USA > Pennsylvania > York County > The Beginnings of the German Element in York County, Pennsylvania > Part 12
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tending thence westward, passing north of Windsor Post Office and then due southwestward between Dallastown and Red Lion, through the center of Glen Rock and north of Black Rock. It thus includes all of Upper Chance- ford, Lower Chanceford, Hopewell, Fawn and Shrews- bury Townships, the western part of Peach Bottom Town- ship, and parts of Windsor, Lower Windsor, Springfield, Codorus and Manheim Townships. This part of the county constitutes the geological floor upon which the other parts were laid.
These Eozoic rocks are destitute of valuable minerals in York County but the soil formed from them is com- paratively fertile, second only to the fertility of the lime- stone soil. Its composition is generally slaty. It is ca- pable of sustaining heavy timber growths and contains at present large woods of strong trees. When the earliest settlers came to the county there were large tracts in the southeastern part that were bare of all timber. This is accounted for by the Indian custom of burning the trees and other vegetation in certain sections either for the pur- pose of increasing the facilities of hunting or to provide land for the cultivation of beans and corn.9 This Eozoic belt of the county has received in history the uncompli- mentary title of " The Barrens." This was not due to the character of the soil but to the absence of trees in the early days and to the methods of agriculture afterwards employed there.10 The earliest settlers who took up their abodes on
9 Carter and Glossbrenner say that this was done to provide hunting grounds, but it seems more probable that these bare spaces in York County may be accounted for by the general observation of William Penn, " There are also many open places that have been old Indian fields." In a letter written to the Duke of Ormunde in 1683, quoted from Egle's "Notes and Queries " by Swank, "Progressive Pennsylvania," p. 76.
10 Philemon Lloyd says in his letter of October 8, 1722, "But from the
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this belt were unskilled in the art of agriculture and in the proper rotation of crops. They would select a tract of land and put out their crops but by unwise methods of culture would soon drain the soil of its substance. When one tract was exhausted they would desert it and move on to new tracts. Thus in the course of time there came to be a number of tracts in this region that were deserted on account of their sterility. Thus was perpetuated the name of "Barrens," a name that is quite at variance with the present flourishing condition of the soil brought about by the importation of wiser methods of cultivation.11
The next oldest geological formation in the county is found just north of the Eozoic belt. This belongs to the Cambrian period of the Paleozoic era. It is only about three fourths as wide as the Eozoic belt, but stretching as it does across the central part of the county it has a much greater length than the older belt and embraces a larger area in the county. Its northern boundary begins at the southern mouth of the Conewago Creek and extends with
Heads of Patapsco, Gunpowder, & Bush Rivers, over to Monockasey is a Vast Body of Barrens; that is, what is called so, because there is no wood upon it, besides Vast Quantities of Rockey Barrens." Calvert Papers, No. 2, p. 56.
11 Christoph Daniel Ebeling in his "Erdbeschreibung und Geschichte von America," Vol. 4, 1797, p. 681, speaking of York County, says, "Das Land ist ziemlich angebaut, und man rechnete vor einigen Jahren schon, dass an drei Viertel desselben von Pflanzern besezt waren. Allein ihre Besitzungen sind lange nicht alle urbar gemacht, sondern viele davon noch mit dicken Waldungen besezt. . Jedoch treiben viele, sonderlich die Deutschen, guten Kornbau, haben grosse Obstgärten mit Aepfeln, Pfir- sichen, etc. und weitläufige Wiesen mit Timotheusgras etc., zum Theil auch etwas Kleebau. Hopfengärten giebt es gleichfals hie und da. Die Acker- pferde, welche hier fallen, werden wegen ihrer Stärke und Grösse ge- schätzt." These efficient methods of the Germans afterwards spread to other nationalities in the County and helped to abolish the wasteful con- ditions and inefficient methods of which Ebeling writes.
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much irregularity in a general southwesterly direction to Abbotstown just beyond the Adams County line. It thus embraces the whole of Hellam, Spring Garden, North Codorus, Heidelberg, Penn, and West Manheim Town- ships, and most of Manchester, West Manchester, Jack- son, Paradise, Lower Windsor, Windsor, York, Spring- field, Codorus, and Manheim Townships. It also in- cludes Conewago and Union Townships in the south- eastern part of Adams County. This kind of rock is also found on the southern side of the Eozoic floor and covers a large part of Peach Bottom Township.12
This Cambrian belt consists of four fairly distinct layers of rocks. The oldest of these are the chlorite schists, com- posing about one third of the entire belt and stretching along the southern portion of the area. Next in order is the Hellam quartzite, found chiefly in the township of that name but with outcroppings at many other places in this belt. Then come the hydro-mica schists, or limestone schists as they are sometimes called. These occupy in general the central and northern portion of the belt and encase the fourth and most recent layer which is the nar- row ribbon of limestone stretching across the entire length of the Cambrian belt.
The presence of the Hellam quartzite lends an undulat- ing effect to the landscape here. For the quartzite is very hard and enduring in composition. It undergoes but little decomposition either through chemical or mechanical action. Thus the less durable rocks, the argillites and the
12 This rock in the southeastern extremity of our county is the source of the celebrated Peach Bottom roofing slate. This economic value of the Cambrian rock as found in this Township grows out of the fact that it occurs there with a fine grain, an even texture, and an almost perfect cleavage.
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German Element in York County, Pa.
calcites, are disintegrated and carried away, leaving the quartzite outstanding in the form of hills. But the most important part of the Cambrian belt, so far as the history of the county is concerned, is the limestone formation. This is but a continuation west of the Susquehanna of that limestone formation which constitutes the major portion of Lancaster County. It is a comparatively narrow strip and extends continuously across the center of the county and into the southeastern corner of Adams County. The tract embracing the pure limestone soil is not more than two miles wide on an average, though at a few points it reaches a width of four miles. It begins at the mouth of the Kreutz Creek on the Susquehanna and extends along the whole length of that creek from the town of Wrights- ville to the city of York. From York there is a narrow extension northeastward along the Codorus to its mouth, and one directly west among the sources of the Little Conewago. But the general direction of the limestone strip continues from York southwestward up the valley of the West Branch of the Codorus Creek and including Hanover, McSherrystown and Littlestown. An isolated tract of this formation also occurs at the mouth of Cabin Branch in Lower Windsor Township.
This limestone is a dolomitic composition containing varying amounts of carbonate of magnesia. It is popu- larly known as the "York limestone." Some of it is so hard as to furnish excellent building material. But most of it decomposes and mingles with the soil. Thus it has produced the most fertile soil in the county and, together with the related soil that was formed from the neighboring schists, it constitutes the richest farming area in the county, not unlike that of Lancaster County east of the river. It
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is well watered and the rolling contour of the ground makes it exceptionally well adapted to agricultural pur- poses. When the first settlers came to the county these limestone hills and valleys were covered with heavy tim- ber, and under wise methods of culture the soil has con- tinued highly productive ever since, and this belt has always been the scene of the county's chief industry and activity.
A third main geological division of York County em- braces practically the entire northern part of the county. This belongs to the Triassic period of the Mesozoic era. It is very sharply defined from the Cambrian belt just south of it. It is that same red sandstone formation which begins in the extreme northern part of Lancaster County and covers nearly all of Adams County on the west. The line of demarcation from the Paleozoic era is quite clear and distinct because there are no traces whatever of the Silurian, the Devonian, or the Carboniferous periods of that era. The soil of this region differs widely from that of the other parts of the county. It is composed primarily of beds of red shale, red sandstone, and quartzite con- glomerate. Extensive areas of trap also occur, and this is practically identical with the so-called "Gettysburg Granite " in Adams County. This material offers strong resistance to disintegrating forces and this has produced a number of elevated ridges and hills in this part of the county. It is also the geological cause of the bothersome falls in the Susquehanna near York Haven. Everywhere traces of iron abound, and it is this that gives the soil of the region its characteristically red color. On the rocks in this region occasionally occur deceptive stains of green and blue carbonates of copper. These were doubtless the cause of those nervous and illusive searches, surveys, and
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mining shafts, made by Sir William Keith and the Mary- land adventurers in the hope of obtaining copper or some other valuable metal. There are many evidences of brownstone in this Triassic region of somewhat the same quality as the celebrated Hummelstown variety, but it has not yet been discovered west of the river in sufficient quan- tities to give it commercial value. Farming has always been the chief industry in this part of the county as in the other parts, although from the above description of the geology it must be clear that the soil here is not nearly so well adapted to agriculture as in other parts of the county.13
These are the three main geological divisions of our county. If now we examine the nationality of the earliest settlers in the county we find that they are three in number and that each one of them gravitated strongly towards one of the three general kinds of soil furnished by the geolog- ical divisions. Germans, Scotch-Irish, and English crossed the Susquehanna in rapid succession and settled within the limits of York County in the fourth and fifth decades of the eighteenth century. Of these the Scotch-Irish took up their abodes on the Eozoic belt in the southeastern part of the county where the ground required little clearing and where the soil was ready to produce at once. The Ger- mans laid out their plantations on or near the limestone ribbon of the Cambrian belt in the central part of the county with its heavy timber, its rolling hills and its many streams. While the English Quakers chose to settle the Triassic region in the northeastern part of the county with its secluded lands, its red soil, and its mining prospects.
13 To complete our outline of the geology of the county it should be mentioned that the Cenozoic era is represented in the county principally by the marl bed north of Dillsburg in Carroll Township. Thus the great eras of geology are all present in some form or other.
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These choices were not promiscuous. But we are con- cerned here only to establish in detail the correctness of the statement concerning the Germans, and to indicate its probable causes and its results.
In the absence of individual surveys for the plantations of the earliest Germans in the county we are left to infer- ence and general statements to show where they were. But these are so many and so varied as to permit a high degree of accuracy in locating the early German settle- ments upon the map. The very name of the Kreutz Creek Settlement indicates its general location. And the Kreutz Creek Valley, as we have seen, belongs entirely to the Cambrian belt and is composed almost exclusively of pure limestone soil. The pioneer plantation of this settlement was that of John Hendricks. He occupied a part of that 1,200-acre tract which was marked off for the younger William Penn in July, 1727, and surveyed in November, 1729. The whole tract is described in the warrant as "opposite to Hempfield," that is, due west of the town of Lancaster. Hendricks's part of this tract embraced 600 acres and it is described by the surveyor as "the uper side and best part of the tract." The lower part, i. e., the part nearest to the mouth of the Kreutz Creek, was occu- pied several years later by James Wright, son of John Wright. This embraced the landing-place of Wright's Ferry, the heart of the present town of Wrightsville. The entire tract therefore lay just north of the future "Mon- ocacy Road,"14 the present turnpike from Wrightsville to York, and Hendricks's 600 acres on the upper part of the tract was therefore but a short distance north of Wright's
14 This road is described as beginning between the lands of James Wright and Samuel Tayler on the west bank of the Susquehanna immedi- ately opposite the plantations of John Wright. Vide supra, p. 89.
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Ferry and embraced the plantation from which the squat- ter John Grist was compelled to remove in 1721.15 This is entirely within the limestone ribbon, as a reference to the geological map shows.
The other plantations in the Kreutz Creek Settlement are determined chiefly with reference to the Hendricks plantation. Michael Tanner, we have seen, was settled on a tract of 200 acres six miles southwest of John Hen- dricks.16 He had previously been seated for a short time near the mouth of Cabin Branch, which is also limestone soil, but from this location he was obliged to remove in 1728 together with several English squatters there. In 1734, however, he took up his permanent abode on the limestone of the Kreutz Creek. Among his immediate neighbors were Conrad Strickler, Henry Bacon (Bann or Bahn), and Jacob Welshover. With these persons Tan- ner was engaged in burying another neighbor's child when they were all taken captive by the Marylanders. Another close neighbor of Tanner was John Lochman who said that his house was seven miles west of Hendricks, about two miles south of the "little Codorus" and within 100 yards of the main road through the valley. About one and one half miles east of Lochman along the main road lived the blacksmith, Peter Gardner. Farther east in the same limestone valley and on both sides of the road were the dwellings of Bernard Wiemar, Michael Reisher, Christian Croll, Francis Clapsaddle, Nicholas Kuhns,
15 The exact location of Grist's improvements is fixed by the two drafts mentioned, supra, p. 22. Blunston's letter of January 2, 1737 (Archives, I: 319), says: "I suppose you know Hendrix's House stands just by John Wright's."
16 Vide supra, p. 57, and Archives, I: 524.
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Valentine Kroh, and Martin Schultz.17 Samuel Landis, the German shoemaker, had his shop on the Kreutz Creek.18 This valley was also the home of the other Germans in that first settlement. It is not possible now to locate precisely the individual claims of each one of the 50 or 60 German planters who settled in this part of the county before 1737, but it is clear that they lay in the same general valley with those we have already fixed. For Michael Tanner in his solemn affirmation declares that in 1734 and 1735 Thomas Cressap " came into the neighbor- hood of this Affirmant and Surveyed upwards of forty tracts of Land for this Affirmants Countrymen, the Ger- mans living in those Parts."19 This same idea is expressed or implied in a number of other depositions and docu- ments relating to the border difficulties. The Germans who signed the papers to the governor of Maryland and to the council of Pennsylvania in August, 1736, spoke of one another as "neighbors." Their place of assembling in self-defense was John Hendricks's house at the foot of their valley. They regularly referred to their individual plantations as lying southwest of John Hendricks. The Marylanders in their attacks upon the Germans never met any opposition nor found any victims until they had come into the immediate neighborhood of the Kreutz Creek,
17 Vide supra, p. 65. When John Powell, under-sheriff of Lancaster County, affirms that these men lived " on the West side of the Sasquehannah River, not above one Mile to the Southward of the house of John Hen- dricks " (Col. Rec., III: 613), he evidently does not mean to say that they all lived within one mile's distance of Hendricks's house, but merely that they were within the undoubted bounds of Pennsylvania because they all lived north of a line passing east and west through a point one mile south of Hendricks's house. Thus they lived in the valley just north of the Kreutz Creek.
18 According to Carter and Glossbrenner, vide supra, p. 39.
19 Archives, I: 525.
II
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German Element in York County, Pa.
and they never proceeded farther north than that valley. The Springettsbury Manor, whose bounds were relocated in 1762 by means of the German plantations, lay wholly within the Cambrian belt spreading a short distance on each side of the limestone ribbon in the Kreutz Creek Valley. And at the judicial investigation in 1824 evidence was presented proving that in 1736 at least 52 Germans had settled on that area in a regular manner. There can be no doubt therefore that most of the original German settlers in the eastern part of the county were located on the pure limestone just north of the Kreutz Creek, that the rest of them were settled on the fertile soil of the ad- jacent limestone schists, and that practically all of them, if indeed we may not say all of them without exception, were seated within the Cambrian belt.
The same kind of soil continues to be the abode of the Germans as we follow their settlements westward across the county. The settlement which had gathered on the Codorus about the future site of York, 20 occupied the limestone strip at its place of greatest breadth. Here the limestone valley of the Codorus meets the prolongation of the Kreutz Creek Valley and the combination produces an unusually favorable location for a flourishing farming community. This region therefore supports the densest population in the county and the original German settle- ment here flourished from the beginning.
Among the most prominent families in the early history of this settlement on the Codorus were the Spanglers. About 1730 Caspar Spangler settled 711 acres about a mile and a half east of the Codorus and extending across the future Monocacy Road but lying chiefly north of that
20 Vide supra, p. 90.
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road.21 His brother Baltzer arrived in the community in '1732 and took up 200 acres about a mile east of the Codorus somewhat to the south of Caspar's land about the spot where the present Plank Road intersects with the first run.22 Contiguous to this was the abode of Tobias Frey. About a mile north of Tobias Frey was the land of his father Martin Frey, who had settled there in 1734 and whose property is now embraced in the northeastern part of the city.23 Before 1738, Caspar Spangler's sons, Jonas and Rudolph, settled upon a tract of 719 acres seven miles west of the Codorus "near the Little Conewago Creek on the Conogocheague Road," now the York and Gettysburg turnpike. This was a part of the westward extension of the limestone ribbon, which forms as it were an offshoot from the main southwestward direction, and which contains many of the large springs that supply the sources of the Conewago. Another settler in this com- munity and "near Codorus Creek" was Frederick Ebert, whose lands were in 1736 possessed by Valentine Schultz. About three miles northwest of the present site of York
21 Edward W. Spangler, Esq., describes this land as follows: "seven hundred and eleven acres of limestone land about one and a half miles east of that portion of the banks of the 'Katores' on which Yorktown was thirteen years later laid out. The plantation began at the northern range of hills and extended across what was later designated as the 'Great Road leading from York-town to Lancaster.' . . . A deed for 385 acres thereof was executed by Thomas Penn to Caspar Spengler October 30, 1736. ... The southern portion, bisected by the 'Great Road,' was con- ducted by Caspar in conjunction with his youngest son Philip Caspar Spengler." "The Spengler Families with Local Historical Sketches," p. 18. 22 Ibid., p. 138.
23 This land was afterwards owned in turn by Isaac Rondebush (1741), Michael Schwack (1741), and Bartholemew Maul, the schoolmaster (1743). By 1750 Hermanus Bott, one of the earliest lot-owners in York, also pos- sessed about 300 acres on the west bank of the Codorus adjoining the town on the northwest. Gibson, p. 514.
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lay the adjoining lands of Michael Walck and Martin Bauer, and about five miles southwest of the town were the properties of George and Jacob Ziegler.24 From this point the German plantations stretched off northeastward down the Codorus Valley and southwestward up the val- ley of the west branch of the Codorus, and these limestone bottoms were the main support of the town of York dur- . ing its early years.
Precisely the same rule obtains with reference to the German settlements on Digges's Choice in the south- western part of the county. This tract was chiefly lime- stone soil and it was settled chiefly by the Germans. From the definition of Digges's Choice already given25 and by reference to the geological maps of York and Adams Counties it will be observed that these 10,000 acres lay wholly within the Cambrian belt and almost wholly on the limestone ribbon, embracing all of its southwestern ex- tremity. About six miles of the end of this strip was cut off from York County when Adams County was erected in 1800, and thus a few of the original plantations now fall within the bounds of Adams County. But this fact only serves to impress upon the historian the regularity with which the Germans settled upon the limestone, for this southeastern extremity of Adams County is the only limestone soil in the whole county and to this day is the only German community in the county. The limestone ribbon across York County reaches a greater width on Digges's Choice, the present neighborhood of Hanover, than at any other point except where it crosses the Codo- rus, the present site of York. And the farms adjacent to
24 Vide Map F, Report of Secretary of Internal Affairs of Pennsylvania, 1905, Part I.
25 Supra, p. 70.
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Hanover are among the most beautiful and prosperous in the county.
Adam Forney, the first German settler in this settle- ment, located his claim on the present site of Hanover. Andrew Schreiber soon thereafter settled near what is now Christ Church, about four miles southwest of Hanover. This is also on pure limestone soil, though now in Adams County. The German neighbors of these two pioneers located on the fertile lands between them and just north of them. Digges's original survey of 6,822 acres extended four miles north of the temporary line of 1738 and in- cluded the present site of Hanover. His addition of 3,679 acres adjoined his original survey on its north side and was situated therefore wholly on the limestone formation, as a reference to the geological map will indicate. This inviting soil was the disputed land and on this area lay the plantations of most of those whom we have learned to know as the earliest settlers of Digges's Choice.
From the recorded incidents in the early history of this settlement it is clear that Adam Forney's land lay within Digges's original survey and just south of his addition, that Schreiber's land and that of his neighbors from Phila- delphia County also lay within Digges's first survey and that Martin Kitzmiller, John Lemon, Nicholas Forney, Matthias Ulrich and practically all the other Germans whose names are mentioned in the course of the disturb- ances, were settled upon Digges's additional survey on soil contiguous to his original survey. Their location there was the reason why they were involved in disturbance and why their names are preserved for us. The Germans had been induced to begin their immigration into this com- munity partly by the personal persuasions of Digges and
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his agents. But the location of their individual tracts they determined for themselves. They invariably located on the limestone bottom. Digges's misfortune, therefore, lay in the fact that he had not at once included in his orig- inal survey all the limestone soil in that neighborhood. For this German settlement on the Conewago would have been spared many years of strife and contention if the bounds of Digges's Choice had coincided throughout with the limestone belt.
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