Table Of ContentTHE GERM/INS
IN
COLONIAL TIMES
BY LUCY FORNEY BITTIXGRR
.AUTHOR OF "MEMORIALS OF THE REV. J. B.
BITTINGER" .and of "the FORNEY
F.AMILY OF HANOVER, PA."
NEW tORX,.
PHILADELPHIA ANB LONDON
LIPPINCOTT C0MPAN2-
J. B.
I g o I
ik
<ix^'t.'-^
Copyright, iqoo
BY
J. B. LiPPiNCOTT Company
THE GERMANS
IN
COLONIAL TIMES
l'"0S503
FOREWORD
Singularly little is known of the magnitude of the
German emigration to America in colonial times. The
very fact of such a movementis commonly unknown to
the American at the present day; and even the de-
sce—ndants of these Teut—onic pioneers are often ignorant
or more inexcusably ashamed of their progenitors,
and have sought by anglicizing their names and lightly
passingover the fact oftheir descent from "Dutchmen"
to conceal the wide and deep traces which this move-
ment has left on American life. Yet this Volkerwan-
derung (for it merits the name) brought to ourshores in
thecenturybefore the Revolution one hundred and fifty
thousand people, one-halfofthe populationofthe great
province of Pennsylvania, besides large settlements in
the provinces of New York, the Carolinas, Virginia,
Maryland, Georgia, not to mention the small and ill-
fated colonies of Law on the Mississippi and those in
the State of Maine. Nor is their history lacking in
interest, containing as it does the peaceful picturewhich
Whittierhasimmortalized inhis"PennsylvaniaPilgrim;"
theself-sacrificeofthe Moravian missionariesamong the
Indians; the dramatic fire of ^iluhlenberg throwing off
his pastor's gown for a Continental uniform and calling
to his flock that "the time to fight had come ;" and the
tragic resolution with which the embattled farmers of
Oriskanvhcid back,with the sacrifice of their own lives,
Foreword
' the English rifle and Indian scalping-knife from their
Mohawk Valley homes. Or we may turn to the quaint
i
Rosicrucians, the hermits of the Wissahickon, or the
cloisters of Ephrata for a life almost unknown among
the more pr'acticaol Enrglish colonists.
If we would sup full of the horrors of war, pestilence
and famine, or religious persecution with stake and fire
1 and noisome prison, with midnight flight for conscience'
sake, we can find these told in simple pathos in the
I stories of the Palatines of the Rhine, the Mennonites
i of Switzerland, the Moravians, or the tiny sect of the
I Schwenkfelders. If we would meet with good men or
I
great, we maysee here the gentle Pastorius, first pro-
testant against ^^merican slavery, or Conrad Weiser,
j
i whose adventurous life was largely filled with embassies
to might}^Indianchiefs and nations, whom he held back
I
from war from the white men's frontier, or, last but not
I' least, William Penn, whose mightyfigure dominates the
' history as its counterfeit presentment does the cityhe
' has builded beside the Delaware. And indeed "time
would fail us to tell" ofthe many people and incidents,
interesting, pathetic, humorous, or containing in them
the germs ofour present American development, which
fill the annals of those "Pennsylvania Germans" and
theirkin in many States, whom the New England histo-
I
rian, Parkman, slurred over with the description, "dull
and ignorant boors, which character their descendants
forthe most part retain."
How man.y even of these same descendants know
that to this people belong, by ancestiy more or le.ss
remote, some of the first scientific men of America,
such as the Aluhlenbcrgs, Alelshcimer, the "father of
5
Foreword
Americanentomology'," Leidy, and Gross, thegreatsur-
geon Herkimer, the hero ofOriskany "Moil Pitcher,"
; ;
the heroine of Monmouth Post, the Indian missionary,
;
towhom Parkman himselfpays a noble tribute Hecke-
;
welder, the Moravian lexicographerofthe speechof the
Delawares Armistead, the defender of Fort McHenry
;
in the war of 1812, whose flag, "still there," inspired
the "Star-Spangled Banner;" Barbara Frietchie and
;
General Custer? Surely this people merit that some
slight account be drawn from the mostly unknown
books and documents where they have for years re-
posed, known only to antiquarians and often veiled
from English readers by the German language in
which many of the best and most valuable are written,
and be given to the English-speakingworld ofAmerica.
Such is the purpose of the present work.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I Conditions in Germany which led to emigration ii
II PENN'S visit to GERMANY 22
' III Germantown 26
I IV The labadists in Maryland 36
V The woman in the wilderness 42
; VI German valley, new jersey 52
VII Kocherthal's colony 58
] VIII The great exodus of the palatines 61
ij IXX TPheqeuadeunaknedrsthaendmeenpnhornaittaes 9938
ij XI Theschwenkfelder and Christopher dock ... 105
( XII The progress of settlement in the valley of
VIRGINIA AND IN MARYLAND II4
I XIII The GERMANS IN SOUTH CAROLINA 121
jI XIV German colonization in new England 130
XV ThesalzeurgersinGeorgiaandthePennsylvania
I
i GERMANS in NORTH CAROLINA I42
XVI The german press 152
XVII The Moravians 168
XVIII Conrad weiser and the frontier wars 184
XIX The "royal American" regi.ment 206
XX The redemptioners 215
XXI The Germans as pioneers 230
XXII The Germans in the revolution 235
XXIII "The rear-guard of the revolution" 277
