Immigrant and Entrepreneur: The Atlantic World of Caspar Wistar, 1650-1750 (Max Kade German-American Research Institute)

226 Pages·2008·10.16 MB·English

by  Rosalind Beiler

Immigrant and Entrepreneur
THE ATLANTIC WORLD OF CASPAR WISTAR, 1650–1750
Rosalind Beiler
immigrant and entrepreneur
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Max Kade German American Research Institute Series
Edited by A. Gregg Roeber
Th is series provides an outlet for books that refl ect the
mission of the Penn State Max Kade Institute: to integrate
the history and culture of German-speakers in the Americas
with the major themes of early modern scholarship from
the sixteenth century to the early nineteenth century.
Th e Max Kade German-American Research Institute, located
on Penn State’s campus (http://www.maxkade.psu.edu/),
was founded in 1993 thanks to a grant from the
Max Kade Foundation, New York. Th e directors of the
Penn State University Max Kade German American
Research Institute are Daniel Purdy and A. Gregg Roeber.
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Immigrant and Entrepreneur
the atlantic world of caspar wistar, 1650–1750
Rosalind J. Beiler
the pennsylvania state university press | university park, pennsylvania
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library of congress cataloging-in-publication data
Beiler, Rosalind J., 1961– .
Immigrant and entrepreneur : the Atlantic world of Caspar Wistar, 1650–1750 /
Rosalind J. Beiler.
p. cm.—(Max Kade German-American research series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary: “Examines the life of 18th century German immigrant
and businessman Caspar Wistar. Reevaluates the modern understanding
of the entrepreneurial ideal and the immigrant experience
in the colonial era”—Provided by publisher.
isbn 13: 978-0-271-03372-3 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Wistar, Caspar, 1696–1752.
2. Germans—Pennsylvania—Philadelphia Region—Biography.
3. Immigrants—Pennsylvania—Philadelphia Region—Biography.
4. Merchants—Pennsylvania—Philadelphia Region—Biography.
5. Philadelphia Region (Pa.)—Biography.
6. Palatinate (Germany)—Biography.
7. Pennsylvania—Emigration and immigration—History—18th century.
8. Immigrants—Pennsylvania—History—18th century.
I. Title.
f158.9.g3b45 2008
974.8'1102092—dc22
2008005072
Copyright © 2008 Th e Pennsylvania State University
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Published by Th e Pennsylvania State University Press,
University Park, PA 16802-1003
Th e Pennsylvania State University Press
is a member of the Association of American University Presses.
It is the policy of
Th e Pennsylvania State University Press
to use acid-free paper.
Th is book is printed on Natures Natural,
containing 50 post-consumer waste,
and meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—
Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Material,
ansi z39.48–1992.
Disclaimer:
Some images in the original version of this book are not
available for inclusion in the eBook.
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contents
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list of maps, figures, and tables vii
preface and acknowledgments ix
list of abbreviations xiii
Introduction 2
Part I: Wist ar’s Palatine World
1 Men in the Middle: Foresters and Hunters
in the Early Modern Palatinate 13
2 Individual Pursuits Versus the Common Good: Th e Constraints
of Village Life in Waldhilsbach 29
3 Contested Identities: Religious Affi liation
and Diversity in the Palatinate 51
4 Leaving Home: Th e Decision to Emigrate 71
Part II: Wist ar’s American World
5 Establishing Professional and Family Connections:
New Beginnings in Pennsylvania 89
6 Securing a Legacy: Wistar’s Pennsylvania Land Speculation 111
7 Webs of Infl uence: Transatlantic Trade and Patronage 135
8 Creative Adaptations: Th e United Glass Company
and Wistarburg, New Jersey 155
Conclusion 173
appendix 1. genealogy of andreas wüster 180
appendix 2. genealogy of hans caspar wüster 181
appendix 3. genealogy of caspar wistar 182
selected bibliography 183
index 201
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maps, figures, and tables
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Maps
1. Palatinate within Europe after the Treaty of Westphalia, 1648 xiv
2. Th e British American colonies, c. 1730 xv
3. Amt Dilsberg and Hans Caspar Wüster’s jurisdiction as forester 31
4. Religious affi liation in Amt Dilsberg, 1706 64
5. Communication and promotion networks, c. 1700–1720 76
6. Wistar’s land holdings in Pennsylvania 117
7. Pennsylvania’s ethnic groups, 1760 128
8. Wistar’s transatlantic trade networks 143
Figures
1. Deer hunt at Neckargemünd, 1758 20
2. Heidelberg, view from the north, 1620 22
3. Clay pits, Waldhilsbach, 1915 32
4. Forsthaus, Waldhilsbach, c. 1913 36
5. Gruss aus Waldhilsbach, c. 1902 37
6. Title page, Pastorius’s Umständige geographische Beschreibung, 1700 80
7. Th e South East Prospect of the City of Philadelphia, c. 1720 91
8. Heidelberg, view from the north, c. 1683 92
9. Old Courthouse and Second Friends Meeting 96
10. High Street and Market Shambles, 1830 98
11. Wistar’s Philadelphia, 1762 103
12. Proprietaries land in the Forks of the Delaware, 1763 121
13. Map of the Peterstal Glasshouse tract 161
14. Glass-making furnace and tools 167
Tables
1. Heads of households in Waldhilsbach 34
2. Religious affi liation in Amt Dilsberg, 1706 and 1727 61
3. Religious diversity within the villages of Amt Dilsberg, 1706 62–63
4. Marriage and religious affi liation in Amt Dilsberg, 1706 65
5. Catholic missionary activity in Bammental, Gaiberg,
Waldhilsbach, and Wiesenbach, 1706–1727 69
6. Business organization of glassworks at Peterstal and Wistarburg 166
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for paul s. and elsie beiler
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preface and acknowledgments
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When I began my research for this book, my intention was to undertake a com-
parative community study, not to write the story of one individual. Deeply infl u-
enced by historians writing about cultural transfer and adaptation from Great
Britain to the American colonies, I wanted to examine similar processes among
German-speaking immigrants.¹ I hoped to use Wistar’s letters and family docu-
ments to link the people who lived and worked in Wistarburg, New Jersey, with
their European home communities, but I discovered that there was little extant
evidence for individuals at Wistarburg and that these people came from diff er-
ent regions. As I began to recover the Palatine context of Wistar’s family, I was
struck by the stark contrasts between his background there and what I knew
about the British mid-Atlantic colonies. Th e more I learned about the world of
his childhood, the more I was fascinated by how it shaped in unexpected ways
the choices he made in America. Th e resulting book is, therefore, much more
biographical than I originally intended but still refl ects, I hope, my fascina-
tion with the forces that infl uence individual choices, which in turn create both
change and continuity.
Th is book was also informed by questions that were giving rise to the new
subfi eld of Atlantic history. When I fi rst described Wistar’s world as “transatlan-
tic” in 1994, the term was not widely used. Nevertheless, my interest in the com-
parative project it implied was peaked by questions about how the people, ideas,
and goods circulating between Europe, Africa, and the Americas were shaping
1. David G. Allen, In English Ways: Th e Movement of Societies and the Transferal of English Local
Law and Custom to Massachusetts Bay in the Seventeenth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1981); Ned Landsman, Scotland and Its First American Colony, 1683–1765 (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1985); David Cressy, Coming Over: Migration and Communication Between
England and New England in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987);
Jack Greene, Pursuits of Happiness: Th e Social Development of Early Modern British Colonies and the For-
mation of American Culture (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988); David H. Fischer,
Albion’s Seed: British Folkways in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); A. G. Roeber, “In
German Ways? Problems and Potentials of Eighteenth-Century German Social and Emigration His-
tory,” William and Mary Quarterly 44 (1987): 750–74.
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