USA > Pennsylvania > York County > The Beginnings of the German Element in York County, Pennsylvania > Part 4
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11 Calvert Papers, No. 2, p. 54.
12 John Penn returned to London the following year to care for the inter- ests of Pennsylvania in the boundary dispute with Lord Baltimore. Thomas Penn remained in the province until 1741.
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The First Settlement.
not consummated until late in the year 1736. Meanwhile the incursions of the Marylanders which Governor Keith more than a decade before had made the excuse for his survey of the " Mine Tract," were becoming a real menace to the proprietary rights in that region. The settlers from Maryland and under Maryland authority were pushing farther and farther north and were growing constantly bolder and more annoying along the west bank of the Sus- quehanna. The provincial authorities of Pennsylvania became convinced that active measures must be taken to secure the rights of their province in that region.
The Maryland authorities had long before felt that special inducements ought to be offered to settlers in that region. Their custom did not prevent them from issuing full warants for settlements on Indian lands. But even this, they felt, was not enough and ten years before the government of Pennsylvania took any measures to settle the new territory the proprietary agent at Annapolis had urged the granting of easy conditions for payment of war- rants in order to induce citizens of Maryland to settle in this district west of the Susquehanna. Thus Philemon Lloyd, in the letter quoted above, writes :
If this Place were well Seated, it would be a good Barrier unto the Province on that Side & doubt not, but that it would in a few years, bring on the Planting of that other Vast Body of Rich Lands, that lyes something more to the Westward; & would likewise secure our Country against the Claims of the Pensilvanians on the North side; for we are allready Seated to the Northward of that Line, which I lay down for the true Location of Pensilvania upon the Back of the 12 Mile Circle, as they have encroached upon us to the Southward of that Line about Octeraro, & to the East- ward of it, which seems to be occationed by our own too great Supiness; & makes me so desirous now, of Seating farther up the
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German Element in York County, Pa.
Susquehannah; & if his Lordship should be pleased to grant 7 or IO years Time for the Payment of the Ffines for Lands in those remote parts; he will, I verily am perswaded have his back part of his Country Seated, by more than 10 years the sooner, . There are other Advantages, that will Acrrue from Setling the Re- moter Parts of the Province, by Conditional Warrants as above proposed : the Scotts Irish, & Palatines, after the news of so great Concessions, will I imagine fflock apace in, & Even some from Pensilvania it Self;
But even without such special inducements as were here proposed, the Marylanders, as we have seen, were flocking to the west bank of the Susquehanna much to the annoy- ance of the provincial government and the Lancaster County authorities just east of the river and to the great unrest of the Pennsylvanians who had settled west of the river.
In order to counteract these annoying encroachments the proprietary agents of Pennsylvania began to adopt the policy of encouraging citizens of Pennsylvania to cross the Susquehanna and settle west of the river acknowledging the jurisdiction of Pennsylvania in that region. For this purpose in January, 1733, they commissioned Samuel Blunston, who lived near the river,18 to issue temporary licenses to such persons as were willing to take up lands on the west side of the river and settle there. These licenses were afterwards confirmed by the proprietor on October 30, 1736, as soon as the lands could be purchased from the Indians. The full text of one of these confirmed Blun- ston licenses was presented as evidence in the case of Nich- olas Perie in 1748. It is of special interest because it was doubtless the same form that was used by the proprietor
13 At Wright's Ferry, where Columbia now stands.
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The First Settlement.
in confirming the licenses of all the early German settlers in the county.
Pennsylvania ss:
Whereas, sundry Germans and others formerly seated them- selves by our Leave on Lands Lying on the West side of Sasque- hanna River within our County of Lancaster, & within the bounds of a Tract of Land Survey'd the Nineteenth and Twentieth Days of June, Anno Domini, 1722, containing about Seventy thousand Acres, commonly called the Manor of Springetsbury;
And Whereas A Confirmation to the Persons seated on the same for their several tracts has hitherto been delayed by reason of the Claim made to the said Lands by the Indians of the Five Nations, which Claim the said Indians have now effectually released to Us by their Deed bearing date the Eleventh Day of this Instant, October ;
And Whereas Nicholas Perie, one of the Persons living within the said Manor, hath now applied for a Confirmation of Two Hundred Acres, part of the same where he is now Seated ;
I do hereby Certify that I will cause a Patent to be drawn to the said Nicholas Perie for the said Two hundred Acres (if so much can be there had without prejudice to the other settlers) on the common Terms other Lands on the West side of Sasquehanna River are granted, so soon as the said quantity shall be Survey'd to him & a return thereof made to me
October 30th, 1736.
THO. PENN.14
The nature of these licenses reflects the primitive meth- ods of granting lands. They were variously known by the government as "licenses," "grants," and "certificates."15 They were not real warrants but merely approved the mak- ing of a survey and promised to order a patent to be drawn at some indefinite future time. They thus secured the
14 Col. Rec., V: 219 f.
15 Vide Hamilton's Warrant for Resurvey, infra, p. 53 f.
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German Element in York County, Pa.
settler in his right to his settlement. The licenses had all the essential features of warrants with the single exception that they showed no previous payment of purchase money. In the litigations that arose long afterwards over these tracts the Blunston licenses were regarded by some as mere locations, by others as actual warrants. The distinction was made in the courts between "warrants on common terms " and "warrants to agree." The former were war- rants issued for lands that were not reserved by the pro- prietor but were offered to the public at a fixed price. The latter were contracts for the possession of lands which had been surveyed from the common stock as manors, had thus been withdrawn from the public market, and so could be acquired only by special agreement.16 The Blunston licenses were issued for lands that were supposed to lie within the Springettsbury Manor17 and so could be acquired only by special contract or "warrants to agree." But as a matter of practice they were always issued on common terms. Note, for example, the closing sentence in the Hendricks warrant, "on the same Terms other Lands in the County of Lancaster shall be granted "18 and the closing sentence in the Perie warrant, "on the common Terms other Lands on the West side of Sasquehanna River are granted."19 These Blunston licenses afterwards played a very conspicuous part in the judicial investigation into the validity of the claim to these manorial lands west of the river.20
16 Decisions of the Supreme Court of U. S., Wheaton, Vol. IX, p. 35, Curtis edition.
17 They were afterwards by the resurvey of 1768 actually comprehended in that manor.
18 Vide supra, p. 28.
19 Vide supra, P. 49.
20 Dallas Reports, Circuit Court, Pennsylvania District, Vol. IV, pp. 37'3-
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The First Settlement.
Samuel Blunston kept a careful list of the persons to whom he issued permits to settle west of the river together with the approximate number of acres allowed to each one. This list he transmitted from time to time to the Land Office in Philadelphia. It was preserved in that office until 1762 but has since disappeared.21 There is, therefore, no way of ascertaining directly the names and exact locations of the earliest settlers in the county. For no surveys of their tracts were made at the time. Blunston had surveyed in person the tract upon which John and James Hendricks had settled. He had laid out a tract of 1,200 acres and had assigned one half of it to Hendricks, "the uper side and best part." This was done by special order of the secretary of the province and the exact location of this tract is well known. But when he issued his conditional grants (1733-1736) he did not undertake the work of making the surveys and the new territory was well dotted with settlers before any surveys were made.22 Thus on March 18, 1735,23 Blunston wrote to Thomas Penn :
380. "Blunston's Licenses have always been deemed valid: and many titles in Pennsylvania depend upon them. . . . " Ibid., p. III. Wheaton's Reports, Vol. IX, pp. 34-73.
21 Vide Governor Hamilton's Warrant for Resurvey of Springettsbury Manor, infra, p. 53 f. Perhaps it was on the occasion of this resurvey that the list of permits disappeared.
22 For some years, in fact, it was the express policy of the Pennsylvania government to avoid making surveys in this region. For Governor Gordon wrote to Governor Ogle on July 26, 1732, and speaking of the agreement of 1723 he said that convention "notwithstanding the numerous Settlements made by those who forced themselves upon us from Ireland and Germany, has been so punctually observed by our office that there has not been one Survey made, as is affirmed to me by Order of that Office, within the Limits which it was conceived Maryland either could or would claim." Archives, I: 338.
23 The date of the letter is March 18, 1734, but this was under the old method of dating. Under the modern method this would be March 18,
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German Element in York County, Pa.
Though as much care as possible has been taken to prevent dis- putes yet many are like to arise which can never be well adjusted without surveying to each their several tracts. And as warrants are already lodged here for that purpose I make bold to propose that a surveyor of sense and honesty (if such can be had) might be sent up as soon as possible for that service, which if done with ex- pedition I am certain would be greatly for your interest and the only sure means of a regular settlement for I do not think it proper at this critical juncture to leave the people room to quarrel among themselves. Beside in a country so scarce of water as that is if the people are alowed to be their own carvers a great part of the land will be rendred uninhabitable. This as well as the other should be timely prevented. The people are now settling building and improving daily. This is the season for surveying which can- not so well be done in any other season as the six or eight weeks coming. This I thought to mention though I know of no person in these parts to recommend yet doubtless such may soon be had. ... I should be glad to know thy mind herein that I may be able to give the people an answer for they are generally desirous and expect it will be done.
It is not at all certain that such surveys were ever made. No drafts of these settlements are known to exist. There is no trace of the confirmed warrants in the Land Office at Harrisburg. The individual surveys had evidently not been made when the Blunston licenses were confirmed in 1736, and the words of Governor Hamilton's warrant for the resurvey of Springettsbury Manor leave little doubt that at least so far as most of the tracts were concerned no such surveys had yet been made in 1762.24 We are left
1735. We shall hereafter give all dates as they would be under the modern method.
24 The original survey of Springettsbury Manor, made in 1722, is still in existence. It either had been mislaid or else was being purposely sup- pressed at the time the resurvey was ordered in 1762. It has recently been discovered by the Hon. Robert C. Bair, of York, and was published in the
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The First Settlement.
therefore to inference and incidental allusions for our in- formation concerning the names, the nationality, and the location of the earliest settlers in the Kreutz Creek Valley.
But such sources of information are not entirely lacking. It is clear in the first place that the Kreutz Creek Valley was from the beginning regarded as settled predominantly and almost entirely by Germans. For example, in Gov- ernor Hamilton's warrant of May 21, 1762, for the resur- vey of Springettsbury Manor, it is set forth that the manor was originally surveyed for the use of the proprietor on the 19th and 20th of June, 1722, and that
sundry Germans and others afterwards seated themselves by our leave on divers parts of the said manor but by reason of some claim made to those Lands by the Indians of the Five Nations (which they afterwards released to us by their Deed of the 11th day of October, 1736) the confirmations of the parts so seated in the said manor were for some time delayed. And whereas, upon our ob- taining the said Release from the said Indians we did give to each of the persons so as aforesaid settled on our said Manour License or Certificate bearing date respectively the 30th day of October in the year last aforesaid, thereby promising that we would order a patent to be drawn to each of them for their respective Settle-
Pennsylvania Annual Report of the Secretary of Internal Affairs, 1905, Part I, Map E, where it is shown to differ widely from the relocation made under Hamilton's orders. But the words of Hamilton's warrant indicate clearly that surveys for the grants to individual settlers had not been made systematically and were really not in existence.
In the Proceedings of The Supreme Executive Council, January 25, 1787 (Col. Rec., XV: 153), there is a suggestion as to what became of such copies of patents for tracts within the Springettsbury Manor as were re- corded in the secretary's office. The secretary was there instructed to deliver to the attorney of the Penns the copies of warrants which had been issued for such tracts, and the proceedings of the council on September 22, 1788, indicate that these instructions were carried out and that "several inclosures " had been thus delivered.
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German Element in York County, Pa.
ments and plantations in the said Manor as soon as surveyed mak- ing in the whole by Computation 12,000 Acres or thereabouts, as in and by a Record and particular list of such Licenses or Grants remaining in our Land Office more fully appear. And whereas the survey of our said Manor is by some accident lost or mislaid and is not now to be found but by the well known Settlements and Im- provements made by the said Licenced Settlers therein and the many Surveys made round the above said Manor and other proofs and Circumstances it appears that the said Manor is bounded on the East by the River Susquehannah, on the West by a North and South Line West of the late Dwelling plantation of Christian Esther, otherwise called Oyster (to which said Christian one of the said Licences or Grants was given for his Plantation) North- ward by a Line nearest East and West Distant about three Miles North of the present Great Road leading from Wright's Ferry through York Town by the said Christian Oysters plantation to Monocksay and Southward by a Line near East and West distant about three Miles of the Great Road aforesaid. And whereas divers of the said Tracts and Settlements within our Manor have been surveyed and confirmed by patents to the said Settlers thereof or their assigns and many of them that have been surveyed yet remain to be confirmed by patent and the Settlers or possessors thereof have applied for such Confirmation agreeable to our said Licences or Grants whose requests we are willing and desirous to comply with and we being also desirous that a compleat Draught or Map and return Survey of our said Manor shall be replaced and remain for their and our use in Your Office and also in our Secre- tary's Office .. .
The "well known settlements and improvements " of these "sundry Germans and others" were Hamilton's, chief means of determining again the bounds of the manor, the original survey of which had been temporarily lost. The Blunston licenses confirmed by Thomas Penn in 1736
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The First Settlement.
totaled about 12,000 acres.25 The entire manor as relo- cated under Hamilton's orders embraced 64,520 acres. The Blunston licenses therefore covered about one fifth of the manor. In the subsequent litigation concerning these manorial lands the number of licenses confirmed by Thomas Penn is stated to be fifty-two.26 Now there is abundant evidence to show that with very few exceptions these fifty-two licensed settlers occupying one fifth of the entire fertile valley afterwards included in the Springetts- bury Manor were Germans.
25 The usual grant to each settler in those days was 200 acres. The grant to John Hendricks was in this respect also an exception.
26 In February, 1824, in the case of Kirk and others, Plaintiffs in Error, vs. Smith, ex. dem. Penn, Defendant in Error, tried before the Supreme Court of the United States, evidence was produced showing that the num- ber of licensed settlers on Springettsbury Manor in 1736 was fifty-two. Chief Justice Marshall delivered the opinion of the Court on that occasion and said among other things:
"Now it appears from the statement of the testimony made in the charge of the court to the jury, which is the only regular information of the evi- dence given in the case, that an agreement was entered into, in 1736, between the proprietary and a number of the inhabitants, by which he agreed to make them titles for certain specified quantities of land in their possession on the common terms. This agreement is stated to have been afterwards carried into execution. The contract, as stated, contains un- equivocal proof of having been made under the idea that the survey of 1722 was valid, that it related to lands within the lines of that survey, and that the lands within its lines were considered a manor. That survey may not have been attended with those circumstances which would bring it within the saving act of 1779, and certainly, in this cause, is not to be considered as a valid survey of a manor. It was nevertheless believed, in 1736 by the parties to this contract, to be a manor: and those proceedings which took place respecting lands within it, are consequently such as might take place respecting lands within a manor. We find sales of lands made to fifty- two persons upon the common terms, and grants made to them according to contract. When the final survey was made, comprehending these lands as being part of the manor of Springettsbury, were they less a part of that manor because they were granted as a part of it before the survey was made?" Wheaton's Reports, Vol. IX, February Session.
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German Element in York County, Pa.
For it must be remembered that the purpose of the pro- prietary agents in encouraging settlements beyond the Sus- quehanna was to preempt that soil for those who acknowl- edged the claims of Pennsylvania as over against the claims of "the Maryland intruders." This was not an afterthought on the part of the Pennsylvania government, as was so often claimed by the Maryland authorities in the trying times that followed. Pennsylvania's claim to this soil was a consistent one. From the time of the arrest of Philip Syng on Keith's Tract in 1722 and the original survey of Springettsbury Manor in that same year, to the final adjustment of the difficulties almost half a century later, Pennsylvania never relinquished her claim upon this region and never consented to recognize the Susquehanna as the boundary between herself and Maryland. This claim was recognized by Parnell and his associates in 1728 and it was only with the advent of Col. Thomas Cressap that the claims of Pennsylvania in this region were aggres- sively denied and withstood. The property of these earliest settlers in our county, therefore, became at once the immediate bone of contention between the two colonial governments in their border difficulties. It is through the recorded transactions incident to these border difficulties that we learn how large a proportion of the earliest settle- ments in the county were made by Germans, and these records, replete in their references to the "unfortunate " Germans, also tell us something about their names, their position and their purposes.
Thus on December 10, 1736, the deposition of Michael Tanner was taken by Magistrate Tobias Hendricks as evidence in the case of Thomas Cressap the instigator and leader of the Maryland intruders. This Tanner was the
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The First Settlement.
same young German who had settled west of the river in the company of Edward Parnell and several other Eng- lishmen and upon the complaint of the Indians had been expelled in 1728. From his deposition we learn that he had persisted in his effort to settle west of the river and on September 17, 1734, had made an authorized settlement of 200 acres six miles southwest of John Hendricks. This time he was not accompanied by English companions for now it was chiefly the Germans who seem to have been attracted across the river. Tanner also declares that in 1734 and 1735 Cressap with pretended authority from Maryland had surveyed upwards of 40 tracts of land for the Germans living in those parts.27
27 Michael Tanner (afterwards Danner) was a native of Mannheim, Germany. On September 27, 1727, when he was thirty-one years of age, he and his wife arrived at the port of Philadelphia. He passed the winter among his countrymen in the western part of Lancaster County. The fol- lowing spring he crossed the Susquehanna, selected a tract of land near the mouth of Cabin Branch, where Parnell, Summerford and Williams had taken up their abodes. But when he applied to the government for per- mission to settle there and make improvement, it was refused and in the fall of the year he was required to remove from the west bank. In 1734 he secured a Blunston license and effected a settlement in the Kreutz Creek Valley. Here he soon became involved in the Cressap disturbances. During these difficulties and for some years thereafter Tanner was the spokesman for his countrymen west of the river (for example, Col. Rec., IV: 75). He stoutly resisted the claims of the Marylanders, rejecting their promises and ignoring their threats. In 1736 he was surprised and captured by the Marylanders while he was helping to bury one of his neighbor's children and was carried off and imprisoned for a time at Annapolis. Michael Tanner was a leader of men. When a measure of peace was restored in York County he was one of its most prominent citizens. His name appears frequently in the records of the County, as witness to wills, appraiser of property, executor of estates, and viewer of roads. In 1749 he was one of the commissioners to lay off the County. His signature grows constantly more Anglicized with the years, indicating the influence of his contact with English-speaking officials.
In religious faith he was a Mennonite, as is evinced by the fact that
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German Element in York County, Pa.
From similar depositions we learn that Balzer Springler (otherwise Spangler) 28 in the beginning of 1733 under a Pennsylvania grant had settled and improved a tract of land on Codorus Creek twelve miles west of John Hen- dricks, but that he had been ejected by Cressap to make room for another German, John Keller; that late in 1733
he " solemnly affirmed according to law " instead of taking oath. It was under his leadership that the Mennonites coming from Lancaster County began to settle the rich farming lands in the Conewago Valley near Digges' Choice in 1738. He was afterwards a close friend of the Scotchman Richard McAllister, and it was probably due to Tanner's influence that McAllisterstown received the name of Hanover. His son, Jacob Danner, was the first elder of the German Baptist Church of Codorus, II miles southeast of York, organized in 1758, and became involved in the famous religious controversy with Jacob Lischy. Vide Archives, I: 524 f. Division Public Records, Harrisburg, Provincial Papers, Vol. VI: 4, 15, 23. York and Lancaster County Records, passim.
28 John Balthasar Spangler was the eleventh child of Hans Rudolph Spangler. Born November 29, 1706, at Weiler-Hilsbach in the Palatinate on the Rhine, and married in April, 1732, he migrated to America and arrived at the port of Philadelphia on October 11, 1732. The following spring he made his way westward across the Susquehanna armed with a Blunston license for a tract on the Codorus Creek but he was forcibly pre- vented by Cessap from executing this grant. He soon succeeded however in gaining permanent possession of another tract of 200 acres. This he purchased from his countryman Tobias Frey and it lay one mile east of the Codorus, just south of the Peachbottom Road (now Plank Road) where it crosses the Mill Creek, in what is now Spring Garden Township. He gradually added to his possessions until in 1763 he owned 483 acres. Part of this land has been incorporated in the city of York. Balthasar Spangler had been preceded to America and to York County by his elder brother Caspar and he was accompanied to the New World by his brothers George and Henry. Balthasar was one of the patriarchs in the early history of the County. When the town of York was laid out in 1741 he was one of the first persons to take up a lot and build a house. When the first County election was held in 1749 Spangler's house was the voting-place. He after- wards kept a public inn there. He was one of the most prominent and influential members of the German Reformed Congregation. He died in 1770 possessed of a large estate and survived by six sons and two daughters. "The Spengler Families With Local Historical Sketches," pp. 138 ff.
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