USA > Pennsylvania > York County > The Beginnings of the German Element in York County, Pennsylvania > Part 5
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The First Settlement.
Frederick Lather, a German, had taken up his abode near the Codorus Creek, though at the persuasion of Cressap under a Maryland grant; that in 1735 Frederick Ebert, a German, apparently without any grant had settled and improved a tract of land near the Codorus only to be ex- pelled the next year by one of Cressap's agents to make room for another German, Ffelty Shults; that Martin Schultz and his wife Catherine were settled in Hellam Township (now York County) prior to 1736 and suffered violence at the hands of the Marylanders. These facts tend to confirm the impression, reflected by other public instruments, that the first people to settle in any consider- able numbers west of the Susquehanna were Germans.
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In 1736 the "Chester County Plot" was discovered. This was a conspiracy on the part of the Maryland sym- pathizers living in Chester County, Pennsylvania, "for ousting by force of arms those German families settled on the west side of the Susquehanna within the unquestionable bounds of this province [i.e., Pennsylvania]." Among the court records at West Chester is a document which contains the names of many of the German settlers west of the river in 1736. It is the record of a "billa vera ". against Henry Munday and Charles Higginbotham, insti- gators of the "Chester County Plot," in which they are charged with having conspired on October 25, 1736, against "the lands and tenements of the honorable pro- prietaries, county of Lancaster, on west side of Susque- hanna within the province of Pennsylvania then in the quiet and peaceful possession of
Christian Crawl Henry Libert Jacob Huntsecker
Peter Steinman
Henry Pann
Henry Smith
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German Element in York County, Pa.
Methusalem Griffith
Jacob Landis
Michael Tanner
Henry Kendrick
Henry Stands
Tobias Rudisill
Martin Shultz
Jacob Krebell
Jacob Welshover
Michael Springle
Paul Springler
Jacob Singler
Andreas Felixer
Philip Ziegler
Ulrick Whistler
Caspas Krever
Nicholas Booker
Derrick Pleager
Hans Steinman
George Swope
Conrad Strickler
Michael Krenel
Caspar Springler
Thomas May
Michael Walt
Nicholas Brin
Peter Kersher
Kilian Smith
Reynard Kummer
Martin Bower
George Pans Pancker
George Lauman
Frederick Leader
Martin Brunt
Michael Miller
Michael Allen
Martin Weigle
Christian Enfers
Hans Henry Place
and
Tobias Fry
Nicholas Cone "
Martin Fry
These forty-eight names are all the names of Germans, except one, that of Methusalem Griffith.
This list indicates very clearly, therefore, that as soon as the valleys west of the Susquehanna were opened to the settlement of white people there was a rapid influx of Germans and that the population there was from the begin- ning preponderatingly German. It is practically certain also that most of the fifty-two licenses issued by Blunston from 1733 to 1736 and confirmed by Thomas Penn in October, 1736, were taken by Germans. But it must not
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The First Settlement.
be concluded that all of the Germans in the Kreutz Creek and Codorus Creek Valleys had taken out "Blunston licenses." Most of them undoubtedly had secured these conditional "warrants to agree" before making settle- ment west of the river. Some however were not impressed with the immediate necessity of securing such license. For the Pennsylvania government was disposed to encourage the migration of its citizens across the Susquehanna and the easiest terms possible were granted. No purchase money whatever was expected until the Indian claim had been satisfied and in many cases the purchase money was not paid for some years even after 1736. Moreover, those who chose to settle west of the river as squatters were no longer sought out and expelled. The securing of a Blunston license, therefore, seemed a mere empty for- mality which might easily be postponed to some more con- venient time, and after the migration had once begun many of the people in Lancaster County saw no impro- priety in removing and settling west of the Susquehanna River without even consulting the authorities. And so, while most of the settlers in the Kreutz Creek settlement had taken the precaution to secure a formal license for their land, a considerable number had settled there without hav- ing secured any license whatever but intending to take out license under Pennsylvania as soon as they should be called upon to do so.
It is worthy of mention in this connection also that there were quite a number who secured Blunston licenses to settle west of the river, but who never availed themselves of their permission and never actually took up their abodes beyond the Susquehanna. For Blunston remarks in his letter to Thomas Penn, March 18, 1735, "I had not
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German Element in York County, Pa.
timely notice of this opportunity or I should have sent a list of the persons licensed to settle over Susquehanah which amount to about 130."29 Many of these did not use their licenses, at least for some years, either because they could not find such tracts as they deemed desirable or else because the growing hostilities of the Marylanders de- terred them. Hence Thomas Penn found it necessary to confirm licenses to only fifty-two persons and about 12,000 acres was sufficient to satisfy all their claims.
The above list of persons against whom Munday and Higginbotham aimed their plot, cannot, therefore, be re- garded as an exhaustive list of the Germans living in that region. It can be supplemented from another source. For many of the settlers west of the river, both such as had secured Blunston licenses and such as had not, were for a time induced by the dire threats and the alluring promises of the Maryland agents to accept Maryland war- rants and surveys and to acknowledge Maryland authority. They soon found however that they had been deceived, that the Maryland authorities discriminated against them because they were Germans, and that their possessions were uncertain under the Maryland proprietary. So they made haste to repudiate their allegiance to Maryland and to acknowledge again the jurisdiction of Pennsylvania in those parts. This action the government of Maryland regarded as "the revolt of the Germans" and it led to serious disturbances in their neighborhood including an invasion of a body of 300 armed men from Maryland and the Chester County plot to force the Germans out of their possessions. Their lands were surveyed to other persons. Their property was stolen, demolished, or burned. Their doors were broken down with axes in the
29 Appendix A.
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The First Settlement.
dead of winter. Their growing crops were destroyed. Their sons and fathers were captured and imprisoned. They were subjected to all sorts of indignities and in some cases were glad to escape with their lives to the east side of the river.
Under date of August 13, 1736, a petition of the Ger- mans was delivered to the provincial council at Philadel- phia asking that their error in accepting warrants from the government of Maryland be imputed to want of bet- ter information, and praying to be received again under the protection of the government of Pennsylvania. The council unanimously declared in favor of receiving the Germans again and of encouraging them in their fidelity. The correspondence concerning this return of the Ger- mans to their allegiance to Pennsylvania helps us to fur- ther fix the names and total number of German settlers within the bounds of York County up to the end of 1736. For on August 11, 1736, just two days before the Ger- mans petitioned the council at Philadelphia for reinstate- ment as citizens of Pennsylvania, they wrote a somewhat similar letter to the governor of Maryland apprising him of their intention to acknowledge the jurisdiction of Penn- sylvania. This letter was suggested by Samuel Blunston but was not drawn up or signed in his presence. After- wards in reporting in person to the council in Philadelphia Blunston said that he had learned since coming to Phila- delphia that the letter " was signed by about sixty hands."30 The lieutenant governor of Maryland in writing about this letter shortly thereafter said it was " subscribed with the names of fifty or sixty persons." This document was published in the Maryland Archives.31 Only 22 of these
30 Col. Rec., IV: 57.
31 Md. Archives, Vol. 28: 100 f. Vide also Col. Rec. Pa., IV: 61 f.
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German Element in York County, Pa.
names of signers are preserved in the Archives.32 But in the unpublished Calvert Papers33 we have a copy of the original document and this includes also a copy of the signatures. The signatures in this copy number fifty-six and they are identical with the names of fifty-six persons whose arrest was ordered by the Maryland authorities by proclamation on October 21, 1736, "for contriving sign- ing and publishing a seditious paper and writing against his Lordship and this government."34 These fifty-six names therefore undoubtedly constitute the full list of the signers of the letter of August II, 1736. This list in- cludes nearly all of the names mentioned in the document pertaining to the Chester County Plot (which took place in the Fall of that same year) and in addition includes such German names as
George Scobell
Godfrey Fry
Hance Stanner
Henry Young
Tobias Bright
Eurick Myer
Tobias Henricks
Caspar Varglass
Leonard Immel
Nicholas Peery
Balchar Sangar
and
Peter Gartner
Martin Sluys.
Michael Reisher
A few more names and locations of German settlers may be gathered from the depositions concerning the ar- rest of John Lochman, a German living west of the river. From the account of Lochman himself and from that of John Powell, undersheriff of Lancaster County, it appears
32 The original document went to England when the whole matter of the boundary dispute was to be reviewed in London, and there it was lost. 33 No. 717. For the list of signatures vide Appendix B.
34 The proclamation also includes in a separate list the names of four Lancaster County officials. These are English.
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The First Settlement.
that on December 24, 1735, Robert Buchanan, sheriff of Lancaster County, and three others had arrested Lochman on a writ of debt at his house about seven miles west of John Hendricks's plantation and two miles south of the Little Codorus, within 100 yards of the main road through the valley, and had taken him eastward past the home of his countryman Peter Gartner, "a Dutch Smith," when, about four miles west of Hendricks's, they were suddenly set upon by a number of Lochman's countrymen living in those parts. Lochman was rescued and the Lancaster County officers were sorely abused. Lochman asserts that there were "5 Dutchmen" in the attacking party and gives their names: Barnett Wyemour, Michl Risenar, Feltie Craw, Francis Clapsaddle, and Leonard Freerour. Powell asserts that there were about twenty or thirty in the crowd but names only six : Bernard Weyman, Michael Rysner, Christian Croll, Francis Clapsaddle, Nicholas Kuhns, and Martin Schultz. He says that these six together with Mark Evans "all live on the West side of Susquehannah River, not above one Mile to the South- ward of the house of John Kendricks." This incident therefore gives us the location of Croll, Reisher, Cone and Schultz, and adds the names of Weimer, Clapsaddle, Feerour, Lochman, and Craw (or Kroh) 35 to the above lists of names.36
The Maryland authorities estimated the number of
35 Croll's name was often spelled Crawl, especially by the Marylanders. But that this is not the same person as the Feltie Craw is evident not only from the difference in surnames but also from the Minutes of the Lancaster County Court for September 24, 1736, where it appears that both Ffelty Crow and Christian Croll were tried for disturbing the peace of Lancaster County and assaulting Sheriff Buchanan.
36 Proceedings of the Council of Maryland for 1735, p. 83. Col. Rec., Pa. III: 612 f.
5
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German Element in York County, Pa.
Germans in that region at fifty or sixty families. For in a communication of Friday, February 18, 1737 (i. e., the spring following the "revolt of the Germans"), from the Governor and Council of Maryland to the King they say " ... accordingly not less than 50 or 60 families of that nation immediately took possession of those lands and paid their proportion of the taxes and demeaned them- selves in every other respect as peaceable subjects of your Majesty and unquestionable inhabitants and tenants of this Province until very lately."37
Now the petition of August 13, 1736, in which the Germans pray the Council of Pennsylvania for reinstate- ment as subjects of that province, was signed by forty- eight Germans and was entitled "The Petition of Most of the Inhabitants on the West Side of the Susquehanah River opposite to Hempfield in the County of Lancaster." The list of subscribers to this petition38 must have been very much the same as the list of signers to the letter of two days previous, and as this number forty-eight embraces "most of the inhabitants west of the River" this document serves to corroborate the conclusion drawn from the Mary- land letter and we have a fairly accurate idea of the num- ber and the names of the Germans in this part of our county at the close of 1736.39
37 Proceedings of the Council of Maryland for 1737.
38 The list of signers was not preserved. The petition itself and the statement concerning the number of signers is given in the Colonial Records, IV: 64 f., and in Pennsylvania Archives, Second Series, Vol. VII: 202.
39 The difficulties grew worse during the winter of 1736-1737. This was the height of " Cressap's War." The "revolt of the Germans " was made the pretext for many cruelties that were perpetrated upon them. Some of the Germans who had assisted in rescuing John Lochman from the Lan- caster County officials had been taken and lodged in the Lancaster County jail. John Hendricks was also imprisoned there for a time because he had harbored the Marylanders on his plantation which they used as a base of
P
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The First Settlement.
The improvements of these Germans lay in the fertile limestone valley of the Kreutz Creek stretching southwest- ward from John Hendricks's plantation, where Wrights- ville now stands, to the place where the Kreutz Creek Valley merges into the Codorus Creek Valley, where the city of York now stands. This is the exact region that was included in the Springettsbury Manor when it was resurveyed in 1768 under Governor Hamilton's warrant
operations against the Kreutz Creek Settlement. On the other hand, four Germans (Michael Tanner, Conrad Strickler, Henry Bacon, and Jacob Welshover) as they were in the act of burying a child, had been seized by the Marylanders and carried off to Annapolis. After a strenuous resist- ance, Cressap had been captured and was imprisoned in Philadelphia. But Higginbotham had succeeded to the leadership among the Marylanders at Cabin Branch, whom Samuel Blunston called " that nest of Vilains at Conejohala." Several lives had been lost in the conflicts. The Germans were being subjected to great inconveniences and serious dangers. Eighteen of their number had been seized and lodged in the Maryland jail (Mary- land Archives for 1737, May 23). The others became terrified when their leaders had been captured and near the end of December, 1736, very many of them deserted their habitations and sought safety east of the river. Early in January, 1737, Blunston wrote in a letter to the Council at Phila- delphia: " They have left their homes and are come over the River so that there are none left on that side but women and children. . . . Before this happened if the sheriff had gone over he might have had 30 or 40 Dutch to assist him, but now he has none but what he takes with him if he can go over." Archives, I: 317 (for the date of the letter vide Col. Rec., IV: 149). This evidently refers to the number of those who lived nearest to the river and who could have been counted on to assist against the Mary- landers. Measures were taken to protect them and in a few days they all returned again to their homes and families. On May 23, 1737, Joseph Perry and Charles Higginbotham reported to the Maryland Council that they have " apprehended several Dutchmen and others set forth in procla- mation as disturbers of the peace." The twenty-two names which they recite as partial list of those captured include the names of Tanner, Strickler, Bacon, Welshover, Liphart, and others prominent in the history of the Kreutz Creek Settlement (vide Md. Archives for 1737). But by this time the negotiations between the two provinces had advanced so far in the direction of peace that the captives were not long detained in Annapolis.
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German Element in York County, Pa.
of 1762. It has been asserted that the original survey of the Springettsbury Manor was purposely suppressed at the time' of the resurvey because the provincial authorities wanted to exchange bad land for good.40 However that may be, it is certain that the resurvey, differing widely from the original, was made to embrace part of the most fertile area in the county. It comprehended a tract six miles wide extending from Wright's Ferry along the entire length of the Kreutz Creek Valley to the plantation of Christian Eyster one and a quarter miles west of the town of York. The resurvey thus included nearly all of the plantations of the Germans, if not all, and it thus bears eloquent witness to the superior skill of the Germans in the selection of good soil for their locations.
40 Dallas Reports, IV: 379. "It is further argued, that the recital of the loss of the survey of 1722, is a mere pretence, a fraud, to enable the pro- prietaries to exchange bad land for good."
CHAPTER IV.
OTHER EARLY SETTLEMENTS.
2
NOTHER German settlement, among the earliest of all settlements within the present limits of the county, was that made where the city of Hanover is now situated. In the time of its beginnings it followed very closely upon the commencement of the Kreutz Creek Settlement, but in its earlier years it did not grow nearly so rapidly as its sister settlement in the eastern part of the county. The history of this settlement furnishes striking instances of the hardships which the German pioneers in our county were obliged to undergo.
This second German settlement was made under a Mary- land grant and was therefore the occasion of no little strife between the agents of Maryland and those of Pennsyl- vania. . The original settlement was known as "Digges' Choice," from the owner of the tract upon which the set- tlement grew up.1 John Digges was a petty Irish noble- man of Prince George County, Maryland. On October 14, 1727, he obtained from Lord Baltimore a warrant
1 In Maryland a custom obtained of naming the tracts for which warrants were granted. For a few instances of this vide supra, p. 40 f. These names usually expressed either some quality or circumstance of the tract or some fancy of the warrantee or some aspect of public opinion concerning the venture.
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German Element in York County, Pa.
for 10,000 acres of land. The warrant empowered him to locate the grant "on whatsoever unimproved lands he pleased within the jurisdiction of his lordship." No sur- vey was made for four and a half years but the warrant was kept in force by repeated renewals. Meanwhile under the direction of the noted Indian chief, Tom, Digges had selected for his grant a promising tract of land em- bracing the whole of Penn Township, in which Hanover is now situated, and most of Heidelberg Township but ex- tending also into what is now Adams County and includ- ing parts of Conewago, Germany and Union Townships. The survey was made in April, 1732, and embraced 6,822 acres, although the patent was not issued until October II, I735. The full title of the tract in the return of the survey was "Digges Choice in the Back Woods." Un- fortunately for those who afterwards settled in those parts, this tract had 270 courses and these were not marked ex- cept on paper, only the beginning boundaries being marked on the tract itself.2
Digges's Choice soon began to be settled, and that too by
2 Only about 120 of these courses were indicated on the return of the survey made by the surveyor, Edward Stevenson. About 150 of the courses run on the land were left out of the draft in order to produce a more regular figure. It was this action on the part of the surveyor that led to much of the confusion among the settlers afterwards. This confusion would have been impossible under the Pennsylvania system of making surveys. For under that system trees were marked on the ground and where there were no natural boundaries artificial marks were set up to distinguish the survey. Stevenson's field notes of the original Digges's survey contained 270 courses and embraced the full grant of 10,000 acres. But the return of the survey did not follow these field notes and there was nothing on the tract itself to indicate the courses. These facts were brought out in the judicial determination of the matter in the case of Thomas Lilly's lessee vs. George Kitzmiller, tried before Justices Shippen and Yeates at York in May, 1791. Vide Yeates, "Reports of Cases in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania," I: 28-33.
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Other Early Settlements.
Germans. Of the many squatters who had begun to cross the Susquehanna about 1730 and locate here and there on the lands of the peaceful Indians, some were attracted to the Digges estate. The Pennsylvania authorities could grant no kind of license before 1733 and then only pro- visional licenses, whereas on the Digges lands, held under a Maryland grant, full and permanent licenses could be obtained at once. For the charter of the Maryland pro- prietor, as we have seen, permitted him to authorize settle- ments in western Maryland irrespective of the Pennsyl- vania purchase of the Indian title. This fact undoubtedly operated as a special inducement to attract settlers to Dig- ges's Choice. Then, too, Digges took active measures to sell his lands and to start a settlement on his tract. Both in person and through his agents he crossed to the east side of the Susquehanna River where he advertised his acres among the citizens of Pennsylvania and sought to make sales of plantations under his Maryland patent west of the river. This he did even before the survey of his " Choice " was made, and this entire agitation among Pennsylvanians was deeply resented by the Pennsylvania authorities. Thus a letter from John Wright to James Logan, April 10, 1731,3 tells that the writer had "learned that Thomas Digges had come over the River and gone amongst the Duch to sell lands,"4 that Digges had taken up 20,000 acres of which " 8000 lye between Conewago and Codorus Creeks," and that Wright had " openly resisted" Digges in his effort to induce Pennsylvanians to remove to Mary-
3 Among the " Official Penn Manuscripts" in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia.
4 Wright was in error as to the surname, and indeed, the entire letter shows that Wright's information on the subject was inaccurate, though there can be no doubt about the main fact of Digges's propaganda west of the river before April 10, 1731.
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German Element in York County, Pa.
land. Nevertheless Digges's efforts west of the river were not without avail.
The earliest purchase of lands on Digges's Choice and within the present limits of York County5-the earliest of which we have any record-was made by Adam Forney on October 5, 1731. As Digges could not at that time give absolute title to the land, no survey having been made and no patent having been issued, he gave Forney his bond for 60 pounds to deliver the title at some future time.6 Forney's purchase was for 150 acres. It covered what is today the heart of the city of Hanover. This was near the " Conewago Settlement " which was also on Digges's Choice, but in what is now Adams County, and which had
5 Other purchases had been made from Digges's tract about a year before this, but they fall within the present County of Adams and they were not made by Germans.
6 This bond is typical of a number that Digges issued to the earliest Germans who bought lands and made settlement upon this tract: "Know all men by these presents, that I, John Digges, of Prince George's County, in the Province of Maryland, Gent, am held and firmly bound unto Adam Faurney, of Philadelphia County, in the Province of Pennsylvania, Farmer and Taylor, in the full and just sum of Sixty pounds current money of Maryland, to which payment well and truly to be made and done, I bind myself, my Heirs, Executors and Administrators, firmly by these presents. Sealed with my seal and dated this fifth day of October, Anno Domini, 1731. " The Condition of the above obligation is such that if the above bound John Digges, his Heirs, Executors or Administrators, shall and will at the reasonable request of the above Adam Faurney, make & order by sufficient conveyance according to the custom and common usage of the Province of Maryland, a certain parcell of land containing one hundred and fifty acres already marked out by the above named Adam Faurney, near a place known by the name of Robert Owing's Spring, and on the same tract of land where the said Robert Owing now Dwells in the Province of Mary- land, then this obligation to be void, otherwise to remain in full force and virtue of Law.
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