USA > Pennsylvania > Lancaster County > Report of committee appointed to conduct celebration of 200th anniversary of first permanent white settlement in Lancaster County > Part 2
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They are a people who carry con- science into their daily lives, their business and pursuits. Like our Courts of Equity, the Council was and is always in session, the doors al- ways open. The scoffer of the Men- nonite is either one who has felt by himself or those in whom he was in- terested the hand of the Council or is vincibly ignorant.
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Such, and of such, were your an- cestors. It might be enough that their virtues have lived after them; that their names and blood have been carried down for generations and course in your veins; that the evi- dence of their thrift and industry is here in these broad acres. But, no, their achievement has passed be- yond the possession of their blood. It is history. And the Lancaster County Historical Society, whose work is to mark history, has felt the necessity and taken the liberty of erecting to the memory of your ancestors and their achievement, here, almost on the spot which was the nucleus of the settlement, a fitting monument. We think we have succeeded. It is simple and rugged, this huge boulder of
stone, quarried hereabouts; the story it tells is modestly told; the story it tells is plain. I now present it to you.
Accepted by Hon. J. G. Homsher.
The speech of acceptance on be- half of the descendants was made by Hon. John G. Homsher, of Strasburg, who said:
To me has been assigned the pleas- ant duty to receive for and on behalf of the people this impressive, appro- priate and imperishable memorial, and to bespeak their thanks to the Historical Society.
I believe that I express the senti- ments of the people when I say that this day and this occasion by the Historical Society will bring to us all a greater and fuller realization and appreciation than we have had before of the momentous importance and influence that the lives and character and principles of these first settlers have had upon our own lives and characters, and upon our mater- ial welfare. And that as time goes
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on, and we realize yet more fully what these characteristics have been to us, we will appreciate yet more kindly this happy courtesy of the Historical Society, and will regard this memorial with an ever-increas- ing veneration.
In our happy prosperity, and in the busy duties of our daily lives, we were prone to think too little of how much we owe to them. Our coun- ty is pointed out the world over as its garden spot and fairest domain. There are many other places with land as fertile and climate as fair, but all did not inherit, like us, their pe- culiar traits of character, their in- dustry and their example.
These traits of character and these principles have attracted the atten- tion and admiration of learned and able people far and wide, men and women working together in the com- mon effort to discern from the an- nals of the past and from example true wisdom, as a means to perpetu- ate our welfare and our institutions, and to that end to mark merit where they find it. They recognize in the principles and in the lives and char- acters of these pioneers the elements of true greatness which lie at the very foundation of our exalted pros- perity and progress over all the rest of the world.
Strange it seems to us that the Old World, which has advanced with us in many other respects, in erudition, mechanical skill, science, music and art, still lacks the simple wisdom to promote anything like the happy prosperity these settlers established here two hundred years ago. There are many places in the world to-day where life among the people who work is drudgery and a struggle to get enough to eat.
At no other place in the world are
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the comforts and the luxuries of life so much within the reach of all the people as here.
This is our heritage from them, and we take it, that it is to recognize, impress and perpetuate these prin- ciples of the first settlers,from which has emanated this happy condition that has actuated the Historical So- ciety to commemorate this day and to erect this memorial.
May it stand to us, our children, and our children's children, as a con- stant reminder of their sturdy vir- tues, ever beckoning us on to emu- late their example.
We cannot follow in all their ways. Two hundred years have wrought many changes in customs, modes, forms and manner of living, and the coming years will bring other changes. But principles never change. And so, through all the changes in these things that have come,or that the fu- ture time may bring,let this memorial be a sign to us to ever cling to those principles of religion, industry,equal- ity of man and the dignity of labor as our greatest inheritance and hope for the future.
Members of the Historical Society, you have our thanks, our gratitude, our affection and our friendship. We shall know you better for this day and this occasion. And it is our hope and ardent prayer that we may be wise and able, by adherence to those principles which you recognize by commemorating this day and pre- senting to us this memorial, to ever maintain this fair land still as the garden spot,to hand down to our chil- dren, and, in the words of the benev- olent founder of Pennsylvania, Wil- liam Penn, inscribed in letters of stone, a yard long, as durable as this boulder, around the massive dome of the capitol of our great State, the
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most conspicuous thing in all the splendors of that mighty edifice, as these principles are the most import- ant to our well-being, "THAT AN EX- AMPLE MAY BE SET VP TO THE NATIONS, THAT WE MAY DO THE THING THAT IS TRULY WISE AND JVST."
Address of Acceptance for the Church.
Mr. C. R. Herr, one of the Trus- tees of the Church, on whose prop- erty the exercises were held, then accepted the boulder and tablet for the church in the following address:
Mr. President and Friends :
By a vote passed by the church some time ago, this church left in the hands of its trustees the ques- tion of receiving on their property the marker which you see before you, and, in the capacity of trustees, we now act.
We deem it fitting to receive this stone and tablet to keep in the mem- ory of the coming generations the fact that here the first settlement in our county was located.
They not only began the task of opening up this section to civiliza- tion, but, led by their venerable min- ister, they were the first organized body of men, or church, to begin the worship of God in our county.
Here, then, in the shade of the for- est, among the rocks and running streams they first offered praise and thanksgiving to God for his manifold blessings, and it is doubly fitting that this church, here at this place, hav- ing in its care, land donated by one of those pioneer settlers, and in and under the care of those who have tried to preserve and practice the same faith which their ancestors planted here 200 years, should re- ceive upon its ground this marker.
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It is not to glorify them that we do this, but to place a mark here to remind us, and all who shall look upon this memorial, of their courage, sacrifice and devotion, and that it shall be an inspiration to us to Tive as noble and worthy lives toward God as they did, and to make us ever grateful that, by their sacrifice and through what they did before us, we are enjoying the inheritance and blessings which God in His loving kindness is still extending unto us.
In this spirit, then, not with the object of worshiping any man or body of men, does this church, through its trustees, accept this marker.
To God, and not to man, be all the praise.
Mr. Chairman, president and mem- bers of the Lancaster Historical So- ciety, I now gratefully and formally receive, for the church here repre- sented, this marker.
THE MEMORIAL.
The address of Mr. Herr was fol- lowed by singing "America" by the entire audience standing, after which Bishop N. B. Grubb pronounced the benediction upon the forenoon ses- sion.
The tablet and boulder were then unveiled.
The securing and erecting of the nine-ton boulder and commemorative plate was delegated to a committee consisting of H. Frank Eshleman and J. Aldus Herr, who were ably assist- ed by C. R. Herr, William Gontner and others.
The plate was devised by Mr. Esh- leman from historical documents, etc., and cast by the Monumental Bronze Company, of Bridgeport, Conn. The boulder was quarried by Mr. Aldus Zittle, who lives on the original tract, near Strasburg, and was handled by John H. Myers, his
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foreman, Ard George, managing it. It was hauled by the trolley company and erected by W. Y. Haldy, as- sisted by Messrs. Eshleman, J. Aldus Herr, C. R. Herr and Mr. Gontner. It has been numerously photographed. It occupies a conspicuous position in the center of the front fence of the church yard, close to the public road.
The Recess.
It was then about noon, and the next two hours were spent in taking lunch and in social intercourse and inspection of the historic points con- nected with the ancient tract, prin- cipally about the old Christian Herr house, about 300 yards north of the church, on the farm of David Huber.
THE AFTERNOON SESSION.
The afternoon session began at 2 o'clock. The presiding officer was Hon. John H. Landis, formerly State Senator, and now Superintendent of the United States Mint, Philadelphia. His address was as follows:
My Friends :
Two hundred years ago our fath- ers founded a home here on the fer- tile acres which their descendants have cultivated these many years. The fires of religious persecution drove them from their homes in the Old World. Some of the associates of practically every family of these Swiss Mennonites were either be- headed or burned at the stake. Under the guidance of Almighty God they came to America and made their abode here in the land of Penn, and, remaining true to their faith, they helped found this grond structure of a free Republic. Its material they quarried from the mountain of truth, and its foundation stones they laid broad and deep upon the eternal prin- ciples of right, and as it grew and ex- tended its powers, the result of their
CHRISTIAN HERR HOUSE, ERECTED 1719, OLDEST EDIFICE IN LANCASTER COUNTY.
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courage and their labors inspired and encouraged the hearts and hopes of mankind. They were not only among the first to come to these shores to found an asylum for the oppressed, where all nations could come to wor- ship God and breathe the pure air of religious freedom, but, after estab- lishing their homes, they were the first to protest against the practice of human bondage, and their influ- ence was exerted quietly and unos- tentatiously, until finally their pro- test shook a continent and hastened the dawning of that happy day when human slavery was abolished. Thus they were the pioneers in the cause of human freedom in this country.
We, their children, take pleasure to-day in gathering around the graves of these early settlers, to whom we owe a heavy debt of gratitude, to pay tribute to their memory and to point to the sturdy qualities for which they were noted, as worthy examples for us and our children to emulate.
Ex-Gov. Pennypacker Speaks.
The presiding officer than intro- duced ex-Gov. Pennypacker, who had as his subject, "The Mennonite Influ- ence upon Mankind." As no one, per- haps, is better versed upon this sub- ject than the learned historian, whose contributions to the literature on the Germans are especially rich, his ad- dress was most entertaining.
In opening, he paid a compliment to Mr. Hensel, who secured him for the programme, for his la- bors in getting due recognition for Lancaster county's achievements both at home and abroad. He had been informed, he said, that that remark- able old Herr house is in a decaying condition. It should be preserved as long as Lancaster county lasts,and, if your committee undertakes it, the speaker said he would be glad to
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make a contribution for that purpose. He also referred to what he char- acterized as "the admirable address " delivered at the morning exercises by H. Frank Eshleman, Esq., and, adverting to an incident recited by the latter to the effect that at an election held many years ago in charge of a certain Christian Herr the accusation was made that more ballots were found in the box than there were cast, the ex-Governor de- clared it as his belief that if Chris- tian Herr had charge of the election no ballots were found in the box ex- cept those cast by parties who had the right to do so. Human nature then was very much the same as it is to-day,and those who fought contests at the polls and were defeated were apt to see in the crowds that attend- ed the elections a smaller number than that represented by the ballots in the box. It is always a pleasure to meet with the Mennonites, the ex- Governor continued. They represent that which is solid, substantial and conservative. A great railroad pres- ident, who has amassed a vast for- tune, in a recent speech advised the youth of the cities to go back to the farms. The descendants of the Herrs, and the Mylins and the Ken- digs never left the farms. In these days of hysterical manifestations, when charlatans and irresponsible men go over the country, wandering here and there, assailing their neigh- bors and endeavoring to disrupt our institutions, it is relieving to note this conservative people. And when you listen to the commotion of the other class it is well to observe that all the great forces of nature are si- lent. The oak grows to immense pro- portions, the moon rolls around the earth and the earth around the sun,
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yet neither makes enough noise to waken a sleeping child.
In many respects the Mennonites are the most interesting of all the emigrants who came to America. Cer- tainly their history was the most tragic. Their fathers traced their an- cestry back to some forefather who was either beheaded or burned at the stake. There is presiding over this assembly my distinguished friend,Mr. Landis. Outside, I shook hands with my other friend, the Judge, and in the book which I hold in my hand I find the story of how one, John Lan- dis, was beheaded in 1614. In the "Ausbund," the old German hymn- book, we find an interesting descrip- tion of these old-world Mennonites, as they came down the Rhine to take the boat at Rotterdam for America. They wore heavy wooden shoes, fas- tened with iron and nails. They had long beards and few possessions, but were fond of prayer, and were given to the ways of the Lord. Menno Si- mon was a Dutch Frieslander, but the movement he started did not origin- ate in Holland. It is marvellous how often we note in the history of the world's manifestations great move- ments do not come from the centres of the strong and cultured, but from obscure places and by the uneducat- ed. Caesar was not born in Rome. Napoleon came from an island in the Mediterranean. It is the same in lit- erature. The great books did not all originate in the colleges. Bunyan never saw the inside of a college; Shakespeare was born in a log cabin, and Dickens came out of the slums of London. And so it was that far up the Rhine, among the Swiss peas- ants, about the year 1520, came the great movement teaching the separa- tion of Church and State. The first promulgation of that thought was
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novel. It brought the Mennonites into conflict with both Church and State, yet it is regarded now as the corner-stone of our governmental sys- tem. Some English people joined the Mennonite colony, then returned to England and started the Baptist movement there, and the organization of the Society of Friends. So it came about that when our country was settled two of the original thir- teen States, Rhode Island and Penn- sylvania, owed their origin to the teaching of the Mennonites on the Rhine. But there is a still broader significance,for the Constitution, both of Pennsylvania and the United States, provides that there shall be no interference with freedom of con- science, and thus the Church and State were severed. That idea was not found in Virginia, where the sys- tem was to unite Church and State with the dominancy of the Church of England. Nor did it come from Mas- sachusetts, much as has been said and written about her. Their idea was to found a theocracy. They hang- ed the Quakers and drove Roger Wil- liams beyond the borders. The fun- damental thought at the basis of the United States Government comes from the teaching of the Mennonite peasants on the Upper Rhine.
All then heartily joined in singing "Onward, Christian Soldiers," Ted by Mr. Gochenour, and participated in by the greatly augmented audience of the afternoon.
Dr. John H. Musser's Address.
Dr. John H. Musser,of Philadelphia, scion of a family of noted Lancaster county physicians, himself the most distinguished of them all, occupied the next period on the programme. Dr. Musser was born and raised at Strasburg, and his theme was fitting
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for the occasion, "The Old Home." But a few hours before his arrival upon the scene he landed from an European trip, and, as he expressed it, "had scarcely as yet shaken his sea legs." He arrived, he added, in happy spirit to visit the scenes
01 his childhood, and when he reached Strasburg he felt the full impulse conveyed by the lines of "The Old Oaken Bucket." It would ill become him were he not perfectly willing to testify to the great virtues of his an- cestors. That measure of success which has come to us we owe to them. It may sometimes seem rather mortifying to confess it, but there is no more positive truth than that suc- cess belongs to those who are strong physically, and strong physique can only come from such soil as this on which we stand. To our ancestors we also owe the acquisition of the habit of industry. Personally, the speaker said that the quality of thrift, so characteristic of his people, he did not inherit, and, although he retains in his possession a number of old and rare deeds of Lancaster county land, he does not own a foot of it, and he took occasion while on the platform to produce the deeds and present them publicly to the His- torical Society. One was dated 1711, and was a grant from the Penn Com- missioners. It was in the tenth year of the reign of Queen Anne. From one of the old documents he discov- ered that his grandfather bore the title of "Doctor," and that he prac- ticed medicine in this region.
Address by General John E. Roller.
The concluding address of the af- ternoon was by General John E. Rol- ler, of Harrisonburg, Va., whose subject was: "The Pennsylvania- Germans in Virginia." General
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Roller bore a gallant and con-
spicuous part in the Civil War
in upholding the cause of the
Confederacy. He is a fine type of the old school of Southern gentle- man, and, despite his eighty years, still bears a handsome soldierly fig- ure and robust physique. He is, per- haps, better versed in the absorbing- ly interesting history of the famous Shenandoah Valley than any man living, and, while he adheres with loy- alty and love to his Southern home land, he boasts with pride of his Pennsylvania-German ancestry, and accords to them a fine tribute of praise. He is the President of the Pennsylvania-German Society.
He pictured with eloquent tongue the migration of the Pennsyl- vania host beyond the banks of the Susquehanna, and the Rappahan- nock, through Maryland and Virginia, and to-day in tnose Southern States are encountered again and again fam- ilies bearing the same names as those of the old settlers of Pennsylvania. This stream of population moving to
the South intermingled with the cross-currents of the Scotch-Irish, the Huguenots and the Cavaliers,and this intermingling produced a people whose strength will only be fully re- vealed by the hand of time. A Ger- man, John Lederer, was the first white man to behold the enchanting beauty of the Shenandoah Valley. The rare beauty it possesses, and its in- teresting romances and historical fig- ures were then briefly touched upon by the speaker, who then took up a discussion of the prominent part the Pennsylvania-Germans bore in the Civil War. Many names familiar to Lancaster county, notably Eshleman and Shenk, are found in the records of the Confederacy, where the story of their valor is recited. General
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Roller paid a glowing tribute to these brave spirits. But, despite the cir- cumstances of the past, his love for his country's flag is no less than the most passionate patriot who fought on the side of the North to save it, and he declared that he never makes an address before a body of Confed- erate soldiers that he does not em- brace its folds and call upon them to be unfailing in upholding it.
This ended the afternoon session, and the large audience dispersed. The day was fine and cool, and the frequent rains of the preceding weeks allayed all the dust.
THE EVENING SESSION.
The third session of the day was held in the Court room, the audience entirely filling the same.
W. U. Hensel presided at this meet- ing, which was opened with prayer by Rev. Dr. H. H. Apple. After the prayer Mr. Hensel delivered the fol- lowing address:
Address of Mr. Hensel.
"A geological map of Lancaster county is something more than a parti-colored diagram. Our soil pre- sents as great a variety of elements as our racial history presents differ- ences of blood and our religion ex- hibits diversity of sects. Under the sheltering roof of the Conewago, the Cornwall and the Brecknock hills there abide a composite citizenship and social life that hold within their settlement and their development a story of rare interest and a picture of many tones.
"Without a severance or breach the great central body of limestone spreads and stretches from Schoe- neck to Safe Harbor, from Bainbridge to the Gap. All along our northern border, from Churchtown to Fal-
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mouth, the old red sandstone proudly raises its defiant head; from Chris- tiana to Conestoga, and from Camar- go to Kirk's Bridge the single strip of limestone that lays itself across the shale and chestnut-covered lands is the slender tongue that extends through the Chester valley. An out- cropping of slate on Turkey Hill and at Peach Bottom; a dash of Potsdam at Chickies winking across the coun- ty to another in Salisbury and East Earl; streaks of serpentine in Little Britain and the red trails of trap from Caernarvon to Fulton and through the boulder fields that lie west of Elizabethtown, attest a fragmentary element that nowhere else appears.
"So, too, it happens that in our so- cial settlement two dominant types stand forth-the German-Swiss Men- nonite on the limestone, and the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians on the thinner lands. The one knew that where the heavy timber grew it took sturdy soil to clear the land, the fer- tile soil would yield rich crops; and the other soon learned that where the clearing of the light timber was easy the soil was thin and its natural yield was correspondingly scant.
"Thus it happened that the great cen- tral limestone belt of Lancaster coun- ty became the heritage of the Penn- sylvania German, and that tenacity and fondness for the soil which Taci- tus praised as the characteristic of the Teuton have kept it for the chil- dren of the settlers to this day.
"We have met to commemorate es- pecially the continuing virtues of this chief and basic element of our coun- ty's composite citizenship. It has not been self-assertive. It has walk- ed in the furrows the fathers plowed two centuries ago, and it has worn the yoke of honest toil for six gen- erations. But, all the while it has sent its sons and colonies through
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all the limestone valleys of Pennsyl- vania, Maryland and Virginia; the trail of its red barn has blazed a path- way across the continent, and its har- vests have woven a golden girdle from the Alleghenies to the Sierras. "It has been well said that a people who have no praise for their ances- try shall find little pride in their pos- terity.
"It is, therefore, a fitting close to this day's celebration, and it is the crown of this day's commemoration, that a descendant of those who came here two hundred years ago -- fil grims of Peace and Pioneers of Pros- perity-should tell you the part the Pennsylvania German 'has played in the story of nations, and how he-the best examplar and the purest blood of the Allemanian race-has contrib- uted to the history of the world. To tell that story, and to establish that claim, I present to you a native of Lancaster county, a scholar and a pa- triot, proud of his county, loyal to his Commonwealth, true to his country, and mindful of all that conserves their right relations-the professor of romance languages in Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn., Os- car Kuhns."
Prof. Kuhns' Address.
It was a scholarly address that Prof. Kuhns delivered upon the "Ethnical Origin of the Pennsylvania Ger- mans." He began by congratulating the committee upon the shining suc- cess of the day's celebration,and,after allusion to the fact that he was born in Columbia and descended from pure Pennsylvania German stock, he launched into a discourse upon the ancient history and derivation of the race.
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