[page 165]

113.

we came across German inhabitants once again, the province of Maryland actually being heavily populated by Germans[247].

man schon wiedrum deutsche Einwohner, weilen die Profintz Mary-Land schon starck mit Deutschen be-wohnt wird.

The region of Fridrigstaun, Friedrigsstatt in German, is called “in Germany” by the inhabitants, this region being mostly populated by people from the Palatinate, Zweibrücken, and Alsace etc.

Gegen Fridrigstaun, oder auf Deutsch Friedrigsstatt genandt, wird schon von den Einwohnern im Deutsch-land genennet, selbige Gegenden seynd auch den mehrstetheil mit Pfältzer, Zweybrücker, Elsäßer bewohnt etc.

What is also very surprising in this region is that people mostly speak Palatine German. Although Alsatian, people from the other side of the Rhine, and others can be found here, one would believe that they are all natives of the Palatinate[248]. For that matter, in hearing them speak I believed that I was in the land of my fathers, but noticed that I was off by about 1,600 hours[249].

Es ist auch sehr verwundrungswürdig in diesem Lande daß die deutsche pfalzische Sprache überhaupt in densel-bigen Gegenden gesprochen wird. Ob man gleich wohl ein Elsäßer, Über-Reiner und dergleichen antreffen thut so glaubt man es seyen gebohrne Pflältzer. Ich glaubte auch als ich sie hörete sprechen, ich wäre in meinem Vatterland, so bald ich mich aber besinnete ware es weit gefehlt, so bey 1600 Stund.

On the 24^th, we travelled 14 miles to Langkästersthawern, an inn in a pleasant region, near a small mountain. We made camp near the inn and there we were visited by many inhabitants. We saw only women on horseback around the camp; as for the men, we did not see any, as everyone of the male sex

Den 24ten brachen wir wiedrum auf 14 Meillen biß Langkästers-Thawern, ein Wirthshauß, in einer angenehmen Gegend an einem kleinen Ge-bürge. Wir schlugen das Lager gantz nahe beym Würthshauße, alda bekammen wir schon wiedrum zimmlich Besuch von den Einwohnern. Allwo man nichts sahe als Weibsleute um das Lager herum zu Pferd sitzen, was die Mansleute anbelangen thatte sahe man keine, dann alles was Manns- Volck ware

[réclame]

mußte

https://gallica.bnf.fr/iiif/ark:/12148/btv1b10110846m/f83/pct:50,0,100,100/,700/0/native.jpg

Strasbourg, Médiathèque André Malraux, ms f 15, p. 165.

[agrandir]

Notes

247. A few Germans settled in Maryland before 1660, having received land in Baltimore County. An early Christian community, the Labadists, settled at the instigation of their leader, Vorstmass, who was born in Wesel in Rhineland and went by the name of Schluter. He chose to settle on the land of Augustin Herman, whose son converted to the sect. Schluter became a very rich tobacco farmer and slave trader. Germans were small in number before 1730 in Maryland, but were very active in the commercial development of Baltimore (tobacco, shipyards, leather, international commerce, as companies from Bremen and Hamburg established trading offices there). Starting in 1729, Germans from Pennsylvania settled in the western part of Maryland, attracted by the favorable conditions announced by Lord Baltimore in 1732 (very low rents, rent exemption on land for the first three years). Frederick Town was founded in 1745 by about one hundred Palatinate families, led by Thomas Schuley who was the school master, pastor, and magistrate of this new city. His son Jacob Schuley later became a captain in the Continental army. It was made up of Lutherans, Protestants, but also Moravians who had founded Graceham 12 miles to the north of Frederick Town. Germans continued to flock towards Maryland, and it is estimated that 3,800 settled in Frederick Town or Baltimore between 1748 and 1753. In 1784, another 300 Germans originally from Bremen settled in Maryland to practice craft trades and manual works, and notably founded the Fleecy Dale glass factory.

248. Flohr’s impression of only coming across Germans from the Palatinate can be explained by the wave of immigration which, starting in 1709, hit this region devastated by Louis XIV’s armies and the great winter of 1709. The Palatines did not emigrate for reasons of religious persecution (although this was one of the determining causes for the first German emigrants of the 1680s), but to escape poverty and attempt to find a better life in America. Daniel Defoe speaks of “Poor Palatines” who wandered around Dutch ports or in London waiting to be able to leave for Philadelphia. In 1709 in London, there were 6,000 of them, originally from the bishoprics of Worms, Spire, Mainz, Trier, the county of Nassau, Hanau, the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt, from Alsace or Baden. The great waves of German migration to America that peeked in the late 1740s and early 1750s with 6,000 arrivals each autumn essentially attracted immigrants from Ecclesiastic principalities or micro-states in southwestern Germany, whose pronunciation of German was close to the language spoken in Zweibrücken.

249. This is a beautiful expression marked with nostalgia. Baron von Closen uses a very similar expression on page 116 of The revolutionary Journal of Baron von Closen: “The fertility of the country, the climate, the customs of the inhabitants, the use of the German language in this part of Pennsylvania in preference to English, the methods of cultivation and construction, all these reminded me of my dear native land; and although I was pursuing adventure more than 1,800 leagues from there, I felt, I declare, as if I had been transported suddenly to the center of the beautiful Palatinate”. Closen, who is also of German origin, comments on a village near Trenton, New Jersey.