sweeping,” was the reply.
A girl got into a car near Mauch Chunk, and had headache.
“Don’t sit with your back to the engine,” I suggested.
“Do you sink?” she asked me. (Do you think so?)
“I guess it will give a gust,” is said in Lancaster County.
“Do you want butter-bread?” (or bread and butter.) “No, I’d rather have
coffee-soup,”—_i.e._, bread broken into coffee.
“Mary, come down to the woods.” “I dassent.” She does not mean that she
is afraid, but that she is not permitted, like the German _durfen_.
“I’m perfectly used to travel every _wich_ way.”
“A body gets _dired_ if they _dravel_.”
“Mind Ressler? He was in Sprecher’s still;” or, “Do you remember Ressler?
He used to be employed in Sprecher’s store.”
“It’s raining a’ready, mother,” or, “Where’s Mrs. M.?” “She went to bed
a’ready.”
“I guess that Mrs. B. does not spend all her income.”
“She didn’t still.”
“She’d rather be married to him _as_ to keep house for him” (like the
German _als_).
We think those very “Dutch” who say “Sess” for Seth, “bass-house” for
bath-house. Thus it would be, Beslem is in Norsampton County.
“I’m fetching a pig. I had it bestowed.”
“We’re getting strangers, and I was fetched.” (They are expecting company
at our house, and they sent for me to come home.)
“Mrs. M., how does your garden grow?” “Just so middlin’.”
“Your head is strubly,” means that your hair is tumbled.
A scientific friend, wishing to examine a specimen, said, “Let me see it
once.”
Of the same kind are these: “When we get moved once.” “You’ll know what
it is when you hain’t got no father no more once.” (This use of _once_
has been alluded to in the text.)
“Mother, don’t be so cross!” “I ought to be cross” (angry).
I do not know that it is “Dutch” to say, “Did you kiss your _poppy_?” or,
“Barbara, where’s your _pap_?” (for father).
“How are you, Chrissly?” (diminutive of Christian.) “Oh! I’ve got it so
in the back.”
Those who live among Pennsylvania Germans cannot fail to observe that
when they, speaking English, make mention of a couple, as, “She gave me
a couple of peaches,” they do not generally mean two only. Couple has
doubtless to them the same meaning as the German word _Paar_, which is
defined by Whitney “a couple, two or three, a few, sundry.”
I cannot tell the deviation of our interjection of pain, _Owtch!_
_Ok!_ is doubtless the German _Ach!_ or is it Irish?
And what is the derivation of “_Sahdie?_” so much used by children for
“Thank you.”
There is a word neither of English nor German origin which is sometimes
used as a salutation by Pennsylvania Germans. It is familiarly _Hottiay_.
Few would divine to see it thus that it is the French adieu.
PROPER NAMES.
Changes equally remarkable are found in proper names. The family of my
own neighbor Johns was originally Tschantz, as is more easily perceived
by the pronunciation; Johns ending with the s sound and not the z. The
important family in Lancaster County named Carpenter were Zimmerman when
they came in, the name being translated. But of a family in Berks County,
some are Hunter and some Yäger. Some persons named Bender, who have
removed to California, are there called Painter.
It is surprising in Pennsylvania to hear of persons with Irish or
Scottish names who can scarcely speak English. A gentleman in Harrisburg
told me of one he knew in Dauphin County named Hamilton (whose father
was born in Dublin), and of two others named Dougherty. I have met in
Berks County a person with a purely Scottish name who spoke of Norsampton
County, and of Souss Reading (not pronouncing the th). But his mother was
of a German family, and “Pennsylvania Dutch” his mother-tongue.
A lawyer in York, with an English name, tells me that his ancestors came
from New England, and settled first in the Wyoming Valley, but some moved
southward, and by intermarriage, to use, I think, his own expression,
became quite Dutchified. He himself can speak the dialect.
Several families with French names are now not to be distinguished from
the Pennsylvania Germans among whom they live and intermarry. It is said
that the Bushongs were once Beauchamp; then probably the Deshongs were Du
Champ. The Shopells were Chapelle; the Levans perhaps Levin. Delaplaine
is pronounced _Dillyplen_. There are still Bertolettes, De Bennevilles,
De Turks, De Planks, Philippes, Philippis, and Philippys. Coquelin has
become Cockley and Gockley. These families were perhaps French Huguenots
who sought refuge in Germany, where so many went on the revocation of the
edict of Nantes. From the Palatinate came very many of our Pennsylvania
Germans, and that state is directly east of France.
But it is also probable that many French names were translated when their
owners removed to Germany. One of my acquaintances in Philadelphia is a
German, born in the Palatinate. She tells me that her grandfather left
France during the revolution. He was a Mennonite, and named Coquerel; but
this was translated into Hähnchen; so that my friend was a Miss Hähnchen.
Coquerel, Hähnchen, and our English word cockerel are synonymous.
Changes in the names of persons of the same family in Pennsylvania
will be observed. I know a gentleman in Lebanon County with an English
name, who tells me that his mother’s name was Besore; supposed to have
been La Bessieur. The name has also been spelled Basore, Bashor, and
Bayshore. The name Beinbrecht is said to have gone through these changes;
in Philadelphia there is a Bonbright, in Chambersburg a Bonbrake, and
there are Bonebreaks. In Lancaster County, I hear of a father who writes
his name Bear; but one son is Barr, and another Bair. There is a large
Reformed family in Pennsylvania named Wotring, now turned into the
English Woodring, which was originally the French Voiturin. Probably
within the Reformed German Church are more French Calvinistic families
than in the Lutheran.
Of the Buchanans and Livingstones in our country we might assume the
Scottish origin; but _Der Deutsche Pionier_ tells us that the German
name Buchenhain [meaning Beech grove] has been changed to Buchanan,
and Löwenstein to Livingstone. A more grievous change is said to have
befallen the name Hochmayer or Hochmier [high steward], for in Virginia
it has become Hogmire!
POLITICS.
One of the most remarkable distinctions between our Pennsylvania Germans
is that which ranges the counties and townships inhabited by the wehrlos,
or peaceable sects, with one political party; and those where the
Reformed and Lutherans are strongest with the other. We might once have
thought that the Democratic party was the war party; but during the great
rebellion the counties of Berks, Lehigh, and Northampton still remained
adherents of the Democratic party in its opposition to the war. The
county of Montgomery, in the eastern part of the State, is thus divided;
the Mennonites, Schwenkfelders (with Quakers), are almost invariably
Republican; while the strong Democratic townships are almost entirely
Reformed and Lutheran. Of course there are in all such localities many
who do not belong to any religious body.
A Democratic editor in the same county of Montgomery says that he does
not know a Mennonite or Schwenkfelder who is not Republican; so also are
the great majority of the German Methodists. He, however, added that the
Reformed and Lutherans are nearly equally divided in politics. But every
politician who knows the people must concede that the counties which are
the stronghold of these two churches are an immense Democratic stronghold.
Mr. H., of Easton, tells me of a man who stood looking at a procession in
honor of the funeral of Jackson, Harrison, or some other distinguished
person. In the procession were Freemasons, Odd-Fellows, and other
societies. “Oh,” said he, “_des ish alle letz!_ That is all wrong. There
ought to be only two societies,—the Democrats and the Lutherans. If a man
lives up to the principles of General Jackson and Martin Luther, that is
enough.” He took his boys to delegate or town-meetings. “Now, boys,” he
said, “are you going to vote the Democratic ticket as long as you live?
Always stick to the Democratic party, and carry out the principles of
General Jackson. If you intend to do this, you can vote for delegates.”
(This anecdote is a little injured by the introduction in the beginning
of the name of Harrison, who was a Whig. But it was given to me by a
person of a well-known Democratic and Lutheran family.)
A few years ago, in an adjoining county, an adherent of the Democratic
party told me that the word democracy has a magic sound for the people
of Lehigh. “A Democratic parade,” he added, “can easily be got up in
Allentown two miles in length, composed in a great measure of farmers on
horseback; and in Presidential campaigns sometimes farmers’ daughters
also appear on horseback in the procession. A skilful speaker, generally
a lawyer, who speaks the dialect, and who will frequently introduce the
words democrat and democracy, can lead the crowd. Even if he do not speak
the dialect, if he will introduce those words, he can bring out the
applause of his hearers.”
An acquaintance tells me of a political speaker in Berks County, that
Democratic stronghold. He was telling of _die Demokratie_, which he said
goes over hill and dale, over the sea, and strikes the seat from under
kings. “And if you ask where that democracy comes from, they will tell
you from Berks County.”
YANKEES.
An acquaintance once explained to me the prejudice against Yankees
by telling me how, about fifty years ago or longer, the tin-peddlers
travelled among the innocent Dutch people, cheating the farmers and
troubling the daughters. They were (says he) tricky, smart, and
good-looking. They could tell a good yarn, and were very amusing, and the
goodly hospitable farmers would take them into their houses and entertain
them, and receive a little tin-ware in payment.
A lawyer in Easton, from the State of New York, says that he never saw so
large a body of people so honestly inclined as the Pennsylvania Germans.
He speaks from a knowledge of the people of Northampton and Lehigh.
They have an especial dread of the people of New England and New York,
from their having been so terribly victimized by patent-rights’ men. He
adds that they are not a reading people, but by their careful and slow
manner of getting along they really accomplish more than the people of
New England and New York, who, he says, make a great display, and then
frequently compromise with their creditors by paying fifteen or twenty
cents on the dollar. A person present added of these Pennsylvania Germans
that they never headed any great moral reforms and never drowned witches.
Another thinks that in his youth the Yankee drovers in Lehigh County were
respected for their acuteness. He adds, however, that when the “Dutch”
call a man a Yankee, it is not near so opprobrious as to call him a Jew.
“But,” says another, “when a Yankee comes to Reading with patent rights
and inventions they point and say, ‘_Do geht en Yoot_.’” (There goes a
Jew.) Dr. L., of Lebanon County, says that the “Dutch” idea of a Yankee
is not of one who starts out to cheat for the pleasure of cheating, but
of one who prefers to make his living by his wits rather than by hard
labor. He starts with the idea of making money easily, and does not care
much finally about the honesty of his proceedings.
In the market at York a learned man of New England origin asked a farmer,
“What is the price of your apples,—twenty-five cents?” “Yes, you can
have them for that; but I wouldn’t let Kochersperger have them for a
quarter,—he’s a Yankee.”
THRIFT.
In his speech in Congress upon the death of John Covode, Simon Cameron
declared that he honored Covode for his true courage when he proclaimed
in Philadelphia what weaker men would have tried to suppress, giving as
a reason for his hostility to every species of human bondage the fact
that his father had been sold as a redemptionist near the spot where he
was then speaking. “Scarcely a generation had passed away,” adds Cameron,
“before the hired servants began to buy their masters’ lands, to marry
their masters’ daughters, and to make good their claim to full equality
with those whose bondsmen they had been. For a time the Scotch-Irish made
a sturdy stand for that supremacy and superiority which seem to be their
peculiar inheritance, place them where you may. At length the thrift, the
superior patience, and the perseverance of the German blood prevailed.
They bought, and still possess, the old homesteads, and have furnished
us with an array of distinguished men of whom every citizen of our State
is justly proud.” The superior patience, says Mr. Cameron. _Geduld ist
das beste Kraut, das man in America baut_,—patience is the best plant
grown in America,—is a saying I have heard in Lancaster County. But I
must interrupt my regular course to explain the word redemptionist used
by Mr. Cameron. It was applied to persons coming here from Germany who
were unable to pay the expenses of their passage, and who were sold
or indentured for a term of years until that expense was paid. Minor
children were bound out until of age.
Mr. Cameron also speaks of the Pennsylvania Germans dispossessing the
Scotch-Irish, and plenty of corroborative evidence of this can be found.
A learned gentleman has said to me that the Scotch-Irish element, which
used to be the leading one in Franklin County, is in a great measure
replaced by the Pennsylvania German. “As the Irish farmers got poor and
sold their land it was bought by the Pennsylvania Germans, who then got
rich by their extreme thrift or severe economy and great industry.” A
correspondent of the Philadelphia _Press_, in 1871, goes further, and
writing from Brown’s Mills in the same county, from “the fertile and
picturesque Cumberland valley,” speaks of the Pennsylvania Germans of
that region as wearing the short gown and petticoat, the shad-belly
coat, and broad-brimmed hat. The district, he says, was first settled
by Scotch-Irish and Welsh, but these have mostly been replaced; a few
families of Lutherans and German Reformed linger here, but their numbers
annually grow less, and the difficulty of supporting their ministers is
yearly more serious. Then, if we may trust this correspondent, it appears
that the _wehrlos_, or defenceless men (who do not pay ministers), are
gaining possession of that region. It was said of old time that the meek
shall inherit the earth. Far east of Franklin County, in Montgomery, I
was told of peacemen, the Schwenkfelders and Mennonites, that they buy
good farms. “They don’t buy the hilly, stony ones; and, at the same time,
I don’t know how it comes they can afford to pay for them.”
The severe economy of the Pennsylvania Germans has been just mentioned.
One New-Year’s day I saw in a bank a young man who was asked to subscribe
for something. He declined, and spoke of “our old Dutch rule that it is a
bad plan to buy on New-Year’s morning. Always get money in before you pay
it out.” In Northampton County an old resident is reported to have said,
“Do you know the difference between a Yankee farmer and a Dutch one? When
a Yankee farmer has apples, he sells the scrubby ones and eats the good
ones at home; and a Dutch farmer picks out the scrubby ones to eat at
home, and sells the good ones.”
One of my Lancaster County neighbors has grain-bags that have been in
use on the farm for about seventy years, and bid fair to last for twenty
more. They were made from flax and hemp grown on the farm. A young member
of the family says that their preservation not only shows the economy,
but impresses him with proofs of the good judgment of those who made
them, in selecting material, and in the thorough manner of their work. He
adds, “All these characteristics were, I think, possessed in full measure
by the people, somehow and somewhere misnamed Dutch, in whose hands the
largest part of Lancaster County has become what it is.”
CHARMS AND SUPERSTITIONS.
Mrs. G., born in Lebanon County, says that when they were children one
would take a looking-glass and go down the cellar-stairs backward, in
order to see therein the form of a future spouse. Another custom was
to melt lead and pour it into a cup of cold water, expecting thence to
discover some token of the occupation of the same interesting individual.
A person in York also remembers that at Halloween her nurse would melt
lead and pour it through the handle of the kitchen door-key. The figures
were studied and supposed to resemble soldier-caps, books, horses, and so
on. This nurse was Irish, but the other domestics were German. A laboring
woman from Cumberland County, and afterward from a “Dutch” settlement in
Maryland, says that she has heard of persons melting lead to see what
trade their man would be of. My German friend before quoted says that in
the Palatinate they melted the lead on New-Year’s eve. In Nadler’s poems
in the Palatinate dialect, St. Andreas’ night is the time spoken of for
melting the lead. This is the 30th of November. Further, in a work called
“The Festival Year” (_Das Festliche Yahr_), by Von Reinsberg-Duringsfeld,
Leipsic, 1863, the custom of pouring lead through the beard, or wards, of
a key is mentioned.
A lawyer, born in Franklin County, tells me that it is a common
superstition among Pennsylvania Germans that persons born on Christmas
night can see supernatural things and hear similar sounds. He adds that
his mother told him of a person who was sceptical and ridiculed the idea,
and was told to go out into his feeding-room and listen. He lay down on
the hay, and while there one of the oxen said, “_Uebermorgen schieben mir
unser Meschter auf den Kirch-hof._” (Day after to-morrow we will haul our
master to the graveyard.) And his funeral was on the day specified. My
German friend before quoted says that in the Palatinate they believe that
as it strikes twelve on Christmas eve, all animals talk together. She
adds, “I think that idea is through Germany.”
A gentleman connected with schools in Northampton County says that at
Halloween his daughters meet their companions and melt lead into water
to tell their fortunes. They also fill their mouths with water that they
may not speak, as speaking would break the charm; and walk around a
block of houses. The first name which they hear is that of their future
spouse. Another practice, which, unlike the foregoing, may be tried at
any time of year, is to take a large door-key and tie it within the
leaves of a small Bible, the handle remaining out. Two girls rest the
handle upon their fingers, and repeat some cabalistic verse; of which, he
thinks, each line begins with a different letter, and the key will turn
at the initials of the future spouse. These, he says, are the remnants
of old superstitions, and he suspects that the human mind is naturally
superstitious. He adds, “The population of Easton is mixed so that we
cannot tell how many of these are purely German; but by going into the
rural German districts of Northampton County you will find many strange
ideas, such as that on a certain church festival, say Ascension day, you
must not sweep your house, lest it become full of fleas.”
A simple-minded woman in Lancaster County, who showed some regard for the
Reformed Church, said that she had sat up late sewing the night before,
so as not to sew on Ascension day. “My mother,” she said, “knew a girl
that sewed on Ascension day; and there came a gust and killed her.”
One of my German acquaintances calls my attention to the salt-cake eaten
in Lancaster. It is made extremely salt, and is eaten by girls, who then
go to bed backward without speaking and without drinking; and he of whom
they dream is to be their future husband. This, he says, is a custom also
in Germany.
But the most universal ideas of this superstitious kind are those
connected with the signs in the almanac. Baer’s Almanac, published in
Lancaster, still has the signs of the zodiac down the pages, like one
shown to me in the Palatinate, where a man of some education said, “Here
is where I see how to plant my garden.” What, however, is very mysterious
is that when our people tell you you must not plant now, for IT is in the
Posy-woman (and the things will all run to blossom, and not bear fruit),
they cannot tell _what_ is in the Posy-woman, or Virgo. I infer, however,
that it is the moon.
I have been shown a German Bible, which belonged to the grandfather of
one of my neighbors, wherein the family births were entered in the German
language. I endeavored to decipher one, as follows:
“_1797, September den 9ten 1st uns ein Sohn gebohren ihm Zeichen Witter,
ehr ist ihn dem nehmlichen Mohnat ihm Herren entshlafen._”
“On the 9th of September, 1797, a son is born to us in the sign of the
Ram [Aries]. In the same month he fell asleep in the Lord.”
The same neighbor who owns the old Bible just mentioned tells me that one
of the Russian Mennonites showed him a pamphlet in the German language,
which the man had brought from Europe; wherein was told what would be the
fortune of a child born in each sign, his health, wealth, etc.; but my
neighbor says that he, himself, had no faith in it.
“Grain should be sowed in the up-going; meat butchered in the down-going
will shrink in the pot.” But my worthy neighbors do not appear to know
what it is that is going up and going down. I infer, of course, that
it is the moon. Is it not remarkable that my neighbors should be so
attached to book-farming? I knew a woman, born among Friends, but in a
Pennsylvania German settlement, who was lamenting the smallness of the
piece of meat on the table. “What a little piece, and so big before
it was cooked! How it has shrunk! It is in the down-going. And those
strawberries, too, that I preserved, that went away to so little; they
were done in the down-going.” But one of her family spoke up, bravely,
“Just so, mother; that must be it. Now I know what’s the matter with my
portemonnaie, that it shrinks away so; it’s the down-going.”
These beliefs in the influence of the heavenly bodies must be the relics
of astrology remaining in the almanacs, and never drawn now from actual
observation of the weather and the planets.
Mrs. Nevin relates the following (Philadelphia _Press_, June 2, 1875):
“There are several superstitions connected with death and funerals
in the country, which are a strange blending of the ludicrous with
the mournful. One is that if the mother of a family is dying, the
vinegar-barrel must be shaken at the time to prevent the ‘mother’ in
it from dying. Said a man once in sober earnest to me, ‘I was so sorry
Mr. D. was not in the room when his wife died.’ ‘Where was he?’ ‘Oh, in
the cellar a-shaking the vinegar-barrel; but if he had just told me, I
would have done it and let him been in the room to see her take her last
breath.’”
Mrs. Nevin adds: “Another superstition is that the last person that goes
out of a house at a funeral will be the next one to die, and as the
audience begins to thin, you may see people slip very nimbly out of a
back or kitchen door to avoid being that last one.”
The belief in _spooks_ or ghosts is not lost in “Pennsylvania Dutch”
land. In some of his verses Mr. Schantz tells (Allentown _Friedensbote_)
of an abandoned school-house standing near a sand-pit, beside some woods.
He says,—
“_kam mir zu Ohr_
_Vom Sandloch Schuhlhaus am Kreuzweg_
_Was Lesern ich nicht gern vorleg._
_S’ hen lent g’sad ‘Am Sandloch spukts!’_
_En mancher hot oft g’frogt, ‘Wie guckt’s?’_
_Reiter sie sin schnell geridde!_
_Laüfer nahme g’schwinde Schridde!_”
“About the sand-pit school-house, at the cross-roads, things were said
that I do not like to tell. It was told that there were spooks at the
sand-pit, and ‘In what shape?’ was asked. People riding by rode rapidly,
and those on foot hurried swiftly by.” There are still standing near
the Conestoga, close to Lancaster, the remains of a building long and
extensively known as “the spook house.” It probably became unpopular from
a suicide in it, or from having been built in a field where strangers
were buried.
A Lutheran clergyman said lately, “I do not believe in _spooks_ myself,
but plenty of people do; and sad enough it is that there should be such
superstition.”