USA > Pennsylvania > Pennsylvania: The German influence in its settlement and development, Pat VII > Part 7
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The Frontiers Defended by Germans.
est. The fatness of the land they knew was greatest where trees were largest and stood thickest. The mightiest forests fell at the resounding blows of the woodman's axe, even as the arch enemy of mankind shrunk at the potent thrust of Ithurial's spear. Their presence was manifested in every fertile valley. Wherever a cool spring burst from the earth, on every green hillside and in the depths of the forest, their modest homes appeared. The traditional pol- icy of the Proprietary Government also pushed them to the frontiers - the places of danger. Let the truth be told, even as history is to-day writing it. It is the boast of the historian that so mild and generous was the dealing of the Quaker with the aborigines that " not a drop of Quaker blood was ever shed by an Indian."#3 Shall I tell why? It was because the belt of Quaker settlement was enclosed in a circumference described by a radius of fifty miles from Penn's city on the Delaware. Beyond that point came the sturdy Germans, the Reformed, the Lutherans, the Dunkers, the Mennonites and the Moravians, whose settlements effectually prevented the savages from spilling Quaker blood. Instead, the tomahawk and scalping knife found sheath in the bodies of the sturdy children of the Palatinate. Let the sacrificed lives of more than three hundred men, women and children from the Rhine country, who fell along the Blue Mountains between 1754 and 1763, give the true answer to the Quaker boast."
There were many entire settlements throughout eastern Pennsylvania as early as 1750 where no language but the German was heard. They went to the north, the south, and to the west. Soon they reached the Appalachian chain of mountains, climbed its wooded sides and de-
43 BANCROFT'S United States, Vol. II., p. 383.
44 RUPP'S Thirty Thousand Names, p. 17.
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bouched into the wild regions beyond until the Ohio was in sight. But on, still on, went that resistless army of Commonwealth-builders. To-day they are spread over the fairest and most fertile lands of the great West. Ohio, In- diana, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and other states, the entire continent in fact, count among the best of their citizens the men who went out of Pennsylvania with Luther's bible in their hands and the language of Schiller and Goethe upon their lips. Wherever they went their fervent but unobtrusive piety went with them. As early as 1750 there were already forty well-established German Reformed and thirty Lutheran congregations in Pennsyl- vania.45 Of the minor church organizations, or rather of those who had no such organizations, " the sect people," like the Mennonites, the Dunkers, Schwenkfelders and many more, we cannot speak. In the aggregate they were very numerous and in their quiet way brought credit on their country and on their lineage, wherever they located themselves ; and all that was said of them at that early period attaches to them to-day.
45 OSWALD SEIDENSTICKER'S Bilder aus der Deutsch-pennsylvanischen Geschichte, Vol. II., p. 254.
الأسخاصلــ
CHAPTER IX.
THE GERMAN POPULATION OF PENNSYLVANIA AS ESTIMATED BY VARIOUS WRITERS AT VARIOUS EPOCHS. - OFTEN MERE GUESSES. - BETTER MEANS OF REACHING CLOSE RESULTS NOW. - SOME SOURCES OF INCREASE NOT GENERALLY CON- SIDERED.
"Ay, call it holy ground, The soil where first they trod ; They left unstained what there they found Freedom to worship God."
O mighty oaks centennial, On field and fell that stand ; Keep watch and ward perennial Above that faithful band.
OW many Germans came to Pennsylvania during the eighteenth century? That query will probably occur to many read- ers, because it is one of the most interesting of all the questions con- nected with this subject. In the absence of direct and indisputable evidence every effort to solve the problem must of necessity be in the nature of an approximation, or if you will, only a guess. A score of writers have tried (97) -
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their hands at the problem, and their guesses are as various as the writers themselves. In fact, these estimates are hopelessly discordant and some of them are here given that the reader may understand the situation and exercise his own judgment in the matter from the evidence that has been laid before him in the course of this narration.
Sypher, for example, says "in 1727, nearly 50,000 per- sons, mostly Germans, had found a new home in Pennsyl- vania," " which I venture to think exaggerates the number at that time so far as the Germans are concerned. Dr. Charles J. Stille has estimated the population of the State in 1740, at 100,000, and he adds, " of the inhabitants of the Province one-fourth or one-fifth were Quakers, about one-half Germans and the rest emigrants from the North of Ireland."47 Governor Thomas, who ought to be good authority, expressed the opinion that in 1747 the population numbered 120,000 of which three-fifths or 72,000 were Germans. I find an estimate in the Colonial Records, on what authority is not stated, which gives the population at 220,000 in 1747 of which it is said 100,000 were Germans. In 1763, a Committee of which Benjamin Franklin was chairman, reported to Parliament that 30,000 laborers, ser- vants and redemptioners had come into the Province within twenty years and yet "the price of labor had not diminished." 48 This is an interesting fact and is conclu- sive evidence that nothing was so much needed in the growing Province in those early days as men who knew how to work and were willing to do so. In 1776 Dr. Franklin's estimate was 160,000 colonists of whom one- third or 53,000 were Germans, one-third Quakers and the
46 SYPHER'S History of Pennsylvania, p. 73.
47 STILLÉ'S Life and Times of John Dickinson, pp. 46-47.
48 GORDON'S History of Pennsylvania, p. 273.
THE PENNSYLVANIA-GERMAN SOCIETY.
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DOMESTIC UTENSILS.
WROUGHT IRON CANDLE STICK.
Z FAT LAMP ON BARTHENWARE STAND.
3 WALL SCONCE.
4 PAT LAMP ON PORTABLE BASE.
5 LARD LAMP.
6 CAN POR WARMING LARD.
7 WOODEN LANTERN.
8 TIN CANDLE STICK.
9 FISH OIL LAMP.
10 BUNCH OF SULPHUR STICKS.
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Estimates of the German Population.
rest of other nationalities. Michael Schlatter, the eminent missionary and organizer in the Reformed Church, in 175I gave 190,000 as the total population of Pennsyl- vania, of whom one-third or 63,000 were Germans.
Proud, the historian, who ought to be a very competent authority, estimated the entire population of Pennsylvania in 1770 at 250,000, with the Germans as one-third of that number or 83,000. Menzel, in his history of Germany, informs us that from 1770 to 1791, twenty-four immigrant ships arrived annually at Philadelphia, without reckoning those that landed in other harbors." This is a wholesale exaggeration of the actual facts. This statement indicates the arrival of more than 500 ships during the 21 years mentioned. We know that is more than the total recorded number from 1727 to 1791. From 1771 until 1775 there were only 47 arrivals. There were hardly any German arrivals during the Revolutionary War, and comparatively few from 1783 until 1790. We know there were only 114 in the year 1789. It is easy for historians to fall into error when they draw on their fancy for their facts. According to Ebeling, the German inhabitants of Pennsylvania num- bered 144,660 in the year 1790.50 Seidensticker gives the inhabitants of the Province in 1752 at 190,000, of which he says about 90,000 were Germans. The Lutherans in 1731 are supposed to have numbered about 17,000 and the German Reformed 15,000.51 In 1742 the number of Ger- mans was given at 100,000 by Hirsching.52 Rev. J. B. Rieger estimated the number of Germans in the Province in 1733 at 15,000. In the notes to the Hallische Nach-
49 MENZEL'S History of Germany, Vol. III., Chap. CCLXXIV.
50 EBELING, Beschreibung der Erde, Abtheilung, Pennsylvanien.
51 OSWALD SEIDENSTICKER, Geschichte der Deutschen Gesellschaft von Pennsylvanien, S. 18.
52 HIRSCHING, Histor. Literar. Handbuch VII., 230.
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richten, we find this: "If we estimate the Germans of Pennsylvania, at the middle of the eighteenth century, at from 70,000 to 80,000, we shall not be far out of the way." 53
Franz Löher, in his Geschichte und Zustände der Deutschen in Amerika, has some interesting remarks on this subject.54
Amid this multiplicity of estimates the writer of to-day is reluctant to enter the field with some of his own. The observant men who lived here between 1725 and 1775, should certainly have been more capable of forming an accurate estimate than those who came a century or more after them. But it is evident that many made mere guesses, without actual knowledge, and their views are, therefore, without special value. The tendency in almost every case was to exaggerate. But to-day we know with tolerable accuracy the number of ships that reached Philadelphia, and have the ship lists. We know, too,
53 Hallische Nachrichten, Vol. I., p. 463.
54 Löher says : "There was hardly a single year between 1720 and 1727 that a large number of ships bearing German immigrants did not arrive in Phila- delphia, and even greater numbers came between 1730 and 1742 (Hallische Nachrichten, 665-668). Already in 1742, the number of Germans in Pennsyl- vania was estimated at 100,000 (HIRSCHING'S History of Literature). Eight years later (1750) it was thought the number was well nigh 230,000. Still other estimates give the number in 1732 at 30,000, and in 1763 at 280,000 ( Grahame History of Pennsylvania, Vol. II., p. 514. Holmes', Vol. I., 554; II., 142). Philadelphia had in 1749 six English and four German Churches. * * * From 1740 on, thousands of Germans landed in Philadelphia every fall. In 1749 alone 25 ships reached that port with 7,049 ; others say 12,000 ( Hallische Nach- richten, 369. Grahame, Vol. II., p. 201). During the following three years, 1750, 51, 52, also came 6,000 (Hall. Nachrichten, 369. Grahame, II., 201). It is said that in 1759 alone, 22,000 came from Baden, the Palatinate and Wirtenberg (Mittelberger, p. 25). In the terrible famine years of 1771 and 1772 came the greatest number, but, in the succeeding four years, from 20 to 24 ships reached Philadelphia with German immigrants (Halle Nachrichten, 125, 735, 682). In 1771 and 1772, 484 persons left Canton Basel for America (Mittelberger, p. 26)."
Pennsylvania and New Jersey Described. IOI
An Hiftarical and Geographical Account OF THE PROVINCE and COUNTRY OF PENSILVANIA; AND OF Weft-New- Ferfey IN AMERICA.
The Richniefs of the Soil. the Sweetnefs of the Situation the Wholefomnefs of the Air. the Navigable Rivers, and others, the prodigious Encreafe of Corn, the flourithing Condition of. the City of Philadelphia, with the ftately Buildings, and other Improvements there. The Strange Creatures, as Birds, Beafts, Fifhes. and Fowls, with the - feveral forts of Minerals, Purging Waters, and Stones, lately difcovered. The Natives. Aborogmes, their Law guage, Religion, Laws, and Customs ; The firft Planters, the Dutch, Sweeds, and English, with the number of its Inhabitants ; Asalfo a Touch upon George Keith's New Religion, in his fecond Change fince he left the QUAKERS.
With a Map of both Countries.
By GABRIEL THOMAS, who refided there about Fifteen Years.
London, Printed for, and Sold by A. Balduin, at the Oxon Arms in Warwick-Lane, 1698. TITLE-PAGE OF ORIGINAL EDITION OF GABRIEL THOMAS' Account.
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that many were here when the registry law went into op- eration and who go to swell the whole number; that in addition, others came from New York prior to 1700.
In the year 1738 sixteen immigrant ships reached port, bringing from 15 to 349 each, or a total of 3,115. The average per ship was about 200. It is reasonable to sup- pose that was also a fair average for previous and succeed- ing years. Between 1727 and 1750, the latter year and that of 1745 when there were no arrivals not included, there were 134 arrivals of ships of all sizes. Allowing these an average of 200 each, we get as a result 26,800 souls, or an average of about 1,220 annually. As has elsewhere been stated the number of arrivals in 1732 was 2,093, and in 1738, 3,257. In 1728, 1729 and 1730 the arrivals were 390, 243 and 458 respectively, which, of course, counter-balance such big years as 1732 and 1738.
We are in the dark as to the ship arrivals between 1714 and 1727, but the accounts are agreed the number was considerable. I am inclined to accept the Rev. Rieger's estimate of 15,000 in 1727, instead of in 1733, where he places it. That number added to estimated arrivals be- tween 1727 and 1749, both years included, gives us in round numbers about 42,000 in 1750, to which must be added the natural increase which was, perhaps, 5,000 more, or a total German population of 47,000 souls in the Province in 1750. Between 1750 and 1775, both years inclusive (but not counting 1757, '58, '59 and '60, during which there were no arrivals) we have a total of 196 ships in 21 years, which reckoned at the average of 200 to each vessel gives us 39,000 arrivals or rather less than an average of 1,900 yearly. This added to our previous estimate for 1750 gives us with the natural increase fully 90,000 Germans in the Province when the Revolutionary
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German Soldiers who Remained.
war broke out. Indeed, I am inclined to believe the num- ber was nearer 100,000 than 90,000, for these early Ger- mans were noted for their large families. There is, how- ever, considerable unanimity in one particular among most of the authorities, and that is that the Germans at any and every period between 1730 and 1790 constituted about one- third of the total population. This statement is unques- tionably correct as we approach the years nearest the Revolutionary period. The English Quakers and the Welsh had not been coming over in any considerable number, and the same may, perhaps, be said of the Scotch-Irish. The Germans formed the bulk of the immi- grants and necessarily increased their numerical ratio to the total population of the Province which, according to the first census in 1790, was 434,373. Accepting the ratio of one-third being Germans, we get 144,791 as the Ger- man population at that period.
There is still another large increase in the German population of Pennsylvania prior to 1790 which writers do not reckon with, but which must not be left out of our estimates. It is those German soldiers who remained in the State at the close of the Revolutionary War. The number of these men who were sent to America and fought under the banner of George III., was, according to, the best authorities, 29,867.55 Of that number, 17,313 returned to Europe in the autumn of 1783. The number that did not return was 12,554. These have been ac- counted for as follows :
Killed and died of wounds. 1,200
Died of illness and accident 6,354
Deserted 5,000
Total
12,554
55 KAPP'S Soldatenhandel, 2d edition, p. 209; SCHLOZER'S Stats-Anzeigen, VI., pp. 521-522.
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Here we have five thousand men, most of whom re- mained scattered among their countrymen throughout Pennsylvania. The few hundred who perhaps settled in other states were more than made up by those German soldiers who, by agreement with the several German States, enlisted in the English regiments, some of which had recruiting stations at various places along the Rhine, and who were not counted in the financial adjustment of accounts between Great Britain and the German Princes, nor compelled to return to Europe.56
It is well known that during the first quarter of the nine- teenth century the German immigration to this State was well sustained so that probably the Germans and their de- scendants have pretty nearly kept up the percentage of population accorded them by general consent so long as one hundred and fifty years ago.
The opinion seems to prevail very generally that in 1700 all the Germans in Pennsylvania were those who were gathered at the Germantown settlement, along the Wis- sahickon and immediately around Philadelphia. Rupp expressly states that there were only about 200 families of Germans in the Province in 1700. I do not coincide with that view. The colonists which Sweden had begun to send to the Delaware as early as 1638, were not composed of Swedes and Finns only; special privileges were of- fered to Germans and these, too, came along.
An examination of the Colonial History of New York and O'Callagan's Documentary History of New York, shows that a number of settlements had been planted on the Delaware by the City of Amsterdam. Colonies of Mennonites are mentioned as having settled in New York prior to 1657. In a report on the State of
56 See LOWELL'S Hessians, pp. 21-300.
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Mennonite Immigration from New York.
Religion in New York, dated August 5, 1657, addressed to the Classis of Amsterdam, I find this : " At Gravesend, on Long Island, there are Mennonists yea they for the most part reject infant baptism, the Sabbath, the office of preacher and the teachers of God's word, saying that through these have come all sorts of contention into the world. Whenever they meet together one or the other reads something for them."57 I also find that Governor Fletcher, of New York, wrote in 1693 that " more families are daily removing for Pennsylvania and Connecticut to be eased from taxes and detachments." 58 The Rev. John Miller writes in 1696 that "the burdens of the Province (N. Y.) have made two or three hundred families forsake it and remove to Pennsylvania, and Maryland chiefly."59
Here we are told of the migration of as many German families from New York to Pennsylvania prior to 1693, as are credited to all Pennsylvania in the year 1700. I regret that time has not allowed me to examine more fully the documents here mentioned. There are a great num- ber of references in them to Mennonites in New York, and as these disappeared from that colony at an early date, there seems to be abundant reason for believing that they . nearly all found their way into Pennsylvania, swelling the German population to no inconsiderable extent. We un- doubtedly have here a factor which must be reckoned with in any summary we may make of the early population of Pennsylvania.
I am therefore not ready to accept the generally believed statement that the colony of Crefelders who settled at Ger- mantown in 1683 were the only Germans around Philadel- phia at that time. The evidence is scattering but none the
57 Documentary History of New York, Vol. III., p. 69.
58 Colonial History of New York, Vol. IV., p. 55-
59 Ibid., Vol. IV., p. 183.
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less direct. Watson tells us that one Warner had settled at William Grove, two miles beyond the city limits as early as 1658. Also that Jurian Hartsfelder took up 350 acres of land in March, 1676, nearly six years before Penn's ar- rival.60 Pennypacker says he was " a stray Dutchman or German, who had been a deputy Sheriff under Andross in 1676." 61 Rupp tells us that one Heinrich Frey had reached Philadelphia two years before Penn's arrival, and a certain Plattenbach somewhat later.62 There was a large general immigration in 1682, about 30 ships having arrived with settlers.63 We can no more divest ourselves of the belief that there were many Germans among these than we can that there were many Germans among the Swedes and Finns who first came fifty years earlier, because we know Gustavus Adolphus asked the Protestant German princes to allow their subjects to join his own subjects in forming the Swedish set- tlements on the Delaware. Johannes Printz, who succeeded Peter Minnewit as Governor, was a German, a Holsteiner, and he brought with him fifty-four German families, mostly from Pomerania.64 It is a very logical supposition that these were only a portion of the Germans who planted them- selves along the Delaware at various times between 1638 and 1682. When therefore Rupp tells us that there were only about 200 German families in Pennsylvania in 1700, I cannot accept his statement, because I cannot escape the conclusion from all the evidence accessible, that those figures should be increased several hundred per cent. Neither do I doubt that in the fullness of time an abundance of con- firmatory evidence of this view will be forthcoming.
60 WATSON'S Annals of Philadelphia, Vol. I., p. 11.
61 PENNYPACKER'S Settlement of Germantown, p. 19.
62 RUPP'S History of Berks and Lebanon Counties, p. 90.
63 PROUD'S History of Pennsylvania, Vol. I., p. 220.
64 LOUIS P. HENNINGHAUSEN, Esq., The First German Immigrants to North America, p. 20.
CHAPTER X.
THEIR DETRACTORS AND THEIR FRIENDS. - WHAT BOTH PARTIES HAVE SAID. - THE GREAT PHILOSOPHER MIS- TAKEN. - HOW THE PASSING YEARS HAVE BROUGHT ALONG THEIR VINDICATION.
" Vergessen soll die Feindschaft Sein Vergessen dann das Schwert ; Wir wollen uns wie Brüder freu'n- Uns freun an einem Heerd."
"T will hardly be ques- tioned, I suppose, that Benjamin Franklin was the greatest American of the Revolutionary era. He cer- tainly was from a political point of view. Coming into the Province in 1723 and dying in the State in 1790, his residence here covers al- most three-quarters of a cen- tury. He literally grew up with the Province, saw it in almost every phase of its ca- reer, from its earliest struggles until the strong Common- wealth was established, let us hope for all time. The proprietary period was by no means an ideal one. The student of that early time is confronted on almost every
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المكونة
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page of our history by the quarrels and disputes between the Governors of the Province and the Provincial Assem- blies. The former in standing up for the rights of the Penn heirs, and the latter jealous of the rights and inter- ests of the people, presented a condition of turbulence hardly equalled in any of the American colonies.
Franklin was on the spot when the great German immi- gration set in. He saw it all and could hardly help under- standing it. He could not avoid coming in contact with these people. He did, in fact, come into very close and profitable relations with them. For years he owned and conducted the best equipped printing establishment in the Province, if not in the entire country. This brought him into very close business relations with the Germans, for there were many men of high culture among them, who wrote learned books which Franklin printed for them at his establishment. Had he understood the Germans better he might have appre- ciated this more. At all events he seems to have misunder- stood them, and through that misunderstanding to have done them a great wrong. It may not have been willful, but it was, nevertheless, inexcusable.
Other men prominent in affairs, Secretary Logan and some of the early Governors, have had their fling at the German colonists, but they also in time paid ample testi- mony to their excellent qualities. But from none of them came so severe a blow as from Dr. Franklin. Under date of May 9, 1753, he wrote a letter to his friend Peter Col- linson, in which he speaks thus unkindly of these people, the very bon'e and sinew of the great State that was to be :
" I am perfectly of your mind, that measures of great temper are necessary touching the Germans, and I am not without apprehensions, that, through their indiscretion, or ours, or both, great disorders may one day arise among us.
THE PENNSYLVANIA-GERMAN SOCIETY.
TE LIPAND 18.
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BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.
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Franklin's Unjust Tirade.
Those who came hither are generally the most stupid of their own nation, and as ignorance is often attended with great credulity, when knavery would mislead it, and with suspi- cion when honesty would set it right ; and, few of the Eng- lish understand the German language, and so cannot ad- 'dress them either from the press or pulpit, it is almost impossible to remove any prejudices they may entertain. Their clergy have very little influence on the people, who seem to take pleasure in abusing and discharging the min- ister on every trivial occasion. Not being used to liberty, they know not how to make modest use of it. * * They
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are under no restraint from ecclesiastical government ; they behave, however, submissively enough at present to the civil government, which I wish they may continue to do, for I remember when they modestly declined intermeddling with our elections ; but now they come in droves and carry all before them, except in one or two counties.
" Few of their children in the country know English. They import many books from Germany, and of the six printing houses in the Province, two are entirely Ger- man, two half German, half English, and but two are en- tirely English. They have one German newspaper, and one-half German Advertisements intended to be general, are now printed in Dutch (German) and English. The signs in our streets (Philadelphia) have inscriptions in both languages, and some places only in German. They begin, of late, to make all their bonds and other legal instruments in their own language, which (though I think it ought not to be), are allowed in our courts, where the German busi- ness so increases, that there is continued need of interpre- ters, and I suppose in a few years, they will also be neces- sary in the Assembly, to tell one-half of our legislators, what the other half says. In short, unless the stream of
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