USA > Virginia > History of the German element in Virginia, Vol I > Part 9
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particularly fine hay: hence their quadrupeds of all kinds are kept throughout the year in the finest possible order. The German women, many of them are remarkably neat house- keepers. There are some of them, however, extremely slovenly, and their dwellings are kept in the worst possible condition. The Germans are remarkable for their fine bread, milk and butter. They consume in their diet less animal flesh, and of course, more vegetables, milk and butter, than most other people. Their " Sour Krout" in winter constitutes a considerable part of their living. They generally consume less and sell more of the prod- uct of their labor, than any other class of citizens. A Dutch- man is proverbial for his patient perseverance in his domestic labors. Their farms are generally small and nicely cultivated. In all his agricultural pursuits his meadows demand his great- est care and attention. His little farm is laid off in fields not exceeding 10 to 12 acres each. . It is rarely seen that a Dutch- man will cultivate more than about 10-12 acres of Indian Corn any one year. They are of opinion that the corn crop is a great exhauster of the soil and they make but little use of corn for any other purpose than feeding and fattening their swine."
Kercheval also relates (pp. 79-80): "With few exceptions, they strictly inhibited their children from joining in the dance or other juvenile amusements common to the Germans. - In their marriages much ceremony was observed and great prepa- rations made. Fatted calves, lambs, poultry, the finest of bread, butter, milk, honey, domestic sugar, wine, if it could be had, with every article necessary for a sumptuous feast in their plain way, were prepared in abundance. Previous to the perform- ance of the ceremony (the clergyman attending at the place appointed for the marriage), four of the most respectable young females and four of the most respectable young men were se- lected as waiters upon the bride and groom. The several waiters were decorated with badges, to indicate their offices. The groomsmen, as they were termed, were invariably furnished with fine white aprons beautifully embroidered. It was deemed a high honor to wear the apron. The duty of the waiters con- sisted in not only waiting on the bride and groom, but they were required, after the marriage ceremony was performed, to serve up the wedding dinner, and to guard and protect the
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bride while at dinner from having her shoe stolen from her foot. To succeed in it, the greatest dexterity was used by the younger part of the company, while equal vigilance was mani- fested by the waiters to defend her against the theft; and if they failed, they were in honor bound to pay a penalty for the redemption of the shoe. This penalty was a bottle of wine, or one dollar, - and as a punishment to the bride, she was not permitted to dance until the shoe was restored. The successful thief, on getting hold of the shoe, held it up in great triumph to the view of the whole assemblage, which was generally pretty numerous. This custom was continued among the Germans from generation to generation, until since the war of revolu- tion."
In consequence of the growing prosperity of the German colonists, a number of towns and villages, as stated before, were founded, and to this day many names of inhabited places, riv- ers and mountains recall to memory the times of the German pioneers. The following review of the German foundations during the eighteenth century bears evidence of the share they have taken in establishing the welfare of the State.
In the year 1737 some German families settled, as has been reported, where soon after Frederickstown or Winchester, as it is now called, was laid out. Stephansburg in Frederick county, now Stephensburg, was founded by Peter Stephan in 1758, who with Justus Heid came to Virginia in 1732. Kernstown was built on the land of Adam Kern. Stauferstadt or Strasburgh, in Shenandoah county, derived its original name from its founder, Peter Staufee, or Stover, who laid it out in 1761. In the same year Jacob Mueller established Muellerstown, which
was afterwards called Woodstock. Its founder laid out 196 lots on 1200 acres of land, and every one of these lots was purchased by Germans. Shepherdstown, formerly Mecklenburg, in what is now Jefferson county in West Virginia, is the oldest German town in this part of the Valley; it was incorporated in 1762 and inhabited by German tradesmen. Harpers Ferry, also in Jefferson county and famous in history as the scene of John Brown's Insurrection, commemorates the name of a German, Robert Harper, who settled near by in 1734. - Wheeling, in
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Ohio county, was first laid out in 1770 in town lots by Col. Ebenezer Zane and 1795 it was made a town by act of the As- sembly. West Liberty, also in Ohio county, was established by legislative enactment in 1787 on the lands of Reuben Foreman. - From Christian Peter, who came to Monroe county, now West Virginia, in 1770, the village Peterstown takes its name and also the mountain range which now forms the dividing line between the Old Dominion and West Virginia. - Martins- burg, the present county seat of Berkeley, W. Va., was made a town in 1778 on the lands of General Adam Stephan, Stephen, or anglicized Steven, - and Darkesville, in the same county, commemorates the name of the brave General W. Darke, the son of Pennsylvanian German parents. Other places which have been founded chiefly by Germans are: Lexington, Rockbridge county, in 1777, - Amsterdam, Botetourt county, by Pennsyl- vanian German Tunkers, - Harrisonburg, Rockingham county, 1780, - Lewisburg, Greenbrier county, 1782, - Clarksburg, Harrison county, 1785, - Charlestown, Kanawha county, 1786, - Frankfurt, in Hampshire county, 1787, by John Schloss, J. Adler, H. Whitemann, Jacob Brockhardt and other Germans, - Middletown, now Gerrardstown, in honor of David Gerrard, (i. e. Gerhard) in 1787, - in 1788 Front Royal, in Frederick county, by S. Vanmeter, H. Front, Th. Hant, etc., - Beverly, in Randolph county, in 1790, on the lands of Jacob Westfall, - in 1791 Keisletown, formerly Kieselstadt, Rockingham county, - Berryville, in Clarke county, by Benj. Berry and S. Strebling in 1798. The county of Alexandria, with the city of the same name, belonged to the estates of Lord Fairfax, and promised to become an important harbor and trading place before the Capi- tal of the Union - Washington city - was founded on the op- posite shore of the Potomac. At Alexandria the river is more than one mile wide and at the landing place thirty feet deep. It is not certain how many Germans participated in the found- ing of the city, but Dr. Julius Dienelt, of Alexandria, informed the author of this book, that he found in the County Records the following German names : Peter Wagener, county clerk from 1776 to 1797, and within the period from 1787 to 1794: Michael Steiber, Michael Gerther, Johann Hess, Georg Christian Otto, Johann Schneider, Wilhelm Bocher, Tobias Zimmermann, Josias
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Spier, Adam Ebert, Adam Faizer, Joh. Christ. Kempff, Th. He- derich, Jac. Beltinger, and Joseph Thomas.
This list of places established by Germans, or chiefly with their assistance, is incomplete; it gives only a number of exam- ples with special reference to the Valley, and the reader is re- ferred to two other lists in Volume II, chapters thirteen and sixteen.
The two German mass-immigrations to Middle Virginia and to the north-western mountain region differ essentially in one feature. The settlers on the Rappahannock river and in Piedmont, at the time of Governor Spotswood, stood at first in a serviceable dependency, until they secured independence and property, - but the German colonists of the Valley and Alle- ghany mountains were wealthy people and purchased lands, and those who came from Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York brought practical experience in pioneer-work with them. The poor German immigrants, mostly farm-hands and crafts- men, who had bound themselves to serve for the amount of their travelling expenses to America, were landed in large num- bers at Philadelphia and New York, but showed little willing- ness to hire out to southern slave-holders. Dr. Schoepf says about them : "They possess to much pride to work with and among the negroes, who in Virginia and the Carolinas are al- most exclusively the only laborers."
This disinclination to be placed on one level with the col- ored people has kept away to the present day white laborers, -- especially those of German nationality,-from the southern States. "We do not want to be treated like negroes, to work for low negro-wages and to be reduced to negro rations of corn and ba- con," - these are the arguments which white laborers still use to justify their prejudice against the South.
CHAPTER VII.
THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR AND INDIAN DEVASTATIONS.
HE, development of the German settlements in Virginia was much impeded by the growing difficulties and quar- rels between the French and English in regard to the boundaries of their colonies. The English, in 1750, actually occupied only a narrow strip along the coast of the Atlantic, about 1000 miles in length, but they claimed all land from New Foundland to Florida as having been discovered by the Cabots. The French territory extended around the English colonies, from Quebec to New Orleans and upward to the great lakes, supported by a cordon of forts. The French based their claim on the ground of the exploration of this vast territory by French travellers. Both nations claimed the region west of the Alleghany mountains, along the Ohio river, and this was the cause of the great struggle, known in history as the French and Indian War. The rights of the natives on the land of their an- cestors were completely ignored by both contestants. A grant made by the English crown, in 1749, of 800,000 acres on the Ohio to the Ohio Company, brought matters to a crisis. The enraged Indians sent to the agent of the Ohio Company the per- tinent query : "Where is the land of the Indians ? The English claim all on one side of the river, the French all on the other, where does our land lie ?" - The French erected new forts in the northwest of Pennsylvania and took possession of an Eng- lish post in what is now western Ohio, and carried the garrison off prisoners. Unfortunately the English did not understand to gain the friendship of the natives, consequently most of the
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Indian tribes united with the French, - and suddenly fell upon the exposed German settlements along the Ohio, com- mitting acts of horrible cruelty.
The King of England had granted the Ohio Company the aforesaid privilege for the purpose of planting settlers beyond the Alleghanies - and to monopolize the fur-trade, and soon the Company aimed to extend its traffic eastward into the country of the "Six Nations." German men were entrusted with the important and dangerous mission to nego- tiate with the Indians and to conclude treaties with them.
In 1748 the savages threatened to invade the settlements and Konrad Weiser was sent to Logstown to appease them by exhortations and presents.99) - "The two Weisers, father and son," says Friedrich Kapp100), figure among the most illus- trious Germans who came to America during the last cen- tury." - Johann Konrad Weiser, the father, was born at Grossaspach in Wuertemberg, and arrived at New York in 1710, with the influx of the emigrants from the Palatinate. He remained up to his death in 1746 the leader and defender of the German settlers in the Shoharie Valley against the corrupt and extorting English officials. His son Konrad was only fourteen years old when he landed at New York, and after his father had settled in the Shoharie Valley, he was given in charge of the Indian chief Quagnant, who was a friend of Weiser, Sr. - Living among and with the natives Konrad became acquainted with the Indian languages, the customs and the way of reasoning of the children of the wil- derness. This knowledge of the character, the idiom, and the mode of viewing things of the Indians, afterwards made Wei- ser the sought for adviser and mediator of the two races - and the natives esteemed him as a justly reliable friend. He came in 1737, upon the request of Governor Gooch, for the first time to Virginia, to undertake the difficult mission to arrange an armistice with the chiefs of the "Six Nations," and finally a defensive alliance with the Cherokese and Ca- tawbas. Not less important was his mission to Logstown in
99.) "In der neuen Heimath," Seite 231, von Anton Eikhoff. New-York, 1884.
100 ) "Geschichte der Deutschen im Staate New-York," von Friedrich Kapp, - Seite 134. New-York, 1868.
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1748, to which we already referred. On his journey he had to travel through a wilderness full of perils, over rough mountains to the Ohio and then to Logstown: to confer with the enraged Indians, to persuade them not to unite with the French, and at the same time to gather full particulars as to the strength and position of the French forces and fortifica- tions. He succeeded well with his hazardous mission. Fried- rich Kapp101) states : "The personal knowledge of the situa- tion of things on the Ohio and in the western portion of the English settlements Weiser used six years later in Albany to great advantages, where the deputies of seven colonies had a conference with the chiefs of the "Six Nations," purposing to form an alliance against the French. It was one of the most important periods in the history of the colonies; it was the time of the beginning of the French war, and the first coopera- tion of the colonies, hitherto acting separately and frequently in discord. The colonists desired to secure the alliance of the Indians and to this end tried to convince them that the French had committed numerous encroachments in the Ohio valley and the western Indian territories. Among other speak- ers Vice-Governor de Lancey, of New York, addressed the sav- ages and in the course of his speech remarked: "It is very lucky that Mr. Weiser, who has arranged matters with your nations in Virginia and Pennsylvania and who is also thoroughly acquainted with the whole situation, is present. Listen to his statements which will throw full light on all the difficulties." Then Weiser stepped forward and in the Mohawk language gave a detailed description of the outrages and intrusions in the Ohio valley committed by the French, and known to him as an eye-witness. His address made a deep impression on the Indian chiefs - and in a few days an alliance was arranged between the English and the Six Nations.
Although Konrad Weiser never made Virginia his perma- nent home, he rendered to it such eminent services, that his name deserves a prominent place in the history of the Old Dominion.
101.) "Geschichte der Deutschen im Staate New York," von Friedrich Kapp,- Seite 140-141. New-York, 1868.
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In 1751 Christopher Gist, Geist or Guest102), another distinguished German of Frederick, Virginia, was appointed agent of the Ohio Company. He was despatched to the Tuig- tuis Indians, living near the present Piquia in Ohio, to se- cure their partisanship for the Virginia cause. Gist's travels through the land north of the Ohio river lasted from Octo- ber 31st, 1750, to May 1751; he then returned to Virginia to organize the settlements which the Ohio Company had pro- jected on the Kanawha river. In 1753, when Major George Washington was entrusted by Governor Dinwiddie with the dangerous mission to the French commander on the upper Ohio to deliver a protest against his advance and to demand his withdrawal from the Ohio valley, he chose for one of his companions Christopher Gist.
The great struggle was now at hand, - Virginia prepared for war, and in 1754 the hostilities commenced. The war was waged for years with varying success. The exposed German settlements on the frontier suffered greatly by the Indian al- lies of the French, until France could no longer protract the struggle and by a treaty, ratified in 1763, she gave up all her American territory, including the upper Ohio region, to the English.
England and the colonies owed this victory to a great extent to an agreement concluded with the Iroquois Indians by the German Christian Friedrich Post, a Moravian. .
"On the 25th of August" - writes Klauprecht - "the same day that England's great ally in Europe, King Fred- erick II of Prussia, defeated the Russians in the fierce battle of Johnsdorf, the modest champion of England, the Moravian Post, stood on the battlefield and within the range of the enemies' cannon, in full sight of Fort Du Quesne (Pittsburg) and the flying lily-banners of France, he persuaded the In- dian warriors, surrounding him, to break with their allies."
During this long war several Germans gained high mili- tary distinction. Captain Adam Stephan or Stephen, who
102.) "Geschichte des grossen amerikanischen Westens," von H. A. Rattermann, - Seite 28. Cincinnati, 1875.
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practiced medicine at Neu Mecklenburg (Shepherdstown) Va., from 1747 to 1754, organized a company of German volun- teers in the vicinity of Harper's Ferry, and advanced with Washington to the West. He fought with valor in the bat- tles at Great Meadows, Fort Necessity and General Braddock's disastrous defeat; and he was promoted to the rank of Lieu- tenant-Colonel and given command of Fort Cumberland.
Colonel Wilhelm Drake was another German officer of fame. He had come, when a child, with his German parents to Neu Mecklenburg, and only nineteen years of age he par- ticipated in Gen. Braddock's campaign. Colonel George Wash- ington in a report, dated Great Meadows in May 1754, also stated : that under his command there served the Ensign Carl Gustav von Splitdorf and Lieutenant Edmund Wagner, who was killed in battle.
Peace was restored and the French army gone, but peace- ful times did not follow. The enlarged power of the English, who now held possession of all the territory extending to the great lakes, and who now occupied the forts built by the French, the French settlers who dwelled around the northern lakes, and who were still opposed to the English rule, a large emigration of colonists to the fertile prairies of the west, excited the apprehension and fury of the Indians in the West, and nearly every tribe from New England to the western extrem- ity of Lake Superior united in a conspiracy against the white intruders. Pontiac, the bold and sagacious chief of the Otta- was, was at the head of the united savages. On June third of 1763 the redskins simultaneously attacked the English out- posts and forts, and all but Fort Pitt, Niagara and Detroit fell into their hands. The frontier settlements in Virginia and Pennsylvania were devastated and more than twenty thousand people were obliged to fly from their homes or to suffer a barbarous death. In all directions the conflagration of dwellings and crops illumined the sky.
The first of these blows, 103) struck within the present limits of West Virginia, resulted in the total destruction of
103.) "History of West Virginia," by Virgil A. Lewis, page 106 1889.
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the settlements in the Greenbrier valley, and within what now is Greenbrier county. All fled before the Indians and in Rockbridge county, where they had hoped to be in safety, many families were killed or taken by them. The Indians also carried destruction and death into the Shenandoah valley, especially in the present counties of Berkeley, Shenandoah and Frederick, making frequent inroads into the upper valley as far as a few miles off Staunton.
Many Germans were among the slaughtered, and indigna- tion and despair forced the survivors to take up arms in self- defence. Among the forces that defended the 'western forts, not fallen into the hands of the enemy, there were also many Germans, officers as well as privates, and they assisted to check the progress of the savages to the South. Finally Sir Jeffrey Amherst, the English commander-in-chief, sent Colo- nel Heinrich Bouquet or Henry Boquet104), a native of Swit- zerland, born in the German Canton Berne, to the West to raise the siege of the beleaguered forts. His troops, organized in haste, were mostly Germans from Pennsylvania and Virginia. He was a soldier born and began his military career in Swe- den and later he served in the Dutch army. In 1755 he was persuaded by the English ambassador, Sir Yorke, to enter the English-American service and was appointed major of a bat- talion of the "Royal American Regiment," consisting mostly of Germans. He served throughout the French and Indian war - and when ordered out against 'Pontiac's confederates, he defeated them in the fiercely contested battle of Bushy Run in Pennsylvania, arrived at Fort Pitt in August 1764 and forced the Indians on the twelfth day of November, 1764, at the forks of the Muskingum in Ohio, to make peace and cede two hundred and six captives, ninety of whom had been carried away from Virginia.
Touching scenes are related to have occurred at the delivery of the prisoners when husband and wife, parents and children, were reunited. Anton Eikhoff105) reports : "A
104 ) H. A. Rattermann says in "Deutscher Pionier," Vol. X, p. 217: That Hein- rich Bouquet's true name was "Strauss."
105 ) "In der neuen Heimath," von Anton Eikhoff, Seite 247. New York, 1884.
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Virginia volunteer of Bouquets' army had been robbed of his wife and a two year old child by the Indians about six months before. How delighted was the afflicted sol- dier, when he could again embrace his beloved wife and a baby three months old, - but the two year old child was missing. The mother could only give the information that the child had been taken from her at the time they were cap- tured. - A few days later however a child was brought into camp and it was thought to be the missing one. The mother was called, and she did not recognize it to be her own at first sight, but on closer examination she did and shouting for joy she drew it to her heart."
With the failure of Pontiac's plot the aggressive power of the Indians was broken, but they continued to make treach- erous attacks in northern Virginia.
England had risen by the success of the French and Indian War, - respectively by its "seven years' sea war " (1756 to 1763) with France and Spain, - to the most im- portant naval and colonial power, but she had also added largely to her debt. No sooner was peace restored and the colonies beginning to recover from the calamities of war and Indian devastations, then the English Parliament determined to make them repay by taxation what had been expended in defending them. The colonies, on the other hand, had always considered the aid rendered them by the motherland as insufficient, they charged the English government to have abused them for the benefit of her merchants and manufacturers and they thought England pretty well compensated for the cost of the war by the acquisition of the French territory and Florida. The colonial policy of Great Britain was in fact unscrupulously selfish, it treated the settlers as an inferior class of people, while the English High-Church constantly aimed to reduce free religious exercise. Thus the colonists became exasperated and the idea to form a union for redress of all grievances gained popularity.
In spite of this unsettled and alarming condition of po- litical affairs, the German immigration to Virginia did not cease, although it was less numerous than in the beginning of
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the century. The following names may prove the correctness of this statement.
Adam Dutton, from Germany, settled in Wythe county and one of his sons, George Dutton, married the daughter of an- other German named Friedrich Copenhaver in Smith county, Henry Fleenor, also a German, was one of the first colonists in Rock Valley, - in Washington county the Pennsylvania Germans: Anton Horn, Giesler, Rodeker, Gobble, King (Koe- nig) and Krieger were domiciled, - and also in 1778 Jacob Hartenstine (Hartenstein), whose son, John Hartenstine, was a major in the Confederate army during the War of Secession. George Kerr immigrated into Northumberland, - Wm. Short in Surry county, George Hood (Huth) in Charles City county, Ed. Voss in Culpepper, etc. - and the names of various coun- ties show, that the German immigration extended in all di- rections of the colony.
It must also be noted that George Washington esteemed the Germans highly as colonists. Having received from the English government, in acknowledgement of his services dur- ing the French and Indian war, in 1770, ten thousand acres of land south of the Ohio river, and by purchase secured a large tract of land on the Kanawha and Greenbrier rivers, he had in view to settle his estates with Germans. In Feb- ruary 1774 he wrote from Mt. Vernon to James Tilghman, in Philadelphia: "that motives of interest and of policy required a speedy, successful and inexpensive colonization of these lands, and that of all suggestions made to him, none promised better success: than the settlement of Germans from the Pa- latinate." He inquired how this plan could be carried out, and if it was advisable to send an intelligent German to Ger- many to invite immigrants, to control their embarkation in Hol- land, etc. He also addressed ship-owners like Henry Riddle in Philadelphia and offered to pay the travelling expenses to the Potomac and Ohio, to provide the settlers with victuals until a first crop had been gathered and to exempt them from payment of any rent for a period of four years if there was no house on the property at the time of taking possession of it. But these and other plans to colonize his estate were in- terrupted by the outbreak of the Revolutionary War.
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