USA > Pennsylvania > Philadelphia County > Philadelphia > The German immigration into Pennsylvania through the port of Philadelphia from 1700 to 1775 : part II: The Redemptioners > Part 8
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56 See LOWELL'S Hessians, pp. 21-300.
107
Mennonite Immigration from New York.
Religion in New York, dated August 5, 1657, addressed to the Classis of Amsterdam, I find this : "At Gravesend, on Long Island, there are Mennonists yea they for the most part reject infant baptism, the Sabbath, the office of preacher and the teachers of God's word, saying that through these have come all sorts of contention into the world. Whenever they meet together one or the other reads something for them."57 I also find that Governor Fletcher, of New York, wrote in 1693 that " more families are daily removing for Pennsylvania and Connecticut to be eased from taxes and detachments." 58 The Rev. John Miller writes in 1696 that "the burdens of the Province (N. Y.) have made two or three hundred families forsake it and remove to Pennsylvania, and Maryland chiefly."59
Here we are told of the migration of as many German families from New York to Pennsylvania prior to 1693, as are credited to all Pennsylvania in the year 1700. I regret that time has not allowed me to examine more fully the documents here mentioned. There are a great num- ber of references in them to Mennonites in New York, and as these disappeared from that colony at an early date, there seems to be abundant reason for believing that they nearly all found their way into Pennsylvania, swelling the German population to no inconsiderable extent. We un- doubtedly have here a factor which must be reckoned with in any summary we may make of the early population of Pennsylvania.
I am therefore not ready to accept the generally believed statement that the colony of Crefelders who settled at Ger- mantown in 1683 were the only Germans around Philadel- phia at that time. The evidence is scattering but none the
57 Documentary History of New York, Vol. III., p. 69.
58 Colonial History of New York, Vol. IV., p. 55.
59 Ibid., Vol. IV., p. 183.
108
The German Immigration into Pennsylvania.
less direct. Watson tells us that one Warner had settled at William Grove, two miles beyond the city limits as early as 1658. Also that Jurian Hartsfelder took up 350 acres of land in March, 1676, nearly six years before Penn's ar- rival.60 Pennypacker says he was " a stray Dutchman or German, who had been a deputy Sheriff under Andross in 1676." 61 Rupp tells us that one Heinrich Frey had reached Philadelphia two years before Penn's arrival, and a certain Plattenbach somewhat later.62 There was a large general immigration in 1682, about 30 ships having arrived with settlers.63 We can no more divest ourselves of the belief that there were many Germans among these than we can that there were many Germans among the Swedes and Finns who first came fifty years earlier, because we know Gustavus Adolphus asked the Protestant German princes to allow their subjects to join his own subjects in forming the Swedish set- tlements on the Delaware. Johannes Printz, who succeeded Peter Minnewit as Governor, was a German, a Holsteiner, and he brought with him fifty-four German families, mostly from Pomerania. 64 It is a very logical supposition that these were only a portion of the Germans who planted them- selves along the Delaware at various times between 1638 and I682. When therefore Rupp tells us that there were only about 200 German families in Pennsylvania in 1700, I cannot accept his statement, because I cannot escape the conclusion from all the evidence accessible, that those figures should be increased several hundred per cent. Neither do I doubt that in the fullness of time an abundance of con- firmatory evidence of this view will be forthcoming.
60 WATSON'S Annals of Philadelphia, Vol. I., p. II.
61 PENNYPACKER'S Settlement of Germantown, p. 19.
62 RUPP'S History of Berks and Lebanon Counties, p. 90.
63 PROUD'S History of Pennsylvania, Vol. I., p. 220.
64 LOUIS P. HENNINGHAUSEN, Esq., The First German Immigrants to North America, p. 20.
CHAPTER X.
THEIR DETRACTORS AND THEIR FRIENDS. - WHAT BOTH PARTIES HAVE SAID. - THE GREAT PHILOSOPHER MIS- TAKEN. - HOW THE PASSING YEARS HAVE BROUGHT ALONG THEIR VINDICATION.
" Vergessen soll die Feindschaft Sein Vergessen dann das Schwert ; Wir wollen uns wie Brüder freu'n- Uns freun an einem Heerd."
T will hardly be ques- tioned, I suppose, that Benjamin Franklin was the greatest American of the Revolutionary era. He cer- tainly was from a political point of view. Coming into the Province in 1723 and dying in the State in 1790, his residence here covers al- most three-quarters of a cen- tury. He literally grew up with the Province, saw it in almost every phase of its ca- reer, from its earliest struggles until the strong Common- wealth was established, let us hope for all time. The proprietary period was by no means an ideal one. The student of that early time is confronted on almost every
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IIO
The German Immigration into Pennsylvania.
page of our history by the quarrels and disputes between the Governors of the Province and the Provincial Assem- blies. The former in standing up for the rights of the Penn heirs, and the latter jealous of the rights and inter- ests of the people, presented a condition of turbulence hardly equalled in any of the American colonies.
Franklin was on the spot when the great German immi- gration set in. He saw it all and could hardly help under- standing it. He could not avoid coming in contact with these people. He did, in fact, come into very close and profitable relations with them. For years he owned and conducted the best equipped printing establishment in the Province, if not in the entire country. This brought him into very close business relations with the Germans, for there were many men of high culture among them, who wrote learned books which Franklin printed for them at his establishment. Had he understood the Germans better he might have appre- ciated this more. At all events he seems to have misunder- stood them, and through that misunderstanding to have done them a great wrong. It may not have been willful, but it was, nevertheless, inexcusable.
Other men prominent in affairs, Secretary Logan and some of the early Governors, have had their fling at the German colonists, but they also in time paid ample testi- mony to their excellent qualities. But from none of them came so severe a blow as from Dr. Franklin. Under date of May 9, 1753, he wrote a letter to his friend Peter Col- linson, in which he speaks thus unkindly of these people, the very bone and sinew of the great State that was to be :
" I am perfectly of your mind, that measures of great temper are necessary touching the Germans, and I am not without apprehensions, that, through their indiscretion, or ours, or both, great disorders may one day arise among us.
GERMAN IMMIGRATION INTO PERANTEVANIA.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.
TIO
le und diepult x fotogra
and the Provincial Axcor-
wang up for the rights of the
-ilmis of the rights and inter-
« condition of turbulence Karel eye gud dy Me of The American colonies.
Frankly was m the spot when the great German immi- ghzore me Hacen Rall and roghi hardly help under- 6d . owing to contact with these
HAi' ted profitable
SI atracted the
1 g. it not
ciated this mon
come to severe a how ar boe IN The Wiederdate no, , which he sprake ligas unkaly at these people, and wbrew of the great Stai that was to be : amarth af pour cond, thui comum af great
Troppo necessary fram ling The Germans, and I am not wilf ww ww theosier ; lost, dontough bred jasecretion, or oura. in bida, great rden may bor they are among us.
GERMAN IMMIGRATION INTO PENNSYLVANIA.
LAS Lot DE LA PANNILAA. ATE
-----
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.
III
Franklin's Unjust Tirade.
Those who came hither are generally the most stupid of their own nation, and as ignorance is often attended with great credulity, when knavery would mislead it, and with suspi- cion when honesty would set it right ; and, few of the Eng- lish understand the German language, and so cannot ad- dress them either from the press or pulpit, it is almost impossible to remove any prejudices they may entertain. Their clergy have very little influence on the people, who seem to take pleasure in abusing and discharging the min- ister on every trivial occasion. Not being used to liberty, they know not how to make modest use of it. * * They are under no restraint from ecclesiastical government ; they behave, however, submissively enough at present to the civil government, which I wish they may continue to do, for I remember when they modestly declined intermeddling with our elections ; but now they come in droves and carry all before them, except in one or two counties.
" Few of their children in the country know English. They import many books from Germany, and of the six printing houses in the Province, two are entirely Ger- man, two half German, half English, and but two are en- tirely English. They have one German newspaper, and one-half German Advertisements intended to be general, are now printed in Dutch (German) and English. The signs in our streets (Philadelphia) have inscriptions in both languages, and some places only in German. They begin, of late, to make all their bonds and other legal instruments in their own language, which (though I think it ought not to be), are allowed in our courts, where the German busi- ness so increases, that there is continued need of interpre- ters, and I suppose in a few years, they will also be neces- sary in the Assembly, to tell one-half of our legislators, what the other half says. In short, unless the stream of
II2 The German Immigration into Pennsylvania.
importation could be turned from this to other colonies, as you very judiciously propose, they will soon outnumber us, that all the advantages we will have, will in my opinion, be not able to preserve our language, and even our gov- ernment will become precarious." 65
The wisest mortals are sometimes short-sighted and Dr. Franklin must be allowed a place in that category. His letter is unsound throughout. First he calls them stupid and ignorant; later he admits they import many books. If so ignorant and stupid what did they want with so many books? If so steeped in mental darkness, how is it that there were more German newspapers printed in the Prov- ince at that very hour than in English? The generally shrewd philosopher, patriot and statesman involved him- self in contradictions such as not even the "stupid" Ger- mans would have done. I may even go further and say, that at the time Dr. Franklin's letter was written there were many Germans in Pennsylvania incomparably su- perior to him in the learning of the schools. He does not appear to have thought of that. Perhaps he did not know it-could not comprehend it.
Well-nigh one hundred and fifty years have come and gone since his unjust tirade against the German colonists. Not one of the fears that seemed to have possessed his soul has been realized. It is true the Quaker no longer gov- erns the land. He went to the rear as the Germans came to the front and assumed control of the Government. They became the dominant race, and they are so to-day. They did no violence to the laws ; they upheld them and enforced them. They have made the State the grandest of all the forty-five. Dr. Franklin lived to see how idle his predic- tions were, and even he recanted.
65 SPARK'S Works of Franklin, Vol. VII., pp. 71-73.
.
Falckner's Continuation of Gabriel Thomas. 113
CONTINUATIO Der Befchreibung der Sandschafft PENSYLVANIÆE In denen End: Branten
AMERICA. Uber vorige des herrn Pafforii Relationes. Sn fich haltend : Die Situation, und fruchtbarteit des Erdbodene. Die Schiffreiche und andere Fluffe. Die Anzahl Derer bighero gebauten Stadte. Die feltjame Creaturen an Ebieren / Mogeln und Fifeben. Die Mineralen und Ebelgefteine Deren eingebobrnen mil den Boldfer Sprachen / Religion und Gebräuche. Und Die erften Ebriftliden DAlanger und Unbaner Diefes Canbes. Befchrieben von GABRIEL THOMAS Is. Såbrigen Anwohner Diefes Landes. MBelchem Tractatlein noch bengefuget find : Des Su. DANIEL FALCKNERS Burgers und Pilgrims in Penfylvania 193. Beantwortungen uff vorgelegte Fragen von guten freunden.
Brandfurt und Leipzig , Bu finden ben Andreas Otto/ Buchhändlern
FALCKNER'S Continuation OF GABRIEL THOMAS' Account.
II4
The German Immigration into Pennsylvania.
There were a number of others whose views coincided with those of Franklin, at least in some particulars. On the other hand there were those who spoke and wrote as decidedly in their behalf. Among these was the historian Macaulay, who calls them " Honest, laborious men, who had once been thriving burghers of Mannheim and Heidel- berg, or who had cultivated the vine on the banks of the Neckar and Rhine. Their ingenuity and their diligence * could not fail to enrich any land which should afford them an asylum."
Against the jaundiced views of Dr. Franklin I set those of a man of our own times, one who from his public position and his superior opportunities for forming correct views of the early German immigrants is eminently entitled to be heard on this question. I mean Dr. James P. Wicker- sham, for nearly fifteen years Superintendent of Public Instruction in Pennsylvania. Of Quaker descent, he was nevertheless broad-minded and liberal, and did not strive to close his eyes to the good qualities of the early Germans, with whose descendants he became so intimately connected and acquainted. He says : " Pennsylvania as a land of promise became known in Holland, Germany and Switzer- land. * But it was not long until numbers of the op- pressed inhabitants of nearly all parts of Germany and Switzerland, and especially of districts along the Rhine, began to seek homes, with wives, children and all they possessed, in the wilds of Pennsylvania. Among them were members of a dozen different religious denominations, large and small. They all came with the common object of bettering their condition in life, and securing homes in a country where they could enjoy unmolested the right to worship God as their consciences dictated. In Penn- sylvania, if nowhere else, they knew they would secure
115
Their Love of Learning Vindicated.
civil and religious liberty. Some of them were very poor, even coming without sufficient money to pay the expenses of their passage, but others were well to do, bought land, built houses, and soon by patient industry had about them the comforts to which they had been accustomed. The Ger- man immigrants were mostly farmers, but among them there was a smaller proportion of different kinds of me- chanics. They brought few books with them, but nearly every individual possessed a Bible and a Prayer or Hymn- book, and many had in addition a Catechism or a Confes- sion of Faith: These were the treasures that could not be left behind, and they are still preserved as heirlooms in hundreds of old German families.
" When they came in bodies, they were usually accom- panied by a clergyman or a schoolmaster, or both. They were not highly educated as a class, but among them were some good scholars, and few could be found who were not able to read. The impression has prevailed that they were grossly ignorant ; it is unjust; those who make the charge either do not take the pains to understand, or wish to misrepresent them. Their average intelligence compared favorably with that of contemporary American colonists of other nationalities. If they did not keep pace with others in subsequent years, their backwardness is easily accounted for by their living for the most part on farms, frequently many miles separated, and extending over large sections of country ; their division into many religious denominations, among which there was little unity ; their inability, scattered and broken as they were, to support ministers and schoolmasters, or even to secure the advantages of an organized community; their use of a language which in a measure isolated them from the neighboring settlers, and shut them out from the social,
1
II6
The German Immigration into Pennsylvania.
political and business currents that gave life to the com- munities around them; their unacquaintance with the proper forms of local self-government, and the habit brought with them, in all public concerns, of deferring to some outside or higher authority ; and above all, per- haps, their quiet, confiding disposition, quite in contrast with the ways of some of the more aggressive, self-assert- ing classes of people with whom they were brought in competition. * *
"Although invited to settle in Pennsylvania, the Ger- mans, arriving in such large numbers and spreading over the country so rapidly, seem to have created a fear on the part of other settlers and of the provincial authorities that they would form an unruly element in society, and eventu- ally work the overthrow of the government, or assume possession of it, as their countrymen had done long before in England. Laws restraining their immigration were passed, and the alarm disturbed even such well-balanced minds as those of Logan and Franklin. It is almost need- less to add now that such a fear was groundless and arose wholly out of the political and sectarian prejudices of the day. On the contrary, it is only just to say that to all that has gone to build up Pennsylvania, to enlarge her wealth, to develop her resources, to increase her prosperity, to educate her people, to give her good government from the first, the German element of the population has con- tributed its full share. Better citizens cannot be found in any nation on the face of the globe." 66
No truer tribute was ever paid the German immigrants than this one, before the Assembly on January 2, 1738, by Lieutenant-Governor George Thomas when urging the es-
66 JAMES PYLE WICKERSHAM, LL.D., A History of Education in Pennsyl- vania, pp. 122-124.
II7
Governor Thomas' Tribute.
tablishment of a hospital for sick arrivals : " This Province has been for some years the Asylum of the distressed Protestants of the Palatinate, and other parts of Germany, and I believe it may with truth be said that the present flourishing condition of it is in a great measure owing to the industry of these People; and should any discourage- ment divert them from coming hither, it may well be apprehended that the value of your Lands will fall, and your Advances to wealth be much slower; for it is not altogether the goodness of the Soil, but the Number and Industry of the People that make a flourishing Colony." 67
67 Colonial Records, Vol. IV., p. 315.
/
SPECIMEN OF EARLY PENNSYLVANIA POTTERY.
CHAPTER XI.
THE GERMANS AS FARMERS .- ANSWER TO A RECENT HIS- TORIAN WHO ASSERTS THEY, A RACE OF FARMERS, DID NOT TAKE THE SAME ENJOYMENT IN AGRICULTURAL PUR- SUITS AS THE SCOTCH-IRISH AND SOME OTHERS ! !
"Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke ; How jocund did they drive their teams afield ! How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke !"
S
F THE
" Und der Vater mit frohem Blick, Von des Hauses weitschauendem Giebel Überzählet sein blühend Glück, Siehet der Pfosten ragende Bäume, Und der Scheunen gefüllte Räume, Undidie Speicher, vom Segen gebogen Und des Kornes bewegte Wogen."
HIS chapter is supplemen- tary. It had no place in the original plan of the writer. It has been called forth by a brief sentence found in a recently published his- tory of Pennsylvania, and is the last written chapter of this book-written long after the rest. While not germane to the general title, it yet deserves a place here inasmuch as
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119
An Erroneous Statement.
it strikes at one of the innumerable errors and misrepre- sentations concerning the early German population of Pennsylvania which crowd the pages of some recent writers. These errors, I am persuaded, are more the re- sult of ignorance than of design, but they are errors never- theless, and should be killed at their birth. That is the only plan known to me to keep down the abundant crop of ignorance which springs up as often as writers draw on their imagination for their facts. It is rarely, however, that anything so gross as the blunder to which I shall refer appears in print, as genuine history.
I was much surprised to find in a recently issued history of Pennsylvania, the following surprising statement : " The Germans perhaps were less given to the enjoyment of agri- culture than the Scotch-Irish and other settlers, yet in their own way they enjoyed existence, etc." 68 By no conceivable possibility is such a statement likely to be accepted by any one who has actual knowledge of the German immigration into this or any other country in America. It shows such a superficial acquaintance with the subject discussed as to carry its own condemnation with it. Yet, lest future writers of our history be lured into making similar state- ments, I shall take it upon myself to adduce such proof in contradiction of the statement quoted, as will, I believe, set the question at rest effectually and permanently.
I think it will be conceded, as a general proposition, that men in all civilized countries follow those pursuits to which they are best adapted and most inclined, whether for profit or enjoyment. It is true that when Roman civilization first came into contact with the Germanic tribes, the latter were more given to war and the chase than to agriculture.
68 ALBERT BOLLES, Ph.D., LL. D., Pennsylvania, Province and State, Vol. II., p. 161.
1
I20
The German Immigration into Pennsylvania.
But even then they grew corn and lived largely upon the products of the field. In time they became agriculturists and for hundreds of years parts of Germany have been among the best cultivated portions of Europe, even as they are to-day. In the seventeenth century, the Palatinate and the Rhine provinces generally were the garden of Europe. They hold the same rank at this very hour. Other pursuits were followed, it is true, but outside the cities the prevailing pursuit was agriculture. The German immigration to Pennsylvania was very largely from the Palatinate, not only in its early stages, but subsequently.
Lying before me are lists of those who reached London during the great German Exodus in 1709, on their way to America. One of these gives the pursuits of the 2,928 adult males; of that entire number 1,838 were farmers, while the remaining 1,073 were classified under 24 other distinct mechanical and other professions. Another list containing 1,593 had 1,083 farmers and 510 men trained to 26 other pursuits ; more than 67 per cent. of the entire number were farmers.
I think it is entirely within bounds to say that 75 per cent. of the German colonists in Pennsylvania were agri- culturists. The first thing they did was to take up land, generally in the legally prescribed way, but sometimes irregularly. Nine-tenths of them went into the country, that is beyond the immediate bounds of Philadelphia, and most of them took to farming. In fact there was nothing else for them to get at for many years. Even most of those who had mechanical trades were compelled to take to farming because there was not much of a demand for bakers, glass-blowers, millers, engravers, and some other classes of handicraftsmen.
Look at the counties settled principally by these people
I2I
Germans Now Possess the Land.
-Lancaster, Berks, Lebanon, York, Lehigh and North- ampton. They comprise to-day the great agricultural re- gion of the Commonwealth, and the men who are doing the farming on their fertile acres are the lineal descendants three, four or five generations removed from the first farmer immigrants. It was in every instance the agriculturists that pushed and were pushed to the outskirts of civilization. Did they go there for the profit and enjoyment they had in farming or for the fun of the thing, as we are asked to in- fer? What is more, they were the best and most success- ful farmers Pennsylvania had during the eighteenth century, just as they are the best and most successful farmers in United States to-day, and yet we are deliberately and the gravely informed they did not enjoy agriculture as much as the Scotch-Irish and other settlers ! What is the record? Where are all the Scotch-Irish farmers to-day? Why are they not on the ancestral acres as the Germans are? Cum- berland county was settled mainly by Scotch-Irish. In Northampton county there were many Irish and Scotch- Irish. Three-fourths of all the land in both these agri- cultural counties are to-day tilled by Pennsylvania-Ger- mans. There are several townships in Lancaster county once largely occupied by Scotch-Irish of the best class. One can ride through them an entire day now without find- ing one farm tilled by an Ulster Irishman. Nine-tenths of the farmers in eastern Pennsylvania to-day are descend- ants of the men who, we are gravely informed, did not find the same enjoyment in agriculture as the Scotch-Irish, Welsh, English and others. If such an array of facts, susceptible of verification by any one who cares to make the test, is not deemed sufficient, I will produce further evidence from contemporary sources to fortify the position here taken.
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