Germantown, Pennsylvania

“ It is served by the Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia & Reading railways. There are many old colonial houses and handsome modern residences along Main Street (the old Germantown Road or Avenue) . Prominent among the historic houses is Cliveden, or the “Chew House,” built about 1761 by Benjamin Chew (1722–1810) , who was chief-justice of Pennsylvania in 1774–1777 and was imprisoned as a Loyalist in 1777, and whose home during the battle of Germantown (see below) was occupied by British troops. ”

“ In 1683, moved by William Penn’s alluring proclamations of the glorious new world, as well as by the fact that freedom of conscience was granted in Pennsylvania to all, a band of German immigrants arrived in Philadelphia and founded Germantown. With the exception of the scholar, Francis Daniel Pastorious, there were no highly cultured men or women among them. These people were of the middle class, and were more interested in weaving and agriculture and religious salvation, than in the cultivation of the fine arts. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The deadly disease swept away whole families. Eleven persons died in one house within a day.
Philadelphia with 50,000 population in 1792 was then not only the largest and busiest city of the Nation but its seat of government. The Congress moved from the city to Germantown; President George Washington and the members of his Cabinet and their families departed the city, and every person who could afford it followed their example. ”

“ School House Lane and Greene Street, Germantown Academy, built, 1759; colonial, native stone; founded by Christopher Saur, and others of German birth, to furnish education in “English, High Dutch, and the German language.” It has always held high rank as a school; the bell was brought to Philadelphia in 1774, in the tea ship Polly, the cargo was not allowed to land, it was taken back to England, and returned here when the war was ended; telescope used by Washington during battle, when the building was used as a hospital, is here; several British soldiers were buried in the yard ”

“ The Germans in the cloister Ephrata, Pa., established by the Tunker, or Dunkards, also owned a printing-press, a paper-mill, and a bookbindery. They published, in 1749, the Maertyrer-Spiegel, a folio of 1514 pages, the greatest literary undertaking of the American Colonies. To the Germans enumerated must be added the German Reformed; the Moravians, who founded Bethlehem and Nazareth in Pennsylvania; the Salzburgers in Georgia; the Palatines in New York; etc. And what may be said of Germantown, is true also with regard to Philadelphia. ”

“ After the war the revival was slow. In 1784 a charter was obtained incorporating it as the “Public School at Germantown,” which was amended in 1786. The school was poor, the State could not furnish much assistance and contributions were solicited. These and the increase in the enrollment kept the Academy forging ahead. In 1808 another lottery was held which yielded about $500, but John Bowman, the treasurer, refused to receive the money.
In the yellow fever epidemic of 1793 the Legislature of Pennsylvania and the Congress of the United States made proposals for an occupation. ”

“ Among the many delightful villages in Pennsylvania, which owe their origin to German settlers, and maintain, amid surrounding improvements, the unchanged marks of ancestry, there is none more prominent than Germantown. ”

“ Though to this company has generally been ascribed the settlement of Germantown, and with it the credit of being the originators of German emigration, no one of its members except Pastorius ever came to Pennsylvania, and of still more significance is the fact that, so far as known, no one of the early emigrants to Pennsylvania came from Frankfort. ”

“ They are the progressive farmers, and leaders in politics, literature and science.
The first great teacher was Pastorius; the first paper mill was established in 1690, on a branch of Wissahickon Creek, by William Rittinghuysen; the Bible was first printed in German, by Christopher Saur, thirty-nine years before it appeared in English; the same enterprising Germans, in 1735, established the first type foundry in America in Germantown and so on, but it is of the establishment of German Town or Germantown which this story is to relate. ”

“ At that time a day’s production per man was one and a half reams of newspaper of the size of 20 by 30 inches. Small as was this mill, its importance can hardly be understood, for the greatest commercial metropolis of America drew its supply of printing paper from this mill.
There, in this secluded spot, away from any except the hermits who lived in the caves along the Wissahickon, and with no access to Philadelphia except by Germantown, William Rittenhouse, and his son devoted themselves with untiring industry to their useful and honorable art. ”

“ In 1891 the Pennsylvania German Society was organized among the descendants of the early German and Swiss settlers of the state. Among those who took the preliminary steps were Dr. William H. Egle, F. R. Diffenderffer of Lancaster, Col. T. C. Zimmerman of Berks, Julius F. Sachse, George F. Baer, General James A. Beaver and myself. No other of the different race societies has been so energetic in the study of the sources of history or so prolific in the production of literature. My Settlement of Germantown appeared among its publications and for one year I was president of the society. ”

“ Quoted in Pennypacker, Settlement of Germantown, 204, 292.
[212] “The Germans seldom hire men to work upon their farms.” Rush, An Account of the Manners of the German Inhabitants of Pennsylvania (1789) , 24. “They never, as a general thing, had colored servants or slaves.” Ibid., 24 (note by Rupp) . “Slaves in Pennsylvania never were as numerous in proportion to the white population as in New York and New Jersey. To our German population this is certainly attributable—Wherever they or their numerous descendants located they preferred their own labor to that of negro slaves.” ”

“ The first Bible printed in America in any European language was published in Germantown in 1743 by Christopher Sauer (d. 1758) , a preacher of the German Baptist Brethren, who in 1739 established Germantown’s first newspaper, The High German Pennsylvania Historian, or Collection of Important News from the Kingdom of Nature and of the Church. His grandsons are said to have cast about 1772 the first American printing type. The Friends were the first sect to erect a meeting-house of their own (about 1693) . ”

“ After his father moved to New Hanover Township, Henry stayed in Germantown, where he engaged in partnership with William Dewees in the construction of a paper mill and grist mill, both at Crefeld along the Wissahickon.
On February 2, 1726, Henry Antes was married to his partner’s daughter, Christina Elizabeth Dewees, who was born in Pennsylvania in 1702. She died October 5, 1782. The ceremony was celebrated by John Philip Boehm, pastor of the German Reformed congregations of Falkner Swamp, Skippack and Whitemarsh. ”

“ Roosen tells us “William Penn had in the year 1683 invited the Mennonites to settle in Pennsylvania. Soon many from the Netherlands went over and settled in and about Germantown.” [47] Funk, in his account of the first church, says: “Upon an invitation from William Penn to our distressed forefathers in the faith it is said a number of them emigrated either from Holland or the Palatinate, and settled in Germantown in 1683, and there established the first church in America.” ”

“ On November 24, 1741, Count Zinzindorf came to Philadelphia to unite the leading men of the several denominations in Pennsylvania for evangelical work. John Bechtel indorsed the movement, and Henry Antes issued a call for the first meeting in furtherance of this object to be held in Germantown. In order to command the confidence of German colonists it was necessary that the movement be recommended by one well known to the people, so Antes issued the call. ”

“ Germantown Settlement.—On March 4, 1681, a royal charter was issued to William Penn for the province of Pennsylvania, and on March 10, 1682, Penn conveyed to Jacob Telner, of Crefeld, Germany, doing business as a merchant in Amsterdam; Jan Streypers, a merchant of Kaldkirchen, a village in the vicinity of Holland, and Dirck Sipmann, of Crefeld, each 5,000 acres of land, to be laid out in Pennsylvania. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Earliest settlers were Friends and German Religionists, highly cultivated, and skilled in weaving, paper-making, printing, and other trades. First railroad in America to use steam was the Philadelphia and Reading to Germantown in 1832. ”

“ The first time we find his name in America is in the Deed Book of Philadelphia County, in February, 1723, when there was recorded a deed conveying to Antes a tract of 154 acres along the Swamp Creek. In the deed Antes is described as a resident of Germantown. On April 9, 1742, he married Elizabeth Wayman. In 1725, Philip Frederick Antes lived in Frederick Township, where he died November 28, 1746.
Henry Antes, the son, was taught the trade of carpenter and mill-wright before coming to America. He was tall in stature, of a large frame, strong physique and enjoyed robust health. ”

“ This able commission expended the $15,000 appropriated, and the new Capitol was a credit to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania when the General Assembly formally occupied it January 2, 1822.
Lucretia Mott, Celebrated Advocate of
Anti-Slavery, Born January 3, 1793
From the earliest settlement at Germantown, and especially in the period following the Revolutionary War, there were many thoughtful people in all walks of life who considered slavery to be an evil which should be stopped. ”

“ Prowell, George R. History of York County, Pa., 2 vols. Chicago, 1907.
Seidensticker, Oswald. Die erste deutsche Einwanderung in Amerika und die Gründung von Germantown im Jahre 1683. Phila., 1883.
Sewell, William. History of Friends, 2 vols. London, 1811.
Sharpless, Isaac. Two Centuries of Pennsylvania History. Phila., 1900.
Shepherd, W. R. History of Proprietary Government in Pennsylvania. New York, 1896.
Shore, W. T. John Woolman, His Life and Our Times. London, 1913.
Simpson, Henry. Lives of Eminent Philadelphians now Deceased. Phila., 1859.
Smith, C. H. Mennonites of America. ”

“ First settlers were Scotch-Irish. Chief industries, agriculture and the mining of bituminous coal; the Pittsburgh vein of rich depth and highest coking value, and three other veins, almost as rich, namely, the Waynesburg, Freeport, and Mapletown. Oil and gas production is very valuable, there are a number of gas-pumping stations within the county. The Philadelphia Gas Company has one at Brave, said to be the largest in the world; near Brave is Jollytown, with a monument to Jesse Taylor, first Greene County soldier to fall in the Civil War. ”

“ The settlers flocked into this new region from two directions. The Scots from the Cumberland Valley and other settled posts of the Province made their way westward along the Forbes military road and planted their cabins along its course. These men were loyal Pennsylvanians, and they held their lands under the Provincial Government. Other Scots came from the South, principally from the Old Dominion; they crossed the mountains by the Braddock road and occupied the fertile lands along the Monongahela and Youghiogheny Rivers and Chartiers Creek. ”

“ The town of Gettysburg has a population of some 3,500 souls, and is the capital of Adams county, Pennsylvania, the center of a blooming and bounteously-producing agricultural district. Our route to reach the place was by way of the Pennsylvania Railroad to Hanover, and thence by the Western Maryland Railroad, a distance of 250 miles from New York. The landscape thereabout is undulating, occasionally rising to hills of considerable size; but scenically there is nothing particularly attractive, aside from the beautiful farms and truck-gardens that clothe the knolls with prodigal harvests. ”

“ A number of the artisans and carpenters in the first Jamestown colony were of German descent. Peter Minuit, the famous governor of New Motherland, was a German from Wesel on the Rhine, and Jacob Leisler, leader of a popular uprising against the provincial administration of New York, was a German from Frankfort-on-Main. The wholesale migration of Germans began with the founding of Pennsylvania. Penn was diligent in searching for thrifty farmers to cultivate his lands and he made a special effort to attract peasants from the Rhine country. ”

“ The people of Johnstown, although prostrated by their misfortune, soon recovered, rebuilt their city and re-established their industrial plants, making it a more beautiful and more modern place than ever before. ”