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THE 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