The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-07-30
The E,cnnsyIvnnfn Germnns.

The Pennsylvania Germans.
From the Jobnstocn (Pa) Tribune.
Many of the early settlers of Pennsylvania and
Maryland were Germans, Hollanders, and SWISS
who were driven by religious intolerance in
their own lands to seek new homes i'm free
America William Penn, the Quaker, founder
of Pennsylvania, and George Calvert, the
Catholic founder of Maryland, having secured
guarantees of civil and religious liberty in the
charters of their respective PROVINCES the
shores of the Delaware and Chesapeake natu-
rally offered an asylum to all who preferred
tolerance to intolerance in matters of religion.
During the closing year of the seventeenth cen
tury and up to the commencement of the Amert-
can Revolution in the succeeding century, many
thousands of the people we have mentioned
crossed the ocean and settled in Eastern Penn
sylyahia and Maryland. Some of them pushed
into the Shenandoah Valley i'm Virginia. The
Rhenish provinces of Germany seem to have
furnished a large proportion of the German
settlers Rhenish Bavaria (Plalz), Wurtemburg,
and Baden sent large numbers Of emgrants
Switzerland sent many thousands. There never
was very large emigration OF IOllandcrs to
Pennsylvania, the pTOws of their vessels being
generally directed towards New York.
In brief time the representatives. of the three
natiOnalities became so thoroughly interminglCd
by reason of religious ties intermarriages, sim-
larity of custom and language, aud general
harmony of interests, that they formed one
homogeneous class, by some called Pennsylvania
Germans, and by others Pennsylvania Dutch.
! The Swiss settlers ceased entirely to be called
Schwci2ers, or Swiss
With the perfect union thus established, and
familiar intercourse with the EngIish-spcaling
settlers, came a new cOllOquial and written Ian
guage, also called Pennsylvania German or
| Pennsylvania Dutch, which is still largely
| spoken, but not much written, in some sections
of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, and
| in some portions OF the Western States to which
| the descendants of the Pennsylvania Germans
emgrated. As language, it must in time yield
| at all points to the pure English and German
| tongues. Few now speak it who do not also
| speak English. 1t is mainly compound of the
| bavarian and Swiss dialects of the German lau-
| guage with many English and u few Dutch
| l1olland) words added 1t is doubtful if u
| Pcnnsylvanian German could make himself
understood in any part of Holland, Germany,
! or Switzerland to-day.
The religious belief of the early PENNSYLVANIA
| Germans was that of the Mennonites and German
| Baptists or Thinkers. The Mennonites were the
! first to come. Their first settlement in this
! country made at Germantown in 1888 the
| year after Penn commenced his settlement at
! Philadelphia. Those who settled at Germantown
! were HUllandcrs. The Mennonites who followed
them came from Holland, Germany, and Switzer-
| land. The first colony of the Brethren or Tuu-
! kers also settled at Germantown and its vicinity
| in l1l9-thirty-siX years after the first MennO-
mite settlement. They were Germans who had
! taken refuge from religious persecution in Io-
| land. Other Thinkers followed in 1929, and
| during succeeding years. America soon became
| the stronghold of the new religion. Although
IFS adherents spread into various parts of Ger
| many, Holland, and Switzerland, our researches
| led us to conclude that the most of them finally
| found their way to this country The MennO-
mites, on the other hand, are still more nume-
rous in Europe than in America, Holland being
| their stronghold. Here their founder Memo
| Simon, was born in 1905. JACOB Amen, the
leading spirit of the Amish branch of the Menno-
mite sect, was native of Switzerland.
Strictly speaking, the Tunker and Mennonite
faiths were almest identical at the time of which
| we are writing, differing only in minor par
| ticulars Both sects recognized and still recOg-
nize the Dortrecht Confession of 1882 as their
standard theological belief The points of dif-
| terence relate chiefly to church government and
| other outward observances. but even in these
! there is great similarity of practice. The Men
| uonitcs were in existence long anterior to the
Iunkers. Memo Simon, their founder, was a
| contemporary of Luther in the sixteenth CEN
tHry while the Tunkers did not have demo-
minational existence until the beginning of the
eighteenth century, their first church having
been organized in 17OS at Swartzenau, in the
| province OF Witgenstein. 1t is proper to add
that both the Tunkers and Mennontes claimed
to have received their religious faith in great
| part from the Waldenses and Albigenses, and
through them from the primitive Christians.
1t may be of interest to the reader to learn
| that Witgenstein was formerly IA small State of
about % German square miles, governed by a
count, and that half of it subsequently belonged
to the Duchy of Nassau and half to Rhenish
| Prussia. Now, since Nassau was absorbed by
| Prussia in 1868, it all belongs to the kingdom of
| Prussia.
Ninety-nine out of every hundred of the Men
| nonites and Tunllers are farmers. Their mode
of life is simple in the extreme. They dress
plainly, live frugally, and practise very strict
| code of morals. Their honesty, truthfulness
| and industrial are proverbial. They do not min
| gle much with the world, but are stayers at
home, minding their own business and minding
it WELL Poverty is almost unknown among
them. They are slow to abandon the customs OF
their fathers, and do not readily adopt modern
innovations of any kind. They were originally
opposed to the common school system but now
almost unanimously favor it. They are op-
posed to war, and generally settle all disputes
among themselves without going to law.
We have said that the Mennonites and
Tunkers were the first of the German settlers of
our State, and to this we now add that they con-
stitute to-day a very large portion of our old
Pennsylvania German population, especially i'm
the rural districts. Lutherans, Morayians, and
representatives of otherreligious denominations
followed them from Germany, but did not pre-
cede them Whole sections of our State are in
| habited by them. They early spread into the
fertile Cumberland valley, and thence pushed
| into Bedford, Somerset and Cambria counties.
few of them crossed the Chestnut Ridge and
Laurel Hill into Westmoreland Indiana and
other western counties of the State Their set
| tlement in Cambria county was made during the
closing year of the last century, in and around
| JohnstoWn, in what was then called the "Cone-
Il " hi,