THE German Exodus to England IN 1709. (/IDas6en*auswan&erunQ &ec jptalser). PREPARED AT THE REQUEST OF tTbe ipcnn0i?l\>ania.^(5erman Society, By frank RIED DIFFENDERFFER. MEMBER OF THE I'ENNSYLVANIA-GERMAN SOCIETY, HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA SECRETARY LANCASTER COUNTY ; HISTORICAL SOCIETY, ETC., ETC. LANCASTER, PA. 1897. ccpyrioht 1897. Bt F. R. Diffenderffer. all rights reserved. INTRODUCTORY. HE t colonization of this continent by the Spaniards, Bngiish, Dutcli, Swedes, French, and Germans, presents many curious historical features and incidents. From the settlement of the Spaniards in Central and South America, to that of the French in the Canadas, many curious episodes thrust them- selves upon the consideration of the chronicler, matching in in- terest and importance anything Insignia of thk Pennsyl- vania-German Society. told in Greek or Roman story. Our Society, while taking an interest in all these early colonists, has to do only with those peoples from whom our membership claims descent, except in so far as they may incidentally have come into 258 The Pennsylvania-German Society. contact witli the people of other races and their OMai lives and careers been influenced by the men of other lands, and whose interests and destinies were more or less closely interwoven with their own. But even as we stand upon the very threshold of this great question of Germanic immigration and set- tlement in the New World, we are confronted with the magnitude no less than the importance and grandeur of the subject. Its period of active and continuous duration covers more than a century, and even now, more than two centuries since the first German set- tlement was made in one of the suburbs of Philadel- phia, this Teutonic wave still continues to reach the shores of our Commonwealth. De Quincy in one of his brilliant essays describes the flight of a Tartar tribe, in which 600,000 men, women and children, pursued their course from the banks of the Volga, for more than 2000 miles through the treeless plains and sandy wastes that mark the highlands of Central Asia, from midwinter until the succeeding fall. It was an event wonderful in its conception and as re- markable for its successful execution. But it was after all, only the return of a people to the home which their forefathers had left generations before. It was going back to the old rooftrees where plenty as well as a welcome awaited them. Not so with the early Germans who came to America. Desolation and hunger indeed, lay behind them. With poverty and misery for companions, they braved the perils of the ocean for months at a time they were crowded ; into ships that became pest houses, in which the fatal Introductory. 259 ship fever more than decimated their ranks, the sur- vivors well aware that years of servitude under task masters would be their lot. But the task to which I address myself is not to rehearse the story of the German immigration and settlement in this and some of the other states. That is a grand theme, worthy of anyone's ambition. In a general way it has been told and retold, but the subject is of fadeless interest and much still remains to be discovered and recorded. Out of the many in- teresting phases of this wonderful story, I have chosen one episode, one of which the writers of our history have made but small account, but which, while surrounded by obscurity, is nevertheless of sur- passing interest to us, the descendants of those early colonists.- IMMIGRATION BEGINS. — EARLY GERMAN COLONISTS TO AMERICA WHEN AND WHERE — LOCATED FOLLOWED BY THE STILL GREATER IMMIGRA- TION IN THE SUMMER OF 1709 TO LONDON, MUCH OF WHICH EVENTUALLY FOUND ITS WAY INTO PENNSYLVANIA. t HERE Has been some discus- sion among historians who have dealt with the question of German immigration to America, which should be considered the first established colony. Loher^ tells us the Spaniards, Italians, French and English may not claim the exclusive honor of founding early settlements on this con- tinent. ''In Venezuela was planted the first Ger- man colony in the New World," are his words.^ 1 Geschichte und Zustanden der Deutchen in Amerika, von Franz Loher, p. i. This now well-established fact has also been carefully elaborated by Julius F. Sachse, Esq. ^ Geschichte, p. 14. The Sivedish Colony. 261 The date given is 1526. The colony which settled itself on the shores of the Delaware in 1638, while ostensibly Swedish, was largely composed of Ger- mans. Although Gustavus Adolphus andhis no less illustrious minister, Axel Oxenstierna, were its pro- moters, the great Protestant king begged the Protest- ant German princes to permit their subjects to join his scheme of colonization,^ and from the names among those colonists that have come down to us, we are assured that many of them were Germans. The charter accorded the Germans even more favorable conditions than it did to the Swedes themselves. Campanius, the earliest Swedish historian of New Sweden, tells us Germans went in the ship "der Vogel Greif" which sailed with 50 colonists to establish the first colony on the Delaware. In 1638, Peter Min- newit, the first Governor, was drowned in the West Indies. Johannes Printz, a native of Holstein, succeeded him. Although Printz was in the Swe- dish service, he was a German nobleman M^hose full name was Edler von Buchan. With Printz came 54 German families, mostly from Pomerania.'* These facts establish the semi-German character of this so-called Swedish colony. But when we come to look for a German colony in the New World that was distinctively such, that was permanent in its nature and left its imprint in ^ Mr. Provost Stille, in Penna. Mag. of Hist, and Biog. * The First German Immigrantsto North America, by Louis P. Hen- nighausen, pp. 160-162, 262 The Pennsylvania-German Society. ineffaceable characters upon the future of the people of Pennsylvania, we must re-echo the words of the late Dr. Seidensticker who said : "Should it be asked when the German immigration in America had its beginning, the answer must be, in the year 1683."^ He of course alludes to the Germantown settlement. From that time forward, individuals and families found their way to the New World, but this immigra- We tion for some years was small and sporadic. do not find that colonies of any considerable size made their way hither. In 1705 a number of German Reformed families left their homes between Wolfenbuttel and Halberstadt. They first went to Neuwied, in Rheinish Prussia, and thence to Holland, whence they sailed for New York, and fin- ally settled in German Valley, Morris county. New Jersey.^ A still more important German colony was led to these shores in 1708. In January of that year, Joshuavon Kocherthal, a German preacher, represent- ing 21 families, composed of 54 persons," presented himself to the resident Knglish government agent, Davenant, at Frankfort-on-the-Main, and asked for permission to go to England, as well as for the necessary subsistence. Davenant consulted with ^ "Fragt mann welcherzeitdie deutsche Einwannderungin America ihren Anfang genommen habe, so lautet dieAntwort Im Jahre 1683." : Bilder aus der Deutche-Pennsj'lvanischen Geschichte, von Oswald Seidensticker, p. 3. ^ The Pennsylvania German Dialect, by Dr. Marion DexterLearned. '' Theirnumber is variously stated. Kapp says 61. See his Deutchen im Staate New York, p. 12. THE PENNSYLVANIA-GERMAN SOCIETY. 'rCrj: if/;/. 7x2 1^jrf4'i»7il£.ufiS-eA v/^/?t Inftit ^fi^< - Jf t „ (7/ * . r--rr' .'/?'. *.-^ Letter of citizenshipgranted hy the Queen tothe members of the Kocherthal