USA > Pennsylvania > York County > The Beginnings of the German Element in York County, Pennsylvania > Part 2
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18 The published Calvert Papers, No. 2, p. 25 ff. "Fund Publications." 19 Minutes of the meeting of the Commissioners of Property held in Philadelphia, April 16, 1722.
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German Element in York County, Pa.
little doubt therefore that the first authorized survey in York County was incited by the hope of finding some min- eral or ore, either copper or gold, and that attention was directed to this region by the explorations of Lewis Michelle, the Mennonite miner, whose prospecting for mines in 1706 had led to the formal complaint of the Conestoga Indians. It is not at all surprising that Gov- ernor Keith was well informed of the movements of this advance agent of the Mennonites. For he was keenly interested in the development of the natural resources of his province and he also seems to have been generally on favoring terms with the Germans. For it was he who in 1723, of his own motion and with the subsequent disap- proval of the Proprietary, placed the Germans from Scho- harie, New York, in the Tulpehocken Valley.
Just how much of the present area of York County was covered by the explorations of Michelle it is not possible to ascertain but it seems certain that they extended over the present townships bordering on the river from Newberry south, and at times must have penetrated as far westward as the Cumberland Valley.20 Much of this territory after- wards became very familiar soil, not only to the German Mennonites but also to Germans of other religious faiths.
20 For the formal complaint of the Indians (supra, p. 5) stated that " divers Europeans, namely: Mitchel (a Swiss), Peter Bezalion, James le Tort, Martin Chartiere, the French glover of Philadelphia, Flranck, a young man of Canada, who was lately taken up here, being all French men, and one from Virginia, who also spoke French, had seated themselves and built houses upon the branches of the Patowmack, within this govern- ment, and pretended that they were in search of some mineral or Ore, &c." Col. Rec., II: 403 f.
AN SOCIETY
.OF
CHAPTER II.
THE FIRST SETTLERS.
HE earliest attempts at settlement within the present limits of the county were made before the land had been purchased from the Indians, hence before any kind of title could be given according to established usage. Those who thus entered unpurchased Indian lands were known as squatters. The first white squatter on the territory west of the Susquehanna was John Grist (otherwise Crist, Krist, Greist). He was an Englishman who came to York County from Hempfield Township, Lancaster County, in 1719 or 1720.1 Grist was accompanied in this move by several other persons. They settled near the mouth of Kreutz Creek known in Keith's survey of 1722
1 The fact referred to in footnote 20 of Chapter I that Michelle and others had, according to testimony of the Indians in 1707, "seated them- selves and built houses upon the branches of the Potowmack within this Government " can hardly be taken to mean that they were the first squatters west of the Susquehanna. For they were merely prospectors and adventur- ers. They certainly made no substantial improvements such as would con- stitute their houses a " settlement " or "plantation." They quickly moved on to other fields of exploration. In fact Michelle had already many weeks before the complaint of the Indians moved on to Maryland soil. Col. Rec., II: 404.
2I
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German Element in York County, Pa.
as "White Oak Branch." We are able now to determine very definitely the exact spot where Grist settled and planted his corn. Two drafts of the Keith survey are in existence, one in York and one in the Department of In- ternal Affairs at Harrisburg. The draft at Harrisburg identifies the settlement of John Grist with the habitation of Captain Beaver, an Indian. The draft in York fixes the habitation of Captain Beaver at about the spot now covered by the Pennsylvania Railroad Station at Wrights- ville. This then was the location of Grist's house and improvement.2
But the new settlement was very short-lived. Grist soon came into conflict with the Indians who resented his intrusion upon their domain. And in 1721, upon com- plaint of the Indians and after repeated warnings and threats from the Commissioners of Property, he was fined and imprisoned in the jail at Philadelphia and was given his liberty only out of compassion for his poor family and on condition that he and his " accomplices " would remove at once from the west side of the river and that he would be placed under heavy bond for his good behavior. This was "judged absolutely necessary for the quiet of the In- dians, and also to prevent such audacious behavior in con- tempt of the authority of this government in the time to come."3
2 It is evidently not accurate when Rupp says (" History of Lancaster and York Counties," p. 529) that Grist was accompanied by "divers other families," for the provincial authorities deal with Grist alone and the " divers other persons" mentioned in the Colonial Records were probably only his associates in labor.
3 Col. Rec., III: 137. This same John Grist afterwards, in 1738, settled 298 acres on the Bermudian Creek in Manchester Township in the western part of York County, receiving his final warrants for the same on July 23, 1742 and October 25, 1747. Lancaster County Records.
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The First Settlers.
It might seem that this treatment was severe enough to serve its purpose of preventing any further attempts at squatting west of the Susquehanna. Nevertheless it was not long until others crossed the river from Lancaster County and settled on the west bank. In 1722, shortly after making the survey of Keith's Mine Tract, Governor Keith made a treaty with the Indians guaranteeing them the territory south and west of the Susquehanna for their exclusive possession. But in spite of this agreement it was shortly thereafter, perhaps even beginning in that same year, that three Englishmen, Edward Parnell, Paul Wil- liams, and Jefferey Sumerford, and one German, Michael Tanner,4 took up their abodes on the west side of the river opposite the Indian town of Conojahela, about three and a half miles south of the former settlement of John Grist.5 Here these intruders remained until late in the year 1727 and that too not without the knowledge of the Pennsyl- vania authorities.6 But in the fall of 1727 upon the com- plaint of the Conestoga Indians they were removed by order of the deputy governor and council. And again for
4 Tanner could not have joined the rest until 1727, for he did not reach the port of Philadelphia until September 27th of that year.
5 It is a confusion of facts when Carter and Glossbrenner, the first his- torians of the County, assert that these men had come from Maryland and were known as "the Maryland intruders." They were indeed intruders upon the territory of the Indians but they had come from Pennsylvania.
6 For Wright and Blunston in their report to Governor Gordon in 1732 state that until about two years before 1729 Parnell and the others had been settled west of the river and " for several years had paid uninter- rupted acknowledgement to this Province." Archives, I: 364 and Col. Rec., III: 470. The deposition of Tobias Hendricks (Dec., 1732) states that " during the continuance of the said Parnel, Williams and Others there, they paid taxes to this Province, Applied there for Justice, and in all cases acknowledged themselves Inhabitants of Pensylvania, until they were Re- moved from thence by Order of the Governor of Pensylvania, at the Request of the Conestogoe Indians." Archives, I: 362.
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German Element in York County, Pa.
a short interval the lands west of the broad river lay vacant for the exclusive convenience of the Indians.
By this time it had become evident that no permanent or successful settlement could be made west of the river without securing either the consent of the Indians or the authorization of the colonial government. Accordingly the next effort at pioneer improvement on the new soil proceeds with the consent of the secretary of the province. This first authorized settlement within the present limits of our county was made in 1728, a few months before Lancaster County was organized and separated from Ches- ter County. In the summer of that year John Hendricks removed from the banks of the Conestoga about three miles north of the Susquehanna and under the authority of government settled west of the Susquehanna upon the tracts from which John Grist and his companions had been com- pelled to remove in 1721. The circumstances attending this settlement will help us to understand something of the conditions under which the earliest settlements in York County took their beginnings.
Hendricks's removal to the west side of the river had been under contemplation for several years. The hunt- ing-trips of Hendricks and his relations had often taken them across the river, and thus they had become fairly familiar with the soil on the west bank. Early in the year 1727 John Hendricks had applied to James Logan, secre- tary of the Province, for permission to take up land and settle west of the river. At the same time a similar appli- cation was made by Joseph Chapham. Hendricks told Logan that the Indians west of the river were desirous that that he should settle there. Now Logan had heard that some people from Maryland were about to make surveys
25
The First Settlers.
on those lands. Accordingly upon the application of Hen- dricks and Chapham, Logan ordered Samuel Blunston, a magistrate located on the east bank of the Susquehanna, to survey a tract west of the river opposite Hempfield em- bracing about 1,000 or 1, 500 acres. This was to be sur- veyed to William Penn, grandson of the first proprietor, and was to be regarded as part of the 10,000 acres devised by the proprietor to his grandson. It was hoped that this arrangement would both forestall any claim to the land that the Marylanders might put forth and at the same time give no offense to the Indians. Logan also instructed Blunston that if Hendricks and Chapham could secure the consent of the Indians, they together with Hendricks's brother James should be permitted to make settlement on part of the tract west of the river.
In July, 1727, Blunston crossed the river and marked the four corners of a tract such as he had been ordered to survey. The actual survey was not then made because, as he explained, "at that time the weeds being so high we could not chain it nor carry an instrument to any purpose." Meanwhile Chapham had given up his intention of settling there and had moved to Carolina. Moreover the attitude of the Indians had become such that John and James Hen- dricks did not regard it as a safe venture to settle west of the river. For their brother Henry together with one Thomas Linvil had during the summer settled as squatters on the Codorus Creek at a point twelve miles west of the Susquehanna but the violent opposition of the Indians had forced them to withdraw. Thus no authorized settlement was effected in that year.
But John Hendricks persisted. In the fall of the year 1727 he appealed to Logan a second time for permission
26
German Element in York County, Pa.
to settle on the tract which had been marked off. But he was now informed that since the Indians insisted upon their rights and were determined that there should be no settlements of whites within their domain, no such per- mission as Hendricks sought could be granted by the authorities. However during the year 1728 the Indians began to grow cool in the assertion of their rights as over against the Pennsylvanians. For they began to realize from sad experience that if they hindered the citizens of Pennsylvania from settling in those parts the Mary- landers would occupy them by force without any consider- ation for the rights or feelings of the Indians. Marking this change of sentiment among the aborigines John Hen- dricks during the summer of 1728 removed across the river with his wife Rebecca and took up his abode upon the former plantation of John Grist.7 This he did with- out any further license than that which he had already re- ceived, namely, permission of the secretary of the Province to settle on a part of the tract marked off for William Penn, on condition that he first secure the consent of the Indians. As the Indians never objected to Hendricks's settlement there this settlement was always regarded by the authorities as legal and authorized.8 The tract on
7 Local historians following Carter and Glossbrenner have always as- signed 1729 as the date when both John and James Hendricks settled west of the river. But these statements are erroneous, as is evident from the clear and reliable account of Samuel Blunston (see Appendix A) and from the provisional warrant issued by Thomas Penn in 1733 (vide infra, p. 27). This date is also attested by a third document, a letter from Samuel Blunston to Richard Peters dated March 25, 1740, in which he says: "Inclosed herewith is a draught of the tract of land I bought of John Hendricks ... the land was surveyed to and settled by John Hendricks in the year 1728 by order and consent of the proprietary commissioners." Penna. Archives, Second Series, Vol. VII, p. 219.
8 For example, the Provincial Council makes reference in 1737 to " John
27
The First Settlers.
which Hendricks lived was formally surveyed to him by Blunston during the last week of November, 1729. It included 600 acres and constituted about one half, "the uper side and best part," of the tract originally marked off for the proprietor.9
The proprietary warrant for this survey and settlement was not issued until March 20, 1733. It was then issued on behalf of John Hendricks, James Hendricks, and Joshua Minshall. For John Hendricks did not long enjoy the distinction of being the only authorized settler west of the river. About the year 1731 James Hendricks, his brother, came and settled on a part of the tract on which John lived "it always being understood to be their equal right." But in the early spring of 1732 James was acci- dentally shot and killed by his father while they were hunt- ing turkeys, and his widow sold out her rights in the prop- erty to Joshua Minshall. Minshall settled on the land which he had thus bought and when Thomas Penn the following spring approved the survey and issued a condi- tional grant it read as follows :
Wheras upon the Application of John & James Hendricks & some others, Inhabitants of Pensilvania the Commissioners of Property did in the year 1728 order Samuel Blunston to lay out a Tract of Land of Twelve hundred Acres lying on the West Side of Susquehannah opposite to Hempfield ; which Land was then settled by the said Parties, and is now in the Possession of the said John Hendricks and Joshua Minshall, who holds in right of the said
Hendricks, who for some years lived on the west side of Susquehannah, on a Tract of Land laid out to him by the Authority of this Government." Col. Rec., IV : 150.
The draft of this survey was promised to Logan (as per Blunston's Letter). If it was ever made it has since been lost. But the location of the tract is well known, being identical with the former plantation of John Grist.
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German Element in York County, Pa.
James Hendricks ; and it appearing to me that the said John Hen- dricks & Joshua Minshall are settled upon the said Land by regular Surveys-ordered to be made in the Year 1728 of which I approve and will order a Patent or Patents to be drawn for that share of the Land laid out to the said John and James Hendricks to John Hen- dricks and Joshua Minshall as soon as the Indian Claim thereon shall be satisfied-on the same Terms other Lands in the County of Lancaster shall be granted. Philadelphia, 20th March 1732/3.10
It has usually been assumed that these first settlers within the present limits of York County were Englishmen. It is impossible to trace them farther back than their settle- ment in Lancaster County, and in the absence of informa- tion to the contrary they have been regarded as English. The earliest historians of the county, Carter and Gloss- brenner, in their "History of York County " take the Eng- lish nationality of the Hendrickses for granted. "The earliest settlers were English; these were, however, soon succeeded by vast numbers of German immigrants." In this they are followed implicitly by all the other historians of the county from Day to Gibson and Prowell. Thus Day quotes the above authors with approval and remarks : "John and James Hendricks in the spring of 1729, made the first settlement. . . . They were soon followed by other families, principally Germans, who settled around them within ten or twelve miles."11 Other writers have been content to accept the statement of these early authori- ties on the history of the county. Their conclusion is doubtless drawn from the associations and the names of the Hendrickses.
They came from an English Quaker community in the
10 Now in the Land Office at Harrisburg.
11 Historical Collections of the State of Pennsylvania, p. 693.
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The First Settlers.
township of Conestoga. Here in 1715 "James Hen- dricks and company " had taken up a tract of 1, 100 acres on the Conestoga Creek. This tract was divided out among the members of the "company" and became a strong Quaker community. This James Hendricks was the father of James and John, the earliest settlers west of the river, and associated with him in his " company " were such men as Jeremy Langhorne, Thomas Baldwin, David Priest, and Tobias Hendricks. These families were closely intermarried. Thus John Hendricks was married to Rebecca, daughter of Thomas Baldwin. This would seem to indicate also religious affinity between the Hen- drickses and the Baldwins, who were English Quakers.12
Moreover their immediate associates east of the river were in all cases English. The elder James Hendricks kept an ordinary where the highway from Philadelphia and Lancaster forded the Conestoga Creek. When the Hendrickses migrated west of the river their property on the Conestoga was bought by an Englishman, John Postlethwait. John Hendricks's first petition to settle west of the river was made jointly with Joseph Chapham. Here again the name is unmistakably English as is also the case with Thomas Linvil, the man associated with Henry Hen- dricks, brother of John and James, in the effort made in 1727 to affect a settlement on the Codorus twelve miles west of the Susquehanna. Moreover the widow of James Hendricks sold out her rights to the English Quaker, Joshua Minshall. And afterwards when John Hendricks removed from Hellam Township to Manchester Town- ship he took up land adjoining Francis Worley, another name prominent among the Quakers. These close asso-
12 Rebecca Hendricks in her deposition of Dec. 29, 1732, is specifically designated " one of the People called Quakers." Archives, I: 361 f.
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German Element in York County, Pa.
ciations of the Hendrickses with the Quakers may be held to justify the conclusion that they were themselves Quakers and Englishmen. It can hardly be argued as against this conclusion that John Hendricks took up arms and partici- pated actively in the border warfare between the Mary- landers and the Pennsylvanians. For it is a well-known fact that in spite of their scruples against armed force, the hardy pioneer Quakers did sometimes in cases of emer- gency and for reasons of self-defense join in the appeal to arms.
But when consideration is had for the names of these earliest settlers themselves the argument for their English nationality seems less conclusive. The name Hendricks may be either English or German. It is of frequent oc- currence among the pioneer Germans of Pennsylvania. The name Hendrick appears repeatedly, both as Christian name and as surname, in the lists of German immigrants who arrived at the port of Philadelphia between 1727 and 1775.13 The transition from Hendrick to Hendricks, like that from Myer to Myers, was easy and quite usual. And although John and James Hendricks were located on the banks of the Conestoga before these lists of German immigrants began to be kept in Philadelphia, nevertheless it is an established fact that there were Germans in Penn- sylvania by the name of Hendricks (not merely Hendrick) early in the eighteenth century. For in the list of Germans naturalized by act of the Assembly September 29, 1709,14 are found the names of Wilhelm Hendricks, Henrich Hen-
13 Instances of such names are pointed out by H. L. Fisher in Gibson's " History of York County," p. 222. These lists of immigrants are to be seen in the Division of Public Records at Harrisburg. They were edited and published in substantially correct form in 1856 by Professor I. Daniel Rupp, Rupp's "Collection of Thirty Thousand Names, etc."
14 Col. Rec., II: 493.
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The First Settlers.
dricks, Gerhart Hendricks, and Lorentz Hendricks.15 So far therefore as the family name of John and James Hen- dricks is concerned it is altogether possible that they were Germans.
Nor does the argument from their Christian names ex- clude the possibility of the German nationality of these first settlers. The Christian name James is indeed a good Quaker name and may be regarded as a strong indication of English heritage. For it occurs quite often among the kin of the pioneer settlers west of the Susquehanna. Their father was named James. And John had a son named James.16 But too much weight must not be attached to the inference from names alone as they occurred in those days of commingling races and languages. For as a matter of fact, in the second generation of Germans in America the name James does sometimes occur. And it may perhaps have occurred, by translation from the German, even in the first generation. For instance, as early as 1738, at the organization of the German Baptist Church of the Little Conewago, one of the first elders of the Church bears the name James Hendrick.17
15 Rupp's "Collection," p. 431. Michael Hendricks paid the yearly quit- rent in Frederick Township, Philadelphia County, before 1734. Rupp's " Collection," P. 472.
16 There was a James Hendricks in the western part of Lancaster County even after the death of James the brother of John Hendricks in 1732. He was connected with the first use of violence in the border diffi- culties west of the river. He was a carpenter, lived east of the river, and was employed by James Patterson in 1733 to make trips across the river to look after Patterson's horses there. We have two depositions made by him. In the one he is called a Quaker and makes affirmation (Nov. 25, 1732). In the other he takes oath (Apr. 7, 1733). In both cases he makes his mark for a signature. Archives, I: 348 f. and 399 f. Also Col. Rec., 4: 655.
17 See Falkenstein, " History of the German Baptist Brethren Church," P. 97.
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German Element in York County, Pa.
Moreover it is a significant fact that James Logan in a letter to Samuel Blunston of May 10, 1727,18 when he has occasion incidentally to refer to the younger James Hen- dricks erroneously calls him Hendrick Hendricks. This is a purely German name and was the correct name of another brother of James and John. Samuel Blunston afterwards calls this third brother Henry, which is but the English translation of Hendrick. Then too, in the course of their correspondence both Logan and Blunston refer to the father of James and John as Jacobus. This is the German for James and this fact taken in connection with the occurrence of the German name Hendrick among the sons of Jacobus raises a high degree of presumption in favor of the German nationality of these Hendrickses.
Several years later when the Germans west of the river felt that as a class they were being treated with injustice and subjected to indignities they united among themselves to assert their rights and on this occasion their principal leaders and spokesmen were two men named Henry Hen- dricks and Michael Tanner. These Samuel Blunston speaks of as "the most principal Note among those Ger- mans.''19 The identity of this Henry Hendricks with the Henry Hendricks who was a son of Jacobus Hendricks cannot be proved beyond doubt, but neither can it be suc- cessfully denied. It is, however, quite conceivable that Henry Hendricks, son of Jacobus, having made an unsuc- cessful effort in 1727 to settle on the banks of the Codorus, should have repeated the effort after his brothers had suc- ceeded, that he should have been among the first to settle in that region when settlers began to crowd into it, and that this priority as well as his former English associations
18 See Appendix A.
19 Col. Rec., IV : 57 and 75.
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The First Settlers.
should have marked him together with Michael Tanner, another of the earliest settlers, as leaders among their countrymen.
A similar inference may be drawn from the conduct of John Hendricks after he settled on the west bank of the river. For some years he was quite content and loyal to the Pennsylvania government under whose authority he had settled there. But then he became dissatisfied with the amount and the location of the land which had been assigned to him. In the spring of 1735 he appeared be- fore the proprietaries and complained of the "unfair and dishonest usage" he had received at the hands of John Wright and Samuel Blunston in relation to the land west of the Susquehanna. This was the occasion of Blunston's informing correspondence cited above. Blunston's ex- planations and endeavors evidently did not satisfy Hen- dricks for from this time forth he sympathizes warmly with the Marylanders. In 1736 we find him harboring them on his plantation and giving them aid in their aggres- sions. And in January, 1737, we find him imprisoned in the jail at Lancaster for "having unhappily engaged him- self on the side of Maryland and been concerned in some of their late riots."20 It is highly improbable that if John Hendricks had been an English Quaker in good standing he would have manifested such violent opposition to the Quaker government or such acrimony against such promi- nent individuals among the Quakers as were John Wright and Samuel Blunston. Nor would it have been necessary for these Friends to bring about his imprisonment and to bind him to keep the peace. This would have been a very unusual proceeding of Friends against a Friend. The prob-
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