[Illustration:
_THE PALATINATE
OF THE
RHINE
DURING THE PERIOD OF
THE LARGE PALATINE
EMIGRATION TO AMERICA_
]
THE STORY
OF THE
PENNSYLVANIA GERMANS
Embracing an account of their Origin,
their History, and their Dialect.
BY
WILLIAM BEIDELMAN
OF THE NORTHAMPTON COUNTY BAR, AND MEMBER OF THE
PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN SOCIETY.
[Illustration]
EASTON, PENNA.
EXPRESS BOOK PRINT.
1898.
Copyright 1898.
BY WILLIAM BEIDELMAN.
All rights reserved.
DEDICATED
To the descendants of those Germans who many generations ago were
exiled from their homes in the beautiful valleys of the Rhine and
Neckar in South Germany on account of fierce religious, and still
fiercer political persecution.
So waren wir und sind es auch,
Das edelste Geschlecht,
Von biederm Sinn und reinem Hauch,
Und in der Thaten Recht.
GOETHE.
PREFATORY NOTE.
This book has been suggested to the author, by reason of several
visits made by him among the people of the Upper Rhine country in
South Germany, whence emigrated the ancestors of the Pennsylvania
Germans. Much that the reader will find herein contained is familiar
history; but it is believed that there are some Pennsylvania Germans,
who may find some things in this unpretentious volume concerning their
ancestors and their history, with which they may not be altogether
familiar. It is for them that this book has been primarily written.
There are not many people who do not share in the sentiment, which
unites one to the history of his race, his kinsmen, and the home of his
fathers. This sentiment is rooted deep in the affections of most if not
of all people, but with the Germans it is pre-eminent.
The Pennsylvania Germans, whose ancestors were exiled from their homes
in the beautiful valleys of the Rhine and Neckar, by fierce religious,
and still fiercer political persecution, are yet after the lapse of
many generations bound by invisible ties to the land which has been
consecrated and made hallowed, by the same blood which courses in their
veins.
The aim of the author has not been to tell anything especially new, but
rather to bring together in concise form, an account of the origin,
history, and dialect of the Pennsylvania Germans; the causes which led
their ancestors to emigrate to the province of Pennsylvania, together
with other information identified with their story.
For much of this information the author is indebted to Zimmerman’s
“History of Germany,” Bayard Taylor’s “History of Germany,” Henri
Martin’s “History of France,” Proud’s “History of Pennsylvania,”
Watson’s “Annals,” Nebenius’ “Geschichte der Pfalz,” Eckhoff’s “In der
Neuen Heimath,” “Hallischen Nachrichten,” and to other sources.
Certain magazine and newspaper writers are responsible for much
misinformation, which prevails among certain people concerning the
Pennsylvania Germans,--especially with regard to their dialect. Not
many years ago an article appeared in the “Atlantic Monthly,” wherein
it was asserted that “Pennsylvania Dutch” was not German, “nor did they
expect you to call it so.” The same author afterward perpetuated this
misinformation by embodying it in a book. It is scarcely necessary to
contradict such manifest error; if it were necessary to do so, the
examples of the Pfälzisch dialect contained in this volume, and their
comparison with Pennsylvania German will refute conclusively all such
erroneous contention.
In this volume the Pennsylvania Germans are spoken of as Germans,
because that is the only designation which is justified by reason of
their race, their history, and their speech.
THE AUTHOR.
Easton, Pa., 1898.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER. PAGE.
I. INTRODUCTORY.--Earliest known German Tribes.--Their
Contact with the Romans, Franks, Goths, Saxons
and Alemanni, 1
II. THE PALATINATE (German Pfalz), 15
III. THE DEVASTATION OF THE PALATINATE, 22
IV. THE PROVINCE OF PENNSYLVANIA, 35
V. GERMAN EMIGRATION TO PENNSYLVANIA, 40
VI. GERMAN EMIGRATION TO OTHER AMERICAN
COLONIES.--Palatines settle in Ireland, 59
VII. THE QUAKERS AND THE PROPRIETORS, 76
VIII. THE PENNSYLVANIA GERMANS IN HISTORY.--In the
Revolution, 81
IX. THE PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN DIALECT.--Its English
Infusion.--Pfälzisch and Pennsylvania German
Compared, 102
X. THE GERMAN AND DUTCH LANGUAGES 123
XI. SCHOOLS, CHURCHES AND RELIGIOUS SECTS, 129
XII. SOCIAL LIFE AND CUSTOMS, 138
XIII. LIFE IN PENNSYLVANIA IN THE EARLY DAYS OF ITS
SETTLEMENT.--Courts and the Administration of
Justice.--Early Legislation, 156
APPENDIX A.--EXAMPLES OF PFÄLZISCH, SOUTH GERMAN AND
PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN DIALECTS, 179
APPENDIX B.--VOCABULARY, 195
APPENDIX C.--BRIEF PERSONAL SKETCHES OF ENGLISH, GERMAN,
AND PALATINE RULERS FROM 1682 TO 1770, THE
PERIOD OF THE GREAT EXODUS OF GERMAN PALATINES
TO PENNSYLVANIA, 212
APPENDIX D.--A CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF ALL THE REIGNING
PRINCES OF THE PALATINATE, FROM THE FIRST ELECTOR
IN 1147, UNTIL 1801, WHEN THE ELECTORATE BECAME
EXTINCT, 225
APPENDIX E.--GLOSSARY, 232
THE STORY OF THE PENNSYLVANIA GERMANS.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
Earliest Known German Tribes.--The Cimbrians and Teutonians.--Their
Invasion of the Roman Provinces.--They defeat the Romans.--They
invade Gaul.--Romans begin the Conquest of the Germans.--The
Struggle Continues More than Five Centuries.--Decline of the Roman
Power.--Barbarous Condition of the German Tribes.--The Four Chief
German Tribes.--Development of the Alemannic Race.--The Franks
defeat the Alemanni.--Founding of the Palatinate State.--Conrad of
Hohenstaufen, Its First Elector.--Extinction of the Electorate.--The
Alemanni an Important Constituent of the First German Empire.--The
Alemanni the Progenitors of the Pennsylvania Germans.
In telling the story of the Pennsylvania Germans, a brief review of the
German race in Europe, beginning with the earliest authentic accounts
of it, will enable us to trace the movements of the various tribes
during successive periods, until we find an important branch of the
original stock settled in the region of the Upper Rhine, in the South
of Germany, whence the ancestors of the Pennsylvania Germans emigrated.
The German race is an important branch of the Teutonic stock, which
constitutes a chief group of the races comprising, the Indo-European or
Aryan family.
It is not known where the original home of the Indo-Europeans was.
A vast amount of literature has been produced on this subject by
ethnologists, and other investigators, with varying views, only to
leave the question of man’s birthplace in dispute and doubt. The weight
of the more recent and best evidence on the subject seems to locate
his original habitat, at some point, “somewhere on the southern slope
of the vast chain of mountains which extend in an almost unbroken line
from the northern coast of Spain eastward to the Himalayas, and from
our present knowledge the western rather than the eastern extremity of
this chain, is that which offers the higher probability of having been
the cradle of the species.”
The period during which the dissemination of the species of the human
race began, is also shrouded in the gloom of prehistoric times. The
first authentic accounts of certain German tribes, locates them in the
region of the Baltic Sea, as early as the middle of the fourth century,
B. C. It appears that adventurers from the south of Europe visited the
shores of the Baltic at that early period in search of trade, and there
found numerous tribes of a fiercely savage and warlike people, who
proved to be German tribes.
It is believed that soon after their discovery on the shores of the
Baltic, some of them began to migrate from their homes, and spread
throughout other parts of Europe. It was not, however, until several
centuries after their first discovery, that any accurate knowledge of
those people was gained.
About the beginning of the second century B. C. two barbarous German
tribes, known as the Cimbrians and Teutonians, came down from the north
of Europe, and made a descent on the Roman provinces. Their coming was
unheralded, and they came in such overwhelming numbers, as to bring
dismay to the Romans. History informs us that the fierceness of the
invaders, made the Roman power impotent with terror to resist them for
a time.
The unwelcome visitors claimed that they had been driven from their
homes, on the shores of the Baltic and North seas, by the inundation
of their settlements, and that they were in search of new homes. That
they came to stay was not doubted, because they brought with them,
their wives and children, and all their personal effects.
The Romans after they recovered from the consternation into which they
had been thrown, by the precipitous descent upon them by the invading
savages, raised up an army against them, to resist their further
advance, but were defeated in a great battle, fought in the north of
Italy. After this battle the invaders marched into Gaul, destroying
everything in their way, leaving nothing but ruin and desolation in
their trail. It has been estimated that the invading tribes numbered
200,000. After being absent about ten years, they returned, when they
again met the Romans in battle, and were defeated.
From this time on, other German tribes began to make incursions into
the Roman provinces, which brought them into frequent conflict with the
Romans who were very aggressively engaged at that period in extending
their dominion by conquest. After having brought the greater part of
Gaul under their sway, they began the conquest of German territory. The
Romans soon learned, that they had a formidable people to deal with,
who were in possession of the greater part of Central Europe, and who
made fierce resistance to their advance. After a struggle which lasted
for many years, the Romans succeeded in establishing themselves in
that part of Europe, bounded by the Danube on the south, and by the
Main on the north. Beyond that region, the Romans could not penetrate,
although they kept the struggle up for more than five hundred years.
The struggle only ceased with the decline of the Roman empire, after
which the Germans lost no time in recovering the territory, which the
Romans had deprived them of during the long struggle.
The Germans not only recovered the region between the Danube and the
Main, but pushed forward toward the south, as far as Switzerland,
making the area re-occupied by them German territory, which has
remained German ever since.
THE GERMANS DURING THE PERIOD OF THEIR CONFLICT WITH THE ROMANS.
The German tribes with which the Romans were in conflict during the
early centuries of our era, were numerous, and besides fighting a
common enemy, were frequently at war with each other. Their prowess
in war was great, and if they had been united at all times, it is not
believed that the Romans could ever have succeeded in crossing the
Rhine, or to have been able to penetrate as far as the Danube. The
frequent quarrels among them weakened them, and encouraged the Romans
to keep up the struggle for their subjugation.
We are indebted to the Romans for all that we know of the early history
of the various German tribes.[1]
One would suppose that the German tribes who had a common origin,
connected with ties of blood, religion and habits, with a common
destiny, would have lived alongside of each other in peace, with a
common enemy constantly in sight threatening their conquest. But
when we consider that those people were still savages in the early
centuries of our era, and that scarcely more than a generation ago,
their civilized descendants engaged in frequent bloody wars with their
own kinsmen, it ought not occasion much surprise, that their savage
ancestors indulged in similar pastimes many centuries ago.
At the close of the fifth century, when the Roman power was broken,
and its legions began to withdraw from German territory, they left
behind not a few of their civilized arts, which the Germans acquired
during several centuries of contact with them; but notwithstanding,
the Germans were still a fierce and savage people in their habits, and
mode of life. They had not yet learned to live in towns and villages;
the country occupied by them was an unbroken wilderness, through which
roamed “wild animals, only a little more savage than the German tribes
themselves.”
It is remarkable, how few names of German leaders during five hundred
years of conflict with the Romans, are preserved in history, while
the names of Roman heroes confront us on every page. Among the few
German names which we come across, are the names of Hermann, the first
great German leader, who destroyed the Roman legions under Varus;
Ariovistus, chief of the ancient Suevi, who invaded Gaul in the first
century before the Christian era; Marbod, who at the head of the Suevi
and Marcomanni, won numerous battles over the Romans; Theodormar,
an Alemannic chieftain; Alarich, who led the Goths into Rome, and
Geiserich, king of the Vandals. The poverty of German names may be
owing to the fact that the Romans were the chroniclers of all the
events that have come down to us from those days to the present, and
were more concerned about the fame of their own heroes, than of that of
the Germans.
INFLUENCE OF ROMAN CIVILIZATION ON THE GERMANS.
During the wars for the subjugation of the Germans the latter profited
by their contact with the Romans. They acquired some of their habits
and customs, and it has been asserted that those civilizing influences
extended to the speech and laws of their conquerors. While the Romans
were bent on conquest, they were also civilizers. Wherever they
succeeded in establishing themselves, they were prompt in introducing
their civilization; so that when they left the Germans in undisputed
possession of their country, after a lapse of centuries, they left
the impress of their civilization upon them, which became a valuable
acquisition, upon which the Germans began to build a civilization of
their own, which was destined to outgrow that of their tutors.
The military stations of the Romans grew into German towns and cities.
Everywhere along the Rhine, and throughout Central and Southern Germany
are numerous prosperous cities whose names attest their Roman origin.
The Romans built roads in the conquered territory, which connected with
highways that led to Rome, so as to bring all parts of the subjugated
country in easy communication with the Roman capital; streams were
spanned by stone arched bridges, whose enduring piers and foundations
still remain, to be pointed out to the tourist at the present day.
It can thus be seen how the influences of Roman civilization helped the
Germans, to rise from their barbarous condition, to a higher state. The
Germans were apt scholars, and long before the middle ages, they had
outstripped many other people, in many of the civilized arts.
The tribal names hereinbefore mentioned, began to disappear soon after
the struggle between the Romans and the Germans began. Different tribes
became united with each other from various causes; often no doubt for
mutual aid and protection; while small and weak tribes were absorbed by
larger and stronger ones.
About the close of the third century A. D. or the beginning of the
fourth, all tribal names had disappeared from history except those of
the Alemanni, Franks, Saxons and Goths; all other names had merged into
these four; although many tribal characteristics continued, chief among
which was that of speech. It is claimed by certain philologists, that
the dialects of some of those early German tribes can yet be traced, in
some of the numerous dialects spoken by the common people in certain
parts of Germany at this day. When it is considered that there are
people living in the mountainous region of Switzerland, who after the
lapse of more than a thousand years since their progenitors dwelt in
the same region, still speak a corrupted Latin dialect, the foregoing
claim may be entitled to some credit.
THE FRANKS, GOTHS, SAXONS AND ALEMANNI.
After the various tribal names became merged in the four mentioned, a
national formative process was begun by each, which resulted variously
during a century or more. The Franks were the most progressive, and
soon overran Gaul, and laid the foundation of the kingdom of France.
They occupied at this time the region of the lower course of the
Scheldt, the Meuse, and the region west of the Rhine. They did not,
however, separate at once from all connection with the other German
tribes, but maintained a geographical union with them for several
centuries, until they finally became separated, during the process of
the formation of the European nations.
The Goths during about the same period were scattered over a large area
north of the Danube, from which they made frequent incursions into the
Roman provinces, against which the declining Roman power could make but
little resistance. The Saxons at the same time dwelt along both sides
of the Elbe, extending northwest to the North Sea, and west as far
as the Lower Rhine. Their name is preserved in the Saxony of to-day.
The Alemanni were chiefly of Suevic origin, but they embraced many
other German tribes, as their name, Alemanni--all men, or men of all
nations--indicates. In the third century of our era, they occupied the
region from the Main to the Danube, from whence they were driven by the
Romans, but which territory they recovered after the Roman empire began
to decline. They not only re-established themselves in the country from
which they had been driven, but extended their dominion as far as the
Rhine and beyond, including Alsace and part of Lorraine. Southward they
pressed forward, until they occupied the greater part of South Germany,
and Eastern and Northern Switzerland.
At the end of six hundred years, from the time of their first contact
with the Romans, the triumph of the German races was complete, after
which they were never again disturbed by a Roman foe. The Alemanni
remained in the region of the Upper Rhine country, where they developed
into the race, from which sprung the progenitors of those Germans, who
many centuries afterwards found their way to Pennsylvania.
The Roman writers regarded the Alemanni as the largest, and most
formidable of all the German tribes. They constituted a league of
different German races against which the Romans struggled in vain,
and when the latter ceased to offer much resistance, the Alemanni
themselves undertook the part of conquerors. About the close of the
fifth century they met an army under Clovis, the first French king, in
battle, on a field not far from the present city of Cologne, in which
they were defeated, when they withdrew to Southwestern Germany where
their descendants are living at this day. During the whole period of
German history, from the founding of the first empire, the Alemanni
constituted a very important element, and for many centuries maintained
an influential and independent political existence.
* * * * *
With the coming into existence of the princely family of Hohenstaufen,
in the twelfth century, whose members furnished a long line of kings
and emperors to Germany, the political state of the Palatinate was
founded, with Conrad of Hohenstaufen as the first prince invested
with the Electoral authority by his brother, the Emperor Frederick I.
The Palatinate as a distinct hereditary sovereignty, continued for
nearly seven hundred years, until in 1801, when it became extinct,
and its territory went to the adjoining states in Germany, except
Rhenish Bavaria, which yet remains to remind us, of the dignity of
a once influential principality. During the continuance of the old
state of the Palatinate, its people spread to Baden, Wurtemberg,
Swabia, Bavaria, the Tyrol, and parts of Switzerland. All of these
states contributed to the German emigration to Pennsylvania, and all
practically spoke the same dialect, which came down from the Alemanni,
and which students claim to be the best type of old High German, as it
exists in German literature from the eighth to the eleventh century.
Down to the time when the Romans quitted Germany, there had been
no successful attempts made to nationalize the German races,
notwithstanding the greater part of Europe had fallen under their
sway. Soon after this period, the races began to coalesce, and lay the
groundwork from which the European nations began to be evolved. The
Franks, who conquered Gaul, founded the kingdom of France about this
time. The Alemanni who were established in Southwestern Germany and who
had maintained their independence long before that period, also began
the formation of a national existence with a hereditary chief at the
head. Later they constituted the most powerful political division of
the first German empire, which dates its existence from 843, with the
Treaty of Verdun.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] According to Bayard Taylor’s “History of Germany” the German
tribes, during their early contact with the Romans were settled, east
of the Rhine, except two or three small tribes, which are supposed to
have crossed that river and settled between the Vosges and the Rhine,
from Strasburg to Mayence. The greater part of Belgium was occupied
at that time by the Eburones and Condrusii, to which were afterwards
added the Aduatuci. At the mouth of the Rhine dwelt the Batavi, the
forefathers of the Dutch. A little eastward of the Rhine, on the shores
of the North sea, dwelt the Frisii, where they still dwell in the
province of Friesland; and beyond them, about the mouth of the Weser,
lived the Chauci.
What is now Westphalia was inhabitated by the Sicambrians; the Marsi
and Ampsivarii lived beyond them, towards the Hartz, and south of the
latter the Ubii, from the Weser to the Elbe, in the north was the land
of the Cherusci; south of them were the Chatti, the ancestors of the
modern Hessians; and still further south along the headwaters of the
Main were the Marcomanni. The Hermunduri were settled in what is now
Saxony, with their kindred, the Chatti, who were called Suevi by the
Romans. Northward toward the mouth of the Elbe, dwelt the Longobardi
(Lombards); beyond them, in Holstein the Saxons; and north of the
latter, in Schleswig, the Angles.
East of the Elbe were the Semnones; north of them dwelt the Vandals,
and along the Baltic coast the Rugii; between these and the Vistula
were the Burgundiones, and a few smaller tribes. In the extreme
northeast, between the Vistula and where Königsberg now stands, was
the home of the Goths, south of whom were the Slavonic Sarmatians, who
afterwards founded Poland.
The German tribes enumerated constituted all the tribes with which the
Roman power contended for five centuries, few of which have their names
preserved in history. It will be seen later on in this volume how all
the names of the German tribes disappeared, and were merged into four
principle ones.