In 1874 a correspondent of one of our Lancaster papers spoke of a
national meeting held in Illinois by the Dunkers. He said, “They had
abundant provision for the comfort of the brethren. The tent held ten
thousand people. Eighty beeves were on the ground for steaks and roasts,
and one baker had orders for eleven thousand loaves of bread.” This year
I see a statement that the national Conference was held in Indiana,
and that twenty thousand people were on the ground. Dr. Seidensticker
(_Century Magazine_, December, 1881) states the number of the Dunkers in
the United States at about two hundred thousand, with nearly two thousand
ministers, none of whom receives a salary. They pay more attention to
education than the Mennonites, having now three collegiate institutes.
* * * * *
Mennonites are still found in Europe; in Holland, Prussia, Switzerland,
the Palatinate, etc. They are sometimes distinguished in Germany into
Heftler and Knöpfler, or Hook men and Button men; whence it seems that
one of the distinctions here is widespread and of former origin. In 1881
I visited a family in the Palatinate, where I was shown a black satin
waistcoat which the father had once worn, with hooks and eyes down the
front; but none of our Amish here would wear anything so showy as a black
satin waistcoat.
In the same year, 1881, a Mennonite preacher in the Palatinate gave me a
list of many of the European communities, with names of their officers,
such as preachers, deacons, etc. Many of the same names are found in
Lancaster County, though not generally spelled in the same way. Such are
Frantz, Lichti, Landes, Lehmann, Bachmann, Oesch, Bähr and Bär, Zercher,
Krehbiel, Neff, Binkele, Muselmann, Brubacher, Staehly, Wickert. The
family of Stauffer, in my own immediate neighborhood, has possessed for
several generations the given names John and Christian. On the European
list I find two Christian Stauffers, and one marked Johann Stauffer II.
I met in the Palatinate one who had travelled in Switzerland, and who had
seen Mennonites there. All that he met there were farmers, who sold milk
when near towns, or made butter and cheese when at a distance. They were
mostly Amish. One Amish family, who still wore hooks and eyes, were named
Stauffer. Other families whom he knew or heard of were named Wenger,
Schwartz, Rettiger, etc.
I find in the volume just mentioned a little description of a Mennonite
congregation near Tilsit, in Prussia, which shows how closely
agricultural the people are. There are altogether about eight hundred
(five hundred and twenty being baptized). Seven hundred and seventy live
in the country, in town thirty. Fifteen belong to the mercantile class,
to mechanics twenty-four, to laborers seventy. The rest own or rent land
(_sind Grundbesitzer und Rentier_).
From this volume, some of the Russian Mennonites appear to have adopted
river-baptism. One body of Russians went to Taschkant in Middle Asia,
and seem to have been quite unfortunate, as most of us would expect
non-resistants to be among those nearly barbarians. And these emigrants
were extremists, refusing obedience to worldly authorities; they were
unwilling to plant forests in lieu of military service in Russia; the
office of preacher they considered a human institution, and called
themselves the spouse of the Lord. (_Brautgemeinde des Herrn._)
* * * * *
I have received a copy of the Family Almanac for 1882, published by a
Mennonite company in Indiana, which bears on the cover a little engraving
of the sword being beaten into the ploughshare, and the motto above,
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”
Within the almanac, among other matter, is the well-known engraving
of a man surrounded by the twelve signs of the zodiac, and headed
thus, “Anatomy of Man’s Body as said to be governed by the Twelve
Constellations.” I find the words _said to be_ significant,—perhaps
the introduction of some scrupulous person. On the same page is the
statement, “Jupiter is the ruling planet this year.”
A meeting calendar at the close of the almanac gives forty-two
meeting-houses in Lancaster County, and twenty-two others in this State.
Also eleven in Indiana, one in Michigan, and seventeen in Virginia.
There are many Mennonites in Ohio, but this list does not speak of them.
Those meeting-houses mentioned make nearly one hundred; but probably the
list contains none of the New or Reformed Mennonites, also none of the
Amish, who almost invariably meet in private houses. A peculiarity of
the Mennonite meetings in the list just spoken of is the long interval
between meetings, which is mostly two or four weeks, and in three cases
eight weeks.
* * * * *
In the article in the text called Schwenkfelders a careful observer will
note a discrepancy. The author speaks of their holding the Spirit above
the Scriptures; but also quotes Schwenkfeld as speaking in substance of
“the gifts of grace revealed by the Father; yet so that this revelation
should unite with the witness of the Scriptures.” The author has not read
Schwenkfeld’s works, but quotes from different sources.
Before closing these remarks on the plainer sects, I may add that they
are all evangelical, at least there are no Socinian “Menists” here as
in Holland in the time of William Penn. The Dunkers do not believe in
eternal perdition.
Further as regards one of these plainer sects, I may ask, Are they
degenerating physically? This must be the tendency, it would seem, in all
small religious bodies, limited in marriage to their own membership; but
this may be compensated for by simplicity and purity of life and freedom
from agitation and pecuniary distress.
THE PEOPLE CONTRASTED.
It will be seen that there are among the Pennsylvania Germans two classes
who may be compared or contrasted. The one party may be called the people
of Lancaster and Lebanon, the Baptist and peace; the other, the people of
Berks, Lehigh, and Northampton, the Reformed and Lutheran party. There
are, however, many Reformed and Lutherans in the former division, but
extremely few of the peace people in the latter. In Bucks and Montgomery
on the east, Cumberland and other counties on the west, the different
classes are mingled with many “English.” I have already pointed out that
many of the peace people are of Swiss origin; of the other division,
many or most appear to have been Palatines, and perhaps French refugees.
I have already pointed out also how these two parties differ, the most
astonishing difference being that of politics. During the civil war the
one party opposed the government, which the other sustained. I find a
surprising instance in my notes: A worthy Schwenkfelder told me of places
in the northern part of Montgomery where party spirit seemed to have run
riot, where vendue-criers would use such language as this: one held up
an old scythe, and, as if to enhance its merits, said that it would do
to cut old Lincoln’s head off. The great contrast, however, in politics
between the two districts alluded to may of course have had some
other origin than the sectarian differences of the people. It must be
remembered, however, in Germany, that for a long period the Reformed and
Lutheran were state churches; and these other bodies that existed there
were dissenters.
In language I have pointed out small differences. In holidays I have
shown how Lancaster and Lebanon keep Halloween, in a manner unknown to
the eastern counties. In the three “Dutch” counties of the east we have
the rabbit myth more extensive than here in Lancaster. While those three
have great agricultural county fairs, Lancaster has held none since
before the war. I attribute this in a great measure to the opposition of
our Baptist farmers to horse-racing and its concomitants.
A friend gives me another small point of difference. In Lancaster, at
Christmas-time, is sold a cake called _Motzebom_, which is not seen in
Eastern Pennsylvania. This, he adds, is from the Italian _marzepane_, or
bread of St. Mark, which came from Italy into Germany; in England called
marchpain.
MISCELLANEOUS.
Said a young man to us, “My daddy won’t sit in no rocking-chair. He has
a crutch agin’ a rocking-chair.” It appears that the same objection has
been felt by other Pennsylvania Germans. Wollenweber gives us a farmer
talking to his children in the spring, who says especially that none of
the girls is to sit in a rocking-chair on a working-day. In sounding the
praises of Womelsdorf, Berks County, the same author tells us that the
women are never seen sitting in a rocking-chair.
* * * * *
We may sometimes judge of a person’s character by hearing the arguments
used to induce him to act. Thus does Wollenweber endeavor to induce the
people of Womelsdorf to erect a monument to Conrad Weiser, who is buried
near the town, and who was a distinguished German pioneer. Wollenweber
encourages them to raise a subscription. Certainly, he says, the man who
owns the place would not object to having a beautiful monument on his
farm; and thousands would go to see it; so that the railroad company, the
turnpike company, and all the tavern-keepers in the neighborhood would
make a good thing of it. “Alas!” he adds, “most of the people who live
round there do not know how to prize the treasure they possess.”
* * * * *
These are rural similes used by Wollenweber, whose little volume is “in
the idiom and manner of speech of the Pennsylvania Germans.” It tells of
girls who want to be English (who profess to talk English), but when some
one from town talks to them, they stand like a hen who has dropped an
egg. Again, we read that Weiser remonstrated with Stiegel on account of
his extravagance, etc.; but he might as well have talked to a dead calf.
* * * * *
Perhaps the best article in the collection (which is indeed of very
unequal merit) is the story of the dreadful noise that was heard just
before daylight in Lancaster County, near Berks. The people went to
Squire Reinhold’s to talk about it, and the squire, who was very high
learned, thought it must be the train of the wild huntsman, presaging
war, pestilence, and scarcity. He had a German book that told about it.
One stout young fellow, however, had a mind to see for himself; and he
took with him an old shoemaker, who had fought in the Buckshot war, and
who was fearfully full of courage when he had emptied a pint of whiskey,
but whom anybody could chase away when he was sober. (The Buckshot war
was a bloodless affair at Harrisburg, in 1838.)
This pair went to watch, and heard nothing for two or three nights,
but at last about three in the morning a noise was heard as if every
storm-wind had broken loose. The shoemaker was so frightened that he sank
down at the foot of a tree and buried his head in the fallen leaves. But
the young man discovered that the noise was caused by an immense flock of
wild pigeons.
* * * * *
It has been hinted in the text that the Pennsylvania Germans are not
refined. One of their preachers has told me of their being a gross,
unrefined people, and of his being often obliged to see things that he
would rather not. Another preacher gave me this anecdote: A man, speaking
of his son, said, “I would rather have lost my best horse as Jake. He was
such a fellow to work.”
* * * * *
Of those who are yoked together in life and do not pull together, the
“Dutch” of Berks and Lehigh say, “_Der ehne keht chee un der onnere keht
haw_.” (One gees and the other haws.) It is applied also to others who do
not agree, and is heard also thus, “_Ehnce will chee, oonce anner will
ho_.”
* * * * *
Although our “Pennsylvania Dutch” are of undoubted German origin, yet
in common speech they almost always speak of themselves as Dutch, which
sounds much more like _Deutsch_ than German does; and it is not a great
length of time since Germans were so called. I think that it was in Miss
Aiken’s life of Elizabeth that I found the following. One of the suitors
to the queen was brother to the emperor of Austria. The Earl of Sussex
wrote to Elizabeth, “His highness, besides his natural language of Dutch,
speaketh very well Spanish and Italian.”
* * * * *
The following are from newspapers of different dates:
In 1869 a literary society in Lancaster County discussed the question,
Resolved, that wealth exerts a greater influence than knowledge. The
decision was in favor of the affirmative.
In 1872 a lyceum in the same county debated the subject that wealth has a
greater influence on the people in general than education. The decision
was in favor of education, “contrary to expectation.”
In 1879, in another literary society in our county, this referred
question was answered, Is laziness a habit, a disease, or a sin? If we
only had the answer!
At a lyceum in Berks County in 1882 was discussed this subject, Resolved,
that ambition is a greater evil than intemperance. The judges decided in
favor of the affirmative; the house afterwards in the negative.
* * * * *
The following seems to be from a report in the Reading _Eagle_: Samuel
J. and his wife returned from their wedding trip on Monday evening, when
they were serenaded early by a band, and later Butcher arrived before
the bride’s house with the si-gike, followed by about one hundred little
boys. After making the welkin ring for about one hour, Samuel handed
over a V, and the band left in high glee.
At my own home I have heard the sound of these rough serenades, borne
over the fields in notes by distance made less harsh. The instruments are
pots and pans beaten, and a horse-fiddle, made by putting rosin on edges
of a box, and drawing a rail over them. In my own neighborhood I hear
that this rough play is going out of fashion as musical bands are coming
in.
In the south of England I saw an aged pair who had received a rough
serenade on account of conjugal disturbances.
A friend, born in the Palatinate, tells me that rough serenades were
formerly practised there, and called _Katzen_-musik (cat music), or
charivari. They were introduced on the occasion of disproportionate
marriages. Thus,—
“_Eine alte Frau und ein junger Mann_
_Die müsse Charivari han._”
“An old wife and a young husband must have a serenade.”
* * * * *
In Berks County a young publisher told me that when visiting the country
and asking his subscribers how they liked his paper, he received answer
that it was “a very nice paper for the cupboard.” Being a large-sized
paper, it was a good one to spread upon shelves to keep them clean.
Lancaster County men connected with the press have had similar
experiences. One canvassing for a paper to be published in a small town
came across an old man and his wife tying covers on pots of apple-butter,
and showed them a specimen copy. He was answered, “_Ich verlang’s net.
Es macht net vier Happe-deckel_.” (I don’t want it. It won’t make four
pot-covers.)
When the _Lancaster County Farmer_ was started it was in small pamphlet
form. A person in the office showed it to a man, who took hold of it,
opened it, and looked at the other side, but believed he would not take
it: it was almost too small to tie apple-butter crocks with.
A man came into the office of the Lancaster _Express_, Republican,
and wished to “pay his paper.” I will call his post-office Blackburn.
Considerable time was spent in looking over the list of the weekly paper
and trying to find his name, and then he was asked whether it was not
the daily. No, he did not think it was. And was he sure that he got it
from Blackburn Post-Office “Yes.”
“Well, maybe it’s the _Intelligencer_.”
“I guess maybe it is; it’s a Democrat paper.”
* * * * *
I have spoken of old apple-butter. The following is condensed from a
Lancaster paper of 1874: “A gentleman handed us a few days since a bottle
of apple-butter made in 1820, being fifty-three years old last fall.
It is still good, and retains its original flavor. It was part of the
‘housestire’ of Mrs. R. of this county after her marriage.” (_Haus steur_
is the house-furnishing. Apple-butter kept so long dries away to a very
small bulk, but can be renewed by boiling it with water.)
* * * * *
At a Quaker settlement in Lancaster County, nearly extinct among the
“Dutch,” a father urged his son to activity thus: “Let me see if thee’ll
go on and help me like a little Dutch boy would do, or whether thee’ll
linger and loiter about.” When the boy had got into college he told of
his neighbors’ saying, “Too much eddication, you know, makes a man lazy.”
A neighboring farmer was inquiring for a person to help him in haying and
harvest, and the lad spoke for himself, saying that some people thought
he was lazy, but that he could work and was willing to work. “Still,
you’re a little lazy,” answered the farmer.
* * * * *
Riding one evening we met an Amish farmer on horseback driving a very
clean sow. We stopped, and I asked whether he had a certain book which
contains a notice of the Amish. He answered that he did not have many
books.
“My Bible and Testament’s enough for me to read;” then, recollecting
himself, “and the Martyr-Book, I have that.”
* * * * *
“Does Mr. Kennel live here?” inquired a stranger of an Amish farmer.
“Joe Kennel lives here. I’m the man.”
* * * * *
Mr. R. has told me that in 1853, at the age of six, he went to public
school in this county. He had just learned to read, and was put into a
class in the Testament. They read four to six times a day. It took them
about three months to accomplish the Testament, and then the teacher put
them into the Bible, which they completed, Mr. R. says, before he was
eight years old, but under a succeeding teacher.
“We hadn’t many books in those days,” says Mr. R.; “I used to read the
weekly _Tribune_ down to the names of the Kansas settlers.”
* * * * *
The custom of barring out the teacher at Christmas appears not yet to be
extinct in Lancaster County.
The scholars demand a Christmas gift, but are not always successful. One
teacher near here walked calmly home, and allowed the scholars to open
the door at their leisure.
An acquaintance, born in Northampton County, tells me that at his native
place the teacher was locked out not at Christmas, but on Shrove-Tuesday,
and merely for sport.
* * * * *
That peculiarity of some Germans by which they pronounce Goble like Kopel
is also found in Pennsylvania. A certain carpenter could not tell me
whether his son’s name was Beck or Peck. And an “English” boy supposed
that a certain man had a hare-lip, as he heard him spoken of as Cutlip,
but his name was Gottlieb.
* * * * *
A neighboring farmer came to our house with his little boy, about five
years old. I handed the little fellow a penny, and he began to pull his
father, who was talking.
“He gives it to you, does he?” I asked.
“Yes, to put into his box. He’s got two full. I’ll have to steal them
some day, I guess,” winking at me.
“That’s the way you teach them to save?” said I.
“Yes, keep them till he gets big. Buy a horse and buggy with them, he
says.”
Then, with paternal pleasure, “He tells his mother he don’t want no
hilly land.” Strange for a family of Swiss descent? Their ancestors had
enough hills in Switzerland. How they enjoy this level limestone land!
One of my acquaintances thinks that the reason these people or this class
got the rich limestone land was that they were not afraid of the labor of
cutting down the heavy timber which grew on it.
* * * * *
I have just told how the little fellow was saving his pennies to “buy
a horse and buggy,”—the great pride of our farmer boy’s heart. On a
neighboring farm to ours lived the grandfather, who had his own plain
carriage, the father with another, and two sons, aged about twenty-one,
each with a buggy. This must be the great extravagance of our young
farmers now. But having buggies they can take the girls to ride; and they
can sometimes take others too. The other day a lad kindly took me up; an
Amish boy, in a plain buggy, driving a pretty good horse. As our Amish
so often drive in wagons, covered with light-colored oil-cloth, I made
some remark about the buggy, and the lad answered that it was his. He is
fourteen years old.
On the other hand, I have heard of a Miss K., who was considered a
great catch, being thought rich by the young “Dutch fellows.” Among the
numerous young men who came to see her was one who drove two horses. Her
father asked him what business he was in.
“Not in any just now.”
“Then I don’t see how you can keep two horses;” which remark was fully
understood as putting an end to the young man’s suit. He needn’t come
there no more!
The mania for a driving-team accounts for the occasional disappearance of
harness when left unguarded.
* * * * *
A lawyer in Lancaster describes a peculiarity of our people. In most
places, he says, a man comes in, tells you what he wants, and perhaps
retains you in his case. But here there is first a conversation on
diverse subjects.
Another says that the country people expect you to hear an account of
their ailings and those of their friends and the state of the crops
before proceeding further.
A neighbor coming to our house to get a horse and vehicle, talked perhaps
half an hour, as if on a friendly call, before she told her errand.
* * * * *
It is hard for some of our Pennsylvania Germans to write a letter in
English. I wrote once to a preacher, who got the ticket-agent at the
railroad to answer. The following was sent by a workingman:
“Dear A B Your man have pacts that Roof has left some stuff mite I have
them to pact my slate roof the leeke I sought the might spile so I mite
youse it as well as let the leek away ensur soon. Yours C D.”
Which may be interpreted thus: “Your man has patched that roof, and has
left some stuff. Might I have it to patch my slate-roof,—the leak? I
thought it might spoil, so I might use it as well as let it leak away.
Answer soon.”
* * * * *
A young “English” girl was visiting a “Dutch” one, and the father of the
latter, a substantial farmer, was kindly going to take the visitor part
way home. The girls stayed talking above until the voice of the farmer
was heard at the foot of the stairs, “Staytsch!” He was no more to be
trifled with than the stage-driver.
Once when absent from home he bought a plaster cast of Canova’s Three
Graces. Such things are not seen in “Dutch” farm-houses, and ere long the
Three Graces were provided with petticoats of pink and blue tissue-paper.
* * * * *
An expression that is very offensive to our Pennsylvania Germans, when
applied to them by “English” folks, is “dumb Dutch.” Dumb is of course
the German _dumm_, stupid, and it is familiarly used by our Pennsylvania
Germans themselves. One of my friends said that she thought she could
learn to use a sewing-machine,—“People as dumb as me has learned to use
them.”
* * * * *
A Lancaster gentleman gave me this little anecdote:
Old Mrs. H., anxious to see a baptism by immersion, proposed to her hired
girl, Susan, to go across the fields to the place where there was to be
baptism in the creek. Waymaking they were to cross the same creek by a
log, but Mrs. H. fell in to her waist. Wading back to the bank, Susan
standing alarmed, Mrs. H. said, quietly and quickly, “_Suss, mir hens
yetst g’seh; yetst welle mir hame geh_;” or, “Susy, we’ve seen it now;
now let’s go home.”
* * * * *
A lawyer, Mr. W., who taught in Schuylkill County about fifteen or twenty
years ago, has given me some of his recollections.
He said that among the mines in Schuylkill the population is English,
that is, American, Welsh, Scotch, and Irish, but in the valleys there are
“Dutch” farmers, mostly Lutherans, he thinks.
“The farmers lived well in the valleys of Schuylkill County; no danger of
freezing in winter between two feather-beds;” and Mr. W. liked the fried
_pawn-haus_, although he found it rather rich.
“In that county I had some of the pleasantest times. I was there as a
teacher, and they immediately appropriated me. I was not obliged to
wait for the formality of an introduction in the German community. I
could see, however, a tendency to mistrust the man of Yankee origin,
and to combine against him; the young men fearing lest the teacher
should cut them out with the girls. I was invited to go one evening on a
sleighing-party. There were an equal number of young men and girls, and
at a village we took in two fiddlers. We drove several miles to a stone
tavern or farm-house (for the tavern-keeper is generally a farmer). The
fiddlers sat in the window-seats, formed by the thick stone walls; and
the dance was lively until the small hours. The dancers made a business
of it, and went to work with a will. The dances were called ‘straight
eights,’ forward and back, and mostly shuffles. Although at a tavern,
none got drunk. Coming home, the driver increased the fun by upsetting
the party in the snow.