The German and Swiss Settlements of Colonial Pennsylvania: A Study of the So-Called Pennsylvania Dutch

286 Pages·1901·10.336 MB·English

by  Oscar Kuhns

THE GERMAN AND SWISS
SETTLEMENTS OF COLONIAL
PENNSYLVANIA: A STUDY
OF THE SO-CALLED PENN-
DUTCH
SYLVANIA
BY
OSCAR KUHNS
Member of the Pennsylvania Society of the Sons of the
Revolution, of thePennsylvania-GermanSociety, and of
the Lancaster County Historical Society
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1901
PUBLIC LIBilAiY
12360
15
ASTOB. LENOX AND
TILDBN B-OLNUATIOXS
It 1039 L
Copyright, 1900,
BY
HENRY HOLT & CO.
ROBERT DRUMMOND, PRINTER, NEW YORK.
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR
TO THE MEMORY OF HIS ANCESTORS
GEORGE KUNTZ
AND
HANS HERR
PIONEER SETTLERS OF
LANCASTER COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
"
Die Enkelgutthun an die Miihen
ihrer Vorfahrenzu—denken."
Freytag.
3i

PREFACE.
The object of this book is to give a complete
yet concise view of a too-much-neglected phase
of American origins. The author has especially
tried to be impartial, avoiding as far as possible
mere rhetoric, and allowing the facts to speak
for themselves. As a book of this kind can have
no real value unless it is reliable, authorities have
been freely quoted, even at the risk of making
the number of foot-notes larger than is perhaps
suited to the taste of the general public.
Bern, Switzerland,
October i, 1900.
iii

CONTENTS.
PAGE
Preface
. . iii
Chapter I The Historic Background i
II The Settling of the German Counties
OF Pennsylvania 30
HI. Over Land and Sea 62
IV. Manners and Customs of the Pennsyl-
vania-German Farmer in the
Eighteenth Century
83
V. Language, Literature, and Education. 115
VI. The Religious Life 153
VII. In Peace and in War 193
VIII. Conclusion 221
Appendix—Pennsylvania-German Family Names. . . . 230
Bibliography 247
Index
259
V

THE GERMAN AND SWISS SET-
TLEMENTS OF COLONIAL
PENNSYLVANIA.
CHAPTER
I.
THE HISTORIC BACKGROUND.
Of
all the great nations of Western Europe
during the centuries immediately following the
discovery of America, Germany alone took no
official part in the colonization of the NewWorld.
Spain in Florida and South America, France in
Canada and Louisiana, Holland in New York,
England in Massachusetts and Rhode Island,
and even Sweden in New Jersey, took formal
possession of the territory settled by their sub-
jects. Previous to the American Revolution it
is estimated that over 100,000 Germans and
Swiss settled in Pennsylvania alone, to say noth-
New
ing of York, Maryland, Virginia, Georgia,
and the Carolinas. And yet this, for the times,
extremely large immigration was not officially
recognized by the home country, and the settlers
2 THE HISTORIC BACKGROUND.
themselves, instead of founding a German em-
pire in the West, became at once the subjects of
a foreign power.
Nor does it follow necessarily that the German
character is not adapted to the work of coloniza-
tion at the present time Germany is at least try-
;
ing to take her place in this kind of expansion,
and the not-distant future may show her to be, in
this as in other respects, no inconsiderable rival
of England.^
One highly important cause of this emigration
"
without a head," as it has been called, was un-
doubtedly the demoralized condition of Germany
in consequence of the terrible civil and religious
wars that again and again swept over that coun-
try. As a final result of these wars the Holy
Roman Empire was broken into fragments one
;
half of the German-speaking people were sepa-
rated from their fellows and merged with Hun-
gary and Bohemia to form Austria while the
;
^ Riehl, the great German ethnologist,—is convinced of the
colonizingpowerof his fellowcountrymen, thepeasantclasses
at least : " SeineAusdauer und Zahigkeitmachtdendeutschen
Bauer zum geborenen Kolonisten. sie liat ihn zu dem gross-
artigen weltgeschichtlichen Bcruf geweiht, der Bannertriiger
deutschen Geistcs, deutschcr Gcsittung an alien Weltenden zu
werden." (Die Biirgerliche Gesellschaft. p. 63.) JohnFiske,
however, gives as the only cause of England's supremacy in
colonization the principle of self-government. (Dutch and
Quaker Colonies, vol. i. p. 131.)