeds to relate that his father was a Lutheran clergyman and his mother the daughter of another also; who the sponsors at his baptism were, all of which were furnished to him by his pas- tor when he left Germany. He then says :
"My beloved father died in the year -, at the age of 57 : my beloved
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must not forget in passing judgment upon this man traffic. Common fairness demands it. It rescued thousands from lives of poorly requited toil and placed them where their labor met with its proper reward. Instead of remaining hewers of wood and drawers of water until life's close, they were placed in conditions where the results of their
mother departed this life in the year 1760. Even in my tender youth, no expense and pains were spared upon my education by my parents. My father had me not only attend church and hear the word of God, but also diligently attend school. I was also sent to a Latin school from my 6th to my 13th year, that with this and an acquaintance with other necessary branches of knowledge, I might the better get along in the world. For the parental love and faithful- ness I experienced, may the great God reward my parents before the throne of the Lamb in Heaven.
"After my father found me qualified to renew my baptismal covenant by a public profession of my faith, I was confirmed in the 13th year of my age, and received for the first time the Lord's Supper. Soon after I expressed my wish to learn the mercantile profession, to which my father gave his consent. I then served a four years apprenticeship in the city of Stuttgart with Mr. Barn- hard Fredk. Behruger. After this I went to Heidelberg where I was in the employ of John W. Godelman for two years. From thence I went to Manitz and entered the celebrated house of John George Gontzinger.
"In order to learn more of the world and to improve my fortune, I resolved to travel to Holland, with the hope of finding employment in some large com merical house. My undertaking was unsuccessful, and this contributed to my coming to America, for as I saw no prospect of getting employment in Holland and did not wish to return to my native land, the way to America was prepared. I crossed the ocean in the ship Minerva, Capt. Arnold, and landed in Phila- delphia on Sept. 20, 1771. I had to content myself with the circumstances in which I then was, and with the ways of the country, which it is true, were not very agreeable. I was under the necessity of hiring myself to Benjamin Davids, an inn-keeper, for three years and nine months. My situation was unpleasant, for my employment did not correspond with that to which I had been accustomed from my youth, in my fatherland. In the course of nine months my hard service ended, for with the aid of good friends, I found means in a becoming way to leave Davids, for the employ of Messrs. Miles & Wistar, where I remained three years and six months."
The foregoing narrative shows how difficult it was, even at that early day, to secure honorable, remunerative employment in the Fatherland. Here was a young man, well born, well nurtured, of good education, trained to business, and yet after serving four years at service in a mercantile house, could find no employment either in his own land or in Holland. As a last resort he came to America. His career answers my argument affirmatively that, despite his three years and nine months of unwelcome service, it was the best thing he could do. It is very certain that he never regretted it.
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One's Birthplace a Pleasant Memory.
work went to reward themselves. Not one of all this vast multitude, could their views have been ascertained, would have preferred the old hum-drum life of the Fatherland with its many trials and few rewards to the newer life, the freer air, the more generous living and less oppressive bur- dens they found in the pleasant land of Pennsylvania.
THE MORRIS HOUSE IN GERMANTOWN. Where Washington lived in 1793.
At this distant day we can hardly realize all the un- toward circumstances and conditions that fell into the lives of these sons of the Fatherland-these children of misfor- tune and of want. It has been said man must be born somewhere; it is true, and wherever that somewhere may be, that spot, though it be the bleakest on all the earth, will live in his memory forever, and cost him many a pang ere he becomes reconciled to new conditions.
To leave home and friends and country is a trial under
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even the most favorable circumstances. To leave them, penniless, with the future all doubt and uncertainty, but with a full knowledge that a life of toil, hard and unremitting, with perhaps nothing better at the end of it, is as dreary a prospect as can shadow any life.
Thousands of them, after spending many years in freeing themselves and their loved ones from the clutches of the taskmaster, had to begin life anew on their own account, in the silence and gloom of the forest. Here their remain- ing years were passed, generally with abundance crowning their declining years. They had at last homes and fire- side comforts to leave to those who came after them. The worst for them was now over. True, they had at last at- tained their early hopes, but how much in mind and person had to be endured before the period of fruition arrived. How often in their hours of deepest sadness and gloom the memories of the earlier days in the old home must have forced themselves with overpowering strength upon these sons of sorrow ! Only men and women deeply imbued - with the consolations of religion could have survived it all without following the advice of the Hebrew prophet's wife, to curse God and die.
Out of those olden forests, out of those homes in the valleys and mountain recesses emerged men imbued with the same spirit of freedom and independence that has marked the men of German ancestry during the long ages that have come and gone since Tacitus portrayed their sturdy virtues in his imperishable pages. Centuries of suffering as well as centuries of success were needed to build and mould the German character into what we find it to-day. The crown has come after the cross. Wrong and sorrow and toil were theirs, but through them all they were true to their lineage, and now, when another century
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They Fought a Good Fight.
and a-half has come and gone, the proudest eulogium we can pass upon them and their work is the one we could wish succeeding generations may pronounce upon us :- they fought a good fight, they kept the faith.
" We leave their memory to the hearts that love them ; Their sacrifice shall still remembered be ; The very clouds shall pause in pride above them Who, though in bonds, were free."
RATUS.
UTROQU
PA
Dübendorff
Gun
GENERAL INDEX.
A CT, regulating sale of servants, 161; regulating discharge of servants, 162 ; regulating the con- cealment of servants, 162; regu- lating fees charged by public offi- cials, 163 ; regulating importation of criminal servants, 164.
Action of Massachusetts Legisla- ture, 64.
Acts relative to Provincial servants, 158, 159, 160, 161.
Agriculturists, well educated, 135. All immigrants at first called Pala- tines, 53. Ambler, Capt. Nathaniel, 204. American Historical Association, 230.
American Weekly Mercury, 200, 201, 202.
Amsterdam, experience of immi- grants in, 176.
An age of loyalty to rulers and law, 294.
Annapolis, 277, 280; immigration through port of, 281.
Antigua, island of, 208.
Application for naturalization in 1721, 90.
Appropriation of {1,000 for pest- house, in 1750, 87.
Argyle, the ship, 203.
Arms, of Sweden, 10; of Holy Roman Empire, 13; of the Printers' Guild, 14; of William Penn, 17 ; of George Ross, 271. .
Armstrong, Captain of ship Rachel, 88.
Arrivals of ships in 44 years, 43. Asking the Governor's Assistance, 6. Asylum for distressed Protestants of the Palatinate, 115.
Attempted explanation of Immigra- tion, 296.
Author's estimate of the German population, 100.
Autobiography of F. S., a Redemp- tioner-became a citizen of stand- ing and fortune, 312.
Average tonnage of immigrant ships, 48.
B AILEY'S ALMANAC, cover of, 295.
Baltimore American quoted, 277- 280.
Baltimore, Lord, derives ideas for his colony from Virginia, 150.
Bancroft's History quoted, 95, 125, 225, 287, 289.
Bär, Abraham, mentioned, 207. Beach, Captain, of the Ship Francis and Elizabeth, 87.
Berichte, Saur's German news- paper, 200, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 211, 211.
Berkeley, Bishop, in America and his prophetic vision, 75.
Berks county spoken of, 94.
Best time for making voyage, 28. Bill for visiting infected vessels, 86.
(316)
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General Index.
Bill of Naturalization passed in | Changes in a century, 292. 1729, 90.
Bleeker, Capt. H. H., mentioned, 277. Blue Anchor Tavern, sketch of, 282. Blue Mountains, murders along them by the Indians, 95.
Bolte, Mr., ship broker, 277.
Bom, Cornelius, his tract on Penn- sylvania spoken of, 20.
Bond, Dr. Thomas, Port Physician presents certificate, 87; letter from, 230.
Bongarden, Philip, mentioned, 65. Bradford's Journal quoted, 212.
Bristol Merchant, the ship, 220. Britannia, the ship, 212-213.
British Consul, letter from, 229. Bruce's History of Virginia quoted, 289.
Brumbaugh, M. G., History of the German Brethren mentioned, 303. Budd, Thomas, his history of Penn- sylvania and New Jersey, 47 ; his booklet on Pennsylvania, 20. Bureau of Registration secured by legal enactment, 264.
C APTAINS of ships never reported number of dead passengers, 61. Carolina spoken of, 210.
Carpenter, Samuel, 8.
Case of the ship Love and Unity, 61. Catholics from Ireland sold, 225. Causes of immigration well under- stood now, 14; hope of bettering their condition, 298; conditions of life hard in the Fatherland, 298; abundance of food, 297; provisions cheap, meat plenty and game of all kinds on hand, 297.
Certificates, Redemptioners', 220, 234.
Charleston, S. C., spoken of, 210. Chests of immigrants robbed, 60 ; left behind intentionally, 250; broken open, 251.
Children allowed to assume parents' debts, 181 ; apprenticed in New York, 259 ; kidnapped in London, 287.
Chinese exclusion law referred to, 267.
Classis of Amsterdam written to, 105.
Claypole, James, appointed Regis- ter, 219.
Cloister Building, the Saal, 226.
Collinson, Peter, letter written to him by Franklin, 108.
Colonial Entry Book, 289.
Colonial History of New York quoted, 104.
Colonial Records of Pennsylvania, quoted, 36, 78, 85, 86, 87, 88, 93, 115, 245, 261.
Colonists needed, 16.
Columbus mentioned, 15.
Conestoga Manor spoken of, 232 ; settled by well-to-do Germans, I42 ; farmers' teams and wagons, 93
Conoy township settled by Scotch- Irish, 133.
Convicts sent over by the mayor of Dublin, 53.
Cost of journey to Pennsylvania, 180.
Cowes, Leith, Deal and London points of departure for ships, 48. Coxe, Tench, mentioned, 19. Crefeld Colony, 32.
Crefelders settle at Germantown, Io; not the only Germans around Philadelphia, 105.
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General Index.
Cromwell's prisoners sent to Amer- ica and sold as Redemptioners, 119. Cumberland county settled by
Scotch-Irish, 119.
DA ANGERS in wait for early set- tlers, 304.
Dauphin county receives settlers, 92. Deficient food and drink, 55.
Delaware, Penn's government on banks of, 142.
Desire for lands, 94.
Dickinson, Jonathan, letter by, 33. Discomforts of voyage, 55.
Diseases contracted on voyage, 257, 258, 259, 260.
Dislike of New York, 30.
Dissension over laws concerning Re- demptioners, 155.
Donegal township settled by Scotch- Irish, 133.
Dübendorffer, John and Alexander, arrive, 41.
Dunbar, Cromwell at, 288.
Dutch and German probably spoken by Penn, 16.
FARLIEST Germans left no per- manent settlements, IO.
Early provincial records reason- ably complete, 8.
Ebb and flow of immigration, 44. Ebeling estimates German popula- tion of Pennsylvania, 99.
Eby, Benjamin, history quoted, 33. Efforts, to establish a hospital in Philadelphia in 1738, 77; of im- migrants to secure naturalization, 89.
Egan, Barney, letter to, by Charles Marshall, 226.
Eickhoff, earliest reference to traffic in Redemptioners, 172.
Eickhoff, Anton, quoted, 173. Embarkation of 3,000 Germans for New York, 258.
Endeavor, name of ship, 219. Endless chain, as applied to Ger- man land titles, 128.
English as Redemptioners, 218.
Ephrata community, mystic seal of, 231.
Errors in regard to German popu- lation, 117.
Every writer condemns traffic in Redemptioners, 299.
Excessive mortality on shipboard, 55
Exodus, German, to England men- tioned, 258.
Extent of German immigration not realized at first, II.
Extract from Franklin's German paper, 65.
Eyers, Capt., mentioned, 37.
FAC-SIMILE of title of Penn's letters to the Society of Free traders, 35 ; also of Brief Account, 23 ; of Trappe Records, 301.
Falkner, Daniel, arrives in 1700, 20 ; his "Curiouse Information " Tract, 20; his continuation of Thomas' book, III.
Families separated by sale, 182.
Favorable accounts sent home con- cerning Pennsylvania, 33, 240.
Few German arrivals between 1783- 1789, 49.
Fiery Cross of the Highlands spoken of, 15.
Fifty acres of land allotted to Re- demptioners, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 272.
Fifty thousand convicts sent to America, 287.
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General Index.
First book written in Pennsylvania about Pennsylvania, 309.
First German settlers in Penn- sylvania, II.
Fisher, Joshua & Sons mentioned, 212, 213.
Fisher's Island purchased for a quarantine station and hospital in 1742, for £1,700, 86; name changed to Province Island and later to State Island, 87.
Fiske, John, historian, quoted, 287. Five ship-loads of Germans arrive in 1727, 42.
Fletcher, Governor, quoted, 105.
Formation of the German Society of Pennsylvania in 1764, 264.
Forty shillings head tax on aliens, 42.
Frankfort Land Company, 19.
Franklin, Dr., alarmed by great German immigration speaks ill of them, 107, 114; makes estimate of the German population of the Province, 99.
Frederick county, Md., spoken of, 276.
Freiheits Kleidung, 212.
French and Indian War stops immi- gration, 39-44.
French immigrants arrive in Penn- sylvania, 64; action of the Legisla- ture to support them, 64.
Frey, Heinrich, here before Penn, 106.
Fulton township still farmed by Scotch-Irish, 134.
Furley, Benjamin, Penn's agent, de- serving of honor, 16; sells lands for Penn, 19, 269.
Further estimates of the German population of Pennsylvania, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104.
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