Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1919-08-28

ed TO OkldnOma, OulIOIuln, WnSh
ington, Missouri, Idaho, Chicago
but very few have returned to the
old mother home In Pennsylvania.
However, dozens and scores of
these settlers returned each fall af-
ter the strenuous and not unproft-
able summer farm campaign to visit
relatives and their former home back
east. For "back east to them had
no significance beyond a radius of
100 miles in southeastern Pennsyl-
vania. Many thousands were thus
expended annually with lavish
hand by people who in other respects
were rigldly and abstemiously econo-
mical.
In Homestead Days.
But In the earlier or homestead
stage of migration this sturdy stock
was not without its honored quota
In 20 and II the Brenizers, the
Baers, the Towards, and the Chron-
listers, under the leadership of Geor-
ge Livingston, settled In Buckeye,
enduring the privations and hard
ships of pioneer, frontier life in the
days of the grasshopper and the un-
checked prairie breeze. Likewise in
Rhinehart and Liberty at divergent
dates in the 7O's and sos came the
Hollingers, the Betz's, the Dieder
icks, the Hassllers, the Loys, the
Zeiners, the BOnebrakes, the Hellers,
the Kellers, the Diehls, the Scherers,
and the Loys, while at College Hill
the Kuhns, and the Rhodes's had de-
veloped magnificent farm homes
with glorious apple crops in the ear
ly sos.
! Among the well known names be-
longing to this manifestly defective
list of people, who through success
sive decades have likewise joined
their fortunes with us, are those Of
Brewer, Maurer, Jacob Brown. Kug-
Her. Minick, Freed, Easter, Minter,
Focht, Mohler, Bumbaugh, Worley,
Andy Gross, Spangler, Haugh, Lesh-
er, Eicholtz, Hautz, Levi Taylor,
Saylor. Fink, Burkholder, Emig, Ha-
baker, Dierdorff, Asper, Good, Des-
senberger, Romberger, Picking, Beck,
Pyke, Schively, Kump, Boyer, Foy,
Rhinehart, Stein, Baker, Brooks,
Bruckhart, Coffenberger, Kern, Dull,
Brightbill, Witwer, Hoon, Brenne-
man-and many more.
A Widespread Element.
No foreign element in our nations
population. is as widespread nor as
evenly distributed as the German
element. 1t comprises 25 per cent of
the foreign population in the United
States.
The first German settlement in
America was at Germantown, Pa,
lin 1888. The generous policy of Will
liam Penn attracted great numbers
and varied types of Germans and
Swiss. They came from the Pala-
tinate-the Rhine country, mainly, |
moved by one or more of the three
universal motives for Immigration
commercial advantage, political free
dom, or religious liberty. Many
thousands had established themsel-
YES in the eastern counties of Penn
sylvania before the Revolution and
made of that section the bread baker
of the federal government for the
armies in the strategic
struggle. These settlements had
been recruited from time to time by
fresh accessions from the many can
tons of Switzerland, from the Rhen-
ish provinces of Germany and from
Prussia. The hired Hessian soldiers,
accustomed under the lord of Hesse
Cassel, to system of land slavery
found neither means nor motive to
return after the war and were en-
couraged, with prospects of ulti-
mately owning land themselves, to
settle among these mixed teutonic
types thus adding a new element to
the mixture of Germanic types. Out
of it all has grown a distinct char
acter and dialect known as the
Pennsylvania German.
About the Dialect.
Pennsylvania German is not Ger
man. Or If with a slight tinge Of
one calls It Pennsylvania
tDutch" 1t is not Dutch. 1t is in no
true sense a language. 1t is a dia-
lect and contemptuously made
auate one. 1t is interesting as a
~, r~,,fstf- divoreion As aciQnti- |