USA > Pennsylvania > York County > The Beginnings of the German Element in York County, Pennsylvania > Part 14
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It was the tenacity of the Germans in insisting upon their rights and in maintaining the Pennsylvania claims over those parts that prevented the Marylanders from taking possession of their lands and thus giving a large semblance of correctness to the Maryland claim of juris- diction in the Kreutz Creek and Codorus Creek valleys. Whatever the Quaker officials may have thought about the intelligence and culture of these Germans they recog- nized them as a good element to serve the important pur- pose of resisting the encroachments of the Marylanders. This service they performed and it was recognized by the government. But for the good understanding between these Germans and the Quaker government the boundary history of Pennsylvania might be very different from what it is.
Moreover, the substantial support which the York County Germans in company with the great body of their countrymen throughout the colony gave to the Quaker government was the decisive factor in helping the Quakers to maintain their ascendancy in the legislative assembly. For the Quakers had their political opponents within their own province. At first these consisted chiefly of the ad- herents of the Church of England, a class that was not numerous enough to be troublesome. But after the third decade of the eighteenth century the Scotch-Irish began to pour into the province in increasing numbers and as a class they aligned with the political enemies of the Quakers. Then began the political contest against the power of the peaceful Quakers which dragged on until the Revolution when the Scotch-Irish finally triumphed. But meanwhile
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the Quakers had achieved remarkable results. Slowly, very slowly, through their continual disputes with the gov- ernors and proprietors, they had evolved for their province a body of constitutional liberty. Patiently, persistently, unconsciously they wrought, striving to maintain the honor of Christian civilization in the province's dealings with the Indians, and gradually working out the great constitutional principles which were the political pride of provincial Pennsylvania. This they accomplished in spite of the op- position of the Scotch-Irish and the Church of England people. And they accomplished it because they were regu- larly supported by the ballot of the Germans. The Ger- mans had no political ambitions for themselves. As a class they were politically indifferent.5 They were satis- fied with the government of the Friends, they had their own grounds for gratitude to them, they disliked the Scotch-Irish and they regularly voted with the established power. A great many of the Germans were religiously akin to the Quakers, and everywhere they came into con- flict with the Scotch-Irish. The Scotch-Irish as a class were settling on the outer belt of civilization on lands contiguous to the Germans and this brought about many conflicts between the two nationalities. And it has been suggested that it was these conflicts that eventually evolved a political self-consciousness on the part of the Germans themselves.6
5 They were capable of being stirred by great principles, as is abundantly evidenced by their brilliant part in the French and Indian War and by their early rush to the cause of the Revolution, where they proved to be the most skilled soldiers in the Continental Army. And they soon developed great leaders among themselves and men of political influence, like Weiser and the Muhlenbergs. Nevertheless, the very earliest German settlers as a class had no ambitions to interfere in the affairs of others or to participate actively in public politics, and years elapsed before they developed a political self-consciousness.
6 This suggestion is made by Julius Goebel, who says: "Es scheint dass
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Their Place in Pennsylvania History.
This is the perspective in which to view the relation of the York County Germans to the colonial history of Penn- sylvania. For the documents concerning the early settle- ments in York County and the difficulties with the Mary- landers reflect not a few instances of this partisan national spirit. When the German settlements in York County were taking their beginnings the Scotch-Irish had not yet arrived there and the chief opposition to the Quaker gov- ernment and their faithful subjects west of the river came from Irish Catholics and from adherents of the Church of England. Thomas Cressap was an Irish Catholic from Maryland and so were his close associates at the mouth of Cabin Branch.7 When Cressap was captured and im- prisoned in Philadelphia the troubles west of the river were continued and even intensified under the leadership of another Irishman, Charles Higginbotham. Shortly thereafter Samuel Blunston wrote to President Logan that there is now not so much to fear from the Marylanders as from " our own people," that band of "Irish ruffians with Higginbotham." The reference is to the aftermath of the unsuccessful Chester County Plot. That plot had been headed by three Irishmen, Charles Higginbotham, Henry Munday, and Edward Leet, and was participated in by others with Irish names.8 But the great majority of the participants were English or Scotch and the entire plot was
sich die Deutschen am politischen Leben der neuen Heimat vor der Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts wenig beteiligten. Wie liesse sich auch von den Verfolgten und Gedrückten, die aus dem Vaterland kein politisches Em- pfinden mitbrachten, anderes erwarten? Erst langsam, wohl im Kampfe mit den Irländern und Schotten, die seit den zwanziger Jahren nach Penn- sylvanien zu strömen beginnen hat sich ihr poltitisches Selbstbewusstsein entwickelt." "Das Deutschtum in den Vereinigten Staaten von Nord- Amerika," p. 32.
7 Vide, e. g., Archives, I: 516.
8 Vide the list of those involved, Col. Rec., IV: 102.
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German Element in York County, Pa.
carried by the Pennsylvania enemies of the Quaker govern- ment. It was a minister of the Church of England who conceived the plot and directed its execution.9 The gov- ernor and council of Maryland wrote to the King, Feb- ruary 18, 1737, relating how the Germans on the Kreutz Creek had renounced the authority of Maryland and add- ing this comment: "and in order to account for this their extraordinary proceeding they declared their unwillingness to contribute towards the support of the ministers of the Church of England by law established in this province." And about a month later Governor Ogle of Maryland wrote to the Pennsylvania authorities : "Suppose a num- ber of your Inhabitants touched with a tender Regard for the Church of England and the support of its Ministers (and such a Case certainly is not impossible, however im- probable it may be judged to be) should all of a sudden renounce your Government in the same formal manner that these People did ours for contrary Reasons, pray what would your Government do in such a Case ? "10 These expressions serve to indicate the national and ecclesiastical element that entered into the conflict.
Moreover in the face of the Chester County Plot Samuel Blunston wrote to Thomas Penn, October 21, 1736, re- questing that vigorous efforts be made to prevent "the Irish from Chester County" from helping to dispossess "the Dutch west of Sasquehannah " on the ground that "it might be difficult to get the Donegal people to go against their country men." The Donegal people and others east of the Susquehanna were expected to help de-
9 Henry Munday wrote to Rev. Jacob Henderson, November 14, 1736, " You being the first that projected the settling the said Lands and Plan- tations." Col. Rec., IV: 103. Henderson was also one of the Commis- sioners for Maryland.
10 Col. Rec., IV: 188.
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Their Place in Pennsylvania History.
fend the Germans if necessary even as they had helped to capture Cressap and four of his associates. Now the posse of 25 persons who had effected the capture of Cressap and his associates was officially described as consisting "mostly of German Protestants & other Europeans of the Com- munion of the Churches of England and Scotland, of late years arrived here."11 Hence it is clear that Blunston, himself a Friend, realized that he could not depend upon the aid of the Church of England people and the Presby- terians to support the authority of the Quaker govern- ment when that authority conflicted with the wish of other members of those faiths. No love was lost between the Germans west of the river and those of the English just east of the river who were not Quakers. In one of the forceful conflicts between these two parties in 1735 one of the Germans specially laments the fact that he "was knocked down by an Irishman."12
The contest with the Scotch-Irish in York County did not begin until after the period which we have studied but the coming feuds were foreshadowed. Very shortly after the Germans had made a beginning of their settlements in York County the Scotch-Irish had begun to settle in that part of the Cumberland Valley which drains into the Potomac. And they were making an unfavorable im- pression. Scotch-Irish immigration into Pennsylvania had begun about 1715. James Logan had early complained to the proprietor against this class of immigrants, their crowding in where they are not wanted, and their cruel treatment of the Indians. "It looks as if Ireland is to send all her Inhabitants." But with 1734 the Scotch- Irish began to come in much larger numbers. In that year they first settled in the Cumberland Valley, and already
11 Col. Rec., IV : 128.
12 John Lochman in Proceedings of Council of Maryland for 1735, p. 83.
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German Element in York County, Pa.
on August 15 of that same year, Samuel Blunston, writing to Thomas Penn concerning the terms for warrants west of the river, expresses his opinion of these Scotch-Irish in these words :
How far these terms may be liked by the loose setlers on potomac I know not, for though they may be easy in themselves, yet to them who were always a sort of free-booters they may seem strict enough for tis generally at present settled by such people who in all prob- ability wil never be able to comply with the terms prescribed, nor are many of them at present able to pay for their warrants or surveys; nevertheless I think considering the dispute between the provinces they ought to be encouraged & I am of opinion it would be well they had warrants & surveys though it remained a debt on the place for those who come after to pay, for tis very probable few now settled there will be the possessors at the end of seven years But for some consideration assigning their rights to more industrious & able persons will stil remove further, such idle trash being generally the frontiers of an improving colony. However poor as they are since they are the present Inhabitants as I said before I think they should be encouraged to keep them in possession, but I only speak this of those Inhabitants towards Potowmac.
Blunston evidently wishes to draw a sharp distinction be- tween the earliest settlers in the Cumberland Valley and his German neighbors just west of the Susquehanna.
Blunston's expectations that these earliest Scotch-Irish settlers among the headwaters of the Conococheague would not long remain there but would soon be succeeded by a different class of settlers, were abundantly fulfilled by the subsequent course of events. For when the Scotch-Irish began to settle in York County violent conflicts took place between them and the Germans.13 For the sake of the peace of the province, therefore, the proprietors in 1749
18 Vide, e. g., Rupp's "History of Lancaster and York Counties," pp. 581-585.
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Their Place in Pennsylvania History.
instructed their agents not to sell any more lands in York County to the Irish but to hold out strong inducements to people of that nationality to settle further north. This suggestion, however, seems to have had little effect in the way of diverting the stream of Scotch-Irish immigration from the immediate neighborhood of the Germans. But meanwhile the Germans themselves had begun to sup- plant the Scotch-Irish, so far as they were settled upon good soil, by buying out their lands and improvements. From York and Lancaster Counties and the counties far- ther east they crossed Adams County and the South Moun- tain into the Cumberland Valley and purchased the hold- ings of the Scotch-Irish there, while these removed north across the Susquehanna or west beyond the Blue Ridge. This process of supplanting the Scotch-Irish began as early as 1757 and by the time of the Revolution the limestone Cumberland Valley was occupied predominantly by Ger- mans. 14
The significance of the early York County Germans for contemporary history of Pennsylvania, therefore, grows out of their warm support of the Quaker regime, their stout opposition to the Maryland claims, and their contact and conflicts with the Scotch-Irish. And this last, as we have seen, is involved in their regular choice of limestone lands.
14 Egle's " History of Pennsylvania," p. 615. Rupp has also noted this same process of Germans supplanting Scotch-Irish in Northampton County, Rush's " Account of the Manners of the German Inhabitants of Pennsyl- vania," Schmauk edition, p. 57, footnote 35. Also Rupp's "History of Lancaster and York Counties," p. 576, footnote.
Ascherwall in his "Observations on North America" in 1767 says: " Scotch and Irish often sell to the Germans, of whom from 90 to 100,000 live in Pennsylvania, and prefer to put all their earnings into land and improvements. The Scotch or Irish are satisfied with a fair profit, put the capital into another farm, leaving the Germans owners of the old farms." Ascherwall received his information from Franklin the year previous. Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 27, p. 5.
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CHAPTER IX.
THEIR PLACE IN GENERAL AMERICAN HISTORY.
3 T remains but to indicate with a few strokes the position of these early communities in the general course of American civilization. Of course in so far as colonial Pennsylvania was a formative factor in American history and in so far as these Germans helped to give direction to events in colonial Pennsylvania, their place in American history may be gathered from the preceding chapter. But they have also another significance for American history, a significance that comes not indirectly from the part they played in the history of their own province but directly from their own influence upon American life and civili- zation.
So far as numbers and possessions are concerned they constituted only a very small part of the American nation and their significance in themselves when weighed in the balances of the whole continent must necessarily be very small except in so far as they are indicative of a larger movement and prognostic of a greater future. In fact they constitute but a small portion even of the German
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Their Place in General American History.
element in the population of colonial America. But when viewed in the perspective of nearly two centuries they are seen to be the very van of a great movement that has made the American nation and moulded the American character and fixed American institutions. In the light of what has already been said concerning their distinguishing charac- teristics it must appear that their national significance is entirely disproportionate to their numbers and their hold- ings. Their significance for the history of American civil- ization and the evolution of American institutions lies partly in their location, partly in their occupation, and partly in their qualities of character.
In the first place, the Germans in York County before the middle of the eighteenth century were upon the very frontier of American civilization. Now the whole his- tory of the American advance even down to our day is the history of the western frontier. The peculiarity of Amer- ican institutions is the result of successive waves of west- ward expansion. The forces dominating American char- acter today are the outgrowth of the gradual development from the simplicity of primitive industrial society to the complexity of modern manufacturing civilization. Over and over again this process has been repeated on each new frontier line as the population from decade to decade has marched with steady step across the American expanse. This continual rebirth of American life has given indelible stamp to our national character and our national institu- tions. The European has conquered the wilderness but during the process the wilderness has reacted upon the European and made him over into a new character with new ideas and new ideals. The frontier has been the meeting-point between civilization and savagery and thus it has constituted the crucible in which the different Euro-
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German Element in York County, Pa.
pean nationalities have been moulded into an entirely new product known as the American.
The westward advance of the frontier has taken place in well-defined stages marked by natural boundary lines. At the end of the seventeenth century the frontier was the fall line, the edge of the tide-water region of the Atlantic coast. By the middle of the eighteenth century it had ad- vanced to the Alleghanies. During the Revolution the frontier crossed the Alleghanies and by the end of the century reached the Ohio. At the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century it had advanced to the Missis- sippi. By the middle of the nineteenth cenutry it lay along the Missouri. Shortly thereafter it leaped across the Rockies and by the centennial year it had reached the Pacific and had begun to swerve northward towards Canada and Alaska. Thus has the retreating frontier marked the stages in the growth of the nation.
At each of these boundary lines the process of Amer- ican transformation has been very similar. First came the Indian trader's frontier. The Indian had followed the buffalo trail. Now the trader, the pathfinder of civili- zation, follows the Indian trail and begins the disintegra- tion of savagery. He is soon followed either by the miner or the rancher, and the trail is widened into a road. Then comes the pioneer farmer to exploit the soil, render it "barren," and then move on to virgin lands. He is fol- lowed by the steady farmer who devotes himself to inten- sive culture and permanent settlement, and he converts the road into a turnpike. This denser farm settlement is fol- lowed by city and factory with all the complexity of manu- facturing organization. The turnpike has now been trans- formed into a railroad and the process of Americanization is complete. Each of these stages has wrought political
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Their Place in General American History.
and economic transformations and has contributed some- thing towards the finished American product.1
In this process of American history it is not difficult to determine the place of the York County Germans as they appeared during the period which has come under our view. They fall within that stage when the Atlantic coast was yet the only settled area and when the frontier was slowly advancing up the courses of the Atlantic rivers towards their headwaters and towards the Alleghanies. But in this transition from the coast to the mountains the York County settlements constitute an important step. The first to settle west of the Susquehanna in this region, and among the first of all the settlements west of this natural dividing-line, the early German communities of York County stand like an auspicious prognosticator point- ing westward beyond the South Mountain and the Blue Ridge and inviting to the conquest of the Alleghanies and the promising lands beyond. Like an entering wedge into the Indian country this tongue of German settlements pushed forward indenting the wilderness, broadening the national horizon, and inspiring to almost limitless acqui- sition of empire.
When the Germans settled in York County the Indian trader's frontier had passed. The Indian had withdrawn into the interior and with him had gone the trader. The mining explorer had also had his day in York County. It
was time for the farmer's frontier and this was the posi-
1 For this view of American history we are indebted to Professor F. J. Turner, of Harvard. A brief statement of Professor Turner's philosophy of American history together with valuable suggestions as to the concrete influence of the frontier upon certain phases of American character and American institutions, is found in his article "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" in the Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the year 1893, pp. 197-247.
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German Element in York County, Pa.
tion occupied by the Germans. Throughout colonial times Pennsylvania was the basis of distribution of frontier emigration and the settlement of York County is signifi- cant as one of the earliest steps in this Pennsylvania ex- pansion southward and westward. The observer who takes his stand among the Delaware and Shawnese Indians on the west bank of the Susquehanna at the opening of the eighteenth century will see the successive stages of the American frontier passing before his view in exactly the same order in which they afterwards pass the many nat- ural boundaries in their westward course to the Pacific. With the beginning of the fourth decade of that century Indian resistance will have ceased, the farmer with inten- sive methods of culture will have arrived, the next to the last stage in the process of complete Americanization will have been reached, and there will remain but one more step to make this region one of the most populous and thriving communities in the New World. The place of the first decades of York County Germans in general American history may be seen from the fact that they con- stituted the farmer stage of the American frontier during a critical period in the frontier advance. The settling of these Germans was like the formation of an artery in the embryo of the nation that was yet to be.
The movement of the Germans across the Susquehanna was a decided step in advance. Others had come as far as that river but had halted and hesitated to cross. Before the first authorized settlement had been made in York County the Quaker settlements had been slowly pushing westward along the northern part of Lancaster County. In 1727 a number of Quakers, among them Samuel Blun- ston, John Wright, and Robert Barber, had settled at Hempfield, on the east bank of the Susquehanna. But
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Their Place in General American History.
here the westward migration of the Friends halted for more than a decade. The cause of this delay in their prog- ress was the boundary dispute with Maryland and the Cressap War which resulted from that dispute. Not until 1738 did the Quaker movement continue across the river and begin the belt of Quaker settlements which extends across the northern part of York County.2 Meanwhile the German wave of westward immigration had arrived. This tide suffered no serious check either from the river or from the Cressap War. These hardy and resolute Ger- mans quickly crossed the river, plunged boldly into the forest, and bore the brunt of the border difficulties with the Maryland intruders. Not until this critical and difficult stage in the history of that frontier had been passed and quiet had been restored did the other nationalities sweep into the county after them. To the Germans, therefore, was reserved the special mission of occupying in a peculiar sense the very forefront of the farmer stage of the frontier in this part of the American advance beyond the Susque- hanna.
But even within the farmer stage of the American ad- vance there are usually two or three distinct periods in each case. Two or three classes of farmers follow one another across the frontier. First is the pioneer farmer whose wants are few but who seeks quick results. He searches out the bare spots or those most easily cleared and begins to exploit the virgin soil. He has no ambition to become the owner of his holding for he expects soon to take up his march again. With the simplest implements of agricul- ture, a rude log cabin, and a rough shed for a stable, he occupies his range until he has completely drained the soil
2 Albert Cook Myers, "The Immigration of the Irish Quakers into Pennsylvania, 1682-1750," pp. 162 and 180.
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German Element in York County, Pa.
of its strength or until he is crowded by neighbors. Then he disposes of his "improvements" and moves on to new soil to carry out the same process again.
The second class of farmer is the settler who stakes out his claim, takes measures to secure a survey, and negotiates for the purchase of that which he occupies. He welcomes neighbors into his community, builds a church and school- house, and practices the arts of civilized life. He builds a substantial house and often a more substantial barn. His house is of hewn logs, with windows of glass and a chimney of brick or stone. His barn is made to shelter a large number of domestic animals and to store the products of careful cultivation. He rotates his crops and fertilizes his lands so as not to exhaust the soil. He adds to his fields from year to year and settles down to plain and frugal but contented living. This is the class of farmer that usually continues to occupy his improvements and thus forms the nucleus of permanent settlement.
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