CHAPTER IV.

German Expatriation-The Distribution of Teuton Emigrants in the American Colonies.

In the preceding chapter an endeavor has been made to show that even early in the seventeenth century the Germans had good cause for deserting fatherland. When resolved on expatriation their steps nearly all turned westward, and they seemed of one mind as to what country offered the greatest inducements to home-seekers, and presented the most complete assurances of relief from the heavy burdens under which they had groaned in Europe. The tide of emigration set steadily toward America, and from those early days till now, the name and thought of our country has been as a sweet savor in the nostrils of oppressed Teutons. Commencing as a little rill the current gradually increased in volume, until, as we learn from recently published statistics, between 1880 and 1884 the yearly exodus from Germany averaged nearly one hundred and seventy-five thousand souls; while of two millions, six hundred and one thousand Germans now living outside of the Empire, two millions are citizens of the United States.

There is no accurate record of the earliest Teuton emigration to America. Edward Eggleston, a diligent student of colonial history, claims that Germans came with the colonists of Massachusetts Bay, and, without doubt, some of the so-called Dutch of the New Netherlands were High Dutch, or Germans, from the Rhine, beyond the Holland border. Before the close of the Thirty Years' War the vast movement from the Rhine country may be said to have commenced, and the year 1640 found Germans settled on the Delaware in the Swedish colony planted by the Lutheran king, Gustavus Adolphus.

But until 1682 the arrival of immigrants in this country was neither frequent nor regular. In the preceding year William Penn had advertised to the world his liberal government, and offered in Pennsylvania homes for the persecuted and oppressed of all nations. Penn had acquired his great American grant of forty thousand square miles of territory from the Crown, in payment of a debt of sixteen thousand pounds due his father. The King named the tract after the elder Penn, and it is interesting to know, as illustrating the modesty and simplicity of the son, that he strongly objected to this appellation, even going so far as to attempt the bribing of an under-secretary, that the name might be changed. In 1683 Francis Daniel Pastorious, a Franconian German of education, arrived with other immigrants at Philadelphia, taking up land at Germantown, commencing that settlement with thirteen families. Arents Klincken erected the first two-storey house, Penn being present, and helping to eat the "raising dinner." Within a few years the settlement was augmented by the arrival of over one thousand Germans, among whom were the ancestors of the present prominent Pennsylvania families of Rittenhouse, Shoemaker, Carpenter, Potts and Van Wart. The most of them came from near the city of Worms, in Westphalia. They must have felt grateful for their quiet provincial homes when they heard of the dreadful ravages of the French, in 1689, who laid waste the entire country from which they had emigrated, the flames rising from every hamlet, market place and parish church in the Duchy of Cleves, in which Worms is situated.

The greatest influx of Germans commenced about 1700. Within the following twenty-five years vast numbers fled from the desolations and persecutions at home to the English colonies in America, and it is estimated that over fifty thousand within that time reached the province of Pennsylvania. A few miles. from Bendorf, on the Rhine, is the well built and attractive town of Neuwied; it has now a population of about ten thousand, comprising Romanists, Lutherans, Moravian Brethren, Baptists and Jews, who live together in harmony. Count Frederic of Wied, whose descendants still occupy the spacious palace at its north end, founded the town in 1653, on the site of the village of Langendorf, which was entirely destroyed in the Thirty Years' War.

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THE SETTLEMENT OF GERMAN VALLEY, N. J. Here, in 1705, arrived a number of Lutherans, who had fled from persecutions at Wolfenbrüttel and Halberstadt. The then Count of Wied, who welcomed all comers without distinction of religion, gave them residence and protection. Here they remained for some time, and then went on down the river to Holland, where they embarked, in 1707, for New York. After a severe and protracted voyage a violent storm drove their small ship south of Sandy Hook, obliging the master to take refuge in the capes of the Delaware, and ultimately land his passengers at Philadelphia. Determined to continue to the province of New York the immigrants left the Quaker City, journeying overland. Travelling thitherward, they reached the crest of the Schooley's Mountain range, in Morris County, New Jersey, and were suddenly confronted by the view of a charming valley. Below were the pleasant reaches of the Musconetcong, flowing tranquilly between grassy banks, with rich meadows rolling back in gentle undulations, seeming fairly to invite settlement. To these tempest-tossed wanderers it appeared, indeed, a land of promise; what more could they desire in a search for homes? New York province certainly would offer no richer or more inviting locality, so here they decided to remain. Descending the mountain side they drove their tent stakes, and laid their hearth-stones, as the commencement of a settlement which has been known from that day to this as the German Valley. It is claimed that many now well-known families in Morris, Hunterdon and Somerset Counties take their origin from this ancient little Lutheran community.*

*This account of the first settlement of German Valley is based on statements made in Rupps' "Early German Emigrants to Pennsylvania," Mott's "First Century of Hunterdon County," Blauvelt's "Historical Sketch of the German Reformed and Presbyterian Church of German Valley," and Snell's "History of Hunterdon and Somerset Counties." Persons well informed in the history of Morris and Hunterdon doubt this story; indeed, do not hesitate to deny the possibility of its truth. Various objections are made to the belief that these Brunswick and Prussian emigrants were the progenitors of the present resident German families of Clinton, Lebanon and Tewksbury, in Hunterdon, and of Washington, in Morris county. The most tenable one advanced is that there is not a particle of documentary evidence to show that there were many, if any, Germans occupying the region now forming those townships previous to the year 1720, and that the family names of Pickel, Welch, Apgar, Alspaugh, Philhower, Kline, Rhinehart, Eick and others, which have been credited as being those of persons descended from those persecuted immigrants, can all be accounted for as importations after the year 1720, and most of them after 1730.

Hendrick Hudson, after his voyage in the "Half-Moon," in 1609, in writing of the locality on which now, a populous crescent, the city of Newburgh rests, mentions it as "a pleasant place to build a town on." As the Palatine parish of Quassaick, on this "pleasant place," a town was laid out, about one hundred years later, by emigrants from Germany. The company comprised forty-two persons, who, under the guidance of their pastor, Joshua Kockerthal, had been sent to America by Queen Anne, who had guaranteed them nine pence a day for a year's support, and a grant of land on which to settle. They had been driven to the fields in mid-winter by the destruction of their homes by the French, and had applied to the English government for aid, as Protestants who were suffering from abject poverty, because of their religious beliefs. On reaching New York Lord Lovelace had them transported to Quassaick creek, and ultimately his successor, Governor Hunter, issued to them a patent for twenty-one hundred and ninety acres of land. The first place of worship in Newburgh was a little Lutheran church, twenty feet square, built by these foreigners. The settlement as a German community did not prosper. The Palatines, who were mostly husbandmen, found the rough hillsides much inferior for cultivation to the rich lands they had known over the Attracted by descriptions from friends, located in Pennsylvania, of the fertile regions they inhabited, the individual owners gradually sold the plots originally apportioned them and removed to that Quaker colony. By 1743 practically the place had changed from a German settlement to a Scotch-English neighborhood. Notwithstanding the comparatively short time the Palatines lived on Quassaick creek, they left an indelible mark on the country, and a record of which the people of Newburgh are still proud. That city's historian, E. M. Ruttenber, writes that "no citizens of more substantial worth are found under the flag of this, their native land, than their descendants; no braver men were in the armies of the Revolution than Herkimer and Muhlenberg. Had they done nothing in the parish but made clearings in its forests and planted fields they would be entitled to grateful remembrance; but they did more-they gave to it its first church and its first government, and in all its subsequent history their descendants have had a part."

seas.

THIRTEEN THOUSAND GERMANS REACH LONDON IN 1709. 39

The citizens of London were astonished to learn, in May and June, 1709, that five thousand men, women and children, Germans from the Rhine, were under tents in the suburbs. By October the number had increased to thirteen thousand, and comprised husbandmen, tradesmen, school teachers and ministers. These emigrants had deserted the Palatinate, owing to French oppression and the persecution by their prince, the elector John William, of the House of Newburgh, who had become a devoted Romanist, though his subjects were mainly Lutherans and Calvinists. Professor Henry A. Homes, in a paper treating of this emigration read before the Albany Institute in 1871, holds that the movement was due not altogether to unbearable persecutions, but largely to suggestions made to the Palatines in their own country by agents of companies who were anxious to obtain settlers for the British colonies in America, and thus give value to the company's lands. The emigrants were certainly seized with the idea that by going to England its government would transport them to the provinces of New York, the Carolinas and Pennsylvania. Of the latter province they knew much, as many Germans were already there. Pastorious, the founder of Germantown, had published circulars in Germany, extolling the colony and inviting settlement. Penn had also well advertised in the Palatinate the inducements for settlers offered by his grant. The emigrants may have heard of the success of Pastor Kockerthal's little colony which had gone to New York the previous year, and they were all eager to be transported to a country where rich lands were to be had at no cost, and where their efforts for subsistence would be undisturbed by oppressions.

The English government was much distressed by the arrival of this vast number of impoverished emigrants. Their coming not having been anticipated, no plans had been made for their distribution in the colonies, or their care in England. Means were taken at once to notify the Dutch and German authorities that no more would be received. This certainly had the sympathy of the elector Palatine, who had already published an order punishing with death and confiscation all subjects who should quit their native country. Great efforts were made to prevent suffering among these poor people; thousands of pounds