USA > Pennsylvania > York County > The Beginnings of the German Element in York County, Pennsylvania > Part 13
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There is therefore a remarkable coincidence between the location of the early German settlers in the county and the length and breadth of the limestone ribbon that runs across the county. In the few instances where the German plantations did not perhaps lie directly on the pure lime- stone soil, they coincided with the nearby limestone schists or hydro-micas, also a part of the Cambrian belt. From this the original home of the German element in York County it has since spread out over the entire Cambrian belt with its fertile soils related to limestone. And even on the isolated outcroppings of limestone rock near New Market in the extreme northern end of the county, and on the small district north of Dillsburg in Carroll Township, we have today the homes of German communities. A more striking illustration than York County affords of the tendency of German settlers to occupy limestone soil can probably nowhere be found.
English speculators took out large tracts of land in these valleys of our county but it was the Germans who settled them. The Englishman, Samuel Blunston, issued the licenses and English surveyors laid off the tracts, but Ger- man immigrants occupied them. Englishmen supervised the affairs of Yorktown but Germans were the lot-owners and the citizens. An Irishman held the claim to Digges's
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Choice but it was chiefly the Germans who settled the tract. Both English and Irish sought to establish them- selves on the limestone island at the mouth of Cabin Branch south of the Kreutz Creek Valley, but in the course of time the Pennsylvania claim to that neighbor- hood prevailed and the limestone island was swallowed up and assimilated into the general German belt. On this kind of soil the Germans took up their abodes in the begin- ning, from this soil they excluded practically all represen- tatives of other nationalities, and to this soil they have themselves clung most tenaciously to the present.
The frequent recurrence of this phenomenon in eastern Pennsylvania and the striking regularity and precision with which it occurs in York County encourages us to seek for its causes here. It appears then that the reasons for this rule of choice among the Germans in our county are two. In the first place, the Germans chose good farming land and in Pennsylvania the best soil for agriculture is limestone soil. It is highly improbable that the German immigrants had any knowledge or concern about the geo- logical formations of the different districts. They had regard first of all to the vegetation which the different sections had produced in their natural state and they made choice of those regions where the trees were largest, the timber the thickest, and where the vegetation was most luxuriant. Then, too, the German insisted that his pro- spective farm must be well watered. These marks he always found on the acres that were underlaid with lime- stone.
The German instinct for the selection of good soil is traditional. It was soon observed by their neighbors in eastern Pennsylvania. The eminent Quaker, Dr. Ben- jamin Rush, the Tacitus of early Pennsylvania, has noted
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the fact in his classic pamphlet entitled "An Account of the Manners of the German Inhabitants of Pennsylva- nia."26 Speaking of the German farmer he says: "They always prefer good land or that land on which there is a large quantity of meadow ground. From an attention to the cultivation of grass, they often double the value of an old farm in a few years, and grow rich on farms, on which their predecessors of whom they purchased them nearly starved."27 This intuitive knowledge of good land and this agricultural success was the inheritance of thirty gen- erations of ancestors. The crowded conditions of life in the Rhine Valley had led to very intensive methods of cul- tivation, a fine skill in agriculture, and the highest degree of wisdom in the husbanding both of soil and of crops. These qualities had made the Palatinate the "garden spot " of Germany, and transferred to the rich soil of eastern Pennsylvania they made it the pride of the Key- stone State.28 The native tenacity and the indomitable
26 This essay was written in 1789, edited and republished by I. D. Rupp in 1875, and revised with a full introduction and copious annotations by Theodore E. Schmauk in 1910. Dr. Schmauk's edition appeared as Part XXI of "Pennsylvania: The German Influence on its Settlement and De- velopment" in the Proceedings of the Pennsylvania German Society, Vol. XIX. In his discerning account Dr. Rush gives many interesting details concerning the methods which the early Pennsylvania Germans employed in their farming and of the characteristics which distinguished them from other nationalities in Pennsylvania.
27 Pp. 56 f. Schmauk edition. Sydney George Fisher in his "The Mak- ing of Pennsylvania" gives a brief resume of Dr. Rush's observations on this subject. He puts it thus: "They [the Germans] were good judges of land, always selected the best, and were very fond of the limestone districts." But Dr. Rush made no mention whatever of " limestone " and there is no evidence that the Germans consciously and purposely sought out this particular geological formation. They were only looking for good land and if this could have been found on any other kind of rock they would have been attracted thither.
28 This inherited agricultural skill, together with the regular selection
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industry of the Germans, together with the hard condi- tions under which they left their native land, made them willing to undertake heroic tasks when they arrived in the New World. Undaunted by the size of the trees or the thickness of the wilderness they boldly attacked the forests, for they realized that where the heaviest timber grew the soil must be most capable of producing rich crops. This was undoubtedly the guiding principle that led the Germans to the limestone soil. Other nationalities such as the Scotch-Irish clung to the lands that were more easily cleared. They were less inured to heavy manual labor and were guided by their bucolic instincts, while the slowly plodding German looked farther into the future and was guided entirely by his sharper eye for good soil.29 Thus in Pennsylvania he invariably preferred the lime- stone regions and in York County this preference always placed him on or near the fertile ribbon that stretches along the central Cambrian belt.
After the Germans had begun their settlement in these
of good soil, made the limestone farms of the German farmers in Lancaster, York and the other German counties without a superior in this country. Their value to the State of Pennsylvania was early recognized by Governor Thomas who said to his council on January 2, 1739: " This Province has been for some years the Asylum of the distressed Protestants of the Palatinate, and other parts of Germany, and I believe it may with truth be said that the present flourishing condition of it is in a great measure owing to the Industry of those People; and should any discouragement divert them from coming hither, it may well be apprehended that the value of your Lands will fall, and your Advances to wealth be much slower; for it is not altogether the goodness of the Soil but the Number and Industry of the People that make a flourishing Country." Col. Rec., IV : 315.
29 Dr. George Mays refers to this contrast between the German farmer and the Scotch-Irish farmer in a brief and popular article on "The Early Pennsylvania German Farmer" in the Pennsylvania German magazine, Vol. II, No. 4, October, 1901, pp. 184 f. Vide also Kuhns, “ German and Swiss Settlements," p. 85, and Lutheran Quarterly, Vol. XIII, 1883, p. 509 f.
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fertile valleys other nationalities also began to recognize their value and in some instances looked upon them with covetous eyes. As early as 1733, when Cressap and some of his associates were trying to fix their abodes and estab- lish their claims upon the cleared limestone lands at the mouth of Cabin Branch, Governor Gordon of Pennsyl- vania wrote to Lord Baltimore, "I could not but be of opinion that as some Gentlemen of your Lordship's Prov- ince, who, casting an Eye on those Lands, now rendered more valuable by the Neighbourhood of our Inhabitants, had attempted so unjustifiable a Survey, it might suit their purposes to have Cressop and some others of the like turbulent Dispositions settled there, to give some Coun- tenance to their claim."30 Others recognized also the value of the arable lands in the Kreutz Creek Valley and were very willing to take charge of them after the Ger- mans had cleared them with the heavy toil of years, had made improvements upon them, and had begun their cul- tivation. In the fall of 1736, when the Germans, as we have seen, were already occupying many tracts west of the Susquehanna, and when the Chester County Plot was laid against their lands, the impelling motive of the plotters was to secure possession of the "good land" which the Germans occupied: This is indicated repeatedly by the affidavits concerning the incident.31 These efforts to seize the lands of the German are real compliments to his wis-
30 Pennsylvania Archives, Fourth Series, Papers of the Governors, Vol. I: 505.
31 For example, Henry Munday, one of those implicated in the plot, testified before the Pennsylvania Council on November 27, 1736, that he and others had met Cressap and "that Cressap had shown them some vacant Plantations, and Some that were inhabited by Dutch People, with a very large Tract of good Land." Col. Rec., IV: 107. This idea recurs frequently.
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dom in the choice of soil and to his skill in methods of clearing and cultivating.32
But there is also a second reason why the Germans in York County settled with such regularity upon the kind of land that they did. This is found in the general ethno- logical principle that when people migrate from one coun- try to another, or even from one neighborhood to another, they tend to take up their new abodes upon land whose natural features resemble those of the abodes they have left. This tendency has often been observed and it has been evidenced by many nationalities.33 It applies notably to the many Scotch-Irish in Pennsylvania and it applies to the Germans. These early German immigrants into our state were chiefly Palatines. Their native land lay about the banks of the middle and upper Rhine. It included more than the present Bavarian Palatinate; it stretched across to the eastern side of the river and embraced parts
32 In 1744 Daniel Dulany of Annapolis made a trip to the more remote parts of his province, evidently the neighborhood of Digges's Choice, and upon his return wrote a letter to Lord Baltimore which indicates that he valued the limestone soil of that region.
"I have not been long returned from a journey into the back woods, as far as to the Temporary line between this province and Pennsylvania, where I had the pleasure of seeing a most delightful Country, A Country my Lord, that equals (if it does not exceed) any in America for natural advantages, such as a rich & fertile soil, well furnished with timber of all sorts abounding with limestone, and stone fit for building, good slate & some marble, and to crown all, very healthy. The season of the year was so far advanced towards Winter that I could not possibly go to the neck of land in the fork of the Patomack. ... " Calvert Papers, No. 2, p. 116.
33 Faust calls attention to it briefly thus: "This principle of selecting land similar to that which was found good at home prevailed even on a second and third choice. Remarkable instances have occurred in the cases of families who have migrated farther and farther westward, generation after generation, of the choice of a farm or homestead almost identical in appearance with the one owned by them in the original locality." Vol. II, p. 35.
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of Hesse, Baden, and Würtemberg. From all parts of
southwestern Germany they came. Now if we examine the topography of this part of Germany we find that it resembles closely the topography of the limestone districts of southeastern Pennsylvania including the Cambrian belt of York County.34
The geological formation of the Rhenish Palatinate and her nearest neighbors, it is true, is not limestone. The Bavarian Palatinate consists of four distinct sections measuring north and south, the level plain nearest the Rhine, the rolling hills which mark the approach to the Haardt, the wooded heights of the Haardt itself, and the foothills of the western district. Southwards all of these sections merge into the forests of the Vosges. The geol- ogist discerns three geological groups, the alluvial deposits on the plain, the red sandstone soil of the rising hills, and the coal regions of the third section. In the countries just east of the Rhine the red shale of the Triassic period pre- dominates again and lends the soil its chief character- istics. 35 This part of Germany is not entirely without its
34 An understanding of the geology and topography of the Palatinate and southwestern Germany may best be gathered from the following works: W. H. Reihl, " Die Pfälzer," pp. 1-69. E. von Seydlitz, "Handbuch der Geographie," 25th edition, pp. 455-462. Cf. map of forests, p. 432. F. Ratzel, " Deutschland," pp. 23-132.
" Deutschland als Weltmacht," pp. 4-27, Chapter on "Deutsche Erde und Deutsches Volk," by Professor W. Goetz.
Franz Heiderich, " Länderkunde von Europa," pp. 94-112.
35 Ratzel says: "Weit verbreitet sind von den nördlichen Vegesen an durch den nördlichen Schwarzwald, den Odenwald, Spessart, das hessische Bergland, Thüringen und das obere Wesergebeit die roten, oft leuchtend purpurbraunen Gesteine des Rotliegenden und des bunten Sandsteins, eine mächtige, aber einförmige Bildung, die dem Walde günstiger als dem Acker ist. In weiten Gebeiten Mittel- und Südwestdeutschlands breitet sich über Ackerland und Stadtarchitektur einen rötlichen Hauch. Von Basel bis Frankfurt sind die Münster und Dome aus rotem Sandstein gebaut." "Deutschland," p. 30.
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limestone but it is almost negligible in quantity and it is of that firm unyielding variety which only constitutes a bar- rier to the farmer. Thus the Rhenish province of Hesse contains a considerable region of durable limestone with a strong dolomitic admixture and a very narrow strip of this rock extends across the Rhine and southwards across most of the Palatinate, appearing here in the form of brec- ciated limestone conglomerate. So that nearly every- where it is the Trias of the Mesozoic era which gives color to the soil. Geologically, therefore, it cannot be maintained that the Germans in our county settled upon the same kind of formation as that from which they had come when they left Europe. And herein lies a very strong indication that these people did not consciously seek out the limestone tracts when they settled in the New World.
But when we turn from the geology to the topography of the middle Rhine valleys and of southwestern Germany we find that it is very much like that of the districts upon which the German immigrants settled in York County. Not level like north Germany, not mountainous like south Germany, but a medium between the two, an undulating plain and easy rolling hills. The most familiar features in the configuration of the country are the gradual emi- nences which mark the steps in the elevation from the level of the Rhine in the center to the heights of the Haardt in the west and the Vosges in the southwest and to the Swabian Jura in the east and southeast. 36 The numerous valleys between are well watered by the many streams that ultimately empty into the Rhine. The red soil of the Trias is not so well adapted to agriculture as some other
36 " Wellenförmige Fläche " and " Hügellandschaft" are the expressions most frequently used to describe the rolling surface of this country.
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kinds of soil and in this part of Germany it required a hand that was highly skilled in agriculture to make the soil yield sustenance for its dense population. But this soil is well adapted to forest growths and to this day it contains large stretches of sturdy timber. Its dense forests with their luxuriant foliage constitute one of the most striking characteristics of the Palatine hills and indeed of southwestern Germany in general. From the Odenwald in the north they stretch to the Black Forest in the south and across the Rhine to the Vosges Forest in the west. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries this region must have been even more heavily wooded and it was only natural for the Palatines when they reached York County to welcome the sight of the thick timber growths on the central belt. The general contour of the Palatinate the Germans found reproduced in the undulating central re- gion in York County with its rich forests and its many springs and streams. 37 The unconscious charm of the homeland and an instinct for the best soil led them there- fore to fix their abodes upon the limestone soil and begin the work of taming the wilderness. And this fact has had a marked significance in their subsequent fortunes in this county.
37 The writer can testify from personal observation to the striking simi- larity between the configuration of the land in the Rhenish Palatinate and that of the limestone valleys in York County.
Oin
CHAPTER VIII.
THEIR PLACE IN PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY.
HE part which the York County Germans of that early period played in the history of colonial Pennsylvania and in the general course of American history may be gathered from the facts and events already narrated. They were a valuable support to the provincial authorities of Pennsylvania at a time when that important province was passing through its most formative period. The Germans of York County contributed in their small meas- ure to the support and strength of the provincial govern- ment both in its conflicts with Maryland and in its con- test with certain opposing elements among its own popu- lation. Then, too, these pioneer settlements stretching out into the primeval forest seem like an index finger pointing westward to an empire of land and wealth whose conquest and acquisition by successive steps of similar communities was to make the future greatness of our nation. And finally, these first German settlers in York County constituted a small but relatively important part of that numerous and growing body of farmers in our province who early got into the native soil and drew from
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German Element in York County, Pa.
it the materials that formed the basis for the prosperity of colonial Pennsylvania, even as today they constitute the backbone of the nation.
In the first place their significance for the political his- tory of the province during those early years grows out of the fact that they were on friendly terms with the Quaker Assembly at Philadelphia. The province of Penn- sylvania shared with New York the place of greatest prominence and importance among the middle colonies of the North American coast. Now the government of Pennsylvania, though at first apparently under the abso- lute control of one individual, was nevertheless in reality more completely democratic than any other in America. In this respect Penn's province presented a striking con- trast to the government of the Puritans in New England, that of the Episcopalians in Virginia, and that of the Catholics in Maryland. Government in Pennsylvania was thoroughly representative.1 Other colonies, notably Massachusetts and Virginia, had enjoyed a fair degree of self-government at first but had later forfeited their priv- ileges into the hands of tyranny. But the history of Pennsylvania before the Revolution is a continuous story of the unintermittent development of civil liberty. This contrast is due to the complete ascendancy of the Quakers in Pennsylvania during that long, formative period from 1682 to 1776, when they suddenly disappeared from
1 This is only cited as one of the achievements of the Quakers in colonial Pennsylvania. Others may be gathered from Chapters IV-VII of Isaac Sharpless' "A Quaker Experiment in Government."
W. A. Wallace in a lecture before the Pennsylvania Historical Society in 1882 on "Pennsylvania's Formative Influence upon Federal Institutions, 1682-1787" shows by a clear statement of actual facts what remarkable results colonial Pennsylvania achieved for the nation. Vide also Penny- packer, "Pennsylvania in American History," pp. 202 ff.
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Their Place in Pennsylvania History.
power. Until the middle of the eighteenth century the political history of Pennsylvania is a history of the Quakers and from 1755 to the Revolution it is a history of the un- successful efforts on the part of the Scotch-Irish and the Church of England people to displace the Quakers. Throughout the period of their ascendancy the Quakers were warmly supported by the numerous German element in the province.2 For the Germans never forgot the debt of gratitude they owed to the Quakers, and then, too, they had their own grounds of animosity against the other ele- ments in the colony. After the middle of the century it was only the vigorous support of the Germans, who held the balance of power, that enabled the Quakers to main- tain their hold upon the political helm.3 But decades be- fore that the Germans were cooperating with the Quakers and supporting them in their government. Palatine and Quaker labored together as builders of the common- wealth.4 And herein lies the significance of the first two
2 Rufus M. Jones says: "Until the Revolution the Quakers and the Presbyterians constituted the rival political forces of the provinces. The Episcopalians tended towards the Friends and the Germans were also usually sympathetic." "The Quakers in the American Colonies," pp. 494 et passim.
8 " Parties were now [after 1763] formed on new lines. They had largely disappeared during the twenties and thirties, but at this time we find a marked difference, growing more emphatic with the years between the proprietary party and the 'country' party. The Quakers were now in considerable minority in the Province, but were practically all on one side. The Proprietors had left the Society and joined the Episcopal Church and that body rallied around them. So also did the Presbyterians, and all who believed in a vigorous, warlike policy. These stood together for proprietary rights and interests, and had as their stronghold the Gov- ernor and Council. The Friends and the Germans and their sympathizers maintained their ascendancy in the popularly elected Assembly, where they did practically as they pleased." Sharpless, "A Quaker Experiment in Government," pp. 103 f.
4 " The Palatine and Quaker as Commonwealth Builders," by Frank 12
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German Element in York County, Pa.
decades of York County Germans for the early political history of Pennsylvania.
The York County Germans, like the great body of their countrymen east of the Susquehanna and between the Schuylkill and the Delaware, were generally on good terms with the provincial assembly. And these kindly feelings were mutual. They are reflected in the above narrative of the earliest German settlements in the county. The provincial authorities favored these Germans where they could and these Germans for the most part loyally sup- ported the authority of the provincial government. The government allowed the Germans very easy terms of pur- chase for their lands west of the river. So long as the In- dians did not complain the board of property winked at the settlement of squatters upon unpurchased lands. And finally in 1733, in the matter of the Blunston licenses, the provincial authorities even strained a point in their tradi- tional Indian policy in order to accomplish the settlement of the Germans in the Kreutz Creek Valley without delay. Afterwards when the Germans recovered from the illu- sion into which some of them had been misled concerning the jurisdiction over their lands and when they frankly acknowledged their error and asked to be restored to citizenship in Pennsylvania, the Council of Pennsylvania received them promptly and kindly, encouraged them in their allegiance and took measures to help them defend themselves. On this occasion the discussions in the pro- vincial council and their letters to the governor of Mary- land indicated very kindly feelings towards the Germans west of the river and a sincere sympathy for them in their
Ried Diffenderffer, is a very discerning discourse, showing the immense significance of colonial Pennsylvania in American history and the mo- mentous influence which the combined forces of Germans and Quakers were able to exert upon that crucial colony.
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Their Place in Pennsylvania History.
trying circumstances. And from that time forward none of these Germans ever again swerved in their loyalty to the Quaker government, though it cost them many serious annoyances.
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