Table Of Content

lPenn6^l\>ania: THE GERMAN INFLUENCE SETTLEMENT AND DEVELOPMENT IN ITS H marratfve anO Critical Ibistor^ PREPARED BY AUTHORITY OF THE PENNSYLVANIA-GERMAN SOCIETY PART XXVI THE BEGINNINGS OF THE GERMAN ELEMENT IN YORK COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY publication Committee. JULIUS F. SACHSE,I,itt.D. DANIEL W. NEAD, M.D. J. E. B. BUCKENHAM, M.D. > I- UJ O O CO z < oUJ <I z < > >_l CO Zhc ffieoinninos of the German Blement In J^ork Countie Pennsylvania BY ABDEL ROSS WENTZ, B.D., Ph.D. ProfessorofHistory in Pennsylvania College, Gettysburg, andCuratorof the HistoricalSociety oftheEvangelical LutheranChurch in the United StatesofAmerica Part XXVI. of a Narrative and Critical History Published by The Pennsylvania-German Society LANCASTER, PA. IQ16 Copyrighted 1916 BY THE iPenns^IvaniasOermanSociety. Pressof TheNewera printingCompaht Lancaster, pa. . CONTENTS. Table of Contents 5 Foreword 6, 7 — Chapter I. —The First White Men in the County . . 9-20 Chapter II. The First Settlers 21-36 — Chapter III. The First Settlement 37-68 — Chapter IV—. Other Early Settlements 69-95 Chapter V. ^Whence the Germans Came and Why 96-123 — . Chapter VI. Outstanding Characteristics 124-147 — Chapter VII. The Limestone Soil 148-174 — Chapter VIII—. Their Place in Pennsylvania History . 175-185 Chapter IX. Their Place in General American His- tory 186-196 — Appendix A. Letter of Samuel Blunston 197-202 — Appendix B. Signers of Letter to Maryland 203, 204 — Appendix C.—Inventory of Jacob Welshover's Estate . 205-207 Appendix D. Bibliography 208-217 FOREWORD. ^^^Bj^HE sources usually determine the stream. The m m beginnings of a movement generally contain a M I I prophecy of its later development. For that I ^^^^^ reason it has been thought worth while to make a study of the origin of the present Ger- man element in York County. The position of Pennsyl- vania in the affairs of the nation and the position of York County in the affairs of the state, make it profitable to investigate the earliest beginnings of the strongest element in the county. The study has been fruitful for it has dealt with virgin soil. It has not been possible in a single monograph like this to trace the history of these settlements beyond their very beginnings. Nor has the attempt been made to follow out all possible lines of investigation, such as the economic, the sociological, the political, the industrial, the religious, and the linguistic. To set forth the full history of the Ger- mans in the county will require a series of volumes. The present treatise is merely a study preliminary to such a full presentation of their history. It has been regarded as sufficient to show in this treatise how those German settlements took their beginnings, and to set forth such characteristics of the original settlers and such features of the original settlements as will enable the reader to understand 8 The Pennsylvania-German Society. the relation of this element to the subsequent history of the county, to the general movement of Germans in this coun- try, to the colonial history of the state of Pennsylvania, and to the general course of events in our national history. Our study therefore has barely covered two decades and has in no case carried us beyond the middle of the eight- eenth century. But this brief span of years lies in the most important because the most formative period of our history. The York County with which we deal is the county as bounded on the map of today. Other geographical ex- pressions also are used with their present-day significance. An effort has been made to weave the body of the text into the form of a continuous narrative and so far as possible to relegate to the footnotes all references to sources, all allusions merely incidental, and all details not directly relevant. Specific acknowledgment of all sources is made at the places where they are used and these are also col- lated in the Bibliography (Appendix D). The Blunston letters that are quoted or referred to are always found in the " Miscellaneous Manuscripts of York and Cumber- land Counties, 1738-1806" (see Bibliography) unless otherwise indicated. Gettysburg, Pa., April 30, 1914.