difficulty with the younger scholars, who, being under the care of their
mothers, seldom heard the English language. The home talk was always
in ‘Dutch,’ as they called it, though the fathers, when transacting
business, were able to speak English.
“Even the larger pupils were not able to understand all of their lessons
in English. Some of the farmers were rich. The ‘Dutch’ farmers were
universally Democrats.” So says Mr. W.
* * * * *
Another lawyer, named H. (of Pennsylvania German origin), has given
me some of his recollections of Berks County. Berks is that county
concerning which it has been a standing joke that its people still voted
for Andrew Jackson,—a well-worn joke.
“It must have been a select party,” says Mr. H., “that W. was at, if none
of them got drunk.”
“The great dancing tunes in Berks are Fisher’s Hornpipe, Washington’s
Grand March, Charlie over the Water, Yankee Doodle, Hail Columbia, and We
won’t go Home till Morning.”
“The walls in the stone houses in Berks are generally two feet thick,
built like forts, with plenty of room to sit in the window-seats, but
usually the landlord had a long bar-room table, on which he put chairs
for the fiddlers. About every third dance they must have a drink, which
frequent potations sometimes brought them to the floor, unable to
distinguish sounds.” “The dancing they indulge in in Berks,” says Mr. H.,
“is not the fashionable kind, but is more exhausting than mauling rails
in August, or thrashing rye with a flail. The figures are called out by
some skilful person; the dances are called straight fours or hoe-downs,
the dancers being arranged in four rows, in a sort of double column on
each side. After the inside couples have danced and all have changed
places, the former are allowed to rest while the outside couples dance.”
“The battalion (Pennsylvania Dutch, _Badolya_?) is an annual day of joy
and festivity in Berks County. The annual training, which gave name
to the day, has long been given up, but still just before hay-making
the landlords of the country towns, such as Kutztown or Hamburg,
will advertise that they will hold the annual battalion (without any
soldiers). The peanut-venders, the men with flying-horses, and the others
who expect to reap the harvest, come during the night before, and by six
in the morning everything is ready, and about that hour the farmers begin
to come in, wives, sons, daughters, hired men, and maids, even little
children and quite small babies.
“The farmers patronize the landlords by dining and drinking. You can get
a good dinner at Kutztown for less money than in any other town I know.
As for drinking, bars have even been set up upon the second floor where
the dancing took place.
“The old folks amuse themselves by talking together, looking on and
seeing how well their sons and daughters can dance, the old men drinking
a little whiskey, several times repeated, and perhaps treating their
wives to some sarsaparilla. By evening the old folks will be at home; but
the daughters, who could hardly expect the young men to walk home with
them as long as the sun was shining, stay later, carrying gingerbread and
pea-nuts home in their handkerchiefs.
“Roving gamblers also visit the battalion; and many an unwary youth has
lost all his money, earned by hard work, and, after that was gone, has
striven to better his fortune, but unsuccessfully, by giving up his
watch.”
The remark of the last speaker, that they still have the _badolya_, or
annual training, in Berks without any soldiers, reminds me that they
still have in Germany the _Kirch-weih_, church consecration, or saint’s
day, without going to any church at all, but dance and are merry after
harvest.
* * * * *
I was told some years back of farmers in Berks “worth from thirty to
eighty thousand dollars who never bring wheat bread to the table except
at Christmas and New Year’s. This is from their great economy and desire
to sell the wheat.”
Mrs. R., of Lehigh County, tells me that at her father’s they baked wheat
bread on Saturday, for Sunday, but during the week they ate rye.
When her brother-in-law returned from a visit to Ohio, he said, “_Daraus
in Ohio, ’s is so schane. Sie essen laute waytzbrod_;” or, “Out in Ohio
it is so fine. They eat altogether wheat bread.”
* * * * *
There is a part of the city of Lancaster which is called Germany. Here
natives of that country buy house-lots, and send their children out to
beg until they find they have a secure footing. Nor does the average
citizen disapprove of this proceeding; although he is dissatisfied if a
woman who owns two brick houses sends to the soup-house for a free lunch.
I was amused one day in Lancaster by a boy’s asking, “Won’t you give me
a penny to save?” A pretty little girl, comfortably dressed and speaking
German, came into one of the newspaper offices for help, the family
having been unfortunate. When some one gave her a penny, she took from
her pocket a purse and put her money away.
* * * * *
Three great waves of emigration, it may be said, early settled
Pennsylvania. The Quakers settled in the southeast. I have travelled
among Friends in several localities, but I never saw any other community
so strongly Quaker as Chester County.
The German immigration mostly lay outside of this, on the north and west.
West of Chester County lies Lancaster, settled in a great measure by
German Baptists (Mennonites), and which is probably one of the strongest
Baptist populations in the world. Farther west the Scotch-Irish element
is very strong. In the west of the State I was surprised by hearing a
physician (I will call his name McCalmont) say that the Scotch-Irish
had been the making of Pennsylvania. It is this class, doubtless, who
have caused the region around Pittsburgh to be called the backbone of
Presbyterianism.
* * * * *
This volume does not endeavor to describe the manners and ways of living
of all Pennsylvania Germans, but only of the majority. People of wealth
and education resemble each other in most civilized lands. And although
the Pennsylvania Germans are principally devoted to agriculture, yet
about twenty per cent., as I estimate, have gone into cities and into
other employments. Among those who have aided less or more in the
publication of this volume are ministers, lawyers, physicians, editors,
bankers, merchants, and teachers of Pennsylvania German origin. Many
persons of note in Pennsylvania have been of German descent, from
Peter Muhlenberg, a Lutheran preacher, who commanded a regiment in the
Revolution, to a number of governors of this State,—Snyder, Hiester,
Shulze, Wolf, Ritner, Shunk, and Hartranft. Governor Hartranft’s
ancestor, then called Hertteranfft, came in with the Schwenkfelders in
1734.
To these distinguished Pennsylvania Germans I may add Dr. Gross, the
eminent surgeon. The German blood is also found in a great number of
families in our country. It is stated that Simon Cameron is of Scottish
descent on the father’s side; and on the mother’s is descended from
Conrad Pfoutz. The Hon. Jeremiah S. Black and William D. Howells, the
well-known author, have told me that they are partly of Pennsylvania
German origin.
THE END.
FOOTNOTES
[1] An acquaintance, who lives in Bucks County, tells me that his father,
a Mennonite preacher, voted “pretty much always.”
[2] The rule against judgment bonds is not universal.
[3] For another estimate, see Appendix.
[4] Kohl-slaw (_i.e._, kohl-salat or cabbage-salad) is shredded cabbage,
dressed with vinegar, etc. A rich dressing is sometimes made of milk or
cream, egg, vinegar, etc. It may be eaten either as warm slaw or cold
slaw.
[5] Some account of Peltz-nickel in Germany will be found in the Appendix.
[6] Written about 1868.
[7] Amish is pronounced _Ommish_, the _a_ being very broad, like _aw_.
This article was first published some years ago.
[8] I learn, 1882, that the Amish feet-washing is public.
[9] Our German Baptists are more decidedly non-resistant than the
Quakers. Some of them refuse to vote for civil officers.
The term Anabaptist is from the Greek, and signifies one who baptizes
again. All Baptists baptize anew those who were baptized in infancy.
The term Anabaptist, in the present essay, is used indifferently with
Baptist, and, in a degree, with Mennonite.
[10] Of the heretics executed by Alva in the Spanish Netherlands, a large
proportion were Anabaptists.—_Encyclopædia Americana._
[11] Zschokke, in his History of Switzerland, accuses the Anabaptists of
causing great trouble and scandal. Some account of the furious or warlike
Anabaptists of Holland may be found in Appleton’s Cyclopædia.
[12] This must not be understood as aid in bearing arms.
[13] One of Menno’s brothers is said to have been connected with the
Anabaptists of Münster, those who took up arms, etc. Of these, whose
course was so very different from the lives of our pacific Baptists
in this country. Menno may have received some, after their defeat, to
come under the peaceable rule. There are in the Netherlands, says a
recent authority, 40,000 Mennonites. They are a true, pure Netherlandish
appearance, which is older than the Reformation, and therefore must not
be identified with the Protestantism of the sixteenth century.
Menno does not merit to be called the father of the Netherlandish
Mennonites, but rather the first shepherd of the scattered sheep,—the
founder of their church community.
The ground-thought from which Menno proceeded was not, as with Luther,
justification by faith, or, as with the Swiss Reformers, the absolute
dependence of the sinner upon God, in the work of salvation. The holy
Christian life, in opposition to worldliness, was the point whence Menno
proceeded, and to which he always returned. In the Romish church we see
ruling the spirit of Peter; in the Reformed Evangelical the spirit of
Paul; in Menno we see arise again James the Just, the brother of the Lord.
See articles _Menno_ and _Mennonites_, and _Holland_, in Herzog’s
“Real-Encyclopädie,” Stuttgart and Hamburg, 1858.
Many of the Mennonites of Holland at the present day seem to have
wandered far from the teachings of Menno, and to be very different from
the simple Mennonite communities of Pennsylvania.
[14] The burying of Menno in his garden can be explained by the great
secrecy which in times of persecution attended the actions of the
persecuted sects. The family graveyards of Lancaster County, located upon
farms, may be in some degree traditional, from times of persecution, when
Baptists had no churches, but met in secret.
[15] To the writer it is a question of some interest how far George Fox,
the founder of Quakerism, was acquainted with the lives, sufferings, and
writings of the Anabaptists.
The common people of England may readily have obtained some knowledge of
the Baptists from the number that were cruelly put to death. In 1534,
Henry VIII. commanded foreigners who had been baptized in infancy, and
had been rebaptized, to leave the realm in twelve days, on pain of death.
It seems that certain Dutch Baptists braved the threatened punishment;
for twenty-six were, in different places, and at different dates, burned
within a few years. Under Edward VI., many Baptists suffered extreme
punishment, Cranmer and Latimer, Ridley and John Rogers, either approving
or actually assisting as inquisitors. See “The Baptists; Who they are,
and What they have done,” by George B. Taylor, D.D.
The year 1534, in which Henry VIII. issued the proclamation alluded
to, was the time of the Anabaptist occupation of Münster. The feelings
of Henry towards the Peasants’ War and the Münster kingdom doubtless
resembled those of his successor, in 1798, towards the French
revolutionists,—but George III. did not put any one to death by fire.
Since the above was written has been published Barclay’s “Inner Life of
the Religious Societies of the Commonwealth,” London, 1876. This author
speaks of George Fox as having promulgated opinions and founded churches
closely approximating to the Mennonite churches in Holland. He further
says George Fox tells us that he had an uncle in London who was a Baptist.
[16] Hans (or John) Landis is the name of the sufferer just spoken of.
Several Landises are mentioned in the martyrologies, and the name is very
common in Lancaster County at this time. John Landis is remarkably so.
In quoting from the Martyr-book I employ the English version, “Martyr’s
Mirror.” I have lately had an opportunity of seeing an old German copy,
from the press of the Brotherhood at Ephrata, about 1750. I find that it
is differently arranged from the modern English version, and I suspect
there are other variations.
[17] From Schaffhausen came some of the Stauffer family, as I have read.
The Stauffers are numerous in our county. For some family traditions, see
the close of this article.
[18] In the duchy of Cleves, the town of Crefeld, some fifty or sixty
years later, gave refuge to the Dunkers. It appears also to have harbored
some of the French Protestant refugees at the revocation of the Edict of
Nantes. See “Ephrata.”
[19] They were probably conscientiously opposed to the death penalty.
[20] Martyr’s Mirror.
[21] The troops of the empire of Germany, or of Germany and Spain
combined. See Voltaire’s “Age of Louis XIV.”
[22] “Age of Louis XIV.” The following is testimony for the Mennonites:
“In the words of the Dutch embassador (Van Beuning) to Monsieur de
Turenne: ‘The Mennonites are good people, and the most commodious to a
state of any in the world; partly because they do not aspire to places
of dignity; partly because they edify the community by the simplicity of
their manners, and application to arts and industry; and partly because
we fear no rebellion from a sect who make it an article of their faith
never to bear arms.’ The said industry and frugality they carried with
them to Pennsylvania, and thereby are become very wealthy.”—MORGAN
EDWARDS.
[23] Several towns and townships in southeastern Pennsylvania bear record
of the Palatinate, etc. In Lancaster County we have Strasburg, doubtless
named for that city in Alsace, and both town and township of Manheim.
Adjoining counties have Heidelbergs. The Swiss Palatines do not seem to
have preserved enough affection for the land of their origin to bestow
Swiss names upon our Lancaster County towns. What wonder?
[24] “This year of which I am now writing must ever be remembered as the
most fatal to the Protestant religion. In February a king of England
declared himself a papist. In June, Charles, the Elector Palatine, dying
without issue, the electoral dignity went to the house of Newburgh, a
most bigoted popish family. In October the King of France recalled and
vacated the edict of Nantes.”—_Burnet’s History of his Own Time._
[25] This was twenty-eight years after the founding of Penn’s colony.
Several years earlier, or in 1701, some Mennonites bought land in
Germantown, and in 1708 built a church (or meeting-house). For this
information I am obliged to Dr. Seidensticker, of the University of
Pennsylvania.
“In the year 1708 about fifty Palatines, who were Lutherans and were
ruined, came over to England. Queen Anne allowed them a shilling a day,
and took care to have them transported to the plantations; and from these
circumstances there arose a general disposition among all the poor of
that country to come over. They came to Holland in great bodies: the
Anabaptists there were particularly helpful to them, both in subsisting
those in Holland and in transporting them to England. Great numbers of
these were sent to Ireland, but most of them to the plantations in North
America, where it is believed their industry will quickly turn to a good
account.”—See Burnet’s “Own Time.” I am told that of those thus sent
to Ireland many afterwards came to America; of such was Philip Embury,
who, being converted in Ireland, came to New York, and was the first to
introduce Methodism on the continent. He and his family were from the
Palatinate.
Mention has just been made of Lutherans going to England from the
Palatinate. I infer that many who fled thence were of the Reformed
Church. The French Huguenots would in Germany probably join the Reformed
Church?
[26] Barclay’s “Religious Societies of the Commonwealth.” London, 1876.
[27] Rupp.
[28] Ibid.
[29] The question has been discussed, what did the Germans select the
limestone lands, and the Scotch-Irish take those less fruitful? Different
hints upon this subject may be found in Day’s Historical Collections of
Pennsylvania. Under the head of Lancaster County he says that a number of
Scotch-Irish, in consequence of the limestone land being liable to frost
and heavily wooded, seated themselves (1763) along the northern line of
the counties of Chester and Lancaster. It seems that the Germans did not
fear the labor of clearing off heavy timber.
A gentleman of Lancaster County says that ninety in one hundred of the
regular members of the Mennonite churches are farmers, and that they
follow the limestone land as the needle follows the pole.
[30] The Pequea Creek (pronounced Peckʹway) waters some of the finest
land in the county, if not the very finest. “The Piquaws had their
wigwams scattered along the banks of the Pequea.”
[31] Not always as at present spelled. The present Kendig appears as
Kindeck, Breneman as Preniman, Baumgardner as Bumgarner, Eby as Abye.
These were probably English efforts at spelling German names. Rupp says
that he was indebted to Abraham Meylin, of West Lampeter Township, for a
copy of the act. There appear to have been among the Palatines who came
into our county some Huguenot families; but, from intermarrying with the
Germans, and speaking the dialect, they are considered “Dutch.” The name
of the Bushong family is said to have been Beauchamp.
[32] This mention of the Switzers’ wagons reminds me of the great
Conestoga wagons, which, before the construction of railroads, conveyed
the produce of the interior to Philadelphia. With their long bodies
roofed with white canvas, they went along almost, I might say, like
moving houses. They were drawn by six powerful horses, at times furnished
with trappings and bells; and the wagoner’s trade was one of importance.
[33] A test-oath, or oath of abjuration, seems to have been in force at
one time in Pennsylvania, concerning the Roman Catholics. (See Rupp’s
History of Berks and Lebanon.) Must we not attribute this act to the
royal home government rather than to William Penn?
[34] “I fear this volume will be deemed a heap of dry records, without
a sufficient number of anecdotes to give them a relish; this is owing
to the peace and liberty which the Baptists have ever enjoyed in
Pennsylvania. In other provinces they have had their troubles, which
will make their history interesting to every reader.”—MORGAN EDWARDS:
Advertisement [or preface] to “Materials towards a History of the
Baptists in Pennsylvania, both British and German.” 1770.
[35] Day says that there was policy in the order above given; that the
Irish were warlike, and could defend the frontier. It was not long after
the above date (in 1763) that the “Paxton Boys” made a raid down to
Lancaster and massacred the remnant of the Conestoga Indians in the jail
of this town.
[36] The Amish seem to have originated in Europe, about the year 1700,
when Jacob Amen, a Swiss preacher, set up, or returned to, the more
severe rule, distasteful to brethren in Alsace, etc., and enforced the
ban of excommunication upon some or all of those who disagreed with him.
Appleton’s Cyclopædia calls him Amman, and says that the Amish rose in
1693, in Alsace. A small pamphlet upon this subject has been published at
Elkhart, Indiana, and is for sale at the office of the _Herald of Truth_.
[37] See Herzog.
[38] The German word _leute_, people, is here pronounced _lite_.
[39] Traditionary stories exist in our county concerning the Swiss
origin, etc., of certain families. I have heard one concerning the Engles
and one of the Stauffers. A member of the Johns family has also told me
of their Swiss origin, and of their name being formerly written Tschantz.
It is probable that other traditionary stories concerning Swiss families
could now be collected, if some one would exert himself to do it
before their custodians “fall asleep.” But let those who gather these
stories beware of the “fine writer,” lest he add what he considers
embellishments, and make the narratives improbable.
The Stauffer traditions were mentioned to me by a venerable member of
the family, one who has kindly lent me his aid and sympathy in some
of my records of the “Pennsylvania Dutch.” John Stauffer is now a
great-grandfather, and he calculates that it was, at the nearest, his
own great-great-grandfather who, with his mother and his three brothers,
came to this country, his ancestors being of Swiss origin. “The mother,”
says my neighbor (in substance), “weighed three hundred, and the sons
made a wagon, all of wood, and drawed her to the Rhine. When they got to
Philadelphia, they put their mother into the wagon and drawed her up here
to Warwick township. There they settled on a pretty spring; that is what
our people like.”
The reader of this little story may remember the “pious Æneas,” who “from
the flames of Troy, upon his shoulders,” the old Anchises bore. [John
Stauffer is now dead, 1882.]
The tradition of the Engle family was narrated to me by two of its
members. Mr. Henry M. Engle has felt some difficulty in reconciling the
tradition with the fact of the family’s having been in this country only
about one hundred years, and with his idea that the Swiss persecution
must have ceased before that period. But we have seen that some Baptist
families tarried in the Palatinate, etc., before coming here, and a
circumstance like the imprisonment of one of their women would be
remembered among them for a long time.
Tradition says that it was the grandmother’s mother or grandmother of
Henry M. Engle and Jacob M. Engle, who was a prisoner in Switzerland for
her faith. The turnkey’s wife sympathized with the prisoner, because she
knew that Annie had children at home. So she said to her, in the Swiss
dialect, “Annie, if I were you, I would go away once.” (“Annie, wann i
die wär, i det mohl geh.”—“Annie, wenn ich dich wäre, ich thut einmal
gehen.”)
She therefore set Annie to washing clothes, and, turning her back upon
her, gave her opportunity to escape.
Annie’s husband was not a Baptist; nevertheless, he was so friendly as
to prepare a hiding-place for her, into which she could go down, if
the persecutors came, by means of a trap-door; and she was never taken
prisoner again.
[40] The _Herald of Truth_, a Mennonite paper of this country, under the
date of July, 1873, contains a “Letter of Authority,” beginning, “We, the
Bishops and Directors of the entire body of the Swiss Mennonites in the
colonies of Kotusufka, in the district (county or canton) of Schitomir,
state of Volkinien, Russia.”
This Letter of Authority concerns the proposed migration above alluded
to. Of the six names signed thereto, one at least appears to belong also
to this county of Lancaster, where it is now sometimes written Graybill;
in the Russian letter Krehbiehl. A similar name is found among the
Schwenckfelders, who were of Silesian origin.
[41] See the article “Ephrata,” in this volume.
[42] See article “Ephrata” in this volume.
[43] Our “Dutch”—all of them, I believe—use the singular pronoun “du,”
_thou_.
[44] A friend tells me that he once heard a discourse from a celebrated
Dunker preacher, named Sarah Reiter. She was allowed to preach, it seems,
by a liberal construction of Paul’s celebrated edict, because she was
unmarried. Even when afterward married, by a more liberal construction
still, the liberty to preach was not forbidden her. Possibly it was
assumed that her _husband at home_ was not able to answer all her
questions upon spiritual matters. She removed to Ohio.