Introductory Note
The beginning of German emigration to America may be traced to the
personal influence of William Penn, who in 1677 visited the Continent,
and made the acquaintance of an intelligent and highly cultivated circle
of Pietists, or Mystics, who, reviving in the seventeenth century the
spiritual faith and worship of Tauler and the "Friends of God" in the
fourteenth, gathered about the pastor Spener, and the young and
beautiful Eleonora Johanna Von Merlau. In this circle originated the
Frankfort Land Company, which bought of William Penn, the Governor of
Pennsylvania, a tract of land near the new city of Philadelphia. The
company's agent in the New World was a rising young lawyer, Francis
Daniel Pastorius, son of Judge Pastorius, of Windsheim, who, at the age
of seventeen, entered the University of Altorf. He studied law at,
Strasburg, Basle, and Jena, and at Ratisbon, the seat of the Imperial
Government, obtained a practical knowledge of international polity.
Successful in all his examinations and disputations, he received the
degree of Doctor of Law at Nuremberg in 1676. In 1679 he was a
law-lecturer at Frankfort, where he became deeply interested in the
teachings of Dr. Spener. In 1680-81 he travelled in France, England,
Ireland, and Italy with his friend Herr Von Rodeck. "I was," he says,
"glad to enjoy again the company of my Christian friends, rather than be
with Von Rodeck feasting and dancing." In 1683, in company with a small
number of German Friends, he emigrated to America, settling upon the
Frankfort Company's tract between the Schuylkill and the Delaware
rivers. The township was divided into four hamlets, namely, Germantown,
Krisheim, Crefield, and Sommerhausen. Soon after his arrival he united
himself with the Society of Friends, and became one of its most able and
devoted members, as well as the recognized head and lawgiver of the
settlement. He married, two years after his arrival, Anneke (Anna),
daughter of Dr. Klosterman, of Muhlheim. In the year 1688 he drew up a
memorial against slaveholding, which was adopted by the Germantown
Friends and sent up to the Monthly Meeting, and thence to the Yearly
Meeting at Philadelphia. It is noteworthy as the first protest made by
a religious body against Negro Slavery. The original document was
discovered in 1844 by the Philadelphia antiquarian, Nathan Kite, and
published in The Friend (Vol. XVIII. No. 16). It is a bold and direct
appeal to the best instincts of the heart. "Have not," he asks, "these
negroes as much right to fight for their freedom as you have to keep
them slaves?" Under the wise direction of Pastorius, the German-town
settlement grew and prospered. The inhabitants planted orchards and
vineyards, and surrounded themselves with souvenirs of their old home.
A large number of them were linen-weavers, as well as small farmers.
The Quakers were the principal sect, but men of all religions were
tolerated, and lived together in harmony. In 1692 Richard Frame
published, in what he called verse, a Description of Pennsylvania, in
which he alludes to the settlement:--
"The German town of which I spoke before,
Which is at least in length one mile or more,
Where lives High German people and Low Dutch,
Whose trade in weaving linen cloth is much,
--There grows the flax, as also you may know
That from the same they do divide the tow.
Their trade suits well their habitation,
We find convenience for their occupation."
Pastorius seems to have been on intimate terms with William Penn, Thomas
Lloyd, Chief Justice Logan, Thomas Story, and other leading men in the
Province belonging to his own religious society, as also with Kelpius,
the learned Mystic of the Wissahickon, with the pastor of the Swedes'
church, and the leaders of the Mennonites. He wrote a description of
Pennsylvania, which was published at Frankfort and Leipsic in 1700 and
1701. His Lives of the Saints, etc., written in German and dedicated to
Professor Schurmberg, his old teacher, was published in 1690. He left
behind him many unpublished manuscripts covering a very wide range of
subjects, most of which are now lost. One huge manuscript folio,
entitled Hive Beestock, Melliotropheum Alucar, or Rusca Apium, still
remains, containing one thousand pages with about one hundred lines to a
page. It is a medley of knowledge and fancy, history, philosophy, and
poetry, written in seven languages. A large portion of his poetry is
devoted to the pleasures of gardening, the description of flowers, and
the care of bees. The following specimen of his punning Latin is
addressed to an orchard-pilferer:--
"Quisquis in haec furtim reptas viridaria nostra
Tangere fallaci poma caveto mane,
Si non obsequeris faxit Deus omne quod opto,
Cum malis nostris ut mala cuncta feras."
Professor Oswald Seidensticker, to whose papers in Der Deutsche Pioneer
and that able periodical the Penn Monthly, of Philadelphia, I am
indebted for many of the foregoing facts in regard to the German
pilgrims of the New World, thus closes his notice of Pastorius:--
"No tombstone, not even a record of burial, indicates where his remains
have found their last resting-place, and the pardonable desire to
associate the homage due to this distinguished man with some visible
memento can not be gratified. There is no reason to suppose that he was
interred in any other place than the Friends' old burying-ground in
Germantown, though the fact is not attested by any definite source of
information. After all, this obliteration of the last trace of his
earthly existence is but typical of what has overtaken the times which
he represents; that Germantown which he founded, which saw him live and
move, is at present but a quaint idyl of the past, almost a myth, barely
remembered and little cared for by the keener race that has succeeded.
The Pilgrims of Plymouth have not lacked historian and poet. Justice has
been done to their faith, courage, and self-sacrifice, and to the mighty
influence of their endeavors to establish righteousness on the earth.
The Quaker pilgrims of Pennsylvania, seeking the same object by
different means, have not been equally fortunate. The power of their
testimony for truth and holiness, peace and freedom, enforced only by
what Milton calls "the unresistible might of meekness," has been felt
through two centuries in the amelioration of penal severities, the
abolition of slavery, the reform of the erring, the relief of the poor
and suffering,--felt, in brief, in every step of human progress. But of
the men themselves, with the single exception of William Penn, scarcely
anything is known. Contrasted, from the outset, with the stern,
aggressive Puritans of New England, they have come to be regarded as
"a feeble folk," with a personality as doubtful as their unrecorded
graves. They were not soldiers, like Miles Standish; they had no figure
so picturesque as Vane, no leader so rashly brave and haughty as
Endicott. No Cotton Mather wrote their Magnalia; they had no awful drama
of supernaturalism in which Satan and his angels were actors; and the
only witch mentioned in their simple annals was a poor old Swedish
woman, who, on complaint of her countrywomen, was tried and acquitted
of everything but imbecility and folly. Nothing but common-place offices
of civility came to pass between them and the Indians; indeed, their
enemies taunted them with the fact that the savages did not regard them
as Christians, but just such men as themselves. Yet it must be apparent
to every careful observer of the progress of American civilization that
its two principal currents had their sources in the entirely opposite
directions of the Puritan and Quaker colonies. To use the words of a
late writer: "The historical forces, with which no others may be
compared in their influence on the people, have been those of the
Puritan and the Quaker. The strength of the one was in the confession of
an invisible Presence, a righteous, eternal Will, which would establish
righteousness on earth; and thence arose the conviction of a direct
personal responsibility, which could be tempted by no external splendor
and could be shaken by no internal agitation, and could not be evaded or
transferred. The strength of the other was the witness in the human
spirit to an eternal Word, an Inner Voice which spoke to each alone,
while yet it spoke to every man; a Light which each was to follow, and
which yet was the light of the world; and all other voices were silent
before this, and the solitary path whither it led was more sacred than
the worn ways of cathedral-aisles." It will be sufficiently apparent to
the reader that, in the poem which follows, I have attempted nothing
beyond a study of the life and times of the Pennsylvania colonist,--a
simple picture of a noteworthy man and his locality. The colors of my
sketch are all very sober, toned down to the quiet and dreamy atmosphere
through which its subject is visible. Whether, in the glare and tumult
of the present time, such a picture will find favor may well be
questioned. I only know that it has beguiled for me some hours of
weariness, and that, whatever may be its measure of public appreciation,
it has been to me its own reward."
J. G. W.
AMESBURY, 5th mo., 1872.
Hail to posterity!
Hail, future men of Germanopolis!
Let the young generations yet to be
Look kindly upon this.
Think how your fathers left their native land,--
Dear German-land! O sacred hearths and homes!--
And, where the wild beast roams,
In patience planned
New forest-homes beyond the mighty sea,
There undisturbed and free
To live as brothers of one family.
What pains and cares befell,
What trials and what fears,
Remember, and wherein we have done well
Follow our footsteps, men of coming years!
Where we have failed to do
Aright, or wisely live,
Be warned by us, the better way pursue,
And, knowing we were human, even as you,
Pity us and forgive!
Farewell, Posterity!
Farewell, dear Germany
Forevermore farewell!
[From the Latin of Francis DANIEL PASTORIUS in
the Germantown Records. 1688.] |
