"Pennsylvania Dutch," and other essays

“Pennsylvania Dutch.”

(Properly German.)

“Pennsylvania Dutch,” And Other Essays.

By Phebe Earle Gibbons, Author Of “French And Belgians.”

_Third Edition, Revised And Enlarged._

Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1882.

Copyright, 1882, by PHEBE EARLE GIBBONS.

Preface.

The leading article in this collection appeared, as first published, in the _Atlantic Monthly_ in October, 1869. After this essay was written I became better acquainted with our plain German sects, and wrote articles describing them, which were published in the first edition of this book. It appeared in 1872.

To the second edition were added “Bethlehem and the Moravians” and “Schwenkfelders,” as well as an Appendix, and the edition was published about the opening of 1874.

The present volume contains articles that have never before appeared in book-form, namely, “The Miners of Scranton,” “Irish Farmers,” and “English.” However, the first was published in _Harpers’ Magazine_ for November, 1877. Another short article appeared earlier in the same periodical; and several other essays were first brought before the public in Philadelphia and New York papers.

From personal observation I have been able to revise a considerable part of this volume, which contains more than double the amount of matter comprised in the first edition.

August, 1882.

Contents.

Page

“Pennsylvania Dutch” (Properly German) 11

Language 11

Religion 13

History of a Sect 18

Politics 20

Festivals 22

Weddings 24

Quiltings 29

“Singings” 31

Farming 33

Farmers’ Wives 36

Holidays 45

Public Schools 47

Manners and Customs 49

Additional Remarks 53

An Amish Meeting 59

Swiss Exiles 70

Books 71

Menno Symons 74

William of Orange 75

Persecution in Zurich and Berne 78

The States-General 83

Alsace and the Palatinate 87

William Penn 88

“Connystogoe” 91

Harmony among Sects 95

Mennonite Church History 99

Traditions 100

Russian Mennonites 102

Mennonites in Germany 106

The Dunker Love-Feast 112

Electing a Preacher 119

The Feet-Washing 123

The Kiss of Peace 125

The Communion 126

River Brethren 134

Brinser Brethren 136

Ephrata 138

Conrad Beissel 138

Peter Miller 145

Publications 152

Zinzendorf’s Visit 155

The Buildings now standing 163

Old Clock 166, 170

Bethlehem And The Moravians 173

Festivals 176

The Graveyard 183

Old Recollections 185

Old Buildings 198

Miscellaneous Remarks 200

Historical Note 203

Schwenkfelders 206

Meeting-House and Graveyard 207

Books 210

History 212

Journey to America 224

Anniversary or Yearly Meeting 226

Customs 230

Doctrines 234

Additional Remarks 239

A Friend 244

Cousin Jemima 260

The Miners Of Scranton 268

Superstitions 270

Hardships 272

Amusements 274

Wives and Children 281

Fare 285

Aspirations 288

Culture 292

Strikes 295

Irish Farmers 304

A Farm-House in the County Cork 307

Another Farmer 325

A Castle 327

The Southwest 333

Michael McBride 337

To and in Dublin 340

English 344

Farms and Farmers 350

The Church and Rector 356

Dissenters 360

Taxes and Tithes 363

Schools 365

Miscellaneous 372

Peculiarities of Speech 379

Appendix 381

The Pennsylvania German Dialect 381

Proper Names 391

Politics 393

Yankees 394

Thrift 395

Charms and Superstitions 397

Medical Superstitions 401

Holidays 404

Easter 404

Halloween 405

Peltz Nickel 407

New Year 407

The Plainer Sects 408

The People Contrasted 414

Miscellaneous 415

“Pennsylvania Dutch.”

(Properly German.)

I have lived for twenty years in the county of Lancaster, where my neighbors on all sides are “Pennsylvania Dutch.” In this article I shall try to give, from my own observation and familiar acquaintance, some account of the life of a people who are little known outside of the rural neighborhoods of their own State, who have much that is peculiar in their language, customs, and belief, and of whom I have learned to esteem the native good sense, friendly feeling, and religious character.

Language.

The tongue which these people speak is a dialect of the German, but they generally call it and themselves “Dutch.”

For the native German who works with them on the farm they entertain some contempt, and the title “Yankee” is with them a synonyme for cheat. As must always be the case where the great majority do not read the tongue which they speak, and live in contact with those who speak another, the language has become mixed and corrupt. Seeing a young neighbor cleaning a buggy, I tried to talk with him by speaking German. “Willst du reiten?” said I (not remembering that _reiten_ is to ride on horseback). “Willst du reiten?” All my efforts were vain.

As I was going for cider to the house of a neighboring farmer, I asked his daughter what she would say, under the circumstances, for “Are you going to ride?” “Widdu fawray? Buggy fawray?” was the answer. (Willst du fahren?) Such expressions are heard as “Koock amul to,” for “Guck einmal da,” or “Just look at that!” and “Haltybissel” for “Halt ein biszchen,” or “Wait a little bit.” “Gutenobit” is used for “Guten Abend.” Apple-butter is “lodwaerrick,” from the German _latwerge_, an electuary, or an electuary of prunes. Our “Dutch” is much mixed with English. I once asked a woman what pie-crust is in Dutch, “Py-kroosht,” she answered.

Those who speak English use uncommon expressions, as,—“That’s a werry _lasty_ basket” (meaning durable); “I seen him yet a’ready;” “I knew a woman that had a good baby _wunst_;” “The bread is all” (all gone). I have heard the carpenter call his plane _she_, and a housekeeper apply the same pronoun to her home-made soap.

A rich landed proprietor is sometimes called _king_. An old “Dutchman” who was absent from home thus narrated the cause of his journey: “I must go and see old Yoke (Jacob) Beidelman. Te people calls me te kink ov te Manor (township), and tay calls him te kink ov te Octorara. Now, dese kinks must come togeder once.” (Accent _together_, and pass quickly over _once_.)

Religion.

I called recently on my friend and neighbor, Jacob S., who is a thrifty farmer, of a good mind, and a member of the old Mennist or Mennonite Society. I once accompanied him and his pleasant wife to their religious meeting. The meeting-house is a low brick building, with neat surroundings, and resembles a Friends’ meeting-house. The Mennonists in some outward matters very much resemble the Society of Friends (or Quakers), but do not rely, in the especial manner that Friends do, upon the teachings of the Divine Spirit in the secret stillness of the soul.

In the interior of the Mennist meeting a Quaker-like plainness prevails. The men, with broad-brimmed hats and simple dress, sit on benches on one side of the house, and the women, in plain caps and black sun-bonnets, are ranged on the other; while a few gay dresses are worn by the young people who have not yet joined the meeting. The services are almost always conducted in “Dutch,” and consist of exhortation and prayer, and singing by the congregation. The singing is without previous training, and is not musical. A pause of about five minutes is allowed for private prayer.

The preachers are not paid, and are chosen in the following manner. When a vacancy occurs, and a new appointment is required, several men go into a small room, chosen for the purpose; and to them, waiting, enter singly the men and women, as many as choose, who tell them the name of the person preferred by each to fill the vacancy. After this, an opportunity is given to any candidate to excuse himself from the service. Those who are not excused, if, for instance, six in number, are brought before six books. Each candidate takes up a book, and the one within whose book a lot is found is the chosen minister. I asked my friends who gave me some of these details, whether it was claimed or believed that there is any special guidance of the Divine Spirit in thus choosing a minister. From the reply, I did not learn that any such guidance is claimed, though they spoke of a man who _was led_ to pass his hand over all the other books, and who selected the last one, but he did not get the lot after all. He was thought to be ambitious of a place in the ministry.

The three prominent sects of Mennonites all claim to be non-resistants, or _wehrlos_. The Old Mennists, who are the most numerous and least rigid, vote at elections, and are allowed to hold such public offices as school director and road supervisor, but not to be members of the legislature. The ministers are expected not to vote.[1] The members of this society cannot bring suit against any one; they can hold mortgages, but not judgment bonds.[2] Like Quakers, they were not allowed to hold slaves, and they do not take oaths nor deal in spirituous liquors.

My neighbor Jacob and I were once talking of the general use of the word “Yankee” to denote one who is rather unfair in his dealings. They sometimes speak of a “Dutch Yankee;” and Jacob asked me whether, if going to sell a horse, I should tell the buyer every fault that I knew the horse had, as he maintained was the proper course. His brother-in-law, who was at times a horse-dealer, did not agree with him.

Titles do not abound among these plain neighbors of ours. Jacob’s little son used to call him “Jake,” as he heard the hired men do. Nevertheless, one of our New Mennist acquaintances was quite courtly in his address.

This last-mentioned sect branched off some fifty years ago, and claim to be _reformirt_, or to have returned to an older and more excellent standard. They do not vote at all. Their most striking peculiarity is this: if one of the members is disowned by the church, the other members of his own family who are members of the meeting are not allowed to eat at the same table with him, and his wife withdraws from him. A woman who worked in such a family told me how unpleasant it was to her to see that the father did not take his seat at the table, to which she was invited.

In support of this practice, they refer to the eleventh verse of the fifth chapter of First Corinthians: “But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one _no not to eat_.”

We have yet another sect among us, called Amish (pronounced Ommish). In former times these Mennists were sometimes known as “beardy men,” but of late years the beard is not a distinguishing trait. It is said that a person once asked an Amish man the difference between themselves and another Mennist sect. “Vy, dey vears puttons, and ve vearsh hooks oont eyes;” and this is, in fact, a prime difference. All the Mennist sects retain the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s supper, but most also practise feet-washing, and some sectarians “greet one another with a holy kiss.”

On a Sunday morning Amish wagons, covered with yellow oil-cloth, may be seen moving toward the house of that member whose turn it is to have the meeting. Great have been the preparations there beforehand,—the whitewashing, the scrubbing, the polishing of tin and brass. Wooden benches and other seats are provided for the “meeting-folks,” and the services resemble those already described. Of course, young mothers do not stay at home, but bring their infants with them. When the meeting is over, the congregation remain to dinner. Bean soup was formerly the principal dish, but, with the progress of luxury, the farmers of a fat soil no longer confine themselves to so simple a diet. Imagine what a time of social intercourse this must be.

The Amish dress is peculiar; and the children are diminutive men and women. The women wear sun-bonnets and closely-fitting dresses, but often their figures look very trim, in brown, with green or other bright handkerchiefs meeting over the breast. I saw a group of Amish at the railroad station the other day,—men, women, and a little boy. One of the young women wore a pasteboard sun-bonnet covered with black, and tied with narrow blue ribbon, among which showed the thick white strings of her Amish cap; a gray shawl, without fringe; a brown stuff dress, and a purple apron. One middle-aged man, inclined to corpulence, had coarse, brown, woollen clothes, and his pantaloons were without suspenders, in the Amish fashion. No buttons were on his coat behind, but down the front were hooks and eyes. One young girl wore a bright brown sun-bonnet, a green dress, and a light blue apron. The choicest figure, however, was the six-year-old, in a jacket, and with pantaloons plentifully plaited into the waistband behind; hair cut straight over the forehead, and hanging to the shoulder; and a round-crowned black wool hat, with an astonishingly wide brim. The little girls, down to two years old, wear the plain cap, and the handkerchief crossed upon the breast.

In Amish houses the love of ornament appears in brightly scoured utensils,—how the brass ladles are made to shine!—and in embroidered towels, one end of the towel showing a quantity of work in colored cottons. When steel or elliptic springs were introduced, so great a novelty was not at first patronized by members of the meeting; but an infirm brother, desiring to visit his friends, directed the blacksmith to put a spring inside his wagon, under the seat, and since that time steel springs have become common. I have even seen a youth with flowing hair (as is common among the Amish), and two trim-bodied damsels, riding in a very plain, uncovered buggy. A. Z. rode in a common buggy; but he became a great backslider, poor man!

It was an Amish man, not well versed in the English language, from whom I bought poultry, who sent me a bill for “chighans.”

In mentioning some ludicrous circumstances, far be it from me to ignore the virtues of these primitive people.

History Of A Sect.

The Mennonites are named from Menno Symons, a reformer, who died in 1561, though it is doubtful whether Menno founded the sect. “The prevailing opinion among church historians, especially those of Holland, is that the origin of the Dutch Baptists may be traced to the Waldenses, and that Menno merely organized the concealed and scattered congregations as a denomination.”

Mosheim says, “The true origin of that sect, which acquired the denomination of Anabaptists, by their administering anew the rite of baptism to those who came over to their communion, and derived that of Mennonites from the famous man to whom they owe the greatest part of their present felicity, is hidden in the depths of antiquity, and is of consequence extremely difficult to be ascertained.” The “Martyr-Book,” or “Martyr’s Mirror,” in use among our Mennonites, endeavors to prove identity of doctrine between the Waldenses and these Baptists, as regards opposition to infant baptism, to war, and to oaths.

Although the Mennonites are very numerous in the county of Lancaster, yet in the whole State they were estimated, in 1850, to have but ninety-two churches, while the Lutherans and German Reformed together were estimated as having seven hundred.

The freedom of religious opinion which was allowed in Pennsylvania had the effect of drawing hither the continental Europeans, who established themselves in the fertile lands of the western part of the county of Chester, now Lancaster. It was not until the revolution of 1848 that the different German states granted full civil rights to the Mennonites; and in some cases this freedom has since been withdrawn; Hanover, in 1858, annulled the election of a representative to the second chamber, because he was a Mennonite. Much of this opposition probably is because the sect refuse to take oaths. With such opposing circumstances in the Old World, it is not remarkable that the number of Mennonites in the United States has been reported to exceed that in all the rest of the world put together.[3] The Amish are named from Jacob Amen, a Swiss Mennonite preacher of the seventeenth century.

As I understand the Mennonites, they endeavor in church government literally to carry out the injunction of Jesus, “Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone; if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church; but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.”

Besides these sectaries, we have among us Dunkers (German _tunken_, to dip), from whom sprang the Seventh-Day Baptists of Ephratah, with their brother- and sister-houses of celibates.

Also at Litiz we have the Moravian church and Gottesacker (or churchyard), and a Moravian church at Lancaster. Here, according to custom, a love-feast was held recently, when a cup of coffee and a rusk (sweet biscuit) were handed to each person present.

We have, too, a number of “Dutch Methodists,” or _Albrechtsleute_ (followers of Albrecht), to whom is given the name Evangelical Association. These are full of zeal or activity in church, like the early Methodists; and I saw a young man fall apparently into a trance at a camp-meeting, lying upon the ground, to the satisfaction of his wife, who probably thought he was “happy.”

Politics.

As our county was represented in Congress by Thaddeus Stevens, you have some idea of what our politics are. We have returned about five or six thousand majority for the Whig, Anti-Masonic, and Republican ticket, and the adjoining very “Dutch” county of Berks invariably as great a majority for the Democratic. So striking a difference has furnished much ground for speculation. The Hon. John Strohm says that Berks is Democratic because so many Hessians settled there after the Revolution. “No,” says the Hon. Mr. B., “I attribute it to the fact that the people are not taught by unpaid ministers, as with us, but are Lutherans and German Reformed, and can be led by their preachers.” “Why is Berks Democratic?” I once asked our Democratic postmaster. “I do not know,” said he; “but the people here are ignorant; they do not read a paper on the other side.” A former postmaster tells me that he has heard that the people of Berks were greatly in favor of liberty in the time of the elder Adams; that they put up liberty-poles, and Adams sent soldiers among them and had the liberty-poles cut down; and “ever since they have been opposed to that political party, under its different names.”

A gentleman of Reading has told me that he heard James Buchanan express, in the latter part of his life, a similar opinion to one given before. Mr. Buchanan said, in effect, that while peace sects prevailed in Lancaster County, in Berks were found many Lutherans and German Reformed, who were more liberal (according, of course, to Mr. Buchanan’s interpretation of the word).

The troubles alluded to in Berks seem to have been principally on account of a direct tax, called “the house-tax,” imposed during the administration of John Adams.

The people of Berks and Lancaster gave another striking proof of the difference of their political sentiments, on the question of holding the Constitutional Convention of 1874. The vote of Berks was 5269 for a convention, and 10,905 against a convention; the vote of Lancaster was, for a convention 16,862, against the same 116.

A gentleman of Easton, Northampton County, tells me of a German farmer, who lived near that town, who said he did not see any need of so many parties,—the Democrats and Lutherans were enough. On his death-bed he is reported to have said to his son, “I never voted anything but the Democratic ticket, and I want you to stick to the party.”

Festivals.

The greatest festive occasion, or the one which calls the greatest number of persons to eat and drink together, is the funeral.

My friends Jacob and Susanna E. have that active benevolence and correct principle which prompt to a care for the sick and dying, and kind offices toward the mourner. Nor are they alone in this. When a death occurs, our “Dutch” neighbors enter the house, and, taking possession, relieve the family as far as possible from the labors and cares of a funeral. Some “redd up” the house, making that which was neglected during the sad presence of a fatal disease again in order for the reception of company. Others visit the kitchen, and help to bake great store of bread, pies, and rusks for the expected gathering. Two young men and two young women generally sit up together overnight to watch in a room adjoining that of the dead.

At funerals occurring on Sunday three hundred carriages have been seen in attendance; and so great at all times is the concourse of people of all stations and all shades of belief, and so many partake of the entertainment liberally provided, that I may be excused for calling funerals the great festivals of the “Dutch.” (Weddings are also highly festive occasions, but they are confined to the “freundschaft,” and to much smaller numbers.)

The services at funerals are generally conducted in the German language.

An invitation is extended to the persons present to return to eat after the funeral, or the meal is partaken of before leaving for the graveyard: hospitality, in all rural districts, where the guests come from afar, seems to require this. The tables are sometimes set in a barn, or large wagon-house, and relays of guests succeed one another, until all are done. The neighbors wait upon the table. The entertainment generally consists of meat, frequently cold; bread and butter; pickles or sauces, such as apple-butter; pies and rusks; sometimes stewed chickens, mashed potatoes, cheese, etc.; and coffee invariably. All depart after the dish-washing, and the family is left in quiet again.

I have said that persons of all shades of belief attend funerals; but our New Mennists are not permitted to listen to the sermons of other denominations. Memorial stones over the dead are more conspicuous than among Friends; but they are still quite plain, with simple inscriptions. Occasionally family graveyards are seen. One on a farm adjoining ours seems cut out of the side of a field; it stands back from the high-road, and access to it is on foot. To those who are anxious to preserve the remains of their relatives, these graveyards are objectionable, as they will probably not be regarded after the property has passed into another family.

A Lutheran gentleman, living in Berks County, in speaking of the great funerals among the “Dutch,” says, “Our Germans look forward all their lives to their funerals, hoping to be able to entertain their friends on that great occasion with the hospitality due to them, and the honor due to the memory of the departed.” No spirituous liquors, he added, are _now_ used at funerals, the clergy having discouraged their use on these religious occasions. In a mountain valley in Carbon County, about thirty years ago, a bottle of whiskey was handed to a Lutheran minister, and he was asked to take some. “Yes, I’ll have some,” he answered; and taking the bottle, he broke it against a tree.

Weddings.

Our farmer had a daughter married lately, and I was invited to see the bride leave home. The groom, in accordance with the early habits of the “Dutch” folks, reached the bride’s house about six in the morning, having previously breakfasted and ridden four miles. As he probably fed and harnessed his horse, besides attiring himself for the grand occasion, he must have been up betimes on an October morning.

The bride wore purple mousseline-de-laine and a blue bonnet. As some of the “wedding-folks” were dilatory, the bride and groom did not get off before seven. The bridegroom was a mechanic. The whole party was composed of four couples, who rode to Lancaster in buggies, where two pairs were married by a minister. In the afternoon the newly-married couples went down to Philadelphia for a few days; and on the evening that they were expected at home we had a reception, or home-coming. Supper consisted of roast turkeys, beef, and stewed chickens, cakes, pies, and coffee of course. We had raisin-pie, which is a great treat in “Dutchland” on festive or solemn occasions. “Nine couples” of the party sat down to supper, and then the remaining spare seats were occupied by the landlord’s wife, the bride’s uncle, etc. We had a fiddler in the evening. He and the dancing would not have been there had the household “belonged to meeting;” and, as it was, some young Methodist girls did not dance.

One of my “English” acquaintances was sitting alone on a Sunday evening, when she heard a rap at the door, and a young “Dutchman,” a stranger, walked in and sat down, “and there he sot, and sot, and sot.” Mrs. G. waited to hear his errand, politely making conversation; and finally he asked whether her daughter was at home. “Which one?” He did not know. But that did not make much difference, as neither was at home. Mrs. G. afterwards mentioned this circumstance to a worthy “Dutch” neighbor, expressing surprise that a young man should call who had not been introduced. “How then _would_ they get acquainted?” said he. She suggested that she did not think that her daughter knew the young man. “She would not tell you, perhaps, if she did.” The daughter, however, when asked, seemed entirely ignorant, and did not know that she had ever seen the young man. He had probably seen her at the railroad station, and had found out her name and residence. It would seem to indicate much confidence on the part of parents, if, when acquaintances are formed in such a manner, the father and mother retire at nine o’clock, and leave their young daughter thus to “keep company” until midnight or later. It is no wonder that one of our German sects has declared against the popular manner of “courting.”

I recently attended a New Mennist wedding, which took place in the frame meeting-house. We entered through an adjoining brick dwelling, one room of which served as an ante-room, where the “sisters” left their bonnets and shawls. I was late, for the services had begun about nine on a bitter Sunday morning in December. The meeting-house was crowded, and in front on the left was a plain of book-muslin caps on the heads of the sisters. On shelves and pegs, along the other side, were placed the hats and overcoats of the brethren. The building was extremely simple,—whitewashed without, entirely unpainted within, with whitewashed walls. The preacher stood at a small, unpainted desk, and before it was a table, convenient for the old men “to sit at and lay their books on.” Two stoves, a half-dozen hanging tin candlesticks, and the benches completed the furniture. The preacher was speaking extemporaneously in English, for in this meeting-house the services are often performed in this tongue; and he spoke readily and well, though his speech was not free from such expressions as, “It would be wishful for men to do their duty;” “Man cannot separate them together;” and “This, Christ done for us.”

He spoke at length upon divorce, which, he said, could not take place between Christians. The preacher spoke especially upon the duty of the wife to submit to the husband whenever differences of sentiment arose; of the duty of the husband to love the wife, and to show his love by his readiness to assist her. He alluded to Paul’s saying that it is better to be unmarried than married, and he did not scruple to use plain language touching adultery. His discourse ended, he called upon the pair proposing marriage to come forward; whereupon the man and woman rose from the body of the congregation on either side, and, coming out to the middle aisle, stood together before the minister. They had both passed their early youth, but had very good faces. The bride wore a mode-colored alpaca, and a black apron; also a clear-starched cap without a border, after the fashion of the sect. The groom wore a dark-green coat, cut “shad-bellied,” after the fashion of the brethren.

This was probably the manner of their acquaintance: If, in spite of Paul’s encouragement to a single life, a brother sees a sister whom he wishes to marry, he mentions the fact to a minister, who tells it to the sister. If she agrees in sentiment, the acquaintance continues for a year, during which private interviews can be had if desired; but this sect entirely discourages courting as usually practised among the “Dutch.”

The year having in this case elapsed, and the pair having now met before the preacher, he propounded to them three questions:

1. I ask of this brother, as the bridegroom, do you believe that this sister in the faith is allotted to you by God as your helpmeet and spouse? And I ask of you, as the bride, do you believe that this your brother is allotted to you by God as your husband and head?

2. Are you free in your affections from all others, and have you them centred alone upon this your brother or sister?

3. Do you receive this person as your lawfully wedded husband [wife], do you promise to be faithful to him [her], to reverence him [to love her], and that nothing but death shall separate you; that, by the help of God, you will, to the best of your ability, fulfil all the duties which God has enjoined on believing husbands and wives?

In answering this last question, I observed the bride to lift her eyes to the preacher’s face, as if in fearless trust. Then the preacher, directing them to join hands, pronounced them man and wife, and invoked a blessing upon them. This was followed by a short prayer, after which the wedded pair separated, each again taking a place among the congregation. The occasion was solemn. On resuming his place in the desk, the preacher’s eyes were seen to be suffused, and pocket-handkerchiefs were visible on either side (the sisters’ white, those of the brethren of colored silk). The audience then knelt, while the preacher prayed, and I heard responses like those of the Methodists, but more subdued. The preacher made a few remarks, to the effect that, although it would be grievous to break the bond now uniting these two, it would be infinitely more grievous to break the tie which unites us to Christ; and then a quaint hymn was sung to a familiar tune. This “church” does not allow wedding-parties, but a few friends may gather at the house after meeting.

At Amish weddings the meeting is not in a church, like the one just spoken of, for their meetings are held in private houses. I hear that none go to this meeting but invited guests, except that the preachers are always present; and after the ceremony the wedded pair with the preachers retire into a private apartment, perhaps for exhortation upon their new duties.

A neighbor tells me that the Amish have great fun at weddings; that they have a table set all night, and that when the weather is pleasant they play in the barn. “Our Pete went once,” she continued, “with a lot of the public-school scholars. They let them go in and look on. They twisted a towel for the bloom-sock, and they did hit each other.” (Bloom-sock, _plump-sack_, a twisted kerchief,—a clumsy fellow.)

“The bloom-sock” (_oo_ short), I hear, “is a handkerchief twisted long, from the two opposite corners. When it is twisted, you double it, and tie the ends with a knot. One in front hunts the handkerchief, and those on the bench are passing it behind them. If they get a chance, they’ll hit him with it, and if he sees it he tears it away. Then he goes into the row, and the other goes out to hunt it.”

It has also been said that at Amish wedding-parties they have what they call _Glücktrinke_, of wine, etc. Some wedding-parties are called infares. Thus, a neighbor spoke of “Siegfried’s wedding, where they had such an infare.” The original meaning I suppose to be home-coming.

It must not be inferred from these descriptions that we have no “fashionable” persons among us, of the old German stock. When they have become fashionable, however, they do not desire to be called “Dutch.”

Quiltings.

There lives in our neighborhood a pleasant, industrious “Aunt Sally,” a yellow woman; and one day she had a quilting, for she had long wished to re-cover two quilts. The first who arrived at Aunt Sally’s was our neighbor from over the “creek,” or mill-stream, Polly M., in her black silk Mennist bonnet, formed like a sun-bonnet; and at ten came my dear friend Susanna E., who is tall and fat, and very pleasant; who has Huguenot blood in her veins, and—

“Whose heart has a look southward, and is open To the great noon of nature.”

Aunt Sally had her quilt up in her landlord’s east room, for her own house was too small. However, at about eleven she called us over to dinner; for people who have breakfasted at five or six have an appetite at eleven.

We found on the table beefsteaks, boiled pork, sweet potatoes, kohl-slaw,[4] pickled tomatoes, cucumbers, and red beets (thus the “Dutch” accent lies), apple-butter and preserved peaches, pumpkin- and apple-pie, with sponge-cake and coffee.

After dinner came our next neighbors, “the maids,” Susy and Katy Groff, who live in single blessedness and great neatness. They wore pretty, clear-starched Mennist caps, very plain. Katy is a sweet-looking woman; and, although she is more than sixty years old, her forehead is almost unwrinkled, and her fine fair hair is still brown. It was late when the farmer’s wife came,—three o’clock; for she had been to Lancaster. She wore hoops, and was of the “world’s people.” These women all spoke “Dutch;” for “the maids,” whose ancestor came here probably one hundred and fifty years ago, do not yet speak English with fluency.

The first subject of conversation was the fall house-cleaning; and I heard mention of “die carpet hinaus an der fence,” and “die fenshter und die porch;” and the exclamation, “My goodness, es war schlimm” (it was bad). I quilted faster than Katy Groff, who showed me her hands, and said, “You have not been corn-husking, as I have.”

So we quilted and rolled, talked and laughed, got one quilt done, and put in another. The work was not fine; we laid it out by chalking around a small plate. Aunt Sally’s desire was rather to get her quilting finished upon this great occasion, than for us to put in a quantity of needlework.

About five o’clock we were called to supper. I need not tell you all the particulars of this plentiful meal. But the stewed chicken was tender, and we had coffee again.

Polly M.’s husband now came over the creek in the boat, to take her home, and he warned her against the evening dampness. The rest of us quilted a while by candle and lamp, and got the second quilt done at about seven.

At this quilting I heard but little gossip, and less scandal. I displayed my new alpaca, and my dyed merino, and the Philadelphia bonnet which exposes the back of my head to the wintry blast. Polly, for her part, preferred her black silk sun-bonnet; and so we parted, with mutual invitations to visit.

“Singings.”

Mary ⸺ tells me that she once attended a “singing” among the Amish. About nightfall, on a Sunday evening in summer, a half-dozen “girls” and a few more “boys” met at the house of one of the members. They talked a while first on common subjects, and then sang hymns from the Amish hymn-book in the German tongue. They chanted in the slow manner common in their religious meetings; but Mary says that some are now learning to sing by note, and are improving their manner. They thus intoned until about ten o’clock, and then laid aside their hymn-books, and the old folks went to bed. Then the young people went out into the wash-house, or outside kitchen, so as not to wake the sleepers, and played, “Come, Philander, let’s be marching,” and

“The needle’s eye we do supply With thread that runs so true; And many a lass have I let pass Because I wanted you.”

Which game seems to be the same as

“Open the gates as high as the sky And let King George and his troops go by.”

In these kissing plays, and in some little romping among the young men, the time was spent until about two or three in the morning, when they separated, two girls from a distance staying all night. Mary was able to sleep until daylight only, for no allowance is made for those who partake in these gay vigils to make up in the morning for loss of sleep.

There were no refreshments upon this occasion, but once at a singing at Christ. Yoder’s, it is said that the party took nearly all the pies out of the cellar, and the empty plates were found in the wash-house next morning.

Dancing-parties are not unknown among us, but they are not popular among the plain people whom I especially describe.

Farming.

In this fertile limestone district farming is very laborious, being entirely by tillage. Our regular routine is once in five years to plough the sod ground for corn. In the next ensuing year the same ground is sowed with oats; and when the oats come off in August, the industrious “Dutchmen” immediately manure the stubble-land for wheat. I have seen them laying the dark-brown heaps upon the yellow stubble, when, in August, I have ridden some twelve or fourteen miles down to the hill-country for blackberries.

After the ground is carefully prepared, wheat and timothy (grass) seed are put in with a drill, and in the ensuing spring clover is sowed upon the same ground. By July, when the wheat is taken off the ground, the clover and timothy are growing, and will be ready to mow in the next or fourth summer. In the fifth the same grass constitutes a grazing-ground, and then the sod is ready to be broken up again for Indian corn. Potatoes are seldom planted here in great quantities; a part of one of the oat-fields or corn-fields can be put into potatoes, and the ground will be ready by fall to be put into wheat, if it is desired. A successful farmer put more than half of his forty acres into wheat; this being considered the best crop. The average crop of wheat is about twenty bushels, of Indian corn about forty. I have heard of one hundred bushels of corn in the Pequea valley, but this is very rare.

When the wheat and oats are in the barn or stack, enormous eight-horse threshers, whose owners go about the neighborhood from farm to farm, thresh the crop in two or three days; and thus what was once a great job for winter may all be finished by the first of October.

Jacob E. is a model farmer. His buildings and fences are in good order, and his cattle well kept. He is a little past the prime of life; his beautiful head of black hair being touched with silver. His wife is dimpled and smiling, and her weight of nearly two hundred does not prevent her being active, energetic, forehanded, and “thorough-going.” During the winter months the two sons go to the public school,—the older one with reluctance; there they learn to read and write and cipher, and possibly they study geography; they speak English at school, and “Dutch” at home. Much education the “Dutch” farmer fears, as productive of laziness; and laziness is a mortal sin here. The E.’s rarely buy a book. I suggested to one of our neighbors that he might advantageously have given a certain son a chance with books. “Don’t want no books,” was the answer. “There’s enough goes to books! Get so lazy after a while they won’t farm.” The winter is employed partly in preparing material to fertilize the wheat-land during the coming summer. Great droves of cattle and sheep come down our road from the West, and our farmers buy from these, and fatten stock during the winter months for the Philadelphia market. A proper care of his stock will occupy some portion of the farmer’s time. A farmer’s son told me also of cutting wood and quarrying stone in the winter, adding, “If a person wouldn’t work in the winter, they’d be behindhand in the spring.”

Besides these, the farmer has generally a great “freundschaft,” or family connection, both his and his wife’s; and the paying visits within a range of twenty or thirty miles, and receiving visits in return, help to pass away the time. Then Jacob and Susanna are actively benevolent; they are liable to be called upon, summer and winter, to wait on the sick and to help bury the dead. Susanna was formerly renowned as a baker at funerals, where her services were freely given.

This rich level land of ours is highly prized by the “Dutch” for farming purposes, and the great demand has enhanced the price. The farms, too, are small, seventy acres being a fair size. When Seth R., the rich preacher, bought his last farm from an “Englishman,” William G. said to him, “Well, Seth, it seems as if you Dutch folks had determined to root us English out; but thee had to pay pretty dear for thy root this time.”

There are some superstitious ideas that still hold sway here, regarding the growth of plants. A young girl coming to us for cabbage-plants said that it was a good time to set them out, for “it was in the Wirgin.” It is very doubtful whether she knew _what_ was in Virgo, but I suppose that it was the moon. So our farmer’s wife tells me that the Virgin will do very well for cabbages, but not for any plant like beans, for, though they will flower well, they will not mature the fruit. Fence should be set in the up-going of the moon; meat butchered in the down-going will shrink in the pot.

Farmers’ Wives.

One of my “Dutch” neighbors, who, from a shoemaker, became the owner of two farms, said to me, “The woman is more than half;” and his own very laborious wife (with her portion) had indeed been so.

The woman (in common speech, “the old woman”) milks, raises the poultry, has charge of the garden,—sometimes digging the ground herself, and planting and hoeing, with the assistance of her daughters and the “maid,” when she has one. (German, _magd_.) To be sure, she does not go extensively into vegetable-raising, nor has she a large quantity of strawberries and other small fruits; neither does she plant a great many peas and beans, that are laborious to “stick.” She has a quantity of cabbages and of “red beets,” of onions and of early potatoes, in her garden, a plenty of cucumbers for winter pickles, and store of string-beans and tomatoes, with some sweet potatoes.

Peter R. told me that in one year, off their small farm, they sold “two hundred dollars’ worth of _wedgable_ things, not counting the butter.” As in that year the clothing for each member of the family probably cost no more than fifteen dollars, the two hundred dollars’ worth of vegetable things was of great importance.

Our “Dutch” never make _store_-cheese. At a county fair, only one cheese was exhibited, and that was from Chester County. The farmer’s wife boards all the farm-hands, and the mechanics—the carpenter, mason, etc.—who put up the new buildings, and the fence-makers. At times she allows the daughters to go out and husk corn. It was a pretty sight which I saw one fall day,—an Amish man with four sons and daughters, husking in the field. “We do it all ourselves,” said he.

(Said a neighbor, “A man told me once that he was at an Amish husking—a husking-match in the kitchen. He said he never saw as much sport in all his life. There they had the bloom-sock. There was one old man, quite gray-headed, and gray-bearded; he laughed till he shook.” Said another, “There’s not many huskings going on now. The most play now goes on at the infares.”)

In winter mornings perhaps the farmer’s wife goes out to milk in the stable with a lantern, while her daughters get breakfast; has her house “redd up” about eight o’clock, and is prepared for several hours’ sewing before dinner, laying by great piles of shirts for summer. We no longer make linen; but I have heard of one “Dutch” girl who had a good supply of domestic linen made into shirts and trousers for the future spouse whose fair proportions she had not yet seen.

There are, of course, many garments to make in a large family, but there is not much work put upon them. We do not yet patronize the sewing-machine very extensively, but a seamstress or tailoress is sometimes called in. At the spring cleaning the labors of the women folk are increased by whitewashing the picket-fences.

In March we make soap, before the labors of the garden are great. The forests are being obliterated from this fertile tract, and many use what some call _consecrated_ lye; formerly, the ash-hopper was filled, and a good lot of egg-bearing lye run off to begin the soap with, while the weaker filled the soft-soap kettle, after the soap had “come.” The chemical operation of soap-making often proved difficult, and, of course, much was said about luck. “We had bad luck making soap.” A sassafras stick was preferred for stirring, and the soap was stirred always in one direction. In regard to this, and that other chemical operation, making and keeping vinegar, there are certain ideas about the temporary incapacity of some persons,—ideas only to be alluded to here. If the farmer’s wife never “has luck” in making soap, she employs some skilful woman to come in and help her. It is not a long operation, for the “Dutch” rush this work speedily. If the lye is well run off, two tubs of hard soap and a barrel of soft can be made in a day. A smart housekeeper can make a barrel of soap in the morning, and go visiting in the afternoon.

Great are the household labors in harvest; but the cooking and baking in the hot weather are cheerfully done for the men, who are toiling in hot suns and stifling barns. Four meals are common at this season, for “a piece” is sent out at nine o’clock. I heard of one “Dutch” girl’s making some fifty pies a week in harvest; for if you have four meals a day, and pie at each, many are required. We have great faith in pie.

I have been told of an inexperienced Quaker housewife in the neighboring county of York, who was left in charge of the farm, and during harvest these important labors were performed by John Stein, John Stump, and John Stinger. She also had guests, welcome perhaps as “rain in harvest.” To conciliate the Johns was very important, and she waited on them first. “What will thee have, John Stein?” “What shall I give thee, John Stump?” “And thee, John Stinger?” On one memorable occasion there was mutiny in the field, for John Stein declared that he never worked where there were not “kickelin” cakes in harvest, nor would he now. _Küchlein_ proved to be cakes fried in fat; and the housewife was ready to appease “Achilles’ wrath,” as soon as she made this discovery.

We made in one season six barrels of cider into apple-butter, three at a time. Two large copper kettles were hung under the beech-trees, down between the spring-house and smoke-house, and the cider was boiled down the evening before, great stumps of trees being in demand. One hand watched the cider, and the rest of the family gathered in the kitchen and labored diligently in preparing the cut apples, so that in the morning the “schnits” might be ready to go in. (_Schneiden_, to cut, _geschnitten_.)

One bushel and a half of cut apples are said to be enough for a barrel of cider. In a few hours the apples will all be in, and then you will stir, and stir, and stir, for you do not want to have the apple-butter burn at the bottom, and be obliged to dip it out into tubs and scour the kettle. Some time in the afternoon, you will take out a little on a dish, and when you find that the cider no longer “weeps out” round the edges, but all forms a simple heap, you will dip it up into earthen vessels, and when cold take it “on” to the garret to keep company with the hard soap and the bags of dried apples and cherries, perhaps with the hams and shoulders. Soap and apple-butter are usually made in an open fireplace, where hangs the kettle. At one time (about the year 1828) I have heard that there was apple-butter in the Lancaster Museum which dated from Revolutionary times; for we do not expect it to ferment in the summer. It dries away; but water is stirred in to prepare it for the table. Sometimes peach-butter is made, with cider, molasses, or sugar, and, in the present scarcity of apples, cut pumpkin is often put into the apple-butter.

Soon after apple-butter-making comes butchering, for we like an early pig in the fall, when the store of smoked meat has run out. Pork is the staple, and we smoke the flitches, not preserving them in brine like the Yankees. We ourselves use much beef, and do not like smoked flitch, but I speak for the majority. Sausage is a great dish with us, as in Germany.

Butchering is one of the many occasions for the display of friendly feeling, when brother or father steps in to help hang the hogs, or a sister to assist in rendering lard, or in preparing a plentiful meal. An active farmer will have two or three porkers killed, scalded, and hung up by sunrise, and by night the whole operation of sausage and “pudding” making, and lard rendering, will be finished, and the house set in order. The friends who have assisted receive a portion of the sausage, etc., which portion is called the “metzel-sup” (or soop). The metzel-sup is very often sent to poor widows and others.

_We_ make scrapple from the skin, a part of the livers, and heads, with the addition of corn-meal; but, instead, our “Dutch” neighbors make _liverwurst_ (“woorsht”), or meat pudding, omitting the meal, and this compound, stuffed into the larger entrails, is very popular in Lancaster market. Some make _pawn-haus_ from the liquor in which the pudding-meat was boiled, adding thereto corn-meal. The name is properly _pann-haas_, and signifies, perhaps, panned-rabbit. It is sometimes made of richer material.

These three dishes, just before mentioned, are fried before eating. I have never seen hog’s-head cheese in “Dutch” houses. If the boiling-pieces of beef are kept over summer, they are smoked, instead of being preserved in brine. Much smear-case (_schmier-käse_), or cottage cheese, is eaten in these regions. Children, and some grown people too, fancy it upon bread with molasses; which may be considered as an offset to the Yankee pork and molasses.

In some Pennsylvania families smear-case and apple-butter are eaten to save butter, which is a salable article. The true “Dutch” housewife’s ambition is to supply the store-goods for the family as far as possible from the sale of the butter and eggs.

We have also Dutch cheese, which may be made by crumbling the dry smear-case, working in butter, salt, and chopped sage, forming it into pats, and setting them away to ripen. The _sieger-käse_ is made from sweet milk boiled, with sour milk added and beaten eggs, and then set to drain off the whey. (_Ziegen-käse_ is German for goat’s milk cheese.)

“Schnits and knep” is said to be made of dried apples, fat pork, and dough-dumplings cooked together.

“Tell them they’re good,” says one of my “Dutch” acquaintances.

Knep is from the German, _knöpfe_, buttons or knobs. In common speech the word has fallen to nep. The “nep” are sometimes made from pie-crust, or sometimes from a batter of eggs and milk, and may be boiled without the meat; but one of my acquaintances says that the smoke gives a peculiar and appetizing flavor.

Apple-dumplings in “Dutch” are _aepel-dumplins_; whence I infer that like _pye-kroosht_ they are not of German origin.

In the fall our “Dutch” make _sauer-kraut_. I happened to visit the house of my friend Susanna when her husband and son were going to take an hour at noon to help her with the kraut. Two white tubs stood upon the back porch, one with the fair round heads, and the other to receive the cabbage when cut by a knife set in a board (a very convenient thing for cutting kohl-slaw and cucumbers). When cut, the cabbage is packed into a “stand” with a sauer-kraut staff, resembling the pounder with which New Englanders beat clothes in a barrel. Salt is added during the packing. When the cabbage ferments it becomes acid. The kraut-stand remains in the cellar; the contents not being unpalatable when boiled with potatoes and the chines or ribs of pork. But the smell of the boiling kraut is very strong, and that stomach is probably strong which readily digests the meal.

Sometimes “nep” or dumplings are boiled with the salt meat and sour-krout. A young teacher, who was speaking of sour-krout and nep, was asked how he spelt this word. He did not know, and said he did not care, so he got the nep.

“As Dutch as sour-krout,” has become a familiar saying here. In Lehigh County, if I mistake not, I heard the common dialect called “sour-krout Dutch.”

Our “Dutch” make soup in variety, and pronounce the word short, between _soup_ and _sup_. Thus there is Dutch soup, potato soup, etc.; scalded milk and bread is “bread and milk soup,” bread crumbed into coffee “coffee soup.”

Noodel soup (_nudeln_) is a treat. Noodels may be called domestic macaroni. I have seen a dish in which bits of fried bread were laid upon the piled-up noodels, to me unpalatable from the quantity of eggs in the latter.

Dampf-noodles, or _gedämpfte nudeln_, are boiled, and melted butter is poured over them.

The extremely popular cakes, twisted, sprinkled with salt, and baked crisp and brown, called pretzels (_brezeln_), were known in Pennsylvania long before the cry for “ein lager, zwei brezeln” (a glass of lager and two pretzels), was heard in the land.

One of my “Dutch” neighbors, who visited Western New York, was detained several hours at Elmira. “They hadn’t no water-crackers out there,” he complained. “Didn’t know what you meant when you said water-crackers; and they hain’t got pretzels. You can’t get no pretzels.”

Perhaps not at the railroad stations.

We generally find excellent home-made wheat bread in this limestone region. We make the pot of “sots” (or rising) overnight, with boiled mashed potatoes, scalded flour, and sometimes hops. Friday is baking-day. The “Dutch” housewife is very fond of baking in the brick oven, but the scarcity of wood must gradually accustom us to the great cooking-stove.

One of the heavy labors of the fall is the fruit-drying. Afterward your hostess invites you to partake, thus: “Mary, will you have pie? This is snits, and this is elder” (or dried apples, and dried elderberries). Dried peaches are peach snits.

A laboring woman once, speaking to me of a neighbor, said, “She hain’t got many dried apples. If her girl would snits in the evening, as I did!—but she’d rather keep company and run around than to snits.”

The majority keep one fire in winter. This is in the kitchen, which with nice housekeepers is the abode of neatness, with its rag carpet and brightly polished stove. An adjoining room or building is the wash-house, where butchering, soap-making, etc., are done by the help of a great kettle hung in the fireplace, not set in brick-work.

Adjoining the kitchen, on another side, is a state apartment, also rag-carpeted, and called “the room.” The stove-pipe from the kitchen sometimes passes through the ceiling, and tempers the sleeping-room of the parents. These arrangements are not very favorable to bathing in cold weather; indeed, to wash the whole person is not very common, in summer or in winter.

Will you go up-stairs in a neat Dutch farm-house? Here are rag carpets again. Gay quilts are on the best beds, where green and red calico, perhaps in the form of a basket, are displayed on a white ground; or the beds bear brilliant coverlets of red, white, and blue, as if to “make the rash gazer wipe his eye.” The common pillow-cases are sometimes of blue check, or of calico. In winter, people often sleep under feather-covers, not so heavy as a feather-bed. In the spring there is a great washing of bedclothes, and then the blankets are washed, which during winter supplied the place of sheets.

Holidays.

I was sitting alone, one Christmas time, when the door opened and there entered some half-dozen youths or men, who frightened me so that I slipped out at the door. They, being thus alone, and not intending any harm, at once left. These, I suppose, were Christmas mummers, though I heard them called “bell-schnickel.”

At another time, as I was sitting with my little boy, Aunt Sally came in smiling and mysterious, and took her place by the stove. Immediately after, there entered a man in disguise, who very much alarmed my little Dan.

The stranger threw down nuts and cakes, and, when some one offered to pick them up, struck at him with a rod. This was the real bell-schnickel, personated by the farmer.

It will hardly be supposed that Bell-schnickel and Santa Claus are the same; but the former is Peltz-nickel[5] or Nicholas dressed in fur. St. Nicholas’ day, the 6th of December, is in Advent.

On Christmas morning the cry is, “Christmas-gift!” and not, as elsewhere, “A merry Christmas!” Christmas is a day when people do not work, but go to meeting, when roast turkey and mince-pie are in order, and when the “Dutch” housewife has store of cakes on hand to give to the little folks.

We still hear of barring-out at Christmas. The pupils fasten themselves in the school-house, and keep the teacher out to obtain presents from him.

The first of April (which our neighbors generally call Aprile) is a great occasion. This is the opening of the farming year. The tenant farmers and other “renters” move to their new homes, and interest-money and other debts are due; and so much money changes hands in Lancaster, on the first, that pickpockets are attracted thither, and the unsuspicious “Dutch” farmer sometimes finds himself a loser.

The movings, on or about the first, are made festive occasions; neighbors, young and old, are gathered; some bring wagons to transport farm utensils and furniture, others assist in driving cattle, put furniture in its place, and set up bedsteads; while the women are ready to help prepare the bountiful meal. At this feast I have heard a worthy tenant farmer say, “Now help yourselves, as you did out there” (with the goods).

Whitsuntide Monday is a great holiday with the young “Dutch” folks. It occurs when there is a lull in farm-work, between corn-planting and hay-making. Now the new summer bonnets are all in demand, and the taverns are found full of youths and girls, who sometimes walk the street hand-in-hand, eat cakes and drink beer, or visit the “flying horses.” A number of seats are arranged around a central pole, and, a pair taking each seat, the whole revolves by the work of a horse, and you can have a circular ride for six cents.

On the Fourth of July we are generally at work in the harvest-field. Several of the festivals of the church are held here as days of rest, if not of recreation. Such are Good Friday, Ascension-day, etc. On Easter, eggs colored and otherwise ornamented were formerly much in vogue.

Thanksgiving is beginning to be observed here, but the New Englander would miss the family gatherings, the roast turkeys, the pumpkin-pies. Possibly we go to church in the morning, and sit quiet for the rest of the day; and as for pumpkin-pies, we do not greatly fancy them. Raisin-pie, or mince-pie, we can enjoy.

The last night of October is “Hallow-eve.” I was in Lancaster one Hallow-eve, and boys were ringing door-bells, carrying away door-steps, throwing corn at the windows, or running off with an unguarded wagon. I heard of one or two youngsters who had requested an afternoon holiday to go to church, but who had spent their time in going out of town to steal corn for this occasion. In the country, farm-gates are taken from their hinges and removed; and it was formerly a favorite amusement to take a wagon to pieces, and, after carrying the parts up to the barn-roof, to put it together again, thus obliging the owner to take it apart and bring it down. Such “tricks” as are described by Burns in the poem of “Hallow-e’en” may be heard of occasionally, continued perhaps by the Scotch-Irish element in our population.

Public Schools.

Over twenty years ago I was circulating an anti-slavery petition among women. I carried it to the house of a neighboring farmer, who was a miller also, and well to do. His wife signed the petition (_all_ women did not in those days), but she signed it with her mark. I have understood that it is about twenty years since the school law was made universal here, and that our township of Upper Leacock wanted to resist by litigation the establishment of public schools.[6] It is the school-tax that is onerous. Within about twenty years a great impetus has been given to education by the establishment of the county superintendency, of normal schools, and of teachers’ institutes. I think it is within this time, however, that the board of directors met, in an adjoining township, and, being called upon to vote by ballot, there were afterward found in the box several different ways of spelling the word “no.”

At the last institute, a worthy young man at the blackboard was telling the teachers how to make their pupils pronounce the word “did,” which they inclined to call _dit_; and a young woman told me that she found it necessary, when teaching in Berks County, to practise speaking “Dutch,” in order to make the pupils understand their lessons. It must be rather hard to hear and talk “Dutch” almost constantly, and then to go to a school where the text-books are English.

There is still an effort made to have German taught in our public schools. The reading of German is considered a great accomplishment, and is one required for a candidate for the ministry among some of our plainer sects. But the teacher is generally overburdened in the winter with the necessary branches in a crowded, ungraded school. Our township generally has school for seven months in the year; some townships have only five; and in Berks County I have heard of one having only four months. About thirty-five dollars a month is paid to teachers, male and female.

My little boy of seven began to go to public school this fall. For a while I could hear him repeating such expressions as, “Che, double o, t, coot” (meaning good). “P-i-g, pick.” “Kreat A, little A, pouncing P.” “I don’t like chincherpread.” Even among our “Dutch” people of more culture, _etch_ is heard for _aitch_ (h), and _chay_ for jay (j), and these are relics of early training.

The standard of our county superintendent is high (1868), and his examinations are severe. His salary is about seventeen hundred dollars. Where there is so much wealth as here, it seems almost impossible that learning should not follow, as soon as the minds of the people are turned toward it; but the great fear of making their children “lazy” operates against sending them to school. Industrious habits will certainly tend more to the pecuniary success of a farmer than the “art of writing and speaking the English language _correctly_.”

Manners And Customs.

My dear old “English” friend, Samuel G., had often been asked to stay and eat with David B., and on one occasion he concluded to accept the invitation. They went to the table, and had a silent pause; then David cut up the meat, and each workman or member of the family put in a fork and helped himself. The guest was discomfited, and, finding that he was likely to lose his dinner otherwise, he followed their example. The invitation to eat had covered the whole. When guests are present, many say, “Now help yourselves;” but they do not use vain repetitions, as the city people do.

Coffee is still drunk three times a day in some families, but frequently without sugar. The sugar-bowl stands on the table, with spoons therein for those who want sugar; but at a late “home-coming” party I believe that I was the only one at the table who took sugar. The dishes of smear-case, molasses, apple-butter, etc., are not always supplied with spoons. _We_ dip in our knives, and with the same useful implements convey the food to our mouths. Does the opposite extreme prevail among the farmers of Massachusetts? Do they always eat with their forks, and use napkins?

On many busy farm-occasions, the woman of the house will find it more convenient to let the men eat first,—to get the burden of the harvest-dinner off her mind and her hands, and then sit down with her daughters, her “maid” and little children, to their own repast. But the allowing to the men the constant privilege of eating first has passed away, if indeed it ever prevailed. At funeral feasts the old men and women sit down first, with the mourning family. Then succeed the second, third, and fourth tables.

Among the children of well-to-do parents, the unmarried daughter will sometimes go into the service of the married one, receiving wages regularly, or allowing them to accumulate. An acquaintance of mine in Lancaster had a hired girl living in his family who was worth twelve thousand dollars in cash means, her father having been a rich farmer. Among our plain farmers, such persons are considered more praiseworthy than the reverse.

I lately asked a lawyer in Northampton County why certain persons had allowed the Lutheran and Reformed farmers, men of very little school learning, to outstrip them in the pursuit of wealth. He answered that all the tendency of the education of these last was saving. “In old times,” he continued, “when we had no ranges nor cooking-stoves, but a fire on the hearth, I used to hear my mother say to her daughters that they must not let the dish-water boil, or they would not be married for seven years.” On the same principle, when a young “English” girl whom I knew told a young “Dutchman” that she was going to make bread, he said, “I’m coming for a handful of your dough-trough scrapings;” the idea being that there should be no scrapings left.

Mr. S., of Lehigh County, says, “We make money in Pennsylvania by saving; in New York, they make money by paying out.”

Mrs. E., of the same county, says, “We Pennsylvanians are brought up to work in the house and to family affairs, but the Eastern girls are brought up more in the factories, and they don’t know anything about housework. Many have been married, and lived here in this town (Allentown), of whom I have heard speak, who have not lived happily, because they were not used to keep house in the way that their husbands had been accustomed to. They were very intelligent, but not accustomed to work, and their families would get poor, and stay poor.” Mrs. R.’s daughter added, that “the New England men, the Eastern men, milk and do all the outside work.”

The writer thinks, nevertheless, that New England women will not be willing to admit that they do not understand housework, and are not eminently “faculized.”

We Lancaster “Dutch” are always striving to seize Time’s forelock. We rise, even in the winter, about four, feed the stock while the women get breakfast, eat breakfast in the short days by coal-oil lamps, and by daylight are ready for the operations of the day. The English folks and the backsliding “Dutch” are sometimes startled when they hear their neighbors blow the horn or ring the bell for dinner. On a recent pleasant October day the farmer’s wife was churning out-of-doors, and cried, “Why, there’s the dinner-bells a’ready. Mercy days!” I went in to the clock, and found it at twenty minutes of eleven. The “Dutch” farmers almost invariably keep their time half an hour or more ahead, like that village in Cornwall where it was twelve o’clock when it was but half-past eleven to the rest of the world. Our “Dutch” are never seen running to catch a railroad train.

We are not a total-abstinence people. Before these times of high prices, liquor was often furnished to hands in the harvest-field.

A few years ago a meeting was held in a neighboring school-house to discuss a prohibitory liquor law. After various speeches the question was put to the vote, thus: “All those who want leave to drink whiskey will please to rise.” “Now all those who don’t want to drink whiskey will rise.” The affirmative had a decided majority.

Work is a cardinal virtue with the “Dutchman.” “He is lazy,” is a very opprobrious remark. At the quilting, when I was trying to take out one of the screws, Katy Groff, who is sixty-five, exclaimed, “How lazy I am, not to be helping you!” (“_Wie ich bin faul._”)

Marriages sometimes take place between the two nationalities; but I do not think the “Dutch” farmers desire English wives for their sons, unless the wives are decidedly rich. On the other hand, I heard of an English farmer’s counselling his son to seek a “Dutch” wife. When the son had wooed and won his substantial bride, “Now he will see what good cooking is,” said a “Dutch” girl to me. I was surprised at the remark, for his mother was an excellent housekeeper.

The circus is the favorite amusement of our people. Lancaster papers have often complained of the slender attendance which is bestowed upon lectures and the like; even theatrical performances are found “slow,” compared with the feats of the ring.

Our “Dutch” use a freedom of language that is not known to the English, and which to them savors of coarseness. “But they mean no harm by it,” says one of my English friends. It is difficult to practise reserve where the whole family sit in one heated room. This rich limestone land in which the “Dutch” delight is nearly level to an eye trained among the hills. Do hills make a people more poetical or imaginative?

Perhaps so; but there is vulgarity too among the hills.

* * * * *

The foregoing article was written about fourteen years ago, and appeared (with perhaps some small changes) in the _Atlantic Monthly_ for October, 1869. It was published in the first edition of this work in 1872, and in the second edition in 1874. Many of the alterations which were made in one or both of these editions are now removed to the Appendix, where will also be found additional matter on similar subjects.

The passage of over twelve years has considerably changed the neighborhood in which I live. The greatest differences are the rise in the value of land; the division into smaller farms; the general introduction of the culture of tobacco; and the change in the population by the coming in of a larger number of that plainest sect of Mennonites, called Amish.

As regards the rise in the value of land, it is doubtless in part apparent only, from the greater amount of money at this time. I have spoken of one who said, “Well, Seth, it seems as if you Dutch folks had determined to root us English out; but thee had to pay pretty dear for thy root this time.” The farm alluded to was sold about 1855, and brought less than one hundred and sixty-three dollars per acre,—there being one hundred and ten acres. It has since been divided, and eighty acres, now a very large farm here, with the newer farm buildings, it is supposed would now bring over two hundred and fifty dollars. Small properties sell much higher in proportion. I hear of twenty acres, with fair farm buildings, having sold last fall for nine thousand dollars.

The division into smaller farms is caused in a great measure by the Amish increasing and dividing properties among their children, so that farms are running as low, in many cases, as from twenty-five down to ten acres. It is rare for the Amish to remain unmarried. The owners of such small properties cannot afford to hire help; the Amish help one another, and are willing to help others also. Many acts of neighborly kindness are exchanged here, even to giving a sick neighbor several days’ work in the harvest-field.

Tobacco was cultivated to profit long ago on farms and islands lying on the Susquehanna; but one of the consequences of the civil war was to make the cultivation of the weed more general here, and the immense sums obtained for fine crops have also kept up the value of this land.

The routine of farming described in the foregoing article is now abandoned. The following are the crops raised lately on a farm visible from where I write,—a farm that has been for years under excellent cultivation. It contains sixty-eight acres, of which (in round numbers) twenty-six are in wheat, eighteen in Indian corn, eleven in grass, six in tobacco, three-quarters of an acre in potatoes, and the remainder is occupied by garden, orchard, and buildings. Oats has not been grown on this farm for six years. The ground is so rich that oats lodge or fall, and will not mature the grain. For the last four years wheat has averaged thirty bushels to the acre. During the same time Indian corn has averaged about fifty-five bushels. To speak slang, it is not one of our brag crops. One year the cut-worms took two-thirds of it on the farm mentioned; and this had to be replanted. The greatest crop of corn of which I hear mention on this farm was grown some years ago, and was nine hundred bushels on ten acres.

As regards grass, the owner estimates that for the last four years they have made on an average nearly three tons of hay to the acre; last year they had thirty-six tons on ten acres.

Of the six acres in tobacco this year, they prepare the whole for planting, but only plant two themselves, giving out four to others. The men who take this land plant and cultivate it, and receive one-half of the produce, not being charged for the preparation of the ground, nor for taking the crop to market. One of the advantages of the cultivation of tobacco (I am sensible of its disadvantages, and do not recommend its use) is that it gives the poor laboring man and woman more independence. He or she takes an acre or more, plants, waters, destroys the large tobacco-worm, strips off the suckers, tops it, breaks down the flowering stem, gathers, dries, sorts, and packs, and receives perhaps one hundred dollars per acre in lump, which is very acceptable. They estimate that they make about double wages.

The eight-horse threshers before mentioned are getting out of date; steam threshes now almost entirely, and completes the work on such a farm as just described in two days. The threshing is frequently finished as early as the first of September, so that the farmer can hang tobacco in the barn. Large tobacco-houses have also been erected, in the cellar of which this crop is prepared for sale.

It will be observed that very little attention was paid to potatoes. Last year they brought at the rate of two hundred bushels to the acre. We had a pretty severe drought in 1881, and potatoes have sold this winter at one dollar per bushel, which would make the potato crop superior in value to the tobacco.

The great amount of manure required to keep the land up to such a standard is thus supplied on this farm, which is a model one in the neighborhood. For several months last winter the owner had sixteen horses, five of his own and the rest boarding; he also had twelve head of horned cattle, and fattened nine swine. All the corn, hay, and fodder raised on the farm were fed upon it. (Straw is rarely fed here.) Besides, the farmer bought five tons of Western mill-feed (the bran and other refuse from wheat flour) and about three hundred bushels of corn. This spring he has bought two tons of a certain fertilizer for his corn, and applied his own barn-yard manure to the tobacco and wheat. He has been indemnified in part for the great amount fed, by the money received for boarding horses at twelve dollars apiece by the month. Horses from Canada and the West are often fattened here for the Eastern market. This farmer bought two last year, worked them himself on the farm, fattened and groomed them, and sold them so as to make one hundred dollars apiece on them; but this was exceptional.

Besides the fertilizers before mentioned, lime is used in this region, although some have doubted the necessity of applying it to our rich limestone land. On the farm which I have been describing it is put on about every sixth year, at the rate of six hundred bushels on eleven acres. It costs ten cents a bushel.

* * * * *

Another change here is that many now buy bread, and several bakers regularly supply the neighborhood. This has caused a great lightening of the labor at funerals. The bread and rusks (or buns) are bought and the pies dispensed with, which were once considered so necessary. A jocose youth in a near village used to say, “There will be raisin-pie there,” when he wished to express that there was fatal illness; but raisin-pies are no longer so fashionable at funerals. There is no diminution, however, in the great gatherings. A wealthy farmer died lately who was also a Mennonite preacher. The funeral was on Sunday; the guests heard preaching at the house, then dined, and the funeral went to the church, where was preaching again. Four hundred carriages, it is said, were on the ground.

Our school-term in this district is not increased beyond seven months; but the salary has risen, and is from thirty-five to forty dollars per month, according to merit.

The Amish in this immediate neighborhood still cling to the plain customs I have described, except that it has become quite common for young people to drive in simple buggies. Now the yellow-covered wagons are not so universal; other colors are also used, and more elegant harness. (They generally keep very good harness.) Neither do the young men wear their hair to their shoulders. Many of the Amish now wear suspenders. One of my friends, who is Amish, says that you cannot speak of any such rule as regards the church in general, for every congregation has its own rules in these minor affairs.

The family graveyard, especially mentioned, has been removed, and all the bodies that were recovered interred at the Mennonite church in the neighborhood.

* * * * *

Two or three small changes in this neighborhood are the following: Sewing-machines are now found here in great numbers; many houses have large stoves, which heat at least one room up-stairs; and it is not common in this immediate neighborhood to sit up with the dead, in the manner before described.

An Amish Meeting.[7]

It was on a Sunday morning in March, when the air was bleak and the roads were execrable, that I obtained a driver to escort me to the farm-house where an Amish meeting was to be held.

It was a little after nine o’clock when I entered, and, although the hour was so early, I found the congregation nearly all gathered, and the preaching begun.

There were forty men present, as many women, and one infant. Had the weather been less inclement, we should probably have had more little ones, for such plain people do not think it necessary to leave the babies at home.

The rooms in which we sat seemed to have been constructed for these great occasions. They were the kitchen and “the room,”—as our people call the sitting-room, or best room,—and were so arranged as to be made into one by means of two doors.

Our neighbors wore the usual costume of the sect, which is a branch of the Mennonite Society, or nearly allied to it, the men having laid off their round-crowned and remarkably wide-brimmed hats. Their hair is usually cut square across the forehead, and hangs long behind; their coats are plainer than those of the plainest Quaker, and are fastened, except the overcoat, with hooks and eyes in place of buttons; whence they are sometimes called Hooker or Hook-and-Eye Mennists. The pantaloons are worn without suspenders. Formerly the Amish were often called “beardy men,” but since beards have become fashionable theirs are not so conspicuous.

The women, whom I have sometimes seen with a bright purple apron, an orange neckerchief, or some other striking bit of color, were now more soberly arrayed in plain white caps without ruffle or border, and white neckerchiefs, though occasionally a cap or kerchief was black. They wear closely fitting waists, with a little basquine behind, which is probably a relic from the times of the short gown and petticoat. Their gowns were of sober woollen stuff, frequently of flannel; and all wore aprons.

But the most surprising figures among the Amish are the little children, dressed in garments like those of old persons. It has been my lot to see at the house of her parents a tender little dark-eyed Amish maiden of three years, old enough to begin to speak “Dutch,” and as yet ignorant of English. Seated upon her father’s lap, sick and suffering, with that sweet little face encircled by the plain muslin cap, the little figure dressed in that plain gown, she was one not to be soon forgotten. But the little girl that was at meeting to-day was either no Amish child or a great backslider, for she was hardly to be distinguished in dress from the “world’s people.”

The floors were bare, but on one of the open doors hung a long white towel, worked at one end with colored figures, such as our mothers or grandmothers put upon samplers. These perhaps were meant for flowers. The congregation sat principally on benches. On the men’s side a small shelf of books ran around one corner of the room.

The preacher, who was speaking when I entered, continued for about fifteen minutes. His remarks and the rest of the services were in “Dutch.” I have been criticised for applying the epithet to my neighbors, or to their language, but “Dutch” is the title which they generally apply to themselves, speaking of “us Dutch folks and you English folks,” and sometimes with a pretty plain hint that some of the “Dutch” ways are discreeter and better, if not more virtuous, than the English. But, though I call them “Dutch,” I am fully aware that they are not Hollanders. Most of them are Swiss, of ancient and honorable descent, exiles on account of religious persecution.

I am sorry that I do not understand the language well enough to give a sketch of some of the discourses on this occasion. At times I understood an expression of the first speaker, such as “Let us well reflect and observe,” or “Let us well consider,” expressions that were often repeated. As he was doubtless a farmer, and was speaking extemporaneously, it is not remarkable that they were so.

When the preacher had taken his seat, the congregation knelt for five minutes in silence. A brother then read aloud from the German Bible, concerning Nicodemus who came to Jesus by night, etc. After this another brother rose and spoke in a tone like that which is so common among Friends, namely, a kind of singing or chanting tone, which he accompanied by a little gesture.

While he was speaking, one or two women went out, and, as I wished to take note of the proceedings, I followed them into the wash-house or outside kitchen, which was quite comfortable. As I passed along, I saw in the yard the wagons which had brought the people to meeting. Most of them were covered with plain yellow oil-cloth. I have been told that there are sometimes a hundred wagons gathered at one farm-house, and that in summer the meetings are often held in barns.

I sat down by the stove in the wash-house, and a very kindly old woman, the host’s mother, came and renewed the fire. As she did not talk English, I spoke to her a little in German, and she seemed to understand me. When I wrote, she wondered and laughed at my rapid movements, for writing is slower work with these people than some other kinds of labor. I suppose, indeed, that there are still some of the older women who scarcely know how to write.

I asked her whether after meeting I might look at the German books on the corner shelf,—ancient books with dark leather covers and metallic clasps. She said in reply, “Bleibsht esse?” (“Shall you stay and eat?”) Yes, I would. “Ya wohl,” said she, “kannst.” (“Very well, you can.”)

A neat young Amish woman, the “maid” or housekeeper, came and put upon the stove a great tin wash-boiler, shining bright, into which she put water for making coffee and for washing dishes.

I soon returned to the meeting, and found the same preacher still speaking. I suppose that he had continued during my absence, and, if so, his discourse was an hour and ten minutes in length. This was quite too long to be entertaining to one who only caught the sense of an occasional passage, or of a few texts of Scripture. It was while these monotonous tones continued that I heard a rocking upon the floor overhead. It proceeded, I believe, from the young mother,—the mother of the little one before spoken of. When the child had become restless before this, or when she was tired, a young man upon the brethren’s side of the room had taken it for a while, and now it was doubtless being put to sleep in a room overhead, into which a stove-pipe passed from the apartment where we sat.

My attention was also attracted by an old lady who sat near me, and facing the stove, with her hands crossed in her lap, and a gold or brass ring on each middle finger. She wore a black flannel dress and a brown woollen apron, leather shoes and knit woollen stockings. Her head was bent forward toward her broad bosom, upon which was crossed a white kerchief. With her gray hair, round face, and plain linen cap, her whole figure reminded me of the peasant women of continental Europe or of a Flemish picture.

I have spoken of her wearing rings. Says one of my neighbors of a different Mennist sect, “Were they not brass? She wears them for some sickness, I reckon. She would not wear them for show. One of our preachers wears steel rings on his little fingers for cramps.”

When the long sermon was ended, different brethren were called upon, and during a half-hour we had from them several short discourses, one or two of them nearly inaudible. The speakers were, I think, giving their views on what had been said, or perhaps they were by these little efforts preparing themselves to become preachers, or showing their gifts to the congregation.

It is stated in Herzog’s Cyclopædia that among the Mennonites in Holland the number of _liebesprediger_ has greatly declined, so that some congregations had no preacher. (The word _liebesprediger_ I am inclined to translate as voluntary, unpaid preachers, like those among Friends.) I am in doubt, indeed, whether any such are now found in Holland. There seems to be no scarcity in this country of preachers, who are, however, in some, if not all three of the divisions of Mennonites, chosen by lot.

When these smaller efforts were over, the former preacher spoke again for twenty minutes, and several of the women were moved to tears. After this the congregation knelt in vocal prayer. When they rose, the preacher said that the next meeting would be at the house of John Lapp, in two weeks. He pronounced a benediction, ending with the name of Jesus, and the whole congregation, brethren and sisters, curtsied, or made a reverence, as the French express it. This was doubtless in allusion to the text, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow. Finally, a hymn, or a portion of one, was sung, drawn out in a peculiar manner by dwelling on the words. I obtained a hymn-book, and copied a portion. It seems obscure:

“Der Schopfer auch der Vater heisst, Durch Christum, seinen Sohne; Da wirket mit der Heilig Geist, Einiger Gott drey Namen, Von welchem kommt ein Gotteskind Gewaschen ganz rein von der Sund, Wird geistlich gespeisst und trancket, Mit Christi Blut, sein Willen thut Irdisch verschmacht aus ganzen Muth, Der Vater sich ihm schenket.”

The book from which I copied these lines was in large German print, and bore the date 1785. In front was this inscription in the German tongue and handwriting: “This song-book belongs to me, Joseph B⸺. Written in the year of Christ 1791; and I received it from my father.” Both father and son have been gathered to their fathers; the book, if I mistake not, was in the house of the grandson, and it may yet outlast several generations of these primitive people.

The services closed at a little after noon. From their having been conducted entirely in German, or in German and the dialect, some persons might suppose that these were recent immigrants to our country. But the B. family just alluded to was one of the first Amish families that came here, having arrived in 1737.

It seems that the language is cherished with care, as a means of preserving their religious and other peculiarities. The public schools, however, which are almost entirely English, must be a powerful means of assimilation.

The services being ended, the women quietly busied themselves (while I wrote) in preparing dinner. In a very short time two tables were spread in the apartment where the meeting had been held. Two tables, I have said,—and there was one for the men to sit at,—but on the women’s side the _table_ was formed of benches placed together, and of course was quite low. I should have supposed that this was a casual occurrence, had not an acquaintance told me that many years ago, when she attended an Amish meeting, she sat up to two benches.

Before eating there was a silent pause, during which those men who had not yet a place at the table stood uncovered reverentially, holding their hats before their faces. In about fifteen minutes the “first table” had finished eating, and another silent pause was observed in the same manner before they rose.

I was invited to the second table, where I found beautiful white bread, butter, pies, pickles, apple-butter, and refined molasses. I observed that there were no spoons in the molasses and apple-butter. A cup of coffee also was handed to each person who wished it. We were not invited to take more than one.

This meal marks the progress of wealth and luxury, or the decline of asceticism, since the day when bean soup was the principal, if not the only, dish furnished on these occasions. The same neighbor who told me of sitting up to two benches, many years ago, told me that at that time they were served with bean soup in bright dishes, doubtless of pewter or tin. Three or four persons ate out of one dish. It was very unhandy, she said.

But while thus sketching the manners of my simple, plain neighbors, let me not forget to acknowledge that ready hospitality which thus provides a comfortable meal even to strangers visiting the meeting. Besides myself, there were at least two others present who were not members,—two German Catholic women, such as hire out to work.

The silent pause before and after eating was also observed by the second table; and after we rose a third company sat down.

When all had done, I gave a little assistance in clearing the tables, in carrying the butter into the cellar and the other food to the wash-house. The dishes were taken to the roofed porch between the latter and the house, where some of the women-folk washed them. A neat table stood at the foot of the cellar-stairs, and received the valued product of the dairy, the fragments being put away in an orderly manner.

I now had a time of leisure, for my driver had gone to see a friend, and I must await his coming. This gave me an opportunity to talk with several sisters. I inquired of a fine-looking woman when the feet-washing would be held, and when they took the Lord’s Supper. When I asked whether they liked those who were not members to attend the feet-washing, I understood her to say that they did not.[8] (I attended, not a great while after, a great Whitsuntide feet-washing and bread-baking in the meeting-house of the New Mennonites.)

I had now an opportunity to examine the books. Standing upon a bench, I took down a great volume, well printed in the German language, and entitled “The Bloody Theatre; or, The Martyr’s Mirror of the Baptists, or Defenceless Christians, who, on Account of the Testimony of Jesus, their Saviour, Suffered and were Put to Death, from the Time of Christ to the Year 1660. Lancaster, 1814.” This book was a version from the Dutch (_Holländisch_) of Thielem J. van Bracht, and it has also been rendered from German into English. I was not aware, at the time, that I had before me one of the principal sources whence the history of the Mennonites is to be drawn,—a history which is still unwritten.

The books were few in number, and I noticed no other so remarkable as this. Another German one, more modern in appearance, was entitled “Universal Cattle-Doctor Book; or, The Cures of the old Shepherd Thomas, of Bunzen, in Silesia, for Horses, Cattle, Sheep, Swine, and Goats.”

While I was looking over the volumes, a little circumstance occurred, which, although not flattering to myself, is perhaps too characteristic to be omitted. My “Dutch” neighbors are not great readers, and to read German is considered an accomplishment even among those who speak the dialect. To speak “Dutch” is very common, of course, but to read German is a considerable attainment. I have, therefore, sometimes surprised a neighbor by being able to read the language. I am naturally not unwilling to be admired, and, as two or three sisters were standing near while I examined the books, I endeavored in haste to give them a specimen of my attainments. I therefore took a passage quickly from the great “Martyr-Book,” and read aloud a sentence like this: “Grace, peace, and joy through God our Heavenly Father; wisdom, righteousness, and truth, through Jesus Christ his Son, together with the illumining of the Holy Spirit, be with you.” Glancing up to see the surprise which my proficiency must produce, I beheld a different expression of countenance, for the attention of some of the thoughtful sisters was attracted by the subject-matter, instead of the reader, and that aroused a sentiment of devotion beautifully expressed.

I asked our host, “Have you no history of your society?”

“No,” he answered; “we just hand it down.”

I have since heard, however, that there are papers or written records in charge of a person who lives at some distance from me. From certain printed records I have been able to trace a streamlet of history from its source in Switzerland, where the Anabaptists suffered persecution in Berne, Zurich, etc. I have read of their exile into Alsace and the Palatinate; of the aid afforded to them by their fellow-believers, the Mennonites of Holland; and of their final colonization in Pennsylvania, where they also are called Mennonites. The Amish, however, seem to have been a body of a more rigid rule, with a preacher named Amen, from whom they are called. It has been stated that they took their rise in Alsace in 1693.

Nearly all the congregation had departed when my driver at last arrived. I shook hands with those that were left, and kissed the pleasant mother of our host.

Swiss Exiles.

The plain people among whom I live, Quaker-like in appearance, and, like the Quakers, opposed to oaths and to war, are to a great extent descendants of Swiss Baptists or Anabaptists, who were banished from their country for refusing to conform to the established Reformed Church.[9]

Some of the early exiles took refuge in Alsace and the Palatinate, and afterwards came to Pennsylvania, settling in Lancaster County, under the kind patronage of our distinguished first proprietor. William Penn’s sympathy for them was doubtless increased by their resembling himself in so many important particulars. Mennonites from Holland were also among the early settlers at Germantown.

If any one inclines to investigate the traditions of these people, let him ask the plain old men of the county whence they originated. I think that a great part of the Amish and other Mennonites will tell him of their Swiss origin.

Nor are very important written records wanting upon the subject of the Swiss persecutions. Two volumes in use among our German Baptists narrate the story. The first is the great Martyr-book, called “The Bloody Theatre; or, Martyr’s Mirror of the Defenceless Christians,” by Thielem J. van Bracht, published in Dutch, about the year 1660; translated into German, and afterwards into English.

The second printed record, circulating in our county, and describing the sufferings of some of the Swiss Anabaptists, is a hymn-book formerly in use among our Old Mennists, but now, I think, employed only by the Amish. It is a collection of “several beautiful Christian songs,” composed in prison at Bassau, in the castle, by the Switzer Brethren, “and by other orthodox (_rechtglaubige_) Christians, here and there.”

The first of these works, the Martyr-book, was translated into English by Daniel Rupp, the historian. I have seen no English version of the hymn-book. I met both these volumes in the Rhenish Palatinate in 1881. Bassau, mentioned in the hymn-book as the place where the brethren were imprisoned, I have supposed to be Passau, upon the Danube, in Bavaria. Is it not so written in the Martyr-book?

Near the close of the hymn-book is an account of the afflictions which were endured by the brethren in Switzerland, in the canton of Zurich, on account of the gospel (“_um des Evangeliums willen_”).

The first-mentioned work, the great Martyr-book, is a ponderous volume.

The author begins his martyrology with Jesus, John, and Stephen, whom he includes among the Baptist or the defenceless martyrs. I suppose that he includes them among the Baptists on the ground that they were not baptized in infancy, but upon faith. From these the great story comes down in one thousand octavo pages, describing the intense cruelties of the Roman emperors, telling of persecutions by the Saracens, persecutions of the Waldenses and Albigenses, and describing especially the sufferings which the Baptists (in common with other Protestants) endured in Holland under the reigns of Charles V. and Philip II.[10]

The narrative of the persecution of the Anabaptists of Switzerland by their fellow-Protestants is mostly found at the close of the volume. It comes down to the year 1672, and must therefore be, in part at least, an appendix to the original volume.

Allusions to the severe treatment of the Anabaptists of Switzerland may also be found in Herzog’s and Appleton’s Cyclopædias.

In the former work we read that Anabaptism, after a public theological disputation, was by the help of the authorities suppressed in Switzerland. And how thoroughly it was suppressed may be inferred from the statement in the latter of the population of Berne. In 1850 the population is given (in round numbers) as 458,000,—of which only 1000 are Baptists, 54,000 are Catholics, and the remainder of the Reformed Church.

In Appleton’s Cyclopædia (article Anabaptists), we read that Melanchthon and Zwingle were themselves troubled by questions respecting infant baptism, in connection with the personal faith required by Protestantism. Nevertheless, Zwingle himself is said to have pronounced sentence upon Mentz, who had been his friend and fellow-student, in these words: “Whosoever dips (or baptizes) a second time, let him be dipped.” “_Qui iterum mergit, mergatur._” This humorous saying seems to be explained in the Martyr-book, for we read that Felix Mentz was drowned at Zurich for the truth of the gospel in 1526. The persecution of such men is said to have shocked the moderate of all parties.

Upon the authority of Balthazar Hubmor (whom I suppose to be the Hubmeyer of the Cyclopædia), the Martyr-book states that Zwingle, etc., imprisoned at one time twenty persons of both sexes, in a dark tower, never more to see the light of the sun. This early Swiss Protestant persecution occurred, it will be observed, about 1526, and the latest recorded in the Martyr-book in or about 1672, covering a period of nearly one hundred and fifty years.[11]

At the same time that the Swiss Baptists were suffering at the hands of other Protestants, Anabaptists of the peaceful class were found in Holland in large numbers. The record of their sufferings and martyrs (says Appleton’s Cyclopædia) furnished a touching picture in human history. William of Orange, founder of the Dutch republic, was sustained in the gloomiest hours by their sympathy and aid.[12] That great prince, however importuned, steadily refused to persecute them.

Menno Symons, born at the close of the fifteenth or the commencement of the sixteenth century, educated for the priesthood of the Roman Catholic church, converted in manhood to the faith of the Anabaptists, became their chief leader. Mennonites and Anabaptists have from his time been interchangeable terms.[13]

It was about seventeen years after the drowning of Mentz in Switzerland, and while the Catholic persecution was raging in Holland, that in the year 1543 an imperial edict was issued against Menno; for both parties persecuted the Baptists,—the Catholics in the Low Countries, the Protestants in Switzerland. The Martyr-book tells us that a dreadful decree was proclaimed through all West Friesland, containing an offer of general pardon, the favor of the emperor, and a hundred carlgulden to all malefactors and murderers who would deliver Menno into the hands of the executioners. Under pain of death, it was forbidden to harbor him; but God preserved and protected him wonderfully, and he died a natural death, near Lubeck, in the open field, in 1559, aged sixty-six. It is further mentioned that he was buried in his own garden.[14]

About fourteen years after the death of Menno, or in the year 1573, we read in the Martyr-book that Dordrecht had submitted to the reigning prince, William of Orange, the first not to shed blood on account of faith or belief.

But the toleration which William extended to the Baptists was not imitated by his great compeer, Elizabeth of England. For the Martyr-book tells us that in 1575 “some friends,” who had fled to England, having met in the suburbs of London “to hear the word of God,” were spied out, and the constable took them to prison. Two of these were burnt at Smithfield, in the eighteenth year of Elizabeth. Jan Pieters was one of them, a poor man whose first wife had been burnt at Ghent; he then married a second, whose first husband had been burnt at the same place.

Thus it befell the unfortunate Jan that while his wife was burnt by Catholics, he himself suffered at the hands of English Protestants.[15]

The expression “sheep” or “lambs,” which is applied to some of the Baptist martyrs, alludes, I suppose, to their non-resistance. Thus, in 1576, Hans Bret, a servant, whose master was about to be apprehended, gave him warning, so that he escaped, but himself, “this innocent follower of Christ, fell into the paws of the wolves.... As he stood at the stake, they kindled the fire, and burnt this sheep alive.”

The next year after this, William of Orange had occasion to call to order, as it appears, some of his own subjects. The magistrates of Middelburg had announced to the Baptists that they must take an oath of fidelity and arm themselves, or give up their business and shut up their houses. The Baptists had recourse to William, promising to pay levies and taxes, and desiring to be believed on their yea and nay. William granted their request, their yea was to be taken in the place of an oath, and the delinquent was to be punished as for perjury.

In William Penn’s Treatise on Oaths it is stated that William of Orange said, “Those men’s yea must pass for an oath, and we must not urge this thing any further, or we must confess that the Papists had reason to force us to a religion that was against our conscience.”

About nine years after William had thus reproved the magistrates of Middelburg, or in the year 1586, the Baptists came to grief elsewhere. It is stated that those called Anabaptists, who had taken refuge in the Prussian dominions, were ordered by “the prince of the country” to depart from his entire duchy of Prussia, and in the next year from all his dominions. This was because they were said to speak scandalously of infant baptism.

About the close of the century, pleasanter times for the Baptists seem to have followed. “When the north wind of persecution became violent, there were intervals when the pleasant south wind of liberty and repose succeeded.”

“But now occurred the greatest mischief in Zurich and Berne, by those who styled themselves Reformed;” but others of the same name, “especially the excellent regents of the United Netherlands,” opposed such proceedings.

The Martyr-book says, in substance, “It is a lamentable case that those who boast that they are the followers of the defenceless Lamb do no longer possess the lamb’s disposition, but, on the contrary, have the nature of the wolf. It seems as if they could not bear it that any should travel towards heaven in any other way than that which they go themselves, as was exemplified in the case of Hans Landis, who was a minister and teacher of the gospel of Christ. Being taken to Zurich, he refused to desist from preaching and to deny his faith, and was sentenced to death,—the edict of eighty years before not having died of old age. They, however, persuaded the common people that he was not put to death for religion’s sake, but for disobedience to the authorities.”[16]

After the death of Hans Landis, persecution rested for twenty-one years, when the ancient hatred broke out afresh in Zurich.

The Baptists now asked permission to leave the country with their property, but this was not granted to them. “They might choose,” says the Martyrology, “to go with them [the Reformed] to church, or to die in prison. To the first they would not consent; therefore they might expect the second.”

This brings us to the era of the persecution described in the hymn-book of which I formerly spoke,—the book now in use among the Amish of our county.

This little volume—little when compared to the ponderous Martyr-book—gives an account of the persecution in Zurich between the years 1635 and 1645. Many of the persons mentioned in the hymn-book as suffering at that time appear to be of families now found in Lancaster County,—not merely from the hymn-book’s being preserved here, but especially because some of the surnames are the same as are now found here, or only slightly different. Thus we have Landis, Meylin, Strickler, Bachmann; and Gut, now Good; Müller, now Miller; Baumann, now Bowman.

Mention is made of about eighteen persons who died in prison during this persecution, in the period of nine or ten years. Proclamation was made from the pulpits forbidding the people to afford shelter to the Baptists: even their own children who harbored them were liable to be fined,—as Hans Müller’s wife and children, who were fined forty pounds because “they showed mercy to their dear father.”

The hymn-book states that the _Gelehrte_ (the learned or the clergy?) accompanied the captors, running day and night with their servants. Many of the persecuted fell into the power of the authorities,—men and women, the pregnant, the nursing mother, the sick.

In the midst of this, the authorities of Amsterdam, themselves Calvinists or Reformed, being moved by the solicitations of the Baptists of Amsterdam, sent a respectful petition to the burgomaster and council of Zurich to mitigate the persecution; but the petition, it is said, excited an unfriendly and irritating answer.

It seems that some of the Baptists, harassed in Zurich, took refuge in Berne; and about the time that the persecution in Zurich came to a close, or about 1645, it is stated that “those of Berne” threatened the Baptists. About four years after, “those of Schaffhausen” issued an edict against the people called Anabaptists.[17]

Only a few years later, or in 1653, as we read in the Martyr-book, there was another persecution elsewhere. The record says, in substance, “As a lamb in making its escape from the wolf is eventually seized by the bear, so it obtained for several defenceless followers of the meek Jesus, who, persecuted in Switzerland by the Zwinglians, were permitted to live awhile in peace in the Alpine districts, under a Roman Catholic prince, Willem Wolfgang. About this year, however, this prince banished the Anabaptists, so called. But they were received in peace and with joy elsewhere, particularly in Cleves, under the Elector of Brandenburg, and in the Netherlands. ‘When they persecute you in one city,’ saith the Lord, ‘flee ye into another.’”[18]

About six years after, or in 1659, an edict was issued in Berne, from which extracts are given in the Martyr-book. If the edict in full brings no more serious charges against the Baptists than do these extracts, this paper itself may be regarded as a noble vindication of the Anabaptists of Switzerland at this era.

According to the substance of this Bernese edict the teachers of this people—_i.e._, the preachers—were to be seized wherever they could be sought out, “and brought to our orphan asylum to receive the treatment necessary to their conversion; or, if they persist in their obstinacy, they are to receive the punishment in such cases belonging. Meantime the officers are to seize their property, and present an inventory of the same.

“To the Baptists in general, who refuse to desist from their error, the punishment of exile shall be announced. It is our will and command that they be escorted to the borders, a solemn promise obtained from them, since they will not swear, and that they be banished entirely from our country till it be proved that they have been converted. Returning unconverted, and refusing to recant, they shall be whipped, branded, and again banished, which condign punishment is founded upon the following reasons and motives:

“1. All subjects should confirm with an oath the allegiance which they owe to the authorities ordained them of God. The Anabaptists, who refuse the oath, cannot be tolerated.

“2. Subjects should acknowledge that the magistracy is from God, and with God. But the Anabaptists, who declare that the magisterial office cannot exist in the Christian church, are not to be tolerated in the country.

“3. All subjects are bound to protect and defend their country. But the Anabaptists refuse to bear arms, and cannot be tolerated....

“5. The magistracy is ordained of God to punish evil-doers, especially murderers, etc. But the Anabaptists refuse to report these to the authorities, and therefore they cannot be tolerated.[19]

“6. Those who refuse to submit to the wholesome ordinances of the government, and who act in opposition to it, cannot be tolerated. Now the Anabaptists transgress in the following manner:

“They preach without the calling of the magistracy; baptize without the command of the authorities; ... and do not attend the meetings of the church.

“We have unanimously resolved that all should inflict banishment and the other penalties against all who belong to this corrupted and extremely dangerous and wicked sect, that they may make no further progress, but that the country may be freed from them; on which, in grace, we rely.

“As regards the estate of the disobedient exiles, or of those who have run away, it shall, after deducting costs, be divided among the wives and children who remain in obedience.

“We command that no person shall lodge nor give dwelling to a Baptist, whether related to him or not, nor afford him the necessaries of life. But every one of our persuasion should be exhorted to report whatever information he can obtain of them to the high bailiff.

“And an especial proclamation of this last article shall be made from the pulpit.”

This Bernese edict, being read in all parts, was a source of great distress, and it appeared to the Baptists as if “the beautiful flower of the orthodox Christian church” would be entirely extirpated in those parts.

It was therefore concluded to send certain persons from the cities of Dordrecht, Leyden, Amsterdam, etc., to the Hague, where the puissant States-General were in session, to induce them to send petitions to Berne and Zurich for the relief of the people suffering oppression.

The States-General, as “kind fathers of the poor, the miserable, and the oppressed,” took immediate cognizance of the matter.

Letters were written “to the lords of Berne” for the liberation of prisoners, etc., and to the lords of Zurich for the restoration of the property of the imprisoned, deceased, and exiled Baptists. The letter to Berne narrates (in brief) that “the States-General have learned, from persons called in this country Mennonists, that their brethren called Anabaptists suffer great persecution at Berne, being forbidden to live in the country, but not allowed to remove with their families and property. We have likewise learned that some of them have been closely confined; which has moved us to Christian compassion.

“We request you, after the good example of the lords-regent of Schaffhausen, to grant the petitioners time to depart with their families and property wherever they choose. To this end we request you to consider that when, in 1655, the Waldenses were so virulently persecuted by the Romans for the confession of their Reformed religion, and the necessities of the dispersed people could not be relieved but by large collections raised in England, this country, etc., the churches of the Baptists, upon the simple recommendation of their governments, and in Christian love and compassion, contributed with so much benevolence that a remarkably large sum was raised.... Farewell, etc. At the Hague, 1660.”

The letter of the States-General to Zurich is similar to the foregoing abstract.

Besides these acts of the States-General, several cities of the United Netherlands, being entirely opposed to restraint of conscience, reproved “the members of their society in Switzerland,” and exhorted them to gentleness.

Thus, the burgomasters and lords of Rotterdam, speaking in behalf of the elders of the church called Mennonist, whose fellow-believers in Berne are called in derision Anabaptists: “As to ourselves, honorable lords, we are of opinion that these men can be safely tolerated in the commonwealth, and for this judgment we have to thank William, Prince of Orange, of blessed memory, who established, by his bravery, liberty of conscience for us, and could never be induced to deprive the Mennonites of citizenship.

“We have never repented of this, for we have never learned that these people have sought to excite sedition, but, on the contrary, they have cheerfully paid their taxes.

“Although they confess that Christians cannot conscientiously act as officers of government, and are opposed to swearing, yet they do not refuse obedience to the authorities, and, if they are convicted of a violation of truth, are willing to undergo the punishment due to perjury. We indulge the hope that your lordships will either repeal the onerous decree against the Mennonists or at least grant to the poor wanderers sufficient time to make their preparations, and procure residences in other places.

“When this is done, your lordships will have accomplished a measure well pleasing to God, advantageous to the name of the Reformed, and gratifying to us who are connected with your lordships in the close ties of religion. Rotterdam, 1660.”

These appeals of the States-General and of the cities of Holland seem to have had very little effect, at least upon the authorities of Berne, for there arose eleven years later, or in 1671, another severe persecution of the Baptists in that canton, which was so virulent that it seemed as if the authorities would not cease until they had expelled that people entirely.

In consequence of this, seven hundred persons, old and young, were constrained to forsake their property, relations, and country, and retire to the Palatinate. Some of them, it seems, took refuge in Alsace, above Strasburg.

An extract from a letter given in the Martyr-book says, “Some follow chopping wood, others labor in the vineyards; hoping, I suppose, that after some time tranquillity will be restored, and they will be able to return to their habitations; but I am afraid that this will not happen soon.... The authorities of Berne had six of the prisoners (one of whom was a man that had nine children) put in chains and sold as galley-slaves between Milan and Malta.”

(We may infer that this, however, was not the first infliction of this punishment at Berne. A list in the Martyr-book of persons put to death for their faith concludes thus: “Copied from the letter of Hans Loersch, while in prison at Berne, 1667, whence he was taken in chains to sea.”)

This severe penalty of being sold as slaves to row the galleys or great sail-boats which traversed the Mediterranean was also impending over other able-bodied prisoners, as it is said, but “a lord of Berne,” named Beatus, was excited to compassion, and obtained permission that the prisoners should leave the country upon bail that they would not return without permission.

In the year 1672 the brethren in the United Netherlands (the Mennonites or Baptists) sent some of their members into the Palatinate to inquire into the condition of the refugees, and the latter were comforted and supported by the assistance of the churches and members of the United Netherlands.

There were among the refugees husbands and wives who had to abandon their consorts, who belonged to the Reformed Church and could not think of removal. Among these were two ministers, whose families did not belong to the church (Baptist), and who had to leave without finding whether their wives would go with them, or whether they loved their property more than their husbands. “Such incidents occasioned the greater distress, since the authorities granted such persons remaining permission to marry again.”[20]

Alsace and the Palatinate (lying upon the Rhine), where our Swiss exiles had taken refuge, were soon after devastated in the great wars of their ambitious neighbor, Louis XIV., King of France. Turenne, the French general, put the Palatinate, a fine and fertile country, full of populous towns and villages, to fire and sword. The Elector Palatine, from the top of his castle at Mannheim, beheld two cities and twenty towns in flames. Turenne, with the same indifference, destroyed the ovens, and laid waste part of the country of Alsace, to prevent the enemy from subsisting.[21]

About fourteen years after, or in the winter of 1688-89, the Palatinate was again ravaged by the French king’s army. The French generals gave notice to the towns but lately repaired, and then so flourishing, to the villages, etc., that their inhabitants must quit their dwellings, although it was then the dead of winter; for all was to be destroyed by fire and sword.

“The flames with which Turenne had destroyed two towns and twenty villages of the Palatinate were but sparks in comparison to this last terrible destruction, which all Europe looked upon with horror.”[22]

Between the time of these two great raids there occurred several noteworthy incidents. There came to Holland and Germany, in the year 1677, a man who was then of little note, a man of peace, belonging to a new and persecuted sect, but who has since become better known in history, at least to us who inhabit Pennsylvania, than Marshal Turenne, or the great Louis XIV. himself. It was the colonizer and statesman, the Quaker William Penn.

The Elector Palatine then reigning was a relative of the King of England. Penn failed to see this prince, but he addressed a letter to him, to the “Prince Elector Palatine of Heydelbergh,” in which he desires to know “what encouragement a colony of virtuous and industrious families might hope to receive from thee, in case they should transplant themselves into this country, which certainly in itself is very excellent, respecting taxes, oaths, arms, etc.”

I know not what encouragement, if any, the Elector offered to Penn; but only about four years later Penn’s great colony was founded across the Atlantic, a colony which afforded refuge to many “Palatines.”[23]

Of this journey to Germany and Holland, just spoken of, Penn kept a journal, and there is mention made at Amsterdam of Baptists and “Menists,” or Mennonites; but whether he ever met on the Continent any of our Swiss exiles I do not find stated in history. Of his other two journeys to Germany, no journal has been found.

Eight years after Penn’s journey there occurred, in the year 1685, a circumstance which may have especially interested our Swiss Baptists and have operated to bring their colony to Pennsylvania; for in June of that year the Elector Palatine dying without issue, the electoral dignity went to a Roman Catholic family.[24]

The Swiss exiles that first took refuge in Lancaster County came here about thirty-eight years after the severe Bernese persecution of 1671. Rupp, the historian of our county, tells us that in 1706 or 1707 a number of the persecuted Swiss Mennonites went to England and made a particular agreement with the honorable proprietor, William Penn, for lands. He further says that several families from the Palatinate, descendants of the distressed Swiss, emigrated to America and settled in Lancaster County in the year 1709.[25]

The sympathy of the Society of Friends, William Penn’s co-religionists, was at this time called out for this people in a substantial manner. Barclay says, “Not only did the leaders of the early Society of Friends take great interest in the Mennonites, but the Yearly Meeting of 1709 contributed fifty pounds (a very large sum at that time) for the Mennonites of the Palatinate who had fled from the persecution of the Calvinists in Switzerland.”[26]

The next year the commissioners of property had agreed with Martin Kendig, Hans Herr, etc., “Switzers” lately arrived in this province, for ten thousand acres of land twenty miles east of Connystogoe. (This Connystogoe I cannot locate. The Conestoga Creek empties into the Susquehanna below Lancaster.)

The supplies of the colonists were at first scanty, until the seed sown in a fertile soil yielded some thirty-, others forty-fold.[27] Their nearest mill was at Wilmington, distant, as I estimate, some thirty miles.

One of their number was soon sent to Europe to bring out other emigrants, and after the accession the colony numbered about thirty families. They mingled with the Indians in hunting and fishing. These were hospitable and respectful to the whites.[28]

We are told that the early colonists had strong faith in the fruitfulness and natural advantages of their choice of lands. “They knew these would prove to them and their children the home of plenty.” Their anticipations have never failed.[29]

The harmony existing between the Indians and these men of peace is very pleasing. Soon after their first settlement here, Lieutenant-Governor Gookin made a journey to Conestogo (1711), and in a speech to the Indians tells them that Governor Penn intends to present five belts of wampum to the Five Nations, “and one to you of Conestogo, and requires your friendship to the Palatines, settled near Pequea.”[30] About seven years after this, William Penn died in England, in the year 1718.

* * * * *

Dr. Seidensticker compares the German emigration hither, in its origin, to the Quaker and Puritan. After the Lutherans and Reformed had succeeded in gaining a recognition, there were sects in Germany who did not agree with the three recognized confessions and who were bitterly persecuted. Against such Christians the indignation of the clergy and the wrath of the civil authorities was directed in almost every German land.

Says Herzog’s Cyclopædia:

“When the Baptists were oppressed in Switzerland and the Palatinate, the Mennonites united into one community with the Palatines at Groningen (Holland), and established in 1726 a fund for the needy abroad, to which Baptists of all parties richly contributed. About eighty years after this fund was discontinued, being no longer thought necessary.”

Thus active persecution of the Baptists in those regions had ceased, it seems, about the year 1800.

The German or Swiss colony in Lancaster County is said to have caused some alarm, though we can hardly believe it a real fear. Nine years after the death of William Penn, representation was made to Lieutenant-Governor Gordon (1727) that “a large number of Germans, peculiar in their dress, religion, and notions of political government, had settled on Pequea, and were determined not to obey the lawful authority of government; that they had resolved to speak their own language, and to acknowledge no sovereign but the great Creator of the universe.”

Rupp, from whom I quote the above passage, adds: “There was perhaps never a people who felt less disposed to disobey the lawful authority of government than the Mennonites against whom these charges were made.”

The charges were doubtless dropped, or answered in a satisfactory manner; for two years subsequently, or in 1729, a naturalization act was passed concerning certain Germans who had emigrated into the province between the years 1700 and 1718. Over one hundred persons are naturalized by this act (Martin Meylin, Hans Graaf, etc.); and a great part of the people of the county can find their surnames mentioned therein.[31] All the names, however, are not necessarily those of Baptist families.

Nearly to the same date as this naturalization act belongs a letter written from Philadelphia, in 1730, by the Rev. Jedediah Andrews.

Mr. Andrews says, in substance, “There are in this province a vast number of Palatines; those that have come of late years are mostly Reformed. The first-comers, though called Palatines, are mostly Switzers, many of whom are wealthy, having got the best land in the province. They live sixty or seventy miles off, but come frequently to town with their wagons laden with skins belonging to the Indian traders, with butter, flour, etc.”[32]

Mr. Andrews, in his letter, while speaking of the Switzers, continues: “There are many Lutherans and some Reformed mixed among them.... Though there be so many sorts of religion going on, we don’t quarrel about it. We not only live peaceably, but seem to love one another.”

This harmony among the multitudinous sects in Pennsylvania must have been the more remarkable to Mr. Andrews from his having been born and educated in Massachusetts, where a very different state of affairs had prevailed; and on this subject Rupp says, “The descendants of the Puritans boast that their ancestors fled from persecution, willing to encounter perils in the wilderness, and perils by the heathen, rather than be deprived of the free exercise of their religion. The descendants of the Swiss Mennonites in Lancaster County claim that while their ancestors sought for the same liberty, they did not persecute others who differed from them in religious opinion.”[33]

The letter of Mr. Andrews, above quoted, bears date 1730. Twelve years after, or in 1742, a respectable number of the Amish (pronounced Ommish) of Lancaster County petitioned the General Assembly that a special law of naturalization might be passed for their benefit. They stated that they had emigrated from Europe by an invitation from the proprietaries; that they had been brought up in and were attached to the Amish doctrine, and were conscientiously scrupulous against taking oaths; “they therefore cannot be naturalized agreeably to the existing law.” An act was passed in conformity to their request. (I give this statement as I find it, although somewhat surprised if the laws of Pennsylvania did not always allow those to affirm who were conscientiously opposed to oaths.)

The history of our Swiss Exiles is nearly finished. It is chiefly when a nation is in adversity that its history is interesting to us. What is there to tell of a well-to-do farming population, who do not participate in battles, and who live almost entirely secluded from public affairs?[34]

Under the date 1754 it is noted that Governor Pownall, travelling in Lancaster County, says, “I saw the finest farm one can possibly conceive, in the highest culture; it belongs to a Switzer.” Thus Gray’s lines (slightly altered) may be said to comprise most of the external history of this people for a century and a half:

“Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe hath broke; How early did they drive their team a-field, How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!”

Some difficulty had arisen, however, between the Germans of our county and the “Scotch-Irish.” Thus, Day, in his Historical Collections, says, “The Presbyterians from the north of Ireland came in at about the same time with the Germans, and occupied the townships of Donegal and Paxton.” (Paxton, now Dauphin County.) “Collisions afterwards occurring between them and the Germans concerning elections, bearing of arms, the treatment of the Indians, etc., the proprietaries instructed their agents in 1755 that the Germans should be encouraged, and in a manner directed to settle along the southern boundary of the province, in Lancaster and York Counties, while the Irish were to be located nearer to the Kittatinny Mountain, in the region now forming Dauphin and Cumberland Counties.”[35]

In the Revolutionary war, the German Mennonites did not early espouse the cause of independence. Some of them doubtless felt bound by their promise of loyalty to the established government, while others were perhaps influenced by the motive lately attributed to them in the correspondence of one of our county papers (_Examiner and Herald_, Lancaster, October 27, 1869). The writer tells us that Lancaster County was settled principally by Mennonites, etc., who are strict non-resistants. They were peculiarly solicitous to manifest their loyalty to the powers that be, because they had been accused by their enemies of having been implicated in rebellion during the unhappy events at Münster, Germany, in 1535. “When our Revolutionary struggle began, these people were cautious in resisting the established government.”

During the late rebellion, although very few of our Mennonites bore arms, yet some were active in raising funds to pay bounties to persons who did enlist.

* * * * *

It appears to the writer that there can scarcely be a people in our country among whom the ancient practices are more faithfully maintained than among the Amish of Lancaster County.[36]

Notwithstanding the great falling off from ancient principles and practices which we read of among Holland Mennonites (see Herzog’s Cyclopædia and the Encyclopædia Americana), it seems that there are yet left in Europe others of the stricter rule. In Friesland, Holland, where the Mennonites are divided, as here, into three classes, there are found, by comparison, most traces of the old Mennonism.[37]

And we have lately heard of Amish in France. A letter from that country, published in the _Herald of Truth_ (Elkhart, Indiana, July, 1871), alludes to the late European war. The writer says, “The loss we here sustained is indescribable. Many houses have been entirely shattered to pieces by the cannon-balls, and others totally destroyed by fire.” He adds, “As you desire to know what kind of Mennonites there are residing here in France, I will briefly state that most of them are Amish Mennonites.” He signs himself Isaac Rich, Etupes, par Audincourt, Doubs, France.

This department, Doubs, adjoins Switzerland.

The church history of our Mennonites has not been entirely uneventful. Rupp tells us that they were very numerous about the year 1792, and that Martin Boehm and others made inroads upon them. A considerable number seceded and joined the United Brethren, or _Vereinigte Brüder_.

A society of Dunkers was formed near the Susquehanna, many years ago, by Jacob Engle, who had been a Mennonite. This society is called “The River Brethren,” and from it has been formed the society of “Brinser Brethren,” popularly so called.

The Rev. John Herr is generally considered the founder of a sect popularly called “New Mennists.” They call themselves, however, “Reformed Mennonites,” and claim that they have only returned to the ancient purity of doctrine.

In Montgomery County, in 1873, I find the term New Mennonites applied to another sect, while those of whom I have just spoken are called “_Herrelite_,”[38] or followers of Herr. The former are followers or friends of a preacher named Overholtzer,—a man who refused to put on a coat of a peculiar cut when he became a preacher.

In, or near, the same part of our State certain Mennonites have left the society, desiring to “defend their country,” and to join oath-bound societies. They call themselves Trinity Christians.

How far the “Albrechtsleut,” or “Dutch Methodists,”—the Evangelical Association, as they call themselves,—have made converts among the Mennonites, I cannot tell.

Mr. Rupp, whose history of Lancaster County is as yet the standard, speaks of the Mennonites as the prevailing religious denomination in 1843, having about forty-five ministers preaching in German, and over thirty-five meeting-houses.

The Amish meet in private houses. (In this year 1882, when preparing my third edition, I hear, however, of their having so far broken through their old custom as to have built at least one meeting-house in this State.)

Although I have never heard that our Mennonites as a religious body passed any rules forbidding slaveholding, as did the Quakers, yet they are in sentiment strongly anti-slavery, having great faith in those who are willing to labor with their own hands. Of this strong anti-slavery sentiment I offer convincing proof in the votes by which they supported in Congress our late highly distinguished representative, Thaddeus Stevens.[39]

In the _Columbian Magazine_ for January, 1789, appears an “Account of the Manners of the German Inhabitants of Pennsylvania.” The writer, Dr. Rush, would properly have included Friends in the following passage:

“Perhaps those German sects of Christians among us, who refuse to bear arms for the purpose of shedding human blood, may be preserved by Divine Providence, as the centre of a circle which shall gradually embrace all the nations of the earth in a perpetual treaty of friendship and peace.”

* * * * *

Since the first edition of this book was prepared, the public attention has been much attracted to a great body of Russian Mennonites who have come to this country, rather than perform military duty in Russia; some of these are of Swiss origin.[40]

One of my neighbors had before spoken to me in very favorable terms of Russian Mennonites, but it did not seem probable that such a body of people were to be found in that empire, and I paid but little attention to the subject.

The account which seems to me most valuable, among newspaper items concerning them, was contained in a St. Petersburg letter in the _New York Tribune_ of May 11, 1872.

The writer tells us that about the time of Menno’s death there was a large emigration of his flock to East Prussia, where their Dutch neatness and industry soon made those desolate and swampy regions to flourish like a garden. In 1730 and 1732 they were threatened with expatriation for refusing to serve in the army; but the storm passed by, and other colonists came in. Arbitrary measures, however, were still taken from time to time, and in 1789 they were forbidden to purchase landed property.

Catherine II. of Russia, while inviting German colonists, also invited these, and before the year 1800 about three hundred and fifty families of Mennonites had entered Russia, and settled on the lower Dnieper. They came on condition of receiving freedom of worship, “the administration of oaths in their own way” (the writer does not appear to understand their objection to swearing at all), “and exemption forever from military service.” They were also to receive one hundred and ninety acres of land for each family, money for their journey, etc.

The privileges were confirmed by the Emperor Paul, and extended to all coming after; and although the laws of Prussia had been altered, there was a continued migration of Mennonites to Russia until 1817. These settled near their brethren, and not far from the town of Berdiansk.

The Mennonites have prospered until they number about forty thousand. They settled on a waste steppe, where the land was rich enough, but suffered much from want of water. They irrigated, and raised agriculture to a higher point than anywhere else in Russia. They had no wood, and they planted trees. The introduction of tree culture on the steppes is entirely owing to them. They have not only large orchards, but productive forest-trees, and plantations of mulberry-trees, by means of which they produce silk. They are also large raisers of stock.

Although originally agriculturists, they have endeavored to supply their own wants in manufactured articles, and in 1854 they had in activity three hundred and fifty mills and factories, including cloth-mills, water- and grist-mills, dyeing and printing works, breweries, distilleries, silk-spinneries, brick and tile works, potteries, etc., and in their villages there were men exercising nearly every known trade.

There is no drunkenness or gambling among them. Crime is exceedingly rare. Besides all this, they are educated. Every child knows how to read and write; and in every village there is a school.

Up to this time they have been loyal subjects to Russia. During the Crimean war they sent large gifts of grain and provender to the besieged army. It is only because the privileges granted to them are infringed, and they will be compelled to enter the army against their conscience, that they now wish to emigrate.

Their success in tree culture on an arid steppe points naturally to the Western prairies as their future home. In their petitions to the American and British governments they asked whether they could obtain land free, or at low prices, for their whole colony; whether they could have exemption for themselves and their descendants from military service of every kind; and whether the government would advance them any money to defray their travelling expenses. Though the colony is prosperous, and some of the members rich, yet there are some who either have no land, or have so little property that a forced sale would leave them almost destitute.

In addition to the above from the _New York Tribune_, I have found an extract concerning the Mennonites of South Russia, from _The Friend_ (London), in which it is stated that a deputation was sent to St. Petersburg in hopes of changing the purpose of the government, but only obtained a delay of ten years, which expired in 1881, and also the option of hospital and other non-fighting military service in place of actual soldiership. Many deputations have since followed. The last attempt was by a company of “eldest persons” to the emperor, while he was staying at his country palace in the Crimea. We learn “the emperor did not accept an audience, but kind words by others were spoken plenty.” Extracts follow from an original letter, preserving the quaint English: “We greatly see the need of leaving Russia, not only because of military service, but also of the curtailing of religious and other liberties, which clearly shows an intention on the part of the government to take this and our language from us. Formerly, the administration of all laws connected with the colonies was in the hands of the colonists themselves; now they are mixed up with the Russian peasants. The Russ language, hitherto not, or little, wanted, is introduced into the schools, and Russian teachers are given to those schools. Prisons, like as in the Russian villages, are by law commanded to build; before, not at all wanted.”

But while the Russian Mennonites are thus preparing to emigrate, it is stated that in Prussia there are only a few churches that are not willing to submit to the new military law.

The editor of the _Herald of Truth_, a Mennonite paper (Elkhart, Indiana), speaks to the Russians nearly as follows: “I believe I understand the sad dilemma in which you are placed. You have homes, the result of honest toil; you love and cherish them; there is a long journey to make into a strange land; it will cost you a great many anxieties and trials; all these things seem almost impossible for you to accomplish, and yet you cherish the principles of your church, you want to abide in the faith of your fathers.

“In the country where you now are you are called to do that which we believe Jesus, the Prince of Peace, forbids. Now here is a dilemma. It will be for you to choose. Shall we stay,—and yield the principles of our religion? or shall we do as the Saviour said, ‘If they persecute you in one city, flee into another’?”

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In 1881 I visited a few Mennonite communities in Germany; the first being in the city of Crefeld, in Rhenish Prussia. I sought this town especially from what I had learned of it in my own country. Crefeld seems to have been a place of refuge in former times for persecuted religionists. Here, in the seventeenth century, Huguenot refugees introduced the manufacture of silk, for which the town is still distinguished. Here William Penn and others gained adherents to the Quaker doctrine.[41] And when the Dunkers were persecuted, some of them took refuge in Crefeld, in the duchy of Cleves.

Although Crefeld was so liberal, and although it now belongs to Prussia, it is greatly Catholic. The population is thus estimated: Catholics, 56,000; Evangelicals or United Lutherans and Reformed, 18,000; Jews, 1500; Mennonites, 1000. But the attendance at the Mennonite church which I visited did not indicate so great a number. I cannot express more fully to our own people of Lancaster County how much this church differs from their own simple meetings at home than to tell them that the preacher is paid, that he spoke from a pulpit, wore a black robe, and read a prayer from a book. Yet it is simple compared with the display of Catholic churches.

But what my neighbors will probably consider as a more vital difference between them and the Mennonites of Crefeld is that the latter bear arms. Since 1868 they have not been exempted from military service. They can, however, if they desire, take peaceful positions, such as nurses in military hospitals, or clerks; but while some of their fellow-believers in Prussia avail themselves of this permission, those in Crefeld do not. One not a Mennonite said to me that the positions in the army are more honorable.

Why, then, do they not join the Evangelicals? Two of the chief differences between them are that Mennonites only baptize those of mature years and refuse to swear in a court of justice, making instead nearly the following declaration, “My yes is yes, my no is no, and in testimony thereto I offer my right hand,”—the _handschlag_.

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The next Mennonite settlement which I visited was that at Kuhbörnchenhof, not far from Kaiserslautern, in the Rhenish Palatinate. Going among these people with no letters of introduction, I was received with much hospitality in the small rural settlement. Their ancestors came from Switzerland in 1715. The first who came to this place seems to have built himself a log house; the country being nearly covered with wood, with wild animals therein. Others joined him, until the little settlement numbered eight families. Counting all in the country round belonging to this church (or congregation), it is said to number ninety-four baptized persons. They baptize at the age of thirteen. Until lately this settlement had an unpaid ministry; but a few years ago they concluded to employ a minister. However, he is not heavily paid. He preaches by turns in three different settlements, and receives a salary of about one hundred and eighty dollars (having a wife and infant). There are larger communities, which pay as much as two hundred and fifty to four hundred and fifty dollars.

The Rhenish Palatinate belongs to Bavaria. The Mennonites here are no longer allowed to purchase exemption from military service; all who are drawn must serve.

One more effort I made in Germany to visit the Mennonites. I heard in the city of Speyer that some were living near Zweibrücken, and by perseverance I found an Amish family not far from the town. It proved to be that of a wealthy farmer, living in some respects more plainly than our people here. This farmer, Mr. Stalter, told me that all the Mennonites in the Palatinate came from Switzerland. When they came many of them were weavers, but now they have earned money, and all, or almost all, are farmers. The manner in which the sons of this family avoid protracted military service seems to be by obtaining a higher degree of education. I was told that since 1871 every young man in Germany must perform military service at the age of twenty. If he prefer, he may begin at sixteen. They usually go into barracks for three years. But the three years’ service can be shortened to one year, and otherwise lightened, thus: First, the young man must be three years in a common public school,—_Volks-schule_. Then he must go six years to a school of higher grade, a _Real-schule_, where he studies a foreign language (either French or English), chemistry, physics, mathematics, history, and natural history. (At the end of six years, if he cannot pass his examination, he may go back and study another year.) After this he is ready to enter upon the mitigated military service for one year only. If he does not wish to live in garrison, he can take a room elsewhere and board himself, but go through all the military exercises with the other soldiers. In this case he must furnish himself his uniform and other trappings. Of this manner of escaping the three years’ service I think that two sons of the Stalter family had already availed themselv