“kam mir zu OhrVom Sandloch Schuhlhaus am KreuzwegWas Lesern ich nicht gern vorleg.S’ hen lent g’sad ‘Am Sandloch spukts!’En mancher hot oft g’frogt, ‘Wie guckt’s?’Reiter sie sin schnell geridde!Laüfer nahme g’schwinde Schridde!”
“kam mir zu OhrVom Sandloch Schuhlhaus am KreuzwegWas Lesern ich nicht gern vorleg.S’ hen lent g’sad ‘Am Sandloch spukts!’En mancher hot oft g’frogt, ‘Wie guckt’s?’Reiter sie sin schnell geridde!Laüfer nahme g’schwinde Schridde!”
“kam mir zu OhrVom Sandloch Schuhlhaus am KreuzwegWas Lesern ich nicht gern vorleg.S’ hen lent g’sad ‘Am Sandloch spukts!’En mancher hot oft g’frogt, ‘Wie guckt’s?’Reiter sie sin schnell geridde!Laüfer nahme g’schwinde Schridde!”
“kam mir zu Ohr
Vom Sandloch Schuhlhaus am Kreuzweg
Was Lesern ich nicht gern vorleg.
S’ hen lent g’sad ‘Am Sandloch spukts!’
En mancher hot oft g’frogt, ‘Wie guckt’s?’
Reiter sie sin schnell geridde!
Laüfer nahme g’schwinde Schridde!”
“About the sand-pit school-house, at the cross-roads, things were said that I do not like to tell. It was told that there were spooks at the sand-pit, and ‘In what shape?’ was asked. People riding by rode rapidly, and those on foot hurried swiftly by.” There are still standing near the Conestoga, close to Lancaster, the remains of a building long and extensively known as “the spook house.” It probably became unpopular from a suicide in it, or from having been built in a field where strangers were buried.
A Lutheran clergyman said lately, “I do not believe inspooksmyself, but plenty of people do; and sad enough it is that there should be such superstition.”
The peculiarities of a people are always best observed by those who do not live among them, or rather by those who visit them occasionally. Most of my notes on this subject are taken from the conversation of physicians born in other localities than those in which they practise. One in my own county mentions the “apnehme,” or wasting away of children. He says that popular remedies are measuring the child and greasing it by certain old women. Another says that the “Pennsylvania Dutch” also measure for wild-fire or erysipelas, generally using a red silk string, and measuring about sundown. They blow across the affected part to blow the fire outside of the string, at the same time they “say words” or powwow. This physician says that the greasing above mentioned is for liver-grown children, and not for “abnehme” (as it is spelled). One class of powwowers do not interfere, he says, with regular practitioners; but one old woman in this county (who builds a fire in the brick oven, and says words over the coals) has been known to hide the prescriptions of regular physicians. He adds: “If a person is burned, recourse is sometimes had to a professional blower, who blows across the surface, saying words in the interval. Along the Pennsylvania Canal, on the Susquehanna, where ague prevails, the patient who has a chill is tied to a tree by a long string, and he runs around the tree until the string is exhausted, and then on to some distance. This is tying the chill to a tree. A ‘Pennsylvania Dutch’ remedy for whooping-cough, and one by which they bother the millers a good deal, is to put the child into a hopper with grain, and let the child remain until the grain is all ground out. Blood-stopping is very common in Pennsylvania. I saw a man with an artery cut, in whose case a blood-stopper was called in. The man pressed his hand on the bleeding part and repeated something, raising his eyes to heaven; but the artery was too powerful for him.”
On the west side of the Susquehanna the only county that can distinctively be called Pennsylvania German is York. A physician in the borough says that town and county are full of superstitions. He says, “In case of hemorrhage from the nose, from a wound or from other cause, a common cure is to wrap a red woollen string round each finger; another is to lay an axe under the bed, edgeupward; and you can’t talk them out of it. I used to get angry when I first came here, but I found that it was of no use. These are not occasional things only, but I have seen them over and over again. Then there are prayers for stopping blood, always in ‘Dutch.’ They can’t be sick in English, and the first question to me as a physician has been ‘Kann er Deutsch?’ (Do you speak German?) One of the prayers for stopping blood is, I understand, for human beings, and another for animals; and I think that the names of the persons of the Trinity are introduced. I have often asked, but they are not allowed to tell. Soon after I came here, I ordered some boneset tea for a patient, and the mother asked in ‘Dutch’ whether the leaves should be pulled upwards or downwards. ‘Will it make any difference?’ I asked. ‘Oh, yes; if you pull them upwards, it will work upwards; and if you pull them downwards, it will work downwards.’ [A valuable hint for a physician if the same plant can be used both as an emetic and a purgative.] Of the blood of a black fowl,—no other color will do,—three drops are given internally. I think this is for convulsions; but I hear so many of these things, and have heard them so many years, that they make no impression on my mind. These are pure ‘Pennsylvania Dutch’ peculiarities; I have found none or few of them among foreign Germans.”
I asked whether these ideas still continue or whether they are wearing out. “No,” he said, “they don’t wear out. I meet them every day. They still speak of horses and animals being bewitched (verhext). I have a story from good authority of a horse that was said to beverhext, and that turned out to have a nail in his hoof. That is a fact. What are you going to do about it?”
But to come to another county, Berks. I hear that in Reading there is a woman called theWurst-frau, because her mother sold sausages and “puddings.” This woman has a large office practice in salves and powwowing. In an adjoining county, Lehigh, I remember a few years ago to have seen the names of two persons put down in the directory aspowwowers; the word being spelled as pronounced in “Dutch.”
Norristown, in Montgomery County, is greatly Anglicized; but a physician says that an idea exists of stopping blood by a religious lingo, into which come the words “der Vater,Sohn,und heilig Geist.” “A certain man told me that he had never failed to arrest bleeding from wounds or even from the lungs, nor wasit necessary to be upon the spot; he could go home and repeat his lingo. This was his only medical skill; he did not claim to be a doctor.”
In Norristown also I met a woman who had been quite ill; but I heard that when better she would not get up on Sunday, lest she should never get well, and Friday was as bad. Her little grandchild having a birth-mark, she passed the hand of a dead person over it to take it away, but was unsuccessful.
To return, however, to this county of Lancaster, which I know better. A physician says that he found a child very ill with membranous croup, for which he left powders to be administered every half-hour, saying that when he called again, if it seemed possible to dislodge the membrane he would give an emetic. When he called, he found a powwower sitting, who looked very smiling. The doctor went up to the little patient, and asked whether the mother had given the medicine. She had given only one dose; the man had said that it was not necessary to give any powders. “Don’t you think the child is better?” the mother asked. On examination the doctor declared, “I am sorry to tell you that the child will not live two hours;” which caused the countenance of the powwower to fall. The child died, and this case caused the doctor to declare that he would not practise in conjunction with powwowers; and if they are now called in, it is done privately.
Although one physician spoke of not finding many of these ideas among foreign Germans, yet my friend, before mentioned, from the Palatinate says that when children have earache there, orabnehme(wasting away), or when persons are in the early stages of consumption, country people say, “Lasz dir brauche” (or, Consult a powwower); and a woman comes and whispers some words. “My father” (she adds that he was a Reformed preacher) “knew a blacksmith to whom children were brought, suffering with earache. The man would heat the big tongs, hold them close to their ears, and whisper something. My father asked him what he said. He answered, ‘Nothing; but if he did not whisper, the people would not believe in him;’ and my father told him that he ought not to impose upon them.”
I live in the country, but on last Good-Friday was at Reading, and was surprised to see so many persons going to church. Easter is greatly observed by Reformed and Lutherans. It is the time of confirmation and administering the sacrament; and you may hear of churches in country localities having as high as six hundred communicants. At Easter, of course, eggs greatly abound. At a boarding-house at Allentown I heard of colored eggs being offered to callers or taken to friends. Fragments of egg and of colored shells may be seen on the pavements for about a week.
A little childish myth is found in these more eastern counties, of which I have heard very little in Lancaster County. It is that the rabbit lays the colored eggs. A young man in Reading says that when they were children they always made a nest the evening before Easter Sunday, of an old hat or something similar, which they set near the door for the rabbit to lay the colored eggs in. An old man in a tavern, however, says that it is foolishness, likeBellschnickel. At my own tavern the landlady was coloring eggs, and had bought some canton-flannel rabbits with which to dress the guests’ tables at breakfast on Sunday morning.
In Lehigh County a lawyer says that when they were children they would take flax and each make his nest under a bush in the garden. On Easter Sunday morning they would run out and find three eggs of different colors in each nest. Literalness has gone so far in Allentown that I hear of cakes in a baker’s window in the form of a rabbit laying eggs.
At Easton a lady spoke of making nests for her two boys by taking plates, ornamenting them with cut paper in the form of a nest, putting into each a large candy egg and colored eggs, and placing a rabbit in one and a chicken in the other, and hiding them for the boys to find.
This myth of the rabbits’ eggs is very common among the Moravians. One of my “Dutch” acquaintances, born west of us in Cumberland County, and afterward living in Maryland, says that her mother told them when children to set their bonnets at Easter for nests for the rabbits’ eggs.
This is an old German myth. A gentleman from Switzerland says that he heard the fable there, and he thinks that it prevails allover Germany. Many or most of our early German emigrants into Pennsylvania seem to have come from or through the Palatinate. My friend before mentioned, who was born there, thus describes the custom at her former home. If the children have no garden, they make nests in the wood-shed, barn, or house. They gather colored flowers for the rabbit to eat, that it may lay colored eggs. If there be a garden, the eggs are hidden singly in the green grass, box-wood, or elsewhere. On Easter Sunday morning they whistle for the rabbit, and the children imagine that they see him jump the fence. After church, on Easter Sunday morning, they hunt the eggs, and in the afternoon the boys go out in the meadows and crack eggs or play with them like marbles. Or sometimes children are invited to a neighbor’s to hunt eggs.
Prof. Wackernagel, of Allentown, has kindly pointed out to me the antiquity of the myth. The old German goddess of spring was called Ostara (whence Easter). She rode over the fields in the spring in a wagon drawn by hares. (Our Pennsylvania rabbit is really a hare, as it does not burrow in the ground.) The egg is an emblem, says the professor, of the resurrection from the dead; so herein he finds heathenism and Christianity blended. However, the author ofDas Festliche Yahr(Leipsic, 1863) considers the myth older than Christianity; for he says that in Thuringia, Hesse, Suabia, and Switzerland it is said now, as apparently in ante-Christian times, that the hare or Easter hare lays the eggs. Finally, one of my German friends finds the whole a myth of the renewal of life in the spring.
On the 30th of last October our farmer locked the gate on the road, lest it should be taken off. Therefore the Halloween visitors limited themselves to taking down bundles of corn-fodder in the field and building a fence across the road, and to propping up one end of the market-wagon on the fence. I am told of a person who once had his wagon taken apart, and the pieces put up into different trees, so that it was some time before all were found. In Lebanon County a similar custom is found. One of my acquaintances living in a small town says that they celebrate Halloween roughly,—hanging beets and cabbages at the doors, moving steps, taking gates from hinges, throwing corn. The speaker was bornin Lehigh County, where nothing of this prevailed, and this fact constitutes one of the chief distinctions among our Pennsylvania Germans of Lancaster and Lebanon on one hand, and Lehigh, Berks, upper Montgomery, and probably Northampton on the other. In Montgomery a young “Dutchman” did not even know when Halloween is, and when I described our Lancaster County custom, said, “That ain’t any use.” Traces of similar observances of Halloween are found, however, in other regions. In Philadelphia the boys indulge in ringing front-door bells. In Harrisburg people who had wooden door-steps used to take them into the house, lest they should be carried off. Of Franklin County, beyond the Susquehanna, I am told that at Waynesboro’ it has been a favorite amusement at Halloween to gather store-boxes and build a fortification around the town pump, and collect wheeled vehicles around the public square. At Lockhaven, up the West Branch of the Susquehanna, my landlady was anxious that her cabbage should be housed, for fear that it would be carried off on Halloween.
My German acquaintances, before quoted, born in the Palatinate, do not report to me anything of this kind as existing in Germany at Halloween. One of them says, however, that at the time of putting up string-beans (which are preserved like sour-krout), children throw the strings into front doors. And Mr. Wollenweber, of Reading, also a native of the Palatinate, says that when the farm-work was over in October, they used to practise tricks. He has helped to take a wagon to pieces, and put it together again in a stable or barn. “We troubled ourselves very much,” he says. He adds that the boys were expected, when the fun was over, to come together and take it down again; but this is not the case in Lancaster County.
Can it be that some of these practices belong to the season of the year, and are a warning to the tardy to gather the fruits of the earth and their farm implements?
In his work calledDie Alte Zeite, or Old Times, Mr. H. L. Fisher, of York, Pennsylvania, describes such pranks as played at weddings or home-comings “infares.” The boys hid the bridegroom’s horse in a quarry, and the young men’s saddles and bridles were put upon trees, straw-stacks, etc.
In the text I have spoken of Bellschnickel, who in “Pennsylvania Dutch” land takes the part of Santa Claus, being in fact the same personage; Bellschnickel, or Peltz Nickel, being St. Nicholas in furs. St. Nicholas day is not, however, Christmas eve. It is the 6th of December; but it is in Advent. One of my German friends thus describes Peltz Nickel: “In the Palatinate at Christmas they have the Christ-kindchen, which is a little girl dressed in white and riding on a donkey. I often made one myself, dressed in my mother’s wedding-veil. If you have no donkey, a boy is dressed to represent one and goes on all-fours. The Peltz Nickel is a boy leading; he is blackened, and has a beard and rattling chains. He gives a switch to the mother, which sticks behind the glass the whole year, if the children do not hide nor break it. This begins on the first Sunday of December, with Advent, and may be practised till Christmas. He carries apples and nuts. The children must kneel and say their prayers, and if they say them nicely they get some of these, and perhaps honey-cakes and candy, which the Christ-kindel and Peltz Nickel distribute; but they do not give the Christmas gifts.” She adds, “We only went to one or two houses.”
As regards the New Year, Mr. Wollenweber says that in Berks County, around Womelsdorf, a dozen boys or so will form a company, choose a captain, take a gun, and go around the neighborhood, calling on different persons and asking leave to wish them a New Year. If they obtain consent, they will form into a rank, and the captain will repeat the following verses:
“Nau wunschen wir euch en Neues Yohr,En Bretzel wie en Scheuer Thor,En Brodwurst wie en Ofen Rohr,Und in der Midde-Stub en TischOof yedem Eck en gebrodener Fisch,Und in der Mitt en Bottell Wein,Das soll unser Neu Yohr’s Wunsch sein.”
“Nau wunschen wir euch en Neues Yohr,En Bretzel wie en Scheuer Thor,En Brodwurst wie en Ofen Rohr,Und in der Midde-Stub en TischOof yedem Eck en gebrodener Fisch,Und in der Mitt en Bottell Wein,Das soll unser Neu Yohr’s Wunsch sein.”
“Nau wunschen wir euch en Neues Yohr,En Bretzel wie en Scheuer Thor,En Brodwurst wie en Ofen Rohr,Und in der Midde-Stub en TischOof yedem Eck en gebrodener Fisch,Und in der Mitt en Bottell Wein,Das soll unser Neu Yohr’s Wunsch sein.”
“Nau wunschen wir euch en Neues Yohr,
En Bretzel wie en Scheuer Thor,
En Brodwurst wie en Ofen Rohr,
Und in der Midde-Stub en Tisch
Oof yedem Eck en gebrodener Fisch,
Und in der Mitt en Bottell Wein,
Das soll unser Neu Yohr’s Wunsch sein.”
“Now we wish you a New Year; a pretzel like a barn-door; a fried sausage like a stove-pipe; and in the middle room a table, with a fried fish at each corner, and in the midst a bottle of wine,—that shall be our New Year’s wish.”
Then they fire off the gun, and are invited to come in and take asupper. Generally they go to farm-houses, where there are a number of daughters, and these daughters are usually prepared to give them a hospitable reception.
This custom, says Mr. Wollenweber, also prevails in the Palatinate.
I am also told that the custom of firing-in the New Year is found in Lehigh, Berks, and Lebanon Counties.
Some of our Pennsylvania German Baptist sects cannot escape a suspicion of asceticism. I speak of them as Baptists, for not only the Dunkers who dip, but the Mennonites who pour, are Baptists, because they baptize on faith, adults or young persons, and not infants. At the time of the great Centennial Exposition one of our farmers told me that although their members were not forbidden to visit it, yet it had been recommended for them not to do so. He said that there were worldly things there, unnecessary things. Of the stricter sect of New Mennonites I heard that they were forbidden. But as these churches are of simple congregational form, this rule and this recommendation may have been local.
I met another farmer on a railway train, and asked about the Exposition. He answered, “I don’t think the Lord has any love to them things. It’s like those picnics and things; those that will go to them will do anything.” But his name was afterward connected with a more disreputable thing than a picnic.
In some things our New Mennonites are very strict. It is said that one was obliged to take down his front porch and another to cut down his evergreen-trees, apparently because they were suspected of being “proud.” A woman inclined to the same sect cultivated no flowers. Yet it is surprising how showily the members allow their unbaptized children to dress, in which they are a great contrast to the Amish. It is the same New Mennonites who have so rigid a ban in the church of which I have spoken in the text. I have spoken of a father who did not come to the family table. A member of the church was kind enough to explain to me the cause. He gave way to a selfish spirit, found fault unnecessarily. The wife bore it a long time, and then complained to the meeting, whereupon he did not show a penitent spirit; hewas not willing to humble himself before her. So they continued to eat apart, to be separate. Our Old Mennonites confess their faults to each other in an open meeting of the members. If the same rule prevails among the New Mennonites, we can see that it would not be at all grateful to the pride of “the natural man” to apologize thus to a meeting of which the wife was a part.
As regards another sect, the River Brethren, an acquaintance tells me that he was expelled from them for voting at elections; but still some of the brethren will vote. But against him there were two other charges, namely, of having a melodeon in his house and having his property insured.
Another division of the Mennonites are the Amish, who are very simple in dress and habits, very recluse. I once called on a plain old Amish farmer in moderate circumstances. His clothing was long worn, but clean and well mended, and his bent form, silver beard and hair commanded regard. A neighbor was with him whom he called Chrissly, the nickname of Christian. In conversation I spoke of one of my relatives as a lawyer, and I saw that this had an immediate effect. The neighbor remarked that when Judge Jasper Yeates was growing old, he said that lawyers are like woollen yarn, they will stretch. The old man added, “I guess they must tell rather more than the truth when theyblead.”
I said to the old man, “You all vote?”
“Yes; there’s some of them a little conscientious; but if they are, they can just leave it alone. It may be I’m dumb; but I just think we must have government,—we have Scripture for it,—and if the good people—what I call the tame people—stays away and leaves it all to the rowdies, how would it be? We mustbrayfor the government; do all we can. We mustn’t go to pole-raisings. It oughtn’t to be, but sometimes they will, you know.”
“Do any of your young men learn trades?” I asked.
“Yes; some are carpenters or cabinet-makers.”
“But you would rather have them farmers; why do you like that best?”
“I think if a man’s aGristian, that’s the best thing he can undertake.”
I have been told of an Amish farmer who was sitting at table with several young men who had lately joined the meeting, havingbeen baptized. One of these was his hired man called Yoney (a nickname for Jonathan). The Amish here do not in general wear suspenders, and the old man, addressing Yoney, said, “Was hasht du verschproke in der Gemeh?” (What did you promise in meeting?) The young man looked at his clothes, and the elder pointed out the suspenders.
Yoney answered that he was allowed to wear the clothes that he already had until they were worn out.
“These look like new ones.”
“They were my best ones,” he answered, “and I have just begun to wear them every day.”
A girl who has lived among the Amish has told me that they are obliged to give to beggars or “stragglers,” or they would be turned out of meeting. She does not know indeed that they are obliged to give to those who are able to work; but she did not believe that she ever saw them turn any away.
The impression prevails concerning the Amish that they endeavor to fulfil the saying, “Give to him that asketh of thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.” When I turn my mind to these plain people, I sometimes recall the trailing arbutus, which is found partly buried under the leaves and clinging close to the surface of the ground, but which when drawn up displays, though sometimes disfigured with dead, brown leaves, such a delicate form and tint, and exhales so sweet a perfume.
And I also have recalled Pope’sTemple of Fame:
“Next came the smallest tribe I yet had seen,Plain was their dress and modest was their mien;‘Great idol of mankind, we neither claimThe praise of merit, nor aspire to fame!But safe in deserts from the applause of menWould die unheard of, as we lived unseen.’...‘And live there men who slight immortal Fame,Who then with incense shall adore our name?’”
“Next came the smallest tribe I yet had seen,Plain was their dress and modest was their mien;‘Great idol of mankind, we neither claimThe praise of merit, nor aspire to fame!But safe in deserts from the applause of menWould die unheard of, as we lived unseen.’...‘And live there men who slight immortal Fame,Who then with incense shall adore our name?’”
“Next came the smallest tribe I yet had seen,Plain was their dress and modest was their mien;‘Great idol of mankind, we neither claimThe praise of merit, nor aspire to fame!But safe in deserts from the applause of menWould die unheard of, as we lived unseen.’...‘And live there men who slight immortal Fame,Who then with incense shall adore our name?’”
“Next came the smallest tribe I yet had seen,
Plain was their dress and modest was their mien;
‘Great idol of mankind, we neither claim
The praise of merit, nor aspire to fame!
But safe in deserts from the applause of men
Would die unheard of, as we lived unseen.’
...
‘And live there men who slight immortal Fame,
Who then with incense shall adore our name?’”
Yet our Amish are not a highly-educated people. Some years ago I inquired of a neighbor (who did not speak English fluently) on the subject of education. He said that they were not opposed to school-learning, but to high learning. “To send children toschool from ten to twenty-one, we would think was opposed to Holy Scripture. There are things taught in school that don’t agree with Holy Scripture.”
I asked whether he thought it was wrong to teach that the earth goes round the sun. “I don’t know anything about it; but I am not in favor of teaching geography and grammar in the schools: it’s worldly wisdom.”
All these Baptist sects have an unpaid ministry. Dr. H., of Bucks County, had a patient who was a Mennonite preacher, and the doctor refused to receive payment, saying that his father had taught him never to take pay from ministers of the gospel. The preacher looked sober and worried, but left quietly, and not long after he came bringing oats and corn for the doctor’s horse. Afterwards he would bring flour or buckwheat-meal and choice bits about butchering time. Thus he seems, without entering into argument, to have relieved conscientious scruples about taking pay for preaching.
The ceremonial of these plain German sects is not formal and stately, like that of the Romish Church. A Moravian of Bethlehem was amused with one of their ministers, who, in ordaining a preacher, said, “Nau kannscht du taufe, und nau kannscht du copulire.” (Now you can baptize, and now you can marry.) Then turning to a brother, “Hab ich net ebbes vergesse? Oh, ya; nau kannscht du auch beim Abendmahl diene.” (Haven’t I forgotten something? Oh, yes; now too you can serve in the Supper.)
Perhaps I would better translate the foregoing, “Thou can serve in the Supper,” for our Pennsylvania Germans generally use the pronouns thee and thou.
The Mennonites have not a great yearly meeting like that of the Dunkers. In 1874 a correspondent of one of our Lancaster papers spoke of a national meeting held in Illinois by the Dunkers. He said, “They had abundant provision for the comfort of the brethren. The tent held ten thousand people. Eighty beeveswere on the ground for steaks and roasts, and one baker had orders for eleven thousand loaves of bread.” This year I see a statement that the national Conference was held in Indiana, and that twenty thousand people were on the ground. Dr. Seidensticker (Century Magazine, December, 1881) states the number of the Dunkers in the United States at about two hundred thousand, with nearly two thousand ministers, none of whom receives a salary. They pay more attention to education than the Mennonites, having now three collegiate institutes.
Mennonites are still found in Europe; in Holland, Prussia, Switzerland, the Palatinate, etc. They are sometimes distinguished in Germany into Heftler and Knöpfler, or Hook men and Button men; whence it seems that one of the distinctions here is widespread and of former origin. In 1881 I visited a family in the Palatinate, where I was shown a black satin waistcoat which the father had once worn, with hooks and eyes down the front; but none of our Amish here would wear anything so showy as a black satin waistcoat.
In the same year, 1881, a Mennonite preacher in the Palatinate gave me a list of many of the European communities, with names of their officers, such as preachers, deacons, etc. Many of the same names are found in Lancaster County, though not generally spelled in the same way. Such are Frantz, Lichti, Landes, Lehmann, Bachmann, Oesch, Bähr and Bär, Zercher, Krehbiel, Neff, Binkele, Muselmann, Brubacher, Staehly, Wickert. The family of Stauffer, in my own immediate neighborhood, has possessed for several generations the given names John and Christian. On the European list I find two Christian Stauffers, and one marked Johann Stauffer II.
I met in the Palatinate one who had travelled in Switzerland, and who had seen Mennonites there. All that he met there were farmers, who sold milk when near towns, or made butter and cheese when at a distance. They were mostly Amish. One Amish family, who still wore hooks and eyes, were named Stauffer. Other families whom he knew or heard of were named Wenger, Schwartz, Rettiger, etc.
I find in the volume just mentioned a little description of a Mennonite congregation near Tilsit, in Prussia, which shows how closely agricultural the people are. There are altogether abouteight hundred (five hundred and twenty being baptized). Seven hundred and seventy live in the country, in town thirty. Fifteen belong to the mercantile class, to mechanics twenty-four, to laborers seventy. The rest own or rent land (sind Grundbesitzer und Rentier).
From this volume, some of the Russian Mennonites appear to have adopted river-baptism. One body of Russians went to Taschkant in Middle Asia, and seem to have been quite unfortunate, as most of us would expect non-resistants to be among those nearly barbarians. And these emigrants were extremists, refusing obedience to worldly authorities; they were unwilling to plant forests in lieu of military service in Russia; the office of preacher they considered a human institution, and called themselves the spouse of the Lord. (Brautgemeinde des Herrn.)
I have received a copy of the Family Almanac for 1882, published by a Mennonite company in Indiana, which bears on the cover a little engraving of the sword being beaten into the ploughshare, and the motto above, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”
Within the almanac, among other matter, is the well-known engraving of a man surrounded by the twelve signs of the zodiac, and headed thus, “Anatomy of Man’s Body as said to be governed by the Twelve Constellations.” I find the wordssaid to besignificant,—perhaps the introduction of some scrupulous person. On the same page is the statement, “Jupiter is the ruling planet this year.”
A meeting calendar at the close of the almanac gives forty-two meeting-houses in Lancaster County, and twenty-two others in this State. Also eleven in Indiana, one in Michigan, and seventeen in Virginia. There are many Mennonites in Ohio, but this list does not speak of them. Those meeting-houses mentioned make nearly one hundred; but probably the list contains none of the New or Reformed Mennonites, also none of the Amish, who almost invariably meet in private houses. A peculiarity of the Mennonite meetings in the list just spoken of is the long interval between meetings, which is mostly two or four weeks, and in three cases eight weeks.
In the article in the text called Schwenkfelders a careful observer will note a discrepancy. The author speaks of their holding the Spirit above the Scriptures; but also quotes Schwenkfeld as speaking in substance of “the gifts of grace revealed by the Father; yet so that this revelation should unite with the witness of the Scriptures.” The author has not read Schwenkfeld’s works, but quotes from different sources.
Before closing these remarks on the plainer sects, I may add that they are all evangelical, at least there are no Socinian “Menists” here as in Holland in the time of William Penn. The Dunkers do not believe in eternal perdition.
Further as regards one of these plainer sects, I may ask, Are they degenerating physically? This must be the tendency, it would seem, in all small religious bodies, limited in marriage to their own membership; but this may be compensated for by simplicity and purity of life and freedom from agitation and pecuniary distress.
It will be seen that there are among the Pennsylvania Germans two classes who may be compared or contrasted. The one party may be called the people of Lancaster and Lebanon, the Baptist and peace; the other, the people of Berks, Lehigh, and Northampton, the Reformed and Lutheran party. There are, however, many Reformed and Lutherans in the former division, but extremely few of the peace people in the latter. In Bucks and Montgomery on the east, Cumberland and other counties on the west, the different classes are mingled with many “English.” I have already pointed out that many of the peace people are of Swiss origin; of the other division, many or most appear to have been Palatines, and perhaps French refugees. I have already pointed out also how these two parties differ, the most astonishing difference being that of politics. During the civil war the one party opposed the government, which the other sustained. I find a surprising instance in my notes: A worthy Schwenkfelder told me of places in the northern part of Montgomery where party spirit seemed to have run riot, where vendue-criers would use such language as this: one held up an old scythe, and, as if to enhance its merits, said that it would do to cut old Lincoln’s head off. The great contrast, however, in politics between the two districts alludedto may of course have had some other origin than the sectarian differences of the people. It must be remembered, however, in Germany, that for a long period the Reformed and Lutheran were state churches; and these other bodies that existed there were dissenters.
In language I have pointed out small differences. In holidays I have shown how Lancaster and Lebanon keep Halloween, in a manner unknown to the eastern counties. In the three “Dutch” counties of the east we have the rabbit myth more extensive than here in Lancaster. While those three have great agricultural county fairs, Lancaster has held none since before the war. I attribute this in a great measure to the opposition of our Baptist farmers to horse-racing and its concomitants.
A friend gives me another small point of difference. In Lancaster, at Christmas-time, is sold a cake calledMotzebom, which is not seen in Eastern Pennsylvania. This, he adds, is from the Italianmarzepane, or bread of St. Mark, which came from Italy into Germany; in England called marchpain.
Said a young man to us, “My daddy won’t sit in no rocking-chair. He has a crutch agin’ a rocking-chair.” It appears that the same objection has been felt by other Pennsylvania Germans. Wollenweber gives us a farmer talking to his children in the spring, who says especially that none of the girls is to sit in a rocking-chair on a working-day. In sounding the praises of Womelsdorf, Berks County, the same author tells us that the women are never seen sitting in a rocking-chair.
We may sometimes judge of a person’s character by hearing the arguments used to induce him to act. Thus does Wollenweber endeavor to induce the people of Womelsdorf to erect a monument to Conrad Weiser, who is buried near the town, and who was a distinguished German pioneer. Wollenweber encourages them to raise a subscription. Certainly, he says, the man who owns the place would not object to having a beautiful monument on his farm; and thousands would go to see it; so that the railroad company, the turnpike company, and all the tavern-keepersin the neighborhood would make a good thing of it. “Alas!” he adds, “most of the people who live round there do not know how to prize the treasure they possess.”
These are rural similes used by Wollenweber, whose little volume is “in the idiom and manner of speech of the Pennsylvania Germans.” It tells of girls who want to be English (who profess to talk English), but when some one from town talks to them, they stand like a hen who has dropped an egg. Again, we read that Weiser remonstrated with Stiegel on account of his extravagance, etc.; but he might as well have talked to a dead calf.
Perhaps the best article in the collection (which is indeed of very unequal merit) is the story of the dreadful noise that was heard just before daylight in Lancaster County, near Berks. The people went to Squire Reinhold’s to talk about it, and the squire, who was very high learned, thought it must be the train of the wild huntsman, presaging war, pestilence, and scarcity. He had a German book that told about it. One stout young fellow, however, had a mind to see for himself; and he took with him an old shoemaker, who had fought in the Buckshot war, and who was fearfully full of courage when he had emptied a pint of whiskey, but whom anybody could chase away when he was sober. (The Buckshot war was a bloodless affair at Harrisburg, in 1838.)
This pair went to watch, and heard nothing for two or three nights, but at last about three in the morning a noise was heard as if every storm-wind had broken loose. The shoemaker was so frightened that he sank down at the foot of a tree and buried his head in the fallen leaves. But the young man discovered that the noise was caused by an immense flock of wild pigeons.
It has been hinted in the text that the Pennsylvania Germans are not refined. One of their preachers has told me of their being a gross, unrefined people, and of his being often obliged to see things that he would rather not. Another preacher gave me this anecdote: A man, speaking of his son, said, “I would rather have lost my best horse as Jake. He was such a fellow to work.”
Of those who are yoked together in life and do not pull together, the “Dutch” of Berks and Lehigh say, “Der ehne keht chee un der onnere keht haw.” (One gees and the other haws.) It is applied also to others who do not agree, and is heard also thus, “Ehnce will chee, oonce anner will ho.”
Although our “Pennsylvania Dutch” are of undoubted German origin, yet in common speech they almost always speak of themselves as Dutch, which sounds much more likeDeutschthan German does; and it is not a great length of time since Germans were so called. I think that it was in Miss Aiken’s life of Elizabeth that I found the following. One of the suitors to the queen was brother to the emperor of Austria. The Earl of Sussex wrote to Elizabeth, “His highness, besides his natural language of Dutch, speaketh very well Spanish and Italian.”
The following are from newspapers of different dates:
In 1869 a literary society in Lancaster County discussed the question, Resolved, that wealth exerts a greater influence than knowledge. The decision was in favor of the affirmative.
In 1872 a lyceum in the same county debated the subject that wealth has a greater influence on the people in general than education. The decision was in favor of education, “contrary to expectation.”
In 1879, in another literary society in our county, this referred question was answered, Is laziness a habit, a disease, or a sin? If we only had the answer!
At a lyceum in Berks County in 1882 was discussed this subject, Resolved, that ambition is a greater evil than intemperance. The judges decided in favor of the affirmative; the house afterwards in the negative.
The following seems to be from a report in the ReadingEagle: Samuel J. and his wife returned from their wedding trip on Monday evening, when they were serenaded early by a band, and later Butcher arrived before the bride’s house with the si-gike, followed by about one hundred little boys. After making the welkin ringfor about one hour, Samuel handed over a V, and the band left in high glee.
At my own home I have heard the sound of these rough serenades, borne over the fields in notes by distance made less harsh. The instruments are pots and pans beaten, and a horse-fiddle, made by putting rosin on edges of a box, and drawing a rail over them. In my own neighborhood I hear that this rough play is going out of fashion as musical bands are coming in.
In the south of England I saw an aged pair who had received a rough serenade on account of conjugal disturbances.
A friend, born in the Palatinate, tells me that rough serenades were formerly practised there, and calledKatzen-musik (cat music), or charivari. They were introduced on the occasion of disproportionate marriages. Thus,—
“Eine alte Frau und ein junger MannDie müsse Charivari han.”
“Eine alte Frau und ein junger MannDie müsse Charivari han.”
“Eine alte Frau und ein junger MannDie müsse Charivari han.”
“Eine alte Frau und ein junger Mann
Die müsse Charivari han.”
“An old wife and a young husband must have a serenade.”
In Berks County a young publisher told me that when visiting the country and asking his subscribers how they liked his paper, he received answer that it was “a very nice paper for the cupboard.” Being a large-sized paper, it was a good one to spread upon shelves to keep them clean.
Lancaster County men connected with the press have had similar experiences. One canvassing for a paper to be published in a small town came across an old man and his wife tying covers on pots of apple-butter, and showed them a specimen copy. He was answered, “Ich verlang’s net. Es macht net vier Happe-deckel.” (I don’t want it. It won’t make four pot-covers.)
When theLancaster County Farmerwas started it was in small pamphlet form. A person in the office showed it to a man, who took hold of it, opened it, and looked at the other side, but believed he would not take it: it was almost too small to tie apple-butter crocks with.
A man came into the office of the LancasterExpress, Republican, and wished to “pay his paper.” I will call his post-office Blackburn. Considerable time was spent in looking over the list of the weekly paper and trying to find his name, and then he wasasked whether it was not the daily. No, he did not think it was. And was he sure that he got it from Blackburn Post-Office “Yes.”
“Well, maybe it’s theIntelligencer.”
“I guess maybe it is; it’s a Democrat paper.”
I have spoken of old apple-butter. The following is condensed from a Lancaster paper of 1874: “A gentleman handed us a few days since a bottle of apple-butter made in 1820, being fifty-three years old last fall. It is still good, and retains its original flavor. It was part of the ‘housestire’ of Mrs. R. of this county after her marriage.” (Haus steuris the house-furnishing. Apple-butter kept so long dries away to a very small bulk, but can be renewed by boiling it with water.)
At a Quaker settlement in Lancaster County, nearly extinct among the “Dutch,” a father urged his son to activity thus: “Let me see if thee’ll go on and help me like a little Dutch boy would do, or whether thee’ll linger and loiter about.” When the boy had got into college he told of his neighbors’ saying, “Too much eddication, you know, makes a man lazy.” A neighboring farmer was inquiring for a person to help him in haying and harvest, and the lad spoke for himself, saying that some people thought he was lazy, but that he could work and was willing to work. “Still, you’re a little lazy,” answered the farmer.
Riding one evening we met an Amish farmer on horseback driving a very clean sow. We stopped, and I asked whether he had a certain book which contains a notice of the Amish. He answered that he did not have many books.
“My Bible and Testament’s enough for me to read;” then, recollecting himself, “and the Martyr-Book, I have that.”
“Does Mr. Kennel live here?” inquired a stranger of an Amish farmer.
“Joe Kennel lives here. I’m the man.”
Mr. R. has told me that in 1853, at the age of six, he went to public school in this county. He had just learned to read, and was put into a class in the Testament. They read four to six times a day. It took them about three months to accomplish the Testament, and then the teacher put them into the Bible, which they completed, Mr. R. says, before he was eight years old, but under a succeeding teacher.
“We hadn’t many books in those days,” says Mr. R.; “I used to read the weeklyTribunedown to the names of the Kansas settlers.”
The custom of barring out the teacher at Christmas appears not yet to be extinct in Lancaster County.
The scholars demand a Christmas gift, but are not always successful. One teacher near here walked calmly home, and allowed the scholars to open the door at their leisure.
An acquaintance, born in Northampton County, tells me that at his native place the teacher was locked out not at Christmas, but on Shrove-Tuesday, and merely for sport.
That peculiarity of some Germans by which they pronounce Goble like Kopel is also found in Pennsylvania. A certain carpenter could not tell me whether his son’s name was Beck or Peck. And an “English” boy supposed that a certain man had a hare-lip, as he heard him spoken of as Cutlip, but his name was Gottlieb.
A neighboring farmer came to our house with his little boy, about five years old. I handed the little fellow a penny, and he began to pull his father, who was talking.
“He gives it to you, does he?” I asked.
“Yes, to put into his box. He’s got two full. I’ll have to steal them some day, I guess,” winking at me.
“That’s the way you teach them to save?” said I.
“Yes, keep them till he gets big. Buy a horse and buggy with them, he says.”
Then, with paternal pleasure, “He tells his mother he don’twant no hilly land.” Strange for a family of Swiss descent? Their ancestors had enough hills in Switzerland. How they enjoy this level limestone land!
One of my acquaintances thinks that the reason these people or this class got the rich limestone land was that they were not afraid of the labor of cutting down the heavy timber which grew on it.
I have just told how the little fellow was saving his pennies to “buy a horse and buggy,”—the great pride of our farmer boy’s heart. On a neighboring farm to ours lived the grandfather, who had his own plain carriage, the father with another, and two sons, aged about twenty-one, each with a buggy. This must be the great extravagance of our young farmers now. But having buggies they can take the girls to ride; and they can sometimes take others too. The other day a lad kindly took me up; an Amish boy, in a plain buggy, driving a pretty good horse. As our Amish so often drive in wagons, covered with light-colored oil-cloth, I made some remark about the buggy, and the lad answered that it was his. He is fourteen years old.
On the other hand, I have heard of a Miss K., who was considered a great catch, being thought rich by the young “Dutch fellows.” Among the numerous young men who came to see her was one who drove two horses. Her father asked him what business he was in.
“Not in any just now.”
“Then I don’t see how you can keep two horses;” which remark was fully understood as putting an end to the young man’s suit. He needn’t come there no more!
The mania for a driving-team accounts for the occasional disappearance of harness when left unguarded.
A lawyer in Lancaster describes a peculiarity of our people. In most places, he says, a man comes in, tells you what he wants, and perhaps retains you in his case. But here there is first a conversation on diverse subjects.
Another says that the country people expect you to hear anaccount of their ailings and those of their friends and the state of the crops before proceeding further.
A neighbor coming to our house to get a horse and vehicle, talked perhaps half an hour, as if on a friendly call, before she told her errand.
It is hard for some of our Pennsylvania Germans to write a letter in English. I wrote once to a preacher, who got the ticket-agent at the railroad to answer. The following was sent by a workingman:
“Dear A B Your man have pacts that Roof has left some stuff mite I have them to pact my slate roof the leeke I sought the might spile so I mite youse it as well as let the leek away ensur soon.YoursC D.”
Which may be interpreted thus: “Your man has patched that roof, and has left some stuff. Might I have it to patch my slate-roof,—the leak? I thought it might spoil, so I might use it as well as let it leak away. Answer soon.”
A young “English” girl was visiting a “Dutch” one, and the father of the latter, a substantial farmer, was kindly going to take the visitor part way home. The girls stayed talking above until the voice of the farmer was heard at the foot of the stairs, “Staytsch!” He was no more to be trifled with than the stage-driver.
Once when absent from home he bought a plaster cast of Canova’s Three Graces. Such things are not seen in “Dutch” farm-houses, and ere long the Three Graces were provided with petticoats of pink and blue tissue-paper.
An expression that is very offensive to our Pennsylvania Germans, when applied to them by “English” folks, is “dumb Dutch.” Dumb is of course the Germandumm, stupid, and it is familiarly used by our Pennsylvania Germans themselves. One of my friends said that she thought she could learn to use a sewing-machine,—“People as dumb as me has learned to use them.”
A Lancaster gentleman gave me this little anecdote:
Old Mrs. H., anxious to see a baptism by immersion, proposed to her hired girl, Susan, to go across the fields to the place where there was to be baptism in the creek. Waymaking they were to cross the same creek by a log, but Mrs. H. fell in to her waist. Wading back to the bank, Susan standing alarmed, Mrs. H. said, quietly and quickly, “Suss, mir hens yetst g’seh; yetst welle mir hame geh;” or, “Susy, we’ve seen it now; now let’s go home.”
A lawyer, Mr. W., who taught in Schuylkill County about fifteen or twenty years ago, has given me some of his recollections.
He said that among the mines in Schuylkill the population is English, that is, American, Welsh, Scotch, and Irish, but in the valleys there are “Dutch” farmers, mostly Lutherans, he thinks.
“The farmers lived well in the valleys of Schuylkill County; no danger of freezing in winter between two feather-beds;” and Mr. W. liked the friedpawn-haus, although he found it rather rich.
“In that county I had some of the pleasantest times. I was there as a teacher, and they immediately appropriated me. I was not obliged to wait for the formality of an introduction in the German community. I could see, however, a tendency to mistrust the man of Yankee origin, and to combine against him; the young men fearing lest the teacher should cut them out with the girls. I was invited to go one evening on a sleighing-party. There were an equal number of young men and girls, and at a village we took in two fiddlers. We drove several miles to a stone tavern or farm-house (for the tavern-keeper is generally a farmer). The fiddlers sat in the window-seats, formed by the thick stone walls; and the dance was lively until the small hours. The dancers made a business of it, and went to work with a will. The dances were called ‘straight eights,’ forward and back, and mostly shuffles. Although at a tavern, none got drunk. Coming home, the driver increased the fun by upsetting the party in the snow.
“I taught public school, and on account of not speaking German I had much difficulty with the younger scholars, who, being under the care of their mothers, seldom heard the English language. The home talk was always in ‘Dutch,’ as they called it,though the fathers, when transacting business, were able to speak English.
“Even the larger pupils were not able to understand all of their lessons in English. Some of the farmers were rich. The ‘Dutch’ farmers were universally Democrats.” So says Mr. W.
Another lawyer, named H. (of Pennsylvania German origin), has given me some of his recollections of Berks County. Berks is that county concerning which it has been a standing joke that its people still voted for Andrew Jackson,—a well-worn joke.
“It must have been a select party,” says Mr. H., “that W. was at, if none of them got drunk.”
“The great dancing tunes in Berks are Fisher’s Hornpipe, Washington’s Grand March, Charlie over the Water, Yankee Doodle, Hail Columbia, and We won’t go Home till Morning.”
“The walls in the stone houses in Berks are generally two feet thick, built like forts, with plenty of room to sit in the window-seats, but usually the landlord had a long bar-room table, on which he put chairs for the fiddlers. About every third dance they must have a drink, which frequent potations sometimes brought them to the floor, unable to distinguish sounds.” “The dancing they indulge in in Berks,” says Mr. H., “is not the fashionable kind, but is more exhausting than mauling rails in August, or thrashing rye with a flail. The figures are called out by some skilful person; the dances are called straight fours or hoe-downs, the dancers being arranged in four rows, in a sort of double column on each side. After the inside couples have danced and all have changed places, the former are allowed to rest while the outside couples dance.”
“The battalion (Pennsylvania Dutch,Badolya?) is an annual day of joy and festivity in Berks County. The annual training, which gave name to the day, has long been given up, but still just before hay-making the landlords of the country towns, such as Kutztown or Hamburg, will advertise that they will hold the annual battalion (without any soldiers). The peanut-venders, the men with flying-horses, and the others who expect to reap the harvest, come during the night before, and by six in the morning everything is ready, and about that hour the farmers begin to comein, wives, sons, daughters, hired men, and maids, even little children and quite small babies.
“The farmers patronize the landlords by dining and drinking. You can get a good dinner at Kutztown for less money than in any other town I know. As for drinking, bars have even been set up upon the second floor where the dancing took place.
“The old folks amuse themselves by talking together, looking on and seeing how well their sons and daughters can dance, the old men drinking a little whiskey, several times repeated, and perhaps treating their wives to some sarsaparilla. By evening the old folks will be at home; but the daughters, who could hardly expect the young men to walk home with them as long as the sun was shining, stay later, carrying gingerbread and pea-nuts home in their handkerchiefs.
“Roving gamblers also visit the battalion; and many an unwary youth has lost all his money, earned by hard work, and, after that was gone, has striven to better his fortune, but unsuccessfully, by giving up his watch.”
The remark of the last speaker, that they still have thebadolya, or annual training, in Berks without any soldiers, reminds me that they still have in Germany theKirch-weih, church consecration, or saint’s day, without going to any church at all, but dance and are merry after harvest.
I was told some years back of farmers in Berks “worth from thirty to eighty thousand dollars who never bring wheat bread to the table except at Christmas and New Year’s. This is from their great economy and desire to sell the wheat.”
Mrs. R., of Lehigh County, tells me that at her father’s they baked wheat bread on Saturday, for Sunday, but during the week they ate rye.
When her brother-in-law returned from a visit to Ohio, he said, “Daraus in Ohio, ’s is so schane. Sie essen laute waytzbrod;” or, “Out in Ohio it is so fine. They eat altogether wheat bread.”
There is a part of the city of Lancaster which is called Germany. Here natives of that country buy house-lots, and send their children out to beg until they find they have a secure footing.Nor does the average citizen disapprove of this proceeding; although he is dissatisfied if a woman who owns two brick houses sends to the soup-house for a free lunch.
I was amused one day in Lancaster by a boy’s asking, “Won’t you give me a penny to save?” A pretty little girl, comfortably dressed and speaking German, came into one of the newspaper offices for help, the family having been unfortunate. When some one gave her a penny, she took from her pocket a purse and put her money away.
Three great waves of emigration, it may be said, early settled Pennsylvania. The Quakers settled in the southeast. I have travelled among Friends in several localities, but I never saw any other community so strongly Quaker as Chester County.
The German immigration mostly lay outside of this, on the north and west. West of Chester County lies Lancaster, settled in a great measure by German Baptists (Mennonites), and which is probably one of the strongest Baptist populations in the world. Farther west the Scotch-Irish element is very strong. In the west of the State I was surprised by hearing a physician (I will call his name McCalmont) say that the Scotch-Irish had been the making of Pennsylvania. It is this class, doubtless, who have caused the region around Pittsburgh to be called the backbone of Presbyterianism.
This volume does not endeavor to describe the manners and ways of living of all Pennsylvania Germans, but only of the majority. People of wealth and education resemble each other in most civilized lands. And although the Pennsylvania Germans are principally devoted to agriculture, yet about twenty per cent., as I estimate, have gone into cities and into other employments. Among those who have aided less or more in the publication of this volume are ministers, lawyers, physicians, editors, bankers, merchants, and teachers of Pennsylvania German origin. Many persons of note in Pennsylvania have been of German descent, from Peter Muhlenberg, a Lutheran preacher, who commanded a regiment in the Revolution, to a number of governors of this State,—Snyder, Hiester, Shulze, Wolf, Ritner, Shunk, and Hartranft. Governor Hartranft’s ancestor, then called Hertteranfft, came in with the Schwenkfelders in 1734.
To these distinguished Pennsylvania Germans I may add Dr. Gross, the eminent surgeon. The German blood is also found in a great number of families in our country. It is stated that Simon Cameron is of Scottish descent on the father’s side; and on the mother’s is descended from Conrad Pfoutz. The Hon. Jeremiah S. Black and William D. Howells, the well-known author, have told me that they are partly of Pennsylvania German origin.
THE END.