Local History: Chapters XI & XII: The Germans & The Welsh: Bean's 1884 History of Montgomery Co, PA Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Susan Walters USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: Printing this file by non-commercialindividuals and libraries is encouraged, as long as allnotices and submitter information is included. Any otheruse, including copying files to other sites requires permission from the submitters PRIOR to uploadingto any other sites. We encourage links to the state and county table of contents. ¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼ BEAN'S HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA ¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼¼ 133 CHAPTER XI. THE GERMANS. Among the various nationalities that settled Montgomery County, the German was an important one, and their descendants at this day within its limits are the most numerous. In less than a year after the landing of William Penn a colony of Germans, chießy from Creisheim and Creyfelt, arrived in October, 1683, and shortly afterwards founded the village of Germantown. The Proprietary had been among them in their native land, and encouraged them to come. Here liberty of conscience had now been proclaimed, and an exemption from tithes, though neither was tolerated in Great Britain, or even to a very limited extent along the valley of the Rhine, where also were the frontier lines of powerful France, and the frequent wars of Germany, the results of which combined were all powerful incentives to emigration to those more peaceably and liberally disposed. To facilitate this a company was organized at Frankfort-on-the-Main, and numerous pamphlets circulated throughout Germany in the language of its people, setting forth the peculiar advantages of the distant colony. Hence it need not be a wonder that the weaker of the persecuted sects were disposed to come first, for no matter however strong the attachments of nativity, the Fatherland presented from their experience in the past, no bright or sanguine future. The doctrines of the Reformation had been established almost a century and a half; yet, through the connection of church and state the progress to toleration was very slow. Francis Daniel Pastorius, in his "Beschreibung Pennsylvania" (published at Leipzic, 1700) under, the date Oct 24, 1685 gives the following account of the settlement: "With the wish and concurrence of our Governor, I lay out and planned a new town, which we call Germantown, or Germanopolis, is a very fine and fertile district, with plenty of springs of fresh water, being well supplied with oak-, walnut- and chestnut-trees and having beside excellent and abundant pasturage for the cattle. At the commencement there were but twelve families of forty-one individuals, consisting mostly of German mechanics and weavers. Our German society have in this place now established a lucrative trade in woolen and linen goods, together with a large assortment of other useful and necessary articles." He enumerates the lot-holders as Tunis Conderts, John Strepers, Dirck, Herman, and Abraham Opdegraef, Paul Wolff, Jacob and Peter Schumacher, Johannes Kassell, Rynier Tissen, Jan Lucken, Gerhard Heinrich, David Sherkges, Wigart Levering, Gerhard Levering, Isaac Sheffer, Andreas Souplis, William Claus, and Dirck Rittenhouse, Dirck Keyser Sr., and William Strepers. The aforesaid names have since been more or less Anglicized, so that their present nationality is barely, perceptible. Several of these afterwards became early settlers of Montgomery County, where nearly all have now numerous descendants, residing. To these early Germans we find frequent compliments paid by the other settlers for their character, industry, business habits, and promotion of the prosperity of the colony. Richard Townsend, who arrived here in the "Welcome" with Penn, in November 1682, thus speaks of them in his "Testimony". "About a year after our arrival there came in about twenty families from High and Low Germany of religious, good people, who settled about six miles from Philadelphia and called the place Germantown." Robert Turner, in a letter to William Penn from Philadelphia, dated third of 6th month, 1685, states therein that "the Germans are manufacturing linen finely." He also adds that "Pastorius, the German Friend, with his people, are preparing to make brick next year." William Rittenhouse, in 1690, on a branch of the Wissahickon, built the first papermill in the British colonies of America. Though these Germans consisted of but forty-one persons, yet such was their enterprise that within five years of their first settlement they had erected upwards of fifty houses. Sypher, in his "History of Pennsylvania," in speaking of these Germans, states that they "were an industrious and intelligent, as well as a devout Christian people. Many highly-educated men were among them, who became inßuential and useful citizens, and aided materially in conducting the affairs of the province." A majority of these early Germans became members of the Society of Friends, and they had not been in Pennsylvania five-years, before they were shocked at the system of Negro slavery that prevailed and was Maintained and countenanced by the English colonists. The result was a protest addressed to the Monthly Meeting, dated from Germantown the 18th of the 2d. month, 1688, and subscribed by Garret Henderich, Dreick Updegraf, Francis Daniel Pastorius, and Abraham Updegraef as this was the first paper or document ever issued in English America against 134 the iniquities of buying, selling, and keeping human being in bondage. It demands for these people that and honor that justice and honor that has been too long withheld from them. At a meeting at Richard Worrell's in Lower Dublin, the fifth of said month, it was referred to the Quarterly Meeting in Philadelphia, and from thence to the Yearly Meeting held at Burlington, where, on the 5th of 7th month, as their minutes state, "A Paper being here presented by some German Friends Concerning the Lawfulness and Unlawfulness of Buying and keeping Negroes, It was adjudged not to be so proper for this Meeting to give a Positive Judgment in the case, it having so General a Relation to many other Parts, and therefore at present they forbear it." Concerning themselves as a body, the Friends did not approach this matter until 1758, after the long period of seventy years had elapsed. The start, however, made by these Germans was so powerful in its effect on their countrymen, the Mennonites, Dunkards, and all other of their sects, as to cause them to abstain almost entirely from holding Negroes in bondage, and hence the great exemption from an early period of the present territory of Montgomery County from the evils arising from African slavery. This result was also clearly established in Bucks, Chester, Berks, and Northampton Counties, where the German townships were almost entirely clear therefrom. On the 7th of May, 1691, Thomas Lloyd, as Deputy Governor, granted naturalization to Dirck, Herman, and Abraham Opdegraef, Johannes Cassels, Jacob Schumacher, Dirck Keyser, Arnold Cassel, Peter Dirck Keyser, Peter Schumacher, Sr., Peter Schumacher, Jr., William and Claus Rittinghuysen, Johannes Kusters, Heinrich Unchholt, Isaac and Mathias Jacobs, Wigert Levering, Isaac Sheffer, Paul Wolff, William Streepers, Johannes Bleickers, Reiner Herman, Andreas Souplis, David Scherkes, Hans Peter Umstat, Reinert Tissen, Jan Lucken, Peter Klever, Heinrich Frey, Hans Andreas, Kramer Jurgen, Isaac Schumacher, Peter Kurlis, Gerhard Levering, and Jan Williams. About three-fourths of this number settled withinn the limits of the present county, where their descendants are still numerous. Mathias Van Bebber purchased a tract of six thousand one hundred and sixty-six acres of land, which by patent dated Feb. 22, 1702, was located on the Skippack Creek, constituting about one half of the southern portion of what is now Perkiomen township. Van Bebber began thus early for so remote a distance from the city, to invite settlement by selling it off in parcels. Among the settlers prior to the close of 1703 were Heinrich Pennebacker, Johannes Kuster, Johannes Umstat, Claus Jansen, and Jan Frey; John Jacob, in 1704; Edward Beer, Gerhard and Herman Indehoffen, and Dirck and William Renberg, before the close of 1707. In 1708 we find here William and Cornelius Dewes, Herman Kuster, Christopher Zimmerman, Johannes Scholl, and Daniel Desmond followed in 1709 by Jacob, Johannnes and Martin Kolb and John Strayer. The settlement so increased that Van Bebber gave one hundred acreas towards a Mennonite meeting house, which, was, built prior to 1726, its trustees being, Heinrich Seller, Herman Kuster, Claus Jansen, Michael Zeigler, and Martin, Henry, and Jacob Kolb. Henry Frey, who settled in this vicinity, is stated to have arrived in the Colony two years before the landing of Penn. But even prior to the Skippack settlement there is reason to believe that some of those Germantown settlers had located themselves in some of the lower townships, as, for instance, Cheltenham, Springfield, White Marsh, Abington, Moreland, and Upper Dublin; for the Shoemakers, the Tysons, the Snyders, Clines, Ottingers, Cleavers, Redwitzers, Rinkers, Bartlestalls, Melchers, Leverings, Reiffs, Conrads, Lukenses, and Yerkeses were located pretty early there, and became substantial landholders. It is not the design to enter here minutely into the names even of the early and conspicuous German settlers over the county, for that more properly belongs to the local history of the several townships; the object now being only a general treatment of what relates to the subject. "The period from 1702 to 1727," says Professor I. D. Rupp, "marks an era in the early emigration. Between forty and fifty thousand left their native country." From 1708 to 1711 a considerable body came from the Palatinate of the Rhine. The Dunkards and the Mennonites arrived in the former year, and at first settled around Germantown, where they built places of worship and a schoolhouse. Many had gone first to England, on the invitation of Queen Anne, at whose bounty not a few of who were transported to America. Before their departure, Anton Wilhelm Boehm, the court chaplain of St. James, furnished hundreds of them with religious and useful books. Those who came between 1720 and 1730 were occasionally accompanied by their pastors and school-teachers. Where clergymen were wanting in their religious assemblages their places were supplied in part by the teachers, who read sermons and prayers and taught the singing of hymns, after the manner of the Fatherland. Among the German Lutherans the congregation established at New Hanover, and so long known as the Swamp, was the earliest established in America Justus Falkner, its first pastor, came there in 1703, having been ordained and sent by Andreas Rudman, the Swedish provost at Philadelphia. In 1717 the Rev. Gerhard Henkel settled there, besides, from 1720 to the fall of 1723, they were frequently visit by the Rev. Samuel Hesselius, the Swedish pastor from Mortlatton, eight miles distant. In 1732, Rev. Christian Shultze became pastor, and in 1733 was sent to Europe by the congregation to secure aid in the erection of churches and for additional pastors. When the Rev. H. M. Muhlenberg arrived, in November 1742 he found this Congregation worshiping 135 in a log church, and numbering at least one hundred and twenty member-, and at the Trappe about fifty members, who built a church the following year, besides a considerable body in Philadelphia. Professor I. D. Rupp estimates that this denomination in the province may have comprised in 1731 seventeen thousand members. Next among the German sects can be placed the German Reformed, who in 1731 had a membership of fifteen thousand, having chiefly immigrated from the Palatinate and the districts of Nassau, Waldeck, Witzenstein, and Wetterau. John Philip Boehm, who arrived here in 1720, though not at first a regular or ordained minister, yet before 1727 had established congregations to whom he preached in White Marsh, Skippack, or Salford, and New Hanover. He also founded the church in Whitpaine in 1740, since known his name. The Rev. George Michael Weiss, a graduate of the Heidelberg University arrived here in September 1727, with a company of several hundred immigrants, and preached for the Skippack congregation. In the erection of houses for worship the Mennonites and Dunkards preceded the Lutherans and German Reformed. Among the latter Peter Becker and Alexander Mack were early and prominent ministers. Owing to the wars and persecution the Schwenkfelders did not arrive in province until 1734 to 1740, after which they ceased coming. The immigration of so many "foreigners," as they were termed, alarmed the English colonists. They feared, like Logan and Franklin, that even Pennsylvania might cease to be a British province. The matter was brought before the Assembly in 1717, and naturalization refused to all coming hither who could not speak the English language. In 1729 fears were further aroused, and under instructions of the borne government the Assembly passed an act imposing a duty for the English government of forty shillings per head on all foreigners that should land here. The German citizen viewed this as a gross outrage, on which they entered an earnest but patriotic protest. The Assembly now appointed a committee to examine into the situation and conduct of these people. Their report stated "that the Germans who had been directly imported into the province had purchased and honestly paid for their lands, had conducted themselves respectfully towards the government, paid their taxes readily, and were sober and honest people in their religious and civil duties." During this period the correspondence of James Logan, William Allen, Jonathan Dickeson, James Hamilton, Richard Peters and others in the Proprietary interest go to show the most unfounded prejudices entertained against the Germans. In 1727, James Logan stated six thousand more are expected to arrive, and hopes that this emigration may be prevented in the future acts of Parliament, else he fears that these colonies will in time be lost to the crown, and, further, if their numbers continue at this rate, will soon produce a German colony here, and perhaps such a one as Britain once received from Saxony in the fifth century. In the beginning of 1731 a petition was sent to the Assembly by Germans inhabiting the county of Philadelphia, wherein they pray "that they maybe permitted to enjoy the right and privileges of English subjects." Among the names are those of Peter Wentz, Michael Zeigler, Valentine Hunsicker, Nicholas Lesher, John Nicholas Kressman, Johannes Langnecker, Antonius Hallman, John George Reiff, Peter Reiff, Conrad Reiff, Gerhard Peters, Johannes Schaffer, Henry Pennebacker, John Snyder, George Merkle, and Daniel Langnecker. These were all residents within the present limits of Montgomery. However just, what result attended this efforts is not known. Governor George Thomas, in a letter dated April 23, 1747 expresses himself that "the Germans of Pennsylvania are, I believe, three-fifths of the population (200,000). They have by their industry been the principal instruments of raising the State to its present flourishing condition beyond any of his Majesty's colonies in North America." His estimate appear sufficiently high, making sixty Germans to every one hundred of the total population. While the Germans have been landed as agriculturists by such writers as Robert Proud, Thomas F. Gordon, Sherman Day, Rebecca Eaton, Charles B. Trego, and others, the subject of their intelligence and culture, in contrast with those who came from Great Britain, has been carefully if not studiously avoided. From an early period the Germans have endeavored to acquire the English as an additional means to knowledge for which purpose they have in the past published as aids for the use of their schools a number of books. In 1747, Christopher Sower published at Germantown a work entitled "Eine Deutsch und Englische Grammatik, besonders geignet fur Deutsuhe welche English lernen wollen." No work is known to have been published here so early for the English to acquire German, though no doubt there were works used here then to learn French. Even in 1809, at the small town of Easton, the "Englischen Sprachlehrer" was published, and many more such can be enumerated over the State. To this day the intelligent reader of any of our numerous Pennsylvania German newspapers has no difficulty in understanding the Bible of Luther or the works of the greatest authors in the Fatherland. With four times the population of England to draw on in Europe, and the immense and continuous emigration hither, and that to the very best sections of this great country, a knowledge of the language becomes only the more necessary. In the general diffusion of school education to this day no portion of Great Britain can approach Germany. Hence we find many of the early Germans here, men of extensive acquirements, possessing a 136 knowledge of ancient and modern languages as well as of vocal and instrumental music. Indeed very few could be found among them who could not read and write, though "his X mark" is often found here on deeds of the colonial period, made too "by his Majesty's true born subjects." An educated people will support books and periodicals, and this the Germans did here though under the greatest possible disadvantages. As far back at least as 1738 they commenced here the publication of almanacs, school books, and religious works of various kinds. Christopher Sower, at Germantown, commenced Aug. 20, 1739, his "Hochdeutch Pennsylvanische Geschichtschreiber", the first newspaper printed in the province outside of Philadelphia, followed by two more in the city in 1743 and 1751. The almanac for 1738 for size and matter was far superior to those that had preceded it in the English. The first Bible printed in a European language in America was in 1743 by Mr. Sower, in a magnificent FAC-SIMILE OF FIRST PAGE "Hochdeutch Pensylvanische Geschicht-Schreiber" Aug 20, 1739 APPEARS HERE. 137 edition of twelve hundred copies, each containing twelve hundred and eighty-four quarto pages. It was German labor that made the type, the ink, the paper, and the binding the German too, bore the expense, and, better still his countrymen here gave it generous encouragement. Christopher Sower, Jr., after his fathers death, in 1763, issued a second edition of two thousand copies, and a third in 1776 of three thousand, beside, having published nearly two hundred other works, some of which were in English. No Bible was printed in the English until 1780 by Robert Aiken, in Philadelphia, and in New England eleven years later. The translation and publication in 1748 by the Ephrata Brethren, of Van Braght's "Blutige Schauplatz oder Martyrer Spiegel" from the Dutch was another wonderful undertaking for the time, a folio of over fifteen hundred pages, occupying the labor of fifteen men for three years, and in magnitude exceeding all works previously published in this country, its subject being "The Persecution of Christians from the Time of Christ to the Year 1660". During the colonial period, for their education as well as, instruction in Christianity, the German missionaries, Zeisberger, Pyrlaeus, Schmick, and Heckewelder, had several schools successfully established among the Indians, and spelling books, hymns, and sermons published for their use, both in the Delaware and Iroquois languages, besides preparing thereon grammars and dictionaries, -monuments of their devotion, learning, and disinterested benevolence. The intelligence of the Germans made a profound impression on Franklin, who, in a letter to Peter Collinson of May 9, 1753, thus expresses himself: "They import many books from Germany, and of the six printing-houses in the province two are entirely German, two half-German and half-English, and but two are entirely English. They have one German newspaper and one half-German. Advertisements intended to be general are now printed in German and English. "The signs in our streets have inscriptions in both languages, and some places only in, German. They begin of late to make all their bonds and other legal instruments in their own language, which are allowed good in our courts, where the German business so increases that there is continued need of interpreters, and I suppose in a few years they will also be necessary in the Assembly to tell one-half our legislators what the other half says. "In short, unless the stream of importation could be turned from this to other colonies, as you very judiciously propose, they will soon outnumber us, that all that advantage, we have will, in my opinion, be not able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious." Though the Germans had their own printer yet through researcher Professor Seidensticker ascertained that Franklin had actually printed for them in their own language between fifty and sixty works, perhaps a greater number than had issued from his press for English patrons. It was chießy from the German farmers of Pennsylvania that Franklin secured the horses and wagons to transport the baggage, ammunition, and provisions for Braddock's expedition, and which old settled Virginia, where he had landed, could not supply. In 1760 the produce of Pennsylvania was so great that it required between eight and nine thousand wagons for its transportation to Philadelphia. This came chießy from the German districts, from whence, too, the celebrated Conestoga teams. Dr. Rush in his interesting account of the German inhabitants of Pennsylvania, written in 1789, states that "the principal part are farmers, but there, were many mechanics, who brought with them a knowledge of those arts which are necessary and useful in all countries. These mechanics were chießy weavers, tailor, tanners, shoemakers, comb-makers, smiths of all kind, butchers, paper-makers, watchmakers, sugar-bakers," etc. However, he does not touch on their intellectual condition, that they had teachers of languages, of music, of painting, or that they had written and published here numerous works in their language. The Rev. George Michael Weiss, who probably spoke Latin as well as Drs. Franklin or Rush could English, advertised in the American Weekly Mercury of February, 1729, that he would teach logic, natural philosophy, metaphysics, and other branches to those that desired it. Christopher Dock, long a teacher in Skippack and vicinity, wrote a work on school-teaching, published in German by Sower in 1770, which his recent biographer, S. W. Pennypacker, says is one of the very few works of the colonial period treating on this subject. Charles Fortman, a graduate of one of the German universities, taught Latin, French, English, and German, as well as vocal and instrumental music, in 1803 and subsequent years at Norristown, and also in Bucks County. He was the first teacher to introduce into Montgomery and Bucks the use of the pianoforte. In the adjoining county of Bucks several German Churches are known to have had organs in them before the year 1800, while among the English-speaking congregation there they are only of recent introduction. The manufacture of these instruments commenced at Allentown by Germans at the close of the Revolution. The date of their introduction into the several churches of Montgomery County would be an interesting subject for inquiry. The Legislature of Pennsylvania has voted that at the expense or the State two statues are placed in the Capitol at Washington to represent two of its most notable men. For this honor Gen. Peter Muldenberg, a native and long resident of this County, and Robert Fulton have been selected. Carefully, comparing the merits of the former warrior and statesmen with Gen. Wayne the preference seems just, but as to the other, the claims of David Rittenhouse as a distinguished civilian are, on the whole, too superior 138 to be readily set aside by the one whom the choice was given. Had this also fallen to the lot of Rittenhouse, Montgomery County and the Germans race would have been doubly honored for here he resides from infancy into middle life and made his great philosophical discoveries as well as inventions. The fame of the early high clocks made in this county by Rittenhouse, Lukens, Soliday, Seip, and others belongs also to the Germans. In the beginning of this article it is stated that the German element in Montgomery County is the strongest. In a list of all-resident taxable and landholders of the several townships within the present county in 1734 the total is 760, of whom 395 bear German surnames. The census of 1870 gives to the county 144 houses of worship. Of this number the exclusive German sects have 68, as follows: Lutherans, 25; German Reformed, 10; Mennonite, 10; Dunkards, 9; Evangelical Association, 9; and Schwenkfelders, 5. Of the balance, it is estimated that one-fourth may be fairly allowed the German element, which would actually, make two-thirds of the total number, which, it must, be confessed, appears high. However, this is not as strange as the result of a recent investigation made at Bucks County. At the County Institute, held at Doylestown in October, 1882, of 284 teachers present, 147 bore German surnames, 107 English, 8 Scotch and Irish, 8 Welsh, and the balance of 14 Dutch and French. It is to be regretted that in the settlement of the several townships, within the present limits of Montgomery County no satisfactory means are possessed to denote the, progress of the Germans where they came in contact with the other nationalities, the Welsh excepted, who located here somewhat earlier and in considerable bodies, so that records of their settlements are still to be obtained. The Scotch-Irish came here considerably later and nowhere in sufficient numbers to form a distinct settlement, while the English settled numerously in Cheltenham, Abington, Moreland, and Horsham, keeping generally nearer the city. It has cost no little labor to present the statistics given of the present result of the occupation of the soil here as originally made nearly two centuries ago by the several nationalities of Europe. Dr. Rush has observed nearly a century ago that where the German locates himself he designs to stay, and some of our recent writers; state that he belongs to an aggressive race, that through his attachment to the soil even his footprints are not readily obliterated by the sands of time. According to the list of 1734 in Montgomery Township the resident taxable numbered 29, of whom 22 were Welsh and not a German name. In the assessors list of 1776, in a total 74 the Welsh numbered 24 and the Germans 18, while in the list for 1883 the latter constitute a majority of the whole, which is, additionally confirmed by the names of the landholders on the on the township map in Scott's Atlas for 1877. In Gwynedd in 1734 we find 48 names, of which 39 are Welsh and 1 German; in 1776 of 114 taxable the Germans total of 55, and now are largely in majority. Plymouth in 1734 contained 16 taxables, of which 9 were Welsh and 1 German; in 1780 of a total of 93, the Germans had attained to 30 and the Welsh numbered but 13. In White Marsh in 1734 of 50 taxable; 5 were Germans; in 1780 in a total of 163, 70 were German, who possibly constitute a majority. The wealthy township of Springfield has become well Germanized; three-fourths of its present landholders bearing names from the Fatherland. In Cheltenham in 1734 the Germans did not number one-sixth of the whole; in 1776 they had reached almost to one-third. Lower Merion in 1734 continued 52 taxables, of which 46 bore Welsh names and not a German. In a total of 153 in 1780, the latter had reached 27, or nearly one-sixth, while the Welsh names was reduced to 34. Of 35 taxables in Upper Dublin in 1734, 6 were German; in 1776 of 109 the latter numbered 44, and now they possess a majority. In Upper and Lower Providence in 1734 the Germans numbered 25 in a total or 74, and from an examination of the landholders of those townships in Scott's Atlas, estimate that they now comprise three-fourths of the total population there. Franconia, adjoining Montgomery township, of its 34 taxable in 1734, 20 were German; on the map now of its landholders there can be found on, four that are not German. In the townships of Upper Hanover, New Hanover, Perkiomen, and Upper Salford, so solid are they that among the landholders there cannot be found one that is not a German. One fact has now been proven here as, in our other counties, -that in perseverance and energy the German descendant is fully the equal, if not the superior, of the others he has come in contact with. If slow, he is sure and progressive, never going backwards. "There is nowhere in all America," says an editorial in the "Public Ledger" of 1856, "an agricultural population, the members of which personally till the soil, that has such thews and sinews, such a healthy development, or such generally prolonged life as our much-abused Pennsylvania Dutchmen." In concluding this article on our German element, upon which so little has been written, there remains one matter to, which may be given a brief allusion, -the inßuence it is exerting. A late writer in "Harper's Magazine," speaking of the German inßux into the Mississippi Valley, stated it would not long before they would there become the dominant element. This development is changing the national character, as may be seen in the increasing observance of Christmas, New Year's, Good Friday, Easter, and in birthday, silver and golden wedding festivals. Montgomery County has now been settled two centuries by different European nationalities, most prominent of which have been the Germans, the English, the Irish, The Welsh, the Swedes and the French. 139 CHAPTER XII. THE WELSH by William J. Buck Although the present territory of Montgomery County within the Schuylkill valley may have been pretty well explored by the Dutch, Swedes and English, in the pursuit of beaver and other peltries from the Indians, for forty years before the arrival of Penn, yet no evidence exists of any permanent settlement having been made within said time by Europeans upon this soil. Those engaged in the traffic were actuated entirely by a love for gain, and in no way concerned for the improvement or material development of the country. As the supply of furs diminished through the activity of the pursuit, these adventurous spirits, in consequence, had to seek new fields, and thus one section would be abandoned for another. True, along the valley of the Delaware, south of the present city of Trenton, the Swedes had secured a foothold by attaching themselves to the cultivation of the soil, but it was hardly ever beyond the landing of their canoes. To them great honor is due for the peaceable relations that they so long maintained here with the Indians, thus making it a comparatively easy task, by the example set him, for William Penn in continuing the policy that Queen Christiana had so long before strictly enjoined, should be carried out with the natives for their lands, -that they should be treated with justice and moderation, and, a step further, that they should be instructed in the Christian religion, for which purpose schools were established and catechisms and portions of the gospels and doctrines translated into their language, the evidences of which exist unto this day. In securing his province from the British King, the chief aim of William Penn was to insure an asylum or refuge for the persecuted of his denomination, and of all others that professed faith in Christianity. For these liberal views he deserves credit, although they had been carried out for some time previously by Roger Williams and Lord Baltimore. From the circumstances of his position he could not do otherwise. In pailiation for persecution, it was their resistance to the established laws of the land that in many cases brought the earliest immigrants hither, no matter whether from the British Isles or along the whole course and valley of the Rhine, -namely, the refusal to bear arms or do military duty and the non-payment of church-rates or tithes. To the former our own government has even not yielded, as shown in the late great Rebellion, and as to the latter, is still enforced by almost every nationality in Europe. However unjust the compulsory payment may be to an established church, this was certainly avoided in coming to Penn's distant colony, and was no small gain, when one-tenth of the farmer's products were required. It was probably as much the resistance to the two aforesaid enactment's that led to fines and imprisonment as in promulgating or joining new doctrines that were regarded by those in power at variance with their own long-established principles. It was these several cause that chießy led to early immigration hither from Wales, the larger proportion of which were Friends, the Baptists being next in number. A few, it appears, were Episcopalians, who in some cases, were induced to follow from a relationship existing with those who, left on account of persecution or conscientious scruples. In this county the date of settlement appears very close with the English in Cheltenham, but the honor of priority appears due to the Welsh. These people before the arrival of Penn had purchased in England from him forty thousand acres of land, which was subsequently located in Merion, Haverford, Goshen and extending partly into several adjoining townships. Under this encouragement, the ship "Lyon," John Compton, master, arrived with forty passengers, in the Schuylkill River, August 13, 1682. Almost two months preceding Penn's arrival, on board of which was Edward Jones, "chirurgeon," with his family, who on the following 26th, sent a letter to John Ap Thomas, residing near Bala, in North Wales, wherein he states, "The Indians brought venison to our door for sixpence ye quarter. There are stones to be had enough at the Falls of Skoolkill, that is where we are to settle, and waterpower enough for mills, but thou must bring mill-stones and the irons that belong to it, for smiths are dear. They use both hooks and sickles to reap with." We have the authority of John Hill's map of the environs of Philadelphia, published in 1809, that the aforesaid made "the first British settlement, 18th of 6th month, 1682," being only five days after his arrival in the Schuylkill. The place designated thereon is now the estate of his descendant, the late Colonel Owen Jones, near the present Libertyville, in Lower Merion, and is certainly an early claim, for Philadelphia had not then been founded. In the following November, Dr. Thomas Wynne arrived with his family in the ship "Welcome" with William Penn. He settled beside his son- in-law Edward Jones. From him originated the name of Wynnewood. John Roberts came from, Pennychlawd, Denbighshire, in 1683, a millwright by occupation, and is supposed to have erected the third mill in the province. Among those who followed and settled early in Lower Merion may be mentioned Robert Owen, John Thomas, Thomas Owen, Hugh Roberts, Rowland Ellis, Robert Jones, John Cadwallader, Benjamin Humphreys and others. William Penn, by an order dated Pennsbury, 13th of First Month, 1684, directed Thomas Holmes, his surveyor general to lay out the tract to which reference has been made. He therein states, "I do hereby charge 140 thee and strictly require thee to lay out ye sd tract of Land in an uniform manner, conveniently as may be, upon the West side of Skoolkill river, running three miles upon ye same, and two miles backwards, and then extend ye parallel with the river six miles and to run westwardly so far as till the said quantity of land be completely surveyed unto them." This survey is known to have been made before the end of the aforesaid year. Owing to the continued immigration from Wales this tract within the first forty years was pretty well taken up and settled upon. One matter caused them considerable uneasiness. They had expected, and no doubt were promised that by thus locating together, they should all be under one municipal government, which would enable them the better to manage their own affairs. When the division line was run between Philadelphia and Chester Counties by order of the Governor's Council, passed 8th of Second Month, 1685, the said tract became divided, and only that portion since known as Lower Merion township retained in Philadelphia and the balance left to Chester. This gave rise to a great deal of dissatisfaction, in which they proceeded almost to the verge of rebellion. The inhabitants of Radnor and Haverford refused to recognize the validity of said line, and in 1689 cast their votes for members of Assembly in Philadelphia. These were set aside as invalid. The result was that Griffith Owen and other inhabitants of the Welsh tract sent a long statement of their grievances to the commissioners the 13th of Tenth Month, 1690: "We the Inhabitants of the Welsh tract in the Province of Pennsylvania, in America, being descended of the Ancient Britains, who always in the land of our Nativity, under the Crown of England, have enjoyed that liberty and privilege as to have our bounds and limits by ourselves, within which all causes, quarrels, crimes and titles were tryed and wholly determined by officers, magistrates, juries of our own language, which were our equals. Having our faces towards these Countries, made the motion to our Governor that we might enjoy the same here, which thing did he soon grant before he or they were ever come to these parts, and when he came over he gave forth his warrant to lay out 40,000 acres of land to the intent we might live together here, and enjoy our liberty and Devotion in our own Language as afore in our Country, and on the 40,000 acres was surveyed out and by his own warrant Confirmed by several Orders from the Commissioners of ye Proprietary, and settled upon already with near four score settlements." In the aforesaid extract we see a strong, prevailing sentiment -the pride of ancestry -and an uncommon zeal evinced for the due preservation and perpetuation of their ancient language. Those that had settled so early in the townships of Upper and Lower Merion, it would appear, belonged chießy to the Society of Friends. In the latter district they erected, in 1695, the first house of worship in the county, a temporary structure of logs. This, in 1713, was supplanted by a substantial stone edifice, which is still standing and therefore ranks now as one of the oldest buildings used for the purpose in Pennsylvania. The population of the Welsh had increased so by continuous immigration and settlement in the two townships that out of eighty-four resident taxable in 1734, sixty-eight were actually of that nationality, being consider. Ably over three-fourths the whole number. About the beginning of 1698, William, John and Thomas AP Evan purchased of Robert Turner, a merchant of Philadelphia, seven thousand eight hundred and twenty acres in the present Gwynedd, being the larger portion of the township. The last-named purchaser settled on this tract, and was soon after joined by his brothers, Cadwallader, Owen and Robert AP Evan. In July of said year more Welsh immigrants arrived in the ship "Robert and Elizabeth," among whom were William John (since changed to Jones), Hugh Griffith, Ellis David, Robert Jones, Edward Foulke, John Hugh and John Humphrey. All these, except the last two, were originally Episcopalians, who afterwards joined the Friends. Edward Foulke came from Merionethshire, North Wales. He embarked at Liverpool with his wife, four sons and five daughters, and arrived in Philadelphia July 17, 1698, where he was kindly treated and entertained by his former acquaintances that had preceded him. Having purchased a tract of seven hundred acres in Gwynedd, he removed thereon the beginning of the following November. Having become sufficiently numerous, the Welsh Friends, in 1700, erected in Gwynedd a small log building for worship in the centre of the township. There is a tradition that William Penn, accompanied by his daughter Letitia and a servant, came out on horseback to visit the settlement shortly after its erection. And that he preached in it, staying, on this occasion, overnight at the house of his friend, Thomas Evans; the first settler, whom resided nearby. His return to England in November 1701 will nearly determine the time that he made this visit. Owing to the inßux of more Welsh settlers, a larger stone building was determined on, which was erected in 1712 In a petition from this settlement, which is therein called North Wales, dated June 1764, praying for a road through Germantown to Philadelphia, it is stated that they then numbered thirty families. The list of 1734 gives Gwynedd forty-eight resident taxable of which number thirty-nine bear Welsh surnames. Immediately adjoining Gwynedd on the north is Montgomery Township, which, according to the report of Rev. Evan Evans bore this name at least as early as 1707. Here John Evans, William James, Thomas James, Josiah James, James Lewis, David Williams, David Hugh and James Davis settled before 1720. In this year they built the first Baptist Church in the county, above the present Montgomeryville, in which preaching in the Welsh language was maintained down to the Revolution. In the list of 1734, out of twenty-eight residents in Montgomery, nineteen bear Welsh surnames. Before 1703, David Meredith, Thomas Owen, Isaac Price, Ellis Pugh and Hugh Jones, all from Wales, had settled in Plymouth Township where in 1734 they numbered nine out of its sixteen residents. Abraham Davis and David 141 Williams had settled in Whitemarsh before 1703. Stephen Jenkins, in 1698, purchased four hundred and thirty-seven acres adjoining the present borough of Jenkintown, after whose descendants the place has been called. Before 1710, Robert Llewellyn and Evan Hugh bad settled in Upper Merion. The Rev. Malachi Jones, from Wales, organized at Abington, in 1714, the first Presbyterian congregation in the county, and here five years later, a church was built. Evan Lloyd, who settled in Horsham in 1719, was one of the first ministers they're of the Friends meeting, whose original membership was probably one-third Welsh. From the list of 1734 we ascertain that the Welsh at that date outnumbered, in a total of 760 names, the English in the proportion of 181 to 163, thus constituting at that time almost one-fourth the entire population within the present limits of the county. With the cessation of religious persecution, the Welsh almost ceased coming, and this is one reason for their having since so diminished. According to the assessment of Lower Merion in 1780, out of 153 taxable only 34 bore Welsh names; in Upper Merion for said year, out of 173 taxable, 36 are Welsh; is Gwynedd for 1776, of 143, only 43 are Welsh; in Montgomery for said year, of 74, but 24 are Welsh; and in Plymouth in 1780, of 93, only 13 are Welsh. The disproportion at present has become still greater. That the early Welsh possessed a pride of country, language, ancestry and other characteristic traits somewhat at variance with the views entertained by their English neighbors here will admit of no doubt. That they are the direct lineal descendants of the ancient Britons, with little or no admixture of foreign blood, will not be denied. That they fought valiantly in resisting the invasion of the Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans, as they withdrew to their mountain fastness, will not be disputed. Next to the Irish, the Welsh is now regarded as one of the oldest living languages spoken in Europe. Essentially it is the same language that Caesar and Agricola heard on their first landing on the British shores, and in consequence deserves to be regarded with veneration as the only living link that unites those distant ages with the present. But the English language is in. Debated to it but little, so strongly is it Saxon and Latin. Rev. Joseph Harris, with ideas like some of the genealogists among his countryman, stated, in the "Seren Gomer," a work he edited in 1814, that "it is supposed by some, and no one can disprove it, that Welsh was the language spoken by Adam and Eve in Paradise." In their petition of grievances to Penn's commissioners in 1690, they particularly specify therein that they are descended from the "Ancient Britains," and desire that they may enjoy their "own language as afore in our Country." Rowland Ellis, a minister among Friends, arrived here in 1686, and settled in Lower Merion, where he made himself useful to his countrymen as in interpreter and translator in their intercourse with the English. Bowden, in his "History of Friends in America," states that "the members of his meeting being Welsh people, his ministry was in that language." Ellis Pugh, who arrived in 1687 and soon after settled in Plymouth township, wrote a religious work there in Welsh, entitled "A Salutation to the Britains," which was translated by Rowland Ellis, and printed in Philadelphia in 1727, making a duodecimo of two hundred and twenty-two pages. Respecting Hugh Griffith and the brothers Robert and Cadwallader Evans, who settled in Gwynedd, Samuel Smith remarks in his "History of Pennsylvania," said that they "could neither read or write in any but the Welsh language." The subscription paper for the rebuilding of their meeting-house, in 1712, was written in Welsh, to which was affixed sixty-six names. Edward Foulke, of this congregation, wrote an account and genealogy of his family in 1702 in Welsh, which was afterwards translated by his grandson, Samuel Foulke. The late Hugh Foulke, a life-long resident of Gwynedd, who died in 1864, aged seventy-six years, exhibited to the writer in 1855 the family Bible of Hugh Griffith in Welsh, printed in London in 1654. Dr George Smith in his History of Delaware County mentions that the meeting-house at Haverford was built in 1700. Where William Penn preached to Welsh Friends, who sat quietly. And listening to an address from the Proprietary, of which they did not understand a word William Jones, Hugh Griffith, Ellis David, Robert Jones and Edward Foulke, as well as several others, by leaving their church and attaching themselves to Friends, appear to have attracted the attention of the churchmen, if we are to judge by the correspondence published in the "Collections of the Episcopal Church in Pennsylvania." The Rev. Evan Evans, in his report dated September 18, 1704, states that he frequently went out to Montgomery, twenty miles, and Radnor, fifteen miles from Philadelphia, "determined to lose none of those whom I had gained, but rather add to them, where I preached in Welsh once a fortnight for four years, till the arrival of Mr. Nichols, minister from Chester, in 1704." He adds that a hundred names had been signed to a petition to have settled among them, in Radnor and Merion, a minister "that understands the British language, there being many ancient people among those inhabitants that do not understand the English. Could a sober and discreet person be secured to undertake that mission. He might be capable to bring in a plentiful harvest of Welsh Quakers, that were originally born in the Church of England, but were unhappily perverted, before any minister in holy orders could preach to them in their own language." He continues that there is another Welsh settlement, called Montgomery, in the county 142 of Philadelphia, twenty miles distant from the city, where were a considerable number of Welsh people, formerly, in their native country, of the communion of the Church of England; but about 1698, two years before my arrival, most of them joined the Quakers; but some of them are reduced, and I have baptized their children and preached often to them. The Gwynedd congregation is evidently here meant, for which he has unintentionally substituted Montgomery, which, it is likely, at this early time, was the only name known to him for this section. As the Rev Benjamin Griffith preached in the Welsh language in the Montgomery Baptist Church down to his death, in 1768. In which he was also followed by his successor, the Rev. John Thomas. This establishes the fact that, in consequence, the language must have been retained and spoken in some of the families in that section and in the adjoining townships of Hilltown and New Britain until the beginning of this century. We have thus been curious to gather variety of sources the aforesaid facts respecting the powerful hold of the language on the early Welsh settlers in this county, and to show how most of them were unacquainted with any other. Its duration here may be, set down, at about a century before the English had entirely supplanted it. Necessity at first compelled the Welsh, English, Germans and the Swedes to form settlements by themselves, owing to a general ignorance of each other's language, which, of course, for a long time must have greatly interfered with their social intercourse. The early Welsh that came here at first continued the practice that had so long prevailed in their native country of reversing their family names. Thus John and Evan Griffith were the sons of Griffiths John taking their father's Christian name for their surname: Thomas Ap John, the son of John Ap Thomas, when he attained to manhood, wrote his name here Thomas Jones. Hugh Evan was the son of Evan Hugh, and married to Mary Robert, the daughter of Robert John. Edward and Evan Jones were the sons of John Evan; Robert and Griffith Hugh sons of Hugh Griffith. John Roger is mentioned in a marriage certificate at Merion, as late as 1717, as being the son of Roger Roberts. In the early records of Haverford and Merion Monthly Meeting, and also in that of Gwynedd, only a few instances are found in birth where surnames were exchanges. A large majority of the Welsh however, soon after their arrival, adopted English method, that the fathers' surname be retained And perpetuated, as indicative of a family origin, all of which, from its simplicity, cannot be well improved upon. The Welsh practice in consequence, has often here been puzzling in tracing early family genealogies. Welsh, like German names have also been Anglicized. John has thus been changed to Jones, David to Davis, Matthew to Matthews, Philip to Philips, Robert to Roberts, William to Williams, Hugh to Hughes, Jenken to Jenkins, Edward to Edwards, which are only a few of many that, can be mentioned. A question now arises in regard to their numbers and singular characteristic traits. What impress have the Welsh made here in the two past centuries, through their descendants, of the existing condition of society" As respects their language. They have been certainly given to applying and perpetuating here local names from the land of their nativity. In a list of one hundred and twelve post offices in the county, thirteen are ascertained to be more or less of Welsh origin. Outside of local names, remarkable to relate, after the most diligent inquiry, we cannot find a single word of the language retained or in rise at this time that might have been either applied to sonic living object, utensil, or implement used in agriculture and mechanics, or relating to dress, food, furniture, buildings, scenery, limits, customs, etc., it thus seeming as if the language had never been spoken here. END CHAPTER XII.