USA > Pennsylvania > Pennsylvania: The German influence in its settlement and development, Pat VII > Part 9
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Other Evidence Introduced.
other citizens of the State, by the superior size of their barns, the plain but compact form of their houses, the height of their inclosures, the extent of their orchards, the fertility of their fields, the luxuriance of their meadows, and a general appearance of plenty and neatness in everything that belongs to them."
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I think the eminent professor of the University of Penn- sylvania, of 1789, writing with a thorough knowledge of the German agriculture of his time, may be fairly set against the professor in the same great school, writing in the year 1900, whose statement concerning them is so at variance with the facts, so incorrect and misleading, that the inference is irresistible that he wrote without a due examination of the question.
But we need not rely on Dr. Rush alone for evidence that the Germans were the best farmers in the State, that they were given to enjoyment in agricultural pursuits and that their descendants are to this day keeping up the reputation of their ancestors on the ancestral acres. The evidence is so manifold and so conclusive that I almost feel like making an apology for introducing it.
Watson, the annalist, says the best lands in Lancaster county, and deemed, in general, the finest farms in the State, are those possessed by the German families." 72
Another writer says this :
" The Germans wisely chose some of the best land in the State, where they soon made themselves comfortable, and next grew quietly rich. * The German popula- tion of Pennsylvania, naturally increasing, and augmented by continual accessions from the Fatherland, has since spread over a large portion of the State, still inheriting the
12 WATSON'S Annals of Philadelphia, Vol. II., p. 148.
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economy and prudent foresight of their ancestors, and gen- erally establishing themselves on the most fertile soils." 73
Bancroft, in speaking of the German immigrants to this country, says : "The Germans, especially of the borders of the Rhine, thronged to America in such numbers, that in course of a century, preserving their line of rural life, they appropriated much of the very best land from the Mohawk to the valley of Virginia." 74
EARLY SETTLERS AND THEIR VISITORS.
Rupp bears this testimony : " The Germans were prin- cipally farmers. They depended more upon themselves than upon others. They wielded the mattock, the axe and the maul, and by the power of brawny arms, rooted up the grubs, removed the saplings, felled the majestic oaks,
73 CHARLES B. TREGO, A Geography of Pennsylvania, p. 89.
74 BANCROFT'S United States, Vol. X., pp. 83-84.
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laid low the towering hickory; prostrated, where they grew, the walnut, poplar, chestnut-cleaved such as suited for the purpose, into rails for fences-persevered untiringly until the forest was changed into arable fields." 75
"The Germans," says Proud, " seem more adapted to agriculture and improvements of a wilderness; and the Irish for trade. The Germans soon get estates in this country, where industry and economy are the chief requi- sites to procure them." 76
In the fall of 1856, the Philadelphia Ledger, in reply to some stupid strictures in a New York journal, said : " No one familiar with the German farmers of Pennsylvania, need be told that this (the article referred to) is a stupid and ignorant libel. Its author has either never travelled through our State, or has maliciously misrepresented what he saw. So far from our German farmers being on a level with the serfs of a hundred and fifty years ago, they are vastly in advance of contemporary German or French farmers, or even of English farmers of similar means. On this point we need go no further for authority than to Mr. Munch, who though hostile in politics to our German farmers in general, was forced, during his tour through Pennsylvania, to admit their sterling worth. Mr. Munch is an experienced and practical agriculturist, so that his judgment on such a question is worth that of a score of visionary, ill-informed, prejudiced, disappointed dema- gogues. After eulogizing the picturesque natural features of the landscape of our German counties, praising the ex- cellent taste which has preserved the woods on the hill- sides, and extolling the appearance of the farms, this gen- tleman adds significantly that he found the population of
75 RUPP'S Thirty Thousand Names, p. 11.
76 PROUD'S History of Pennsylvania, Vol. II., p. 274.
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' a genial, solid and respectable stamp, enviably circum- stanced in comparison with the European farmer, and very far his superior in intelligence and morals.' * In many particulars, the German farmers surpass even the people of New England, who, of late, have put in a claim, it would seem to be the ne plus ultra in all things. The German farmers understand, or if they do not understand, they observe the laws of health, better than even the rural population of Massachusetts; and the result is that they are really the finest race of men, physically, to be found within the borders of the United States. To be plain, if some of our crochetty, one-ideaed, dyspeptic, thin, cadaverous, New England brethren would emigrate to our German counties ; follow, for a generation or two, the open-air life of our German farmers; and last of all marry into our vigorous, anti-hypochondriacal German families, they would soon cease to die by such scores of consumption, to complain that there were no longer any healthy women left, and to amuse sensible people with such silly vagaries of Pantheism, or a thousand and one intellectual vagaries which are born of their abnormal physical condition." 77
Still another quotation will be allowed me: "Latterly much has been heard of an ' endless chain,' used in a finan- cial sense. There is an endless chain of another kind in existence among the substantial Germans in the German counties of this State. While many of New England's sons have sold or abandoned their ancient acres and sought new homes in other States, the lands of these first Palatine emigrants still remain in the possession of their descendants, held by ancient indentures, supplemented by
77 Quoted by Rupp in his RUSH's Manners and Customs of the Pennsyl- vania Germans.
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an endless chain of fresh titles from father to son, reach- ing backward to the original patents from Penn." 78
One of our most eminent historians remarks :
" A still larger number of these German exiles found refuge in Pennsylvania, to which colony also many were carried as indentured servants. * It was this immigra- tion which first introduced into America compact bodies of German settlers, and along with them the dogmas and worship of the German Lutheran and German Reformed churches. Constantly supplied with new recruits, and oc- cupying contiguous tracts of territory, the immigrants preserved and have transmitted to our day, especially in Pennsylvania, the German language and German manners. Their industry was remarkable; they took care to settle on fertile lands, and they soon became distinguished as the best farmers in America," 79
A traveller who passed through the Shenandoah Valley during the French and Indian War writes as follows : " The low grounds upon the banks of the Shenandoah River are very rich and fertile. They are chiefly settled by Ger- mans (and Pennsylvania-Germans at that, who went there prior to 1748), who gain a sufficient livelihood by raising stock for the troops, and sending butter down into the lower parts of the country. I could not but reflect with pleasure on the situation of these people, and I think, if there is such a thing as happiness in this life, they enjoy it. Far from the bustle of the world, they live in the most delightful climate and richest soil imaginable. They are
78 F. R. DIFFENDERFFER, The Palatine and Quaker as Commonwealth Builders, pp. 29-30.
The writer has himself, in the fifth generation ploughed and planted, hoed and harvested upon the original tract patented to his great-great-grandsire, by the Penn heirs, in 1734.
79 HILDRETH'S History of the United States, First Series, Vol. II., p. 264.
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everywhere surrounded with beautiful prospects and sylvan scenes ; lofty mountains and transparent streams, falls of water, rich valleys and majestic woods, the whole inter- spersed with an infinite variety of flowering shrubs consti- tute the landscapes surrounding them. They are subject to few diseases, are generally robust and live in perfect liberty. They know no wants, and are acquainted with but few vices. Their inexperience of the elegancies of life precludes any regret that they have not the means of enjoy- ing them ; but they possess what many princes would give
OX YOKE AND THRESHING FLAIL.
half their dominions for-health, contentment, and tran- quility of mind." 80
Dr. Oswald Seidensticker, while living, an honored professor in the University of Pennsylvania, and who has, perhaps, given the German immigration into Pennsylvania as much careful and intelligent study as any one else, has this to say of them as farmers: " Often as the Germans
SO HOWE'S Historical Collections of Virginia, p. 468.
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Their Industry and Piety.
have been spoken of contemptuously in certain matters, that was not valid when urged against them as farmers. The very sight of their farms is sufficient to tell that they are well and carefully managed, providing blessed and happy homes. Their knowledge of properly preparing the soil, of growing fine cattle, and of erecting proper buildings, and their manner of life led the eminent Dr. Rush to study their character and habits and in his book to encourage others to imitate their example." 81
Still another and a recent author writes thus: "In all they did, they were moved thereto by one great, irresistible desire, and that was the love of home. * * Now that they had found this " home," they were content to abide on it and to make of it a very garden spot and horn of plenty for the Province. * * Because the Germans were truly in earnest did they persevere until they have spread abroad over the entire land, supplementing their less stable brethren of other nationalities. Before even the break of day, during the heat of the noontide sun they toiled on, and until its rays had disappeared beneath the western horizon, when darkness made work impossible, and then they sought their needed rest in slumber, but not before each little family had gathered about its altar to sing their hymns of praise and invoke the same Divine blessing upon their future undertaking which had been showered upon their past.
" Other settlers have likewise toiled and struggled, but it may well be asked what other settlers can show an equal result to these Palatine immigrants within the same length of time. Hardly had a decade of time elapsed, when, on all sides, were to be seen flourishing farms, with fields
81 OSWALD SEIDENSTICKER, Bilder aus der Deutsch-pennsylvanischen Geschichte, Vol. II., p. 255.
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of waving grain, orchards laden with fruit, and pastures filled with well-conditioned domestic animals. The tem- porary log house has given place to a two-story stone structure, a most durable, commodious and comfortable home; in place of the shedding, hurriedly erected, now stands the great red barn, upon its stone base, and with its overhanging frame superstructure bursting with plenty ; and everywhere are scattered the many little adjuncts of prosperity and comfort. How well the fathers then built is evidenced by the existence of scores of these buildings, still homelike and inviting as of old." 82
A recent writer, in discussing some changes that have taken place, how German virility and race-tenacity have resulted in the elimination of some peoples and the sub- stitution of themselves, humorously but truly remarks : " Penn attempted to engraft on his English stock other scions, trusting to the virility of his masterful race to pre- serve the English type, but the strong German sap has outworn them all in Lancaster county. The descendants of the early English who own acres of land here to-day are becoming rare. The children of the Scotch-Irish by a kind of natural selection have quit farming and taken to politics and business, and their ancient acres are covered with the big red barns that betoken another kindred. The Welshman has been lost in the shuffle, and the Quaker is marrying the Dutch girl in self defense. So reads the record at the close of the nineteenth century. It has taken almost two hundred years to get there. But 'by their fruits ye shall know them.'" 83
12 REV. M. H. RICHARDS, D.D., Proceedings and Addresses of the Penn- sylvania-German Society, Vol. IX., pp. 413-414.
83 E. K. MARTIN, Esq., Proceedings and Addresses of the Pennsylvania- German Society, Vol. VIII., p. 13.
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THE OLDEST HOUSE IN LANCASTER COUNTY.
THE CHRISTIAN HERR, BUILT 1719.
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Other Nationalities have Disappeared.
Although the foregoing evidence abundantly disproves the absurd statement that the German colonists found less enjoyment in agriculture than other nationalities, the panel of witnesses is by no means exhausted and the testimony could be expanded into a volume. Most of it is from con- temporaneous sources and deals with the question as it stood one hundred or one hundred and fifty years ago. Let us turn from that long-gone time and look at the situa- tion as we find it at this very hour.
I invite the reader to accompany me for a brief interval to Lancaster county, as typical a Pennsylvania region to- day as it was one hundred and fifty years ago. Its earliest settlers were Germans and Swiss Huguenots. They were agriculturists. They bought lands, settled on them, farmed them, and their descendants in the fourth and fifth genera- tions are engaged in the same enjoyable pursuit to-day. Other men also came into the county : Quakers, Scotch- Irish and Welsh, but to-day nineteen twentieths of the more than 10,000 farms in the county are owned and cultivated by the descendants of the early German settlers. The town- ships of East and West Donegal, Conoy, Mt. Joy and por- tions of West Hempfield were settled almost exclusively by the Scotch-Irish. To-day there is not a single farm in
84 The country architecture of Germany as is well known, runs more to durability than ornamentation. The German immigrants brought their old- world building ideas with them. The result is there are to-day many substan- tial stone structures, dwelling houses and barns standing all over the earliest settled portions of the State, whose well-laid walls have bid defiance to the storms of a century and a half, and even more, and are to-day in such a state of preservation as to promise another century or two of life. So far as is known with certainty, the structure shown on the opposite page is the oldest house still standing, erected in Lancaster county. The legend 17 C. H .- H. R. 19, carved on a sandstone forming part of the wall, tells the story of its building. It was erected in 1719, by the Rev. Christian Herr, a minister of the Mennonite church, who came into the country from the Palatinate, in 1709. The house stands several miles south of Lancaster city.
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any of those districts owned and farmed by a Scotch-Irish- man ! In this instance at least, it was " the other fellow" and not the German farmer that did not find enjoyment in his vocation. In the townships of Fulton and Little Brit- ain the settlers were almost exclusively Scotch-Irish ; these have maintained themselves more stubbornly on the an- cestral acres, but in recent years an invasion of German farmers has been steadily encroaching on their ancient do- main, and the fate that has befallen the Donegals seems to be awaiting them also.
Let the man-or men, if there be more than one-who does not believe the German pioneers had pleasure, en- joyment and content on their broad acres, go into that same county of Lancaster and look the landscape over. He will find a territory of unsurpassed fertility-another evidence of the sound agricultural judgment of these peo- ple-yielding as abundantly to-day as when it was virgin, two centuries ago. It has enriched every gen- eration of those who have owned it. There have, of course, been some failures, but the record on the whole, stands unchallenged. Pride of own- ership went hand in hand with agri- cultural skill. The land was treated EARLY PENNSYLVANIA PRINTING PRESS. even as their cattle were, carefully and plentifully. The result is there are no deserted farms and ruined farmhouses, as may be seen all over New England. Even at the present depre- ciated prices for real estate, the farms still sell at $200 and more per acre. Look at the great barns in which their crops are stored and their cattle housed ! Large as they are they are generally inadequate to contain the farm prod-
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ucts, and a dozen grain and hay ricks are built elsewhere on the farm until the grain can be threshed. Nor is the barn the only building besides the dwelling house, on the farm; sheds, stables, and other outhouses are scattered around until the farmer's home resembles a hamlet in itself. All the modern farm machinery, and that too of the best possible type, is there; cunning devices of many kinds that rob labor of half its terrors.
The farmer's house is generally a model of a farmhouse. There are some that have all the best modern accessories- steam heat, gas, electric bells, cemented cellars, and simi- lar improvements. Within, there is not only comfort but luxury-fine furniture, pictures, costly carpets, imported crockery, generally an organ and often a piano. There are books, magazines and newspapers, and much else. The son, and often the sons, have their individual teams, and they use them too. No farmer's outfit in these days is complete without a fine vehicle or two. It may safely be said that there is no spot encompassed by the four seas that hem in this North American continent, nay, none be- neath the blue canopy that overspreads the entire earth, where the agriculturist is better educated, more intelligent in his calling, better fed and clothed and enjoys so many of the luxuries of life as the Lancaster county families in the year of grace, 1900. Go and look at him where he is ; sit at his table and see the fullness thereof, and you will then be able to give a fitting answer to the calumny, born of ignorance, that says the German colonists in Pennsyl- vania did not, and inferentially do not, find that enjoy- ment in agricultural pursuits as the races whose farms they have bought and now own and cultivate.
One paragraph more will be pardoned : the theme is an attractive one and I leave it with reluctance. To under-
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stand fully what these Germans have done for themselves and for the county of Lancaster a few figures may be in- troduced. Being official, and on record they will be ac- cepted. Lancaster county is not one of the large counties of the State or Nation, but it is the richest so far as its agri- cultural wealth and products are concerned of all the three thousand or more within all the States and Territories. For a quarter of a century it has stood at the head of them all in the money value of its agricultural products. The cen- sus of 1890 gives them at $7,657,790. Her nearest com- petitor does not come within a million and a half dollars of equalling it. The assessors' lists for 1899 give the value of her real estate, at the usual low estimate, at $86,796,064 and of her horses and cattle at $1,958,802. Her citizens report $20,802,634 at interest: the real amount is three times that sum. To give even a more condensed idea of what these farmers, who took such little enjoyment in their chosen pursuit, have done to make their county rich, it may be stated that there are at the present moment on this little area of 973 square miles, 26 National Banks, with an aggregate capital of $3,750,000, and deposits aggregating $7,000,000 ; also 3 Trust companies, with large assets, and 7 Building and Loan Associations, controlling large sums of money.
It is aggravating that it should be necessary at this late day to be compelled to enter into a discussion of this sub- ject. But we cannot forget that all the opprobrium and misrepresentation that has been cast upon the Germans of Pennsylvania has long been borne without a protest. The chief offenders during the present century are men who have had no intimate acquaintance with the characteristics of the men whom they falsely deride and abuse. New England has contributed even more than her quota to the
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Germans the Earliest Abolitionists. 137
number of these defamers. Their scurrilous falsehoods have so long gone unchallenged that some have accepted them as truths and reiterated them with all their original fervency. The day for that has gone. The faults and shortcomings of the German pioneers and their descendants were many and obvious. I do not seek to extenuate them in the slightest degree, but I do assert-and the authorities to prove it are legion-that with all their short- comings, they were the peers of any race of men that set its feet upon the Western Hemisphere, and that in every qualification that goes to the making of the highest class of citizenship, they stand at the very forefront to-day.
They brought with them none of the vindictive bigotry that burnt witches and swung Quakers from the scaffold. They at once made their own the doctrines of the broad- minded Penn, that religious and political tolerance were among the natural and inalienable rights of men. The subjects of kings and princes in Europe, they left king- craft behind them and proclaimed the evangel of free- dom in their new home. Let it not be forgotten through all the years, that these people, whom a few historians and a host of inconsequent minor scribblers have denounced and derided as indifferent boors, were nevertheless the first men on the continent of America to denounce the wrong of human slavery and petition for its abolition ; yea, a cen- tury before the sensitive soul of New England even took thought of the subject, while it was still selling Indians and Quakers into West Indian slavery and only forty years after the great celebrity of Massachusetts, Governor Win- throp, disposed of slaves in his will.
The age of the defamer has not gone by, and most prob- ably never will. Like the liar and the thief he will main- tain his footing among men even unto the end. The men
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who have assailed the good name of the German immi- grants to Pennsylvania are, however, in a fair way to die out. The truth confronts their falsehoods at every stage and the latter are borne down in the contest. Even now their numbers are growing fewer and their idle gossip no longer receives credence as history. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the greatest and grandest of all the mem- bers in the Brotherhood of States, confronts them and con- futes their idle tattle, born of misapprehension and igno- rance, and here I may safely leave them.
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ARMS OF GREAT BRITAIN.
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CHAPTER I.
WHO AND WHAT THEY WERE .- A CONDITION BORN OF NE- CESSITY BEYOND THE SEA AND TRANSFERRED TO AMERICA. - THE SEVERAL KINDS OF BOND SERVANTS .- A STRIKING FEATURE IN THE HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
"Haz gala, Sancho, de la humilidad de tu linage, y no te desprecies de decir que vienes de labradores ; por que viendo que no te corres, ninguno se pondrá a correrte."
"Und wenn wir dankbar auch ermessen, Was uns das neue Heim beschied, So können wir doch nie Vergessen Der alten Heimath, Wort und Lied."
HE history of the Germanic im- migration to the Province of Pennsylvania naturally divides itself into two well-defined parts or chap- ters. Of one of these, dealing with the arrival and dispersion of these people, I have endeavored to write with that fullness and exactitude which the importance of the sub- ject deserves, in the earlier part of this work. The other, which re- mains to be taken up, will deal with that portion of these people whose means were scant even at the outset of their journey, and wholly inadequate to
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bear the strain of a long and tedious sea voyage. Who arrived virtually penniless and dependent; who had not been able to pay for their passage across the ocean, and who, upon their arrival, were compelled to barter or sell their personal services for a stated period of time, at a stipulated price, and under prescribed legal regulations, to such of their fellowmen as stood in need of their labor, and who were willing to discharge the debts they had been compelled to incur through their desire to reach this prom- ised land, this modern Eden, a new Canaan in a new world.
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