USA > Pennsylvania > The making of Pennsylvania; an analysis of the elements of the population and the formative influences that created one of the greatest of the American states > Part 8
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The New England colonies received no immigration of any importance, even from England, after 1640, became very homogeneous, and had a strong dislike for outside influence. The Germans not only received no encouragement from that quarter, but would, in all probability, not have been permitted to land there. Virginia was thoroughly English and Episcopalian, and, while not so exclusive as New England, showed little or no inclination to encourage foreigners.
New York, having been originally settled by the Dutch and conquered by the English, was already a somewhat mixed community, and held out some induce- ments for the Germans. Many of them went there. But the attractions of Pennsylvania were stronger. That province was already very mixed in its population, had
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never been homogeneous, had very liberal laws, and had given out that it was ready to receive all sorts and conditions of men. The Germans were more kindly treated there than in the other colonies, and this soon became known in the Fatherland. In New York they were by no means well received, and one flagrant instance of injustice turned the tide more strongly than ever towards Pennsylvania.
Among the Germans who were the first to respond to the Golden Books of Queen Anne, and were protected in tents on Blackmoor, near London, were about four thousand who were shipped in ten vessels for New York. Some Mohawk chiefs, then on an embassy to England, are said to have suggested their shipment and offered a tract of land west of the Hudson. The voyage consumed six months, and seventeen hundred of them died at sea. They appear to have been under an agreement to manufacture tar and raise hemp for the government naval stores to pay for their passage. They were delivered to Governor Hunter, who quartered them on Governor's Island, in New York harbor, took care of the women and sick, apprenticed the numerous orphans among the people of the province, and took the able-bodied up the Hudson to work out their contract on Livingston Manor.
The German description of this transaction makes it consist of fraud, perfidy, and extortion, from beginning to end, and even after due allowance made for all exag- gerations, there remains a strong suspicion of a private enterprise on the part of the governor and his friends, who found themselves in control of some cheap and ignorant labor. As the Germans tell the story, they
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were obliged to remain in a state of helpless slavery for three or four years, when, having had some communica- tion with the Indians, most of them broke away and entered on the lands promised them in the Schoharie Valley.
The governor and his friends allowed them to settle and plant their crops, and when they seemed to be some- what advanced in prosperity they were informed that they had no title to the land and must pay for it. The price demanded seemed to them exorbitant. Some sub- mitted and remained. Others scattered themselves over the country.
In 1723, Keith, the governor of Pennsylvania, being at Albany and hearing of their condition, intimated that there was room for them in his province. Thirty-three families of them united, cut a road through the woods to the head-waters of the Susquehanna, and floated their goods down it until they came to the mouth of the Swatara. Following up this stream, they established themselves in the wide, fertile valley of the Tulpehocken, west of Reading and south of the Blue Mountains, where their descendants are still living. The long years of suffering they endured before they found this retreat were well known in Germany, and their countrymen who were compelled by the course of immigrant vessels to land at New York usually crossed the Jerseys and en- tered Pennsylvania.
All classes and sects of the Germans became farmers, and in that occupation, Dr. Rush assures us, they excelled the Scotch-Irish, and all the other settlers in the province. They took better care of their cattle, had better fences, and often built their barns and stables before they built
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their houses. They were good judges of land, always selected the best, and were very fond of the limestone districts. They never avoided a tract because it had on it great forest trees which would require unusual labor to remove, for they knew that a heavy growth of timber showed the richness of the soil. They were also shrewd enough to buy land which had already been cultivated by unskilful settlers, and were often known to grow rich on farms where their predecessors had starved. In this way they drove out many of the English, and in North- ampton County and the Cumberland Valley displaced some of the hardy Scotch-Irish.
Their economy was extraordinary. The other colonists - usually destroyed the forests by girdling the trees, and: after they had fallen to the ground, burnt them. But to! the Germans this seemed a wicked waste and they seldom resorted to it, but cut down each individual tree, and preserved every stick of it as though it were gold.
The other colonists built their houses with a chimney at each end and with two huge open fireplaces, in which in winter they threw mighty logs and sat round them, their faces burning hot and their backs cold. The Germans had only one chimney, which saved expense in building, and they heated their houses with stoves which burned comparatively little wood, and saved the time and. labor of cutting it. Their use of stoves is said to have given their houses an even temperature, which enabled their women to work at various useful occupations in the long winter evenings, which were passed by the wives and daughters of the other settlers in idleness with benumbed fingers, shifting places round their romantic and wasteful fires.
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Most of the Germans hated debt, and were, as a rule very punctual in their engagements. They worked their farms with their sons, daughters, and wives, and had very few slaves. They developed a fine breed of heavy draught horses called Conestogas, from a stream near Lancaster where they were first bred. The same name, Conestoga, was applied to their wagons, strong and solid as a fortification, and covered with a great canvas roof like the prairie schooners of later times. Until far down into the present century these wagons were one of the most typical scenes on all the highways of eastern Penn- sylvania, as, filled with chickens, turkeys, and all kinds of the best country produce, they rolled slowly towards the towns.
It is to be feared that many of the Germans too often followed that rule, of selling everything, giving what was left to the pigs, and what the pigs would not eat taking for themselves, by which, it is said, a farmer is sure to grow rich. Both in colonial times and after they have probably often injured themselves with too much economy. Dr. Rush mentions the opinion, as prevailing in his time, that they abstained so much from animal food as to lose their vigor early in life.
The church people, as they are called, the Reformed and the Lutherans, did not begin to arrive in great numbers much before 1725. The sects, especially at first, usually came in united, organized bodies. But the Reformed and Lutherans were, for the most part, dis- connected and irregular in their migration, and had to be afterwards organized with much difficulty by Schlatter and Muhlenberg. At first the sects far outnumbered the church people; but long before the Revolution the
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two divisions were about equal. After that the church people increased rapidly, and are now a great deal the more numerous.
The Reformed and the Lutheran Churches of Europe, if not founded by the teachings of Zwinglius and Luther, respectively, may be said to have had those men for their earliest representatives. The Reformed has had various names in the countries where it has prevailed, as the Dutch Reformed in Holland, the German Reformed in Germany, and now with us the Reformed Church in the United States. In Switzerland, Calvin became its most striking leader, and some of its most characteristic doctrines have been called by his name. In England and America these doctrines and the general principles of the Reformed Churches have usually prevailed among the Presbyterians and Congregationalists.
The members of the Reformed Church of Germany are sometimes spoken of as German Calvinists, and in old books of Pennsylvania history are often called simply Calvinists. They also appear to have been sometimes spoken of as Presbyterians, a name which, in colonial times, was often applied to the New England Congrega- tionalists. These terms are, of course, all misleading, and we shall confine ourselves to the word Reformed, which always identifies them.
The Reformed in Germany were not very much given to the doctrines distinctively known as Calvinism, and those of them who came to this country were still less inclined to such principles. They differed from the Lutherans in being, perhaps, more metaphysical or specu- lative, and more severe in their forms of worship. The Lutherans permitted images, altars, tapers, private con-
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fessional, and had a belief which somewhat resembled the doctrine of the real presence. All these were rejected by the Reformed. The Lutherans were closely con- nected with the state in Germany, while the Reformed were always independent of it.
About four hundred of the Reformed came to Penn- sylvania in 1727, under the lead of the Rev. George Michael Weiss, and settled along the Skippack. Others followed, and in 1747 the Rev. Michael Schlatter organ- ized all the Reformed in Pennsylvania as part of the synod of Holland, under which they remained until 1793, when they became an independent American church.
The Lutherans, who began to arrive soon after, be- came much more numerous, and in time were double the numbers of the Reformed. Their leader, Muhlen- berg, was a man of great executive ability, and a natural organizer. Schlatter seems to have been less efficient in this respect, and was continually involving himself in difficulties.
Muhlenberg, who became the leader of the Lutherans not only in Pennsylvania, but in all the other colonies, belonged to the Pietist party in his church, the party which was called radical, and which seems to have been more fervid, more given to philanthropy and the allevia- tion of suffering, and more apt to rely on feelings and excitement than the conservatives, who had become per- functory in their devotion to dogmas. There was also among the Pietist party a tinge of that subjectiveness and quietism which had created the Mennonites and the Quakers. But, at the same time, they considered them- selves as still holding to the ancient landmarks of the Lutherans.
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They had many affinities with the Episcopalians, who at that time looked upon them as likely to become a church in communion with themselves, if not actual con- verts. Muhlenberg was invited to preach in Episcopal churches, and was a trustee of the Church of England Society for the relief of the widows and children of its clergy. When his son Peter was called to a Lutheran congregation in Virginia, where under the law he could have no standing unless he was a clergyman of the Church of England, he, without the slightest hesitation, went to England and was ordained. He had no intention of giving up his convictions as a Lutheran, and the Lutheran Synod saw nothing objectionable in his course .*
When Muhlenberg arrived among the Pennsylvania Germans, in 1742, he found he had to deal with a very rough, suspicious, and disorderly people. The Mora- vians were cutting into them and claimed them all. Many of them were falling under the influence of the sects and Christopher Sauer. Vagabond preachers and frauds of all kinds were wandering among them, extort- ing money at the communion-table, and turning them into a disorganized rabble at the mercy of every new eccentricity that the learned and mystic German mind could invent. A large part of Muhlenberg's life was spent in fighting off these creatures, many of whom were mere scamps and adventurers.
" At the present time old and young self-appointed pastors, offended keepers of inns and groceries, silversmiths and beerhouse fiddlers, dancing-masters, entire companies of recently-arrived Nethinim (1 Chron. ix. 2), and the insane rabble of Sichem (Sirach i. 28), gather together, throw dust into the air, and raise, with their cursing and blaspheming,
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* Mann's Life of Muhlenberg, 390, 427.
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such a confusion that the town-clerk himself might be perplexed (Acts xix. 23-40). The sum and substance amounts to this: we are called Halle Pietists, Moravian rogues, impostors, thieves of collection-moneys, etc., etc. The German newspapers supplement the deficiencies of this fermentation. The civil authorities in this free latitude cannot take any steps in our behalf unless there should be gross acts of violence and personal injury ; lawyers look upon us with contempt, since we have no money to engage their services." (Mann's Life of Muhlenberg, 299.)
When Muhlenberg arrived he found five congrega- tions of Lutherans in the province, but three of them had been won over to the Moravians, who at that time believed themselves a part of the Lutheran Church. He had to content himself at first with the two that remained, New Hanover and New Providence. Out of these he rapidly built up a strong following, and soon overcame the efforts of the Moravians.
He was by far the ablest and most liberal-minded man of all the German immigrants. We hear no stories of his prodigious learning or many languages. He had had a university education at Göttingen which, instead of overwhelming his faculties, had broadened and enlight- ened his native shrewdness and strengthened his high character and integrity. Yet among his own country- men in Pennsylvania he was almost to his dying day the victim of all sorts of petty, dirty tales. His morals were attacked. He was accused of stealing, turning papist, drawing double pay, collecting contributions from his parishioners and at the same time receiving a secret salary from Germany. That he rose superior to all these difficulties, which overwhelmed Schlatter, and out of them succeeded in organizing a powerful church, not only in Pennsylvania, but all over the Union, is one of the many proofs of his strong character.
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In colonial times it may be said that there were three leaders of opinion among the Germans,-Sauer, with his newspaper for the sects, Schlatter for the Reformed, and Muhlenberg for the Lutherans. Of these, Sauer was in some respects the most powerful, and his influence among his own people was more complete. He con- trolled, through his journal, not only the sects, but many who properly belonged to Schlatter and Muhlenberg.
Sauer's adherents always voted and sympathized with the Quakers, were averse to war, and in the Revolution were sometimes in danger of being roughly handled by both patriots and Tories. When that contest closed in favor of the Americans, some of them refused to live under a government founded on force, and moved to Canada.
The followers of Schlatter and Muhlenberg were always quite friendly with each other. Many of them took part in the Revolution, and Muhlenberg's son, Peter, who had gone to Virginia, became a famous gen- eral. But the mass of the Germans, whether of the sects or of the church people, were always regarded with more or less suspicion by the English, both in the French and Indian War and in the Revolution. Muh- lenberg complains with much bitterness of the way in which the militia jeered at him and called him a Hessian.
Both Schlatter and Muhlenberg, however, were firm believers in the supremacy of the English race in America, and in the importance of all the Germans learning English and becoming Americanized as soon as possible. Muhlenberg taught English, and was careful to have his sons educated in it before they were sent to Germany to study for the ministry. Schlatter, after
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being several years in the province, was so convinced of the illiterate and disordered state of his countrymen that he made a special report to Holland and Germany. His report was translated in England and attracted much attention. He received money from Germany and Hol- land, six young ministers to assist him, and the interest on a fund of twelve thousand pounds. Prominent people in England became convinced of the great importance of teaching the Germans English. Funds were raised, and under the leadership of Provost Smith, Franklin, Chief-Justice Allen, and others, a system of English schools for the Germans was instituted in 1755.
Schlatter was made the general supervisor of these schools, and Muhlenberg gave them his hearty encour- agement and active support. At the height of their success they contained about seven hundred and fifty pupils, and they may be said to have been successful for seven or eight years. But the strenuous opposition of Sauer and the confusions of the French and Indian Wars destroyed them. A somewhat similar attempt was con- tinued for a long time at the college of Philadelphia by having a special German department, and it was hoped that it would accomplish great things among the Ger- mans, but its success was very trifling.
The mass of the Germans, especially the sects, were determined from the beginning to keep their own lan- guage, literature, and customs, and create a little Germany in the midst of Pennsylvania. In this they have been largely successful. In colonial times the services in their churches were conducted in German, and the majority of the people were unable to speak English. German is still the language of most of their churches,
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and great numbers of the people whose ancestors have been in the country more than a hundred and fifty years cannot yet speak English.
The German they speak has degenerated into a patois called Pennsylvania Dutch, and is described as a dialect of South Germany with an infusion of English. This strange form of speech is still the spoken language of a large part of the population of Pennsylvania. Many speak it fluently and speak English with difficulty, and the English spoken is generally a sad mixture, of which the best that can be said is, that like the Irish brogue it often affords much amusement. In the towns of Lan- caster, Lebanon, York, Reading, Allentown, Easton, and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Dutch is constantly heard, and in some of these towns there are comparatively few people who speak English exclusively.
In clinging to their customs many of the Germans have been equally successful, and it has been said that in some parts of Pennsylvania there is more of the old Germany of two hundred years ago than in the German Empire itself. Many of them still refuse to vote or take any part in government. Some of them still love to have their religious books bound in old-fashioned, deeply- stamped white vellum with great brass clasps. They could hardly believe a religion that came out of any other sort of book.
Their maxims and traditions are most conservative, and of high rank among them is that one which instructs a son not to attempt to improve on the ways of his father. The sects continue to administer their sacrament of feet-washing, and their religious services often last all day. One division of them, the Amish,
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distinguish themselves from the others by fastening their clothes with hooks and eyes, instead of buttons. They still use a hymn-book that was written three hundred years ago, and still sing of Felix Mantz, who was drowned at Zurich in 1526, and of Sattler, who had his tongue torn out the next year.
The persecution in the Reformation was more relent- less on the continent than in the British Islands, and these German sects were visited with fire and torture, compared with which the sufferings of Puritan and Quaker count for almost nothing. Under the rule of Philip II. of Spain six thousand are said to have been put to death, and the final persecution of 1659 almost extinguished some of the heresies. There are many families among the Pennsylvania sects that can trace themselves back to an ancestor burned at the stake.
They have always had, and still retain, a strong prejudice against education. In colonial times the men are said to have been usually able to read and write, and the women to read, but not to write. The autograph immigrant lists in which they signed the oath of allegiance seem to show, however, that a large number of the men could not write. Many of the names are written by a clerk. In these lists printed in Rupp's book the names of those who could not write are marked with a star, and any one can easily see by turning over the pages that in many of the lists more than one-half are illiterate.
In early times in Pennsylvania it was quite common for their churches to have schools of a very low grade connected with them; and a large number of school- masters are reported to have come over in the immi-
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grant ships. Some of them gave up teaching and took to preaching, and many of them are admitted to have been worthless scamps. Schlatter and Muhlenberg describe the ignorance and illiteracy of their people in very strong language. There were certainly a few schools among them here and there, but the best of them were usually very inferior.
Christopher Dock, one of their school-masters on the Skippack, has been in recent years unearthed from his long obscurity, and the pretty story of his humble but carnest life told by the Hon. Samuel W. Penny- packer. He was famous for his skill, and Sauer, who had something of the enterprise of modern journalists, finally persuaded him to write out for publication his rules and methods of instruction. It is impossible to read the homely, simple language of the essay without loving the good master who was so devoted to the children and so ingenious in his way of teaching.
" HOW I RECEIVE THE CHILDREN IN SCHOOL.
" It is done in the following manner. The child is first welcomed by the other scholars, who extend their hands to it. It is then asked by me whether it will learn industriously and be obedient. If it promises me this, I explain to it how it must behave, and if it can say the A, B, C's in order, one after the other, and also by way of proof can point out with the forefinger all the designated letters, it is put into the A-b Abs. When it gets this far its father must give it a penny, and its mother must cook for it two eggs, because of its industry ; and a similar reward is due to it when it goes further into words, and so forth." (Pennypacker's His- lorical and Biographical Sketches, 100.)
He had little presents for them of his own besides the eggs the parents were to boil. He drew birds and pic- tures for them, was much more sparing of the rod than
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was usually the custom in those times, and he had the plan of getting the children to teach each other. But he had a rough, unruly set to deal with ; his instruction was confined to the simplest sort of spelling, reading, and arithmetic, with much instruction in the Bible, which was an important text-book in those times among the English as well as the Germans. His efforts had to be directed more to conduct than to mental training; and he seems to have had his hands full in keeping some of his young charges from swearing and stealing. He drew up elaborate rules, which were evidently intended for the children of a very rough peasantry, who had to be prevented from living like wild animals and throwing the bones they had gnawed under the table.
Sauer's son wrote some very sensible generalizing on education, which reads well, and to which no one can take exception. Rupp assures us that the numerous school-masters among the German immigrants were in the habit of reading a book on education, entitled "Ge- danken, Vorschläge und Wünsche zur Verbesserung der Öffentlichen Erziehung als Materialien zur Pädagogick, herausgegeben von Friederich Gabriel Resewitz," which was in four huge volumes, and must certainly have exhausted the subject.
Like the Quakers, these people had many new ideas in their heads which were to simplify many problems, war and government, as well as education. But none of them were very practical, and none of their efforts can for one moment be compared to the vigorous intellectual training given in the colonial schools of the Presbyteri- ans, which produced such good results.
The Germans, unfortunately, stand in the history of
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Pennsylvania as the enemies of all attempts at good edu- cation. There was great difficulty in introducing the public school system among them, and in some cases it was resisted by indignation meetings and litigation. Many of them professed to consider it tyranny, and at- tempted to pose as martyrs by refusing to pay the school- tax, and allowing their property to be taken by the sheriff. The Tunkers, although on their first arrival they made some efforts in behalf of schools, afterwards degenerated so far as to boast that there were scarcely any educated men among them, and at one time they would not admit such persons to their society. Many of them were inclined to destroy all books that were not religious.
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