bulwarks and strength of the American nation. The annals of families and communities are the real basis of all history. We are told that the history of a nation is to be read in its political life. An obviously true proposition, but to present to the mind the complete progress of a people, it is not only necessary to understand the superstructure of politics and civil life, but that substratum of society, as well, which cultivates the arts of peace and gradually develops the country; that substratum of living men and women of their time, whose acts and the daily routine of whose existence form the true foundation of history.

During the past ten years it has been my pleasure to make a study of that little slice of New Jersey embraced within Bedminster township, or rather a study of its people as connected directly and indirectly with the settlers and occupants of the "Old Farm." As such investigations and researches continued the field they covered gradually widened until it embraced all the middle and northern counties, and to some extent included the state at large. Over two hundred ancient documents, letters, deeds, bonds, bills and manuscripts have been collected. In reading between the lines of these papers one finds almost a complete historical narrative of the "old times" of this section. Light is thrown upon the most interesting facts as to the cost and manner of living, the fashion in dress, the habits, characteristics, personal relations and daily life of the inhabitants of New Jersey in the last century. Knowing that throughout this country there are many descendants of Johannes Moelich, who have never visited the "Old Farm" and have but little knowledge of its history associated with their own families, I have thought it a duty, and found it a labor of love, to give in a connected form the result of my researches. Having drawn on the preceding pages an outline picture of these homestead acres, and of the approach from the railway, in the coming chapters an endeavor will be made to give some idea as to what manner of people were their early settlers, from whence they came, and why they came. In like manner I shall hope to convey to the reader some impressions of the succeeding generations that have called the Old Stone House home. With their story will be interwoven much fact and some tradition, regarding the experiences of the New Jersey people in the eighteenth century and such matters of local county his

SOMERSET'S HISTORICAL BACKGROUND.

21

The story of the

tory as it has been my good fortune to gather. "Old Farm" is the easier told because of its setting. Somerset landscapes present a succession of beautiful pictures, whose charms are greatly enhanced by their historical backgrounds. Every corner of the county has a story of its own full of interest, and as we walk abroad pursuing our task, we shall find on all sides pregnant facts and well-grounded traditions moving hand in hand down the long avenues of the past.

CHAPTER III.

Bendorf on the Rhine-Johannes Moelich Emigrates to America in 1735-The Condition of Germany in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.

The storied beauty of the winding Rhine is nowhere more famed than in the vicinity of the ancient city of Coblentz-the "Confluentes" of Roman days. Here have nature and man combined in forming a scene of rare and picturesque loveliness. On reaching this quaint settlement it is not the old town with its massive walls stretching along the banks of the Rhine that first impresses one; nor is it the Moselle, whose waters here swell the flood of the greater river. It is the majestic fortress of Erhenbreitstein, crowning the almost perpendicular rocks on the farther shore, four hundred feet above the stream, that dominates the scene and dwarfs every object within its frowning presence. This vast fortification, the Gibraltar of the Rhine, is inaccessible on three sides, and dates back to the Franconian King Dagobert, in the seventh century. From its extensive glacies, fosses and towers the eye ranges over a charming and varied landscape, embracing hillsides terraced with vineyards, bold declivities stored with legends, and green valleys filled with the romance of the Middle Ages. Immediately below are the palaces, turrets and red roofs of the second city of importance on the river. The old basilica of St. Castor elevates its hoary towers above an angle in the town wall where the rivers join, and beyond the massive arches of a bridge of heavy blocks of stone take fourteen huge strides across the Moselle. On the south, in plain sight, are the stately, grey-stone battlements of the royal chateau of Stolzenfels, capping a timbered eminence, while down the river can be seen a succession of picturesque villages, whose long Rhine streets almost form one continuous settlement. About four miles away

BENDORF AND ITS ANCIENT CHURCH.

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in this direction the convent island of Niederwerth splits the current of the stream. A little beyond and a mile or so back from the right bank of the river, in a valley surrounded by apple orchards, rests the ancient village of Bendorf.

With us a place of over four thousand inhabitants would feel entitled to be considered a town, but on the continent of Europe a settlement requires more than population to attain such dignity. Bendorf has the appearance of grey antiquity common to most of the old settlements along the Rhine. Its narrow streets, without sidewalks, are lined with low, two-storey, stone houses, though the continuity is occasionally broken by a tall, steep, red roof studded with odd dormers, or an overhanging gable, which casts a deep shadow across the contracted roadway. Other architectural surprises are not wanting. The stroller over the rough cobbles of the ill-paved streets comes again and again upon an antique turret protruding from the upper storey of some time-stained structure, or upon picturesque wooden houses, with their blackened constructive timbers exposed, enclosing panels of white plaster. Often the quaint facades are curiously carved with heraldic devices, grotesque conceits and odd German lettering.

Ambushed behind a shadowy corner is a venerable Romanesque church, its age-seamed walls and mediævel towers bearing in many places marks of the devastating hand of time. It may well look old, as it is claimed that the edifice was completed by the Counts of Sayn before the year 1205. It is certainly one of the most ancient in Rhineland, and although the early archives of the congregation did not escape the conflagrations of the Thirty Years' and other wars, the architecture of the main structure bears abundant evidence of its antiquity. It is a three-naved basilica of purely Roman features showing no traces in its original outlines of the transition from that style to the Gothic. Its symmetry has been marred, however, by some "improver," who in the pointed period replaced a round window, that formerly adorned the circular-depressed place above the main entrance with a long one, and who destroyed the agreeable proportions of its facade by elevating and pointing the centre of the front wall. At the same time a Gothic chapel was erected, and later a modern extension was constructed on

the south-west, in which the Catholics worship. The congregation housed by the original, or main building, is entitled the Evangelical Head-Church-Evangelische Haupt-Kirche. Together with the congregation of the town of Winningen it was among the first in Germany to fall under the sway of the Reformation. In 1578, Count Henry IV of Sayn, who had become a follower of Luther, inherited Bendorf. He at once established a Lutheran congregation under the pastorate of Reverend Johannes Camerarius and from then till now this little town has been a stronghold of Protestantism. More than one American congregation can trace its origin to this Rhenish Lutheran Society, and in its archives, referring to the first part of the last century, frequently appear names that a few years later became familiar in Hunterdon and Somerset counties, New Jersey. Among them those of MOELICH (Melick), KLEIN (Kline), HIMROTH (Himrod), FASSBENDER, WORTMAN and others.

To an appreciative American, one who having always lived amid the new loves and reveres the old, there are few experiences in foreign travel more satisfactory than the mere fact of being within the shadow of a building that has withstood the elements for five or six centuries. So was the writer affected one summer morning a few years ago, while standing in the presence of this hoary temple, the church of his forefathers. Looking up at the crumbling window-arches that pierced its grey, gloomy facade, it was difficult to realize that when those walls were new the ruined castles which frequent this part of the Rhine were alive with steel-encased feudal lords and their armed retainers; that Barbarossa, the red-bearded emperor, had just sunk beneath the Asiatic waves, while on the third Crusade; that the sunny lands of what is now southern France were running with the blood of those devoted peasants, the Albigenses, in the unholy war fathered by that most cruel of all popes, Innocent III; and prosecuted by that most bloodthirsty of all commanders, Simon de Montfort, that the haughty English barons, on the banks of the Thames, were extorting from wicked and degraded King John, Magna Charta, that precious document that proved to be the foundation of the liberties of all English-speaking people. But a truce to medieval history; we will pass over five hundred years.