OLD RECOLLECTIONS.
I met, at Bethlehem, a member of the Moravian Historical Society, who was born in that town in 1796, and was educated there. He was taught German, and could scarcely speak English at all at eighteen.
He learned his trade as clock- and watch-maker in the brethren’s house. He was also employed until lately as teacher of vocal music in the parochial school.
When he was in the brethren’s house—he began to learn his trade in 1810—there were about twenty brethren domiciled there,—though some of these had their shops elsewhere. They were all mechanics; there being a baker, shoemaker, tinsmith, etc. The cook was also an unmarried brother, all these household services being performed by the brethren themselves. My informant (he was the youngest boy) had to prepare breakfast for his employer.
When the morning bell sounded aloud (Morgen Glocke zum Aufstehen) the boys sprang up, and when one story down, went into the prayer-hall, where the vorsteher or superintendent directed the services; first they “sang a verse,” and then the vorsteher read the text for the day. When the boys got down to the lower floor (the four boys who then lodged in the building), they swept out the rooms that were used for shops, ground their coffee, ran down to the cook in the cellar-kitchen and set their pots upon the coals, preparing a simple breakfast of bread, butter, and coffee, of which each boy partook with his employer in the shop. Then they made their cot-beds or threw the blankets back upon them; the brethren made their own.
Mr. W.’s mother did not admire her son’s manner of performing these domestic services. When she came down to bring fresh bedclothes and to look after matters, she said, “If I had wax, I’d take a mould of your body here from your bed.” “Why, what a crust you have inside of your coffee-pot!”
Breakfast, in Mr. W.’s time, was thus eaten separately, but before that, when all the property was in common, “eine economische Haushaltung,” or economical household,—“every one was poor in that early day,”—all the meals were eaten at a common table.
After breakfast, the boys washed the dishes and went to their work.
At a quarter before twelve the chapel bell rang for dinner, a custom which continued until about 1870. “I missed it,” said Mr. W., “when it stopped, for I had heard it all my life.”[100]
I inquired of Mr. W. whether they kept their time a half-hour or more ahead, like other Pennsylvania Germans. He replied that one of the brethren kept his clock by the sun-dial.
Mr. W. did not dine or sup at the brother-house, but went home for these meals. At the age of twelve, according to the usual custom, he left the children’s choir, and became a member of the great boys’ choir. The little boys and girls held their festivals together.
At eighteen he joined the young men’s choir. About this time the brethren’s house was given up to the female seminary or boarding-school, and the few remaining brethren scattered through the town.[101]
There had been little or no intercourse between these unmarried brethren and the sisters, but some staid, elderly sister was appointed to visit the brother-house and see whether all the surroundings were clean.
“I remember,” Mr. ⸺ said, “when marriages were made by lot, but that drove off a great many of the young people. The marriage by lot was more suited to missionaries who had not time for a two years’ courtship. Dr. Franklin, when in Bethlehem, asked Bishop Spangenberg whether this practice did not make unhappy marriages, but the bishop replied, ‘Are all marriages happy that are made after long courtship?’ We did not have divorces, anyhow,” said Mr. W.[102]
This was the manner of the marriage by lot.
If a young missionary came home, and met his friends, they would say, “Well, you’ve come home to get married?”
He would answer, “Yes; do you know of any one suitable?”
“Yes; there’s Sister Gretchen” (or Peggy).
Another might say, “There’s Sister Liddy;” and thus a half-dozen names would perhaps be gathered. He had the privilege of arranging the order of this list himself. Then, after prayer, the elders drew lots, taking the first name; one ballot being Ja and the other Nein (Yes and No).
The idea was of an especial Providence, by which he should find out whether it was the Lord’s will that he should have the first. If the first lot should prove Ja, the result was communicated to the sister, and time was allowed her to reflect whether to accept or refuse.
In the course of our conversation, Mr. W. rose and went into the next room; and, returning, brought two vest-buttons of crystal, set in silver, of which he gave the following account:
“My grandfather was a clothmaker, at Basle, in Switzerland. Zinzendorf being there[103] called upon the young man, who was about leaving for America, to join the Bethlehem and Nazareth settlements.
“Zinzendorf said to him, ‘Matthias, we won’t meet any more in this world, but hope to meet in a better.’ He put his hand into his vest-pocket, and said, ‘I’m sorry I have nothing to leave you to remember me by.’
“Young Matthias answered, striking his breast, ‘As long as this heart shall beat, I’ll not forget you.’
“With a glance, Zinzendorf seized the shears from the clothmaker’s table, and quickly cut off two of his vest-buttons. ‘Take these,’ he said, ‘they’re nearest the heart.’”
It was the grandson of the clothmaker, himself a great-grandfather, who narrated the story, which he had received traditionally.
“I think,” said he, “that this exhibits the quickness of thought of Count Zinzendorf. He was a great recruiting sergeant. On meeting a young man whom he took a fancy to, he would say, ‘I have a place for you; I want you to go to Greenland, or (perhaps) to the Cape of Good Hope.’ The young man, astonished, would wonder what this conspicuous nobleman meant by this. He generally succeeded, however, in charming the young man, and the matter ended by his going upon the mission.”
A few recollections of old times were also given to me by a citizen of Nazareth, aged eighty-two, whom I call Mr. P. He himself was born in Bethlehem, but his father in Connecticut; his grandfather having migrated and bought a farm at Gnadenhütten, a Moravian settlement, near Mauch Chunk.
Mr. P.’s mother was a Miksch. She was placed at the age of four years at the building at Nazareth, called Ephrata, to enable her mother to work.[104] She did not like the treatment that she received here. “Her mother worked in the house (her house), and in the field, I think,” said Mr. P. “The women now do not work much in the fields,” he added. “They’re afraid they might spoil their fingers. They’re brought up altogether too proud. I don’t know what will become of the next generation.
“My father moved to Bethlehem, and worked at his carpenter’s trade. When he was married he went to the ferry (at Bethlehem), and kept it for ten years. There were no bridges then. He saw hard times in cold weather and high water. After that he moved to the saw-mill and distillery, which belonged to the Moravian Society. I think he got all he made in the distillery, but worked for wages in the saw-mill.”
“The Moravians distilled liquor, then?” said I.
“Yes; they commonly drinked a little too, about nine o’clock.
“When I was between thirteen and fourteen, I went to my trade. I was put into the brothers’ house to sleep. My trade was a blacksmith’s, and a pretty hard one too. I served my trade seven years and seven months. When I was in the brother-house, I spent my evenings and Sundays there. I had liberty to go home to my parents, but not to be running, like they do nowadays, and do mischief.
“My wife was not a member of the church,—we were married fifty-five years ago. Brother Seidel, the Moravian preacher, married us. They were not so strict then as they had been, in turning all those out of meeting that married out.”
Mr. P. has a strong German accent. He said, “I never talked much English, only when I lived nine years and a half at Quakertown. I now speak German altogether in my family. The young people here now all try to speak English. They’re throwing the German away too much.”
At Nazareth, in 1874, I met Mr. M., eighty-six years old, who said that he was married in 1812. “I thought,” said he, “that my wife and I were the last couple married by lot; but I have heard that there was one since.”
Mr. M. said that the young men and women had some opportunity to see each other, for although the young men were not allowed to visit the young women at their own houses, yet they would sometimes meet in visiting; but they were not allowed to speak to each other more than “a couple of times.”
Mr. M. and I did not agree in sentiment with a Moravian woman who had told me that young men and young women were not allowed to keep company, and they did not think about it.
Sometimes there would be young persons attached to each other for a couple of years, and the lot being unfavorable, they would go away and leave the congregation. “Well, it was a pretty hard thing,” said the old man, “for a pair of young people who loved each other dearly to have the lot go against them.” He continued nearly thus: “There was one of the boys who was with me in the brother-house who, I think, left the congregation to be married to a member. It was generally the case, then, that after a couple of years they would ask pardon, and be taken back. We used to say, ‘You’ll have to take your hat under your arm and ask pardon.’”
Mr. M. told me, concerning the Moravians formerly, that the verlobung, or betrothal, lasted sometimes only about a week. “When I was married we had a kind of love-feast after the marriage. Some were picked out to stay, and we had wine or coffee and cake in the church. That was the old custom.”
I suggested to Mr. M. that as there were meetings held every evening the young people could see each other there. “There were meetings nearly every evening,” he answered. “I remember when I worked at my trade breaking off work and going to church. We went in our every-day clothes, just putting on our coats. Most every evening it was, when I was young. My trade was a blacksmith, and I was seven years an apprentice with my father. He was a pretty strict master, and I had to get up, winter or summer, at five o’clock, and now I wake at that hour although eighty-six.”
Recollections of a people would be imperfect without those of the women.
I saw at Nazareth Mrs. B., who was born at the Moravian town of Litiz, in Lancaster County, and who was in her eightieth year.
“When I was a child,” said she, “we had Christmas dialogues, about the birth of Christ, his sufferings and death, which were repeated by the children. The dialogues were in the school on Christmas-day, but were repeated several times, so that all might hear, and we never got tired of it.[105] Christmas-trees were put up then, as they are now. The Christmas Putzes or decorations were left standing until after New Year.
“On Easter morning we meet in the church at five in the morning, and the first tune they sing is:
“‘Der Herr ist aufershtanden,
Er ist wahrhaftig aufershtanden,’[106]
“‘The Lord has arisen,
He has indeed arisen.’
“At a certain place where the litany speaks of those who are buried in the churchyard, and of their rising again, we walk out into the churchyard, and the trombone players accompany the hymns that are sung. If the weather is stormy that we cannot go out, this is always a disappointment.
“When I was young, if a child was born in the morning, it was taken to church in the evening to be christened. Religious meetings were held every evening; sometimes a prayer-meeting, sometimes a sing-meeting.
“I recollect marriages by lot very well, because they continued until about 1818. All marriages were by lot. Young men and young women were not allowed to keep company, and they did not think about it.”
“They hardly dared to look at each other,” said another person present.
Mrs. B. continued: “If a young man wanted to marry,—of course he had his eye on some one he would like,—he told it to the Brüder-Pfleger (Caretaker of the Brothers), who told it to the minister, and the minister to the Schwester-Pfleger (Caretaker of the Sisters). The name that the young man chose was taken into the lot, and if the lot was favorable he might proceed, but if not he must look out for another. If the lot was favorable it was told to the young woman by the Schwester-Pfleger, and if the young woman was willing this sister told the minister. There was a Brüder-Pfleger in each brother-house, and a Schwester-Pfleger in each sister-house.
“Betrothals took place after the young woman had given her consent, in the presence of the conference, composed of the ministers and their wives, and the marriage would generally take place within a week, in the church. The wedding was public, but those who were invited stayed to the Schmaus (feast),[107] which was cake and wine in the church. Thus the ceremony was completed.
“Moravians then dressed with great plainness, much like the Quakers.”
As the Moravians were so very strict about the intercourse of the sexes, they could not have allowed two young men and two young women to sit up together with the unburied dead, as has been the custom among some of our Pennsylvania people.
I spoke upon this point to Mrs. B., who said, “Women always sat up with women, and men with men. However, in old times, as soon as there was a death, the trombones sounded, as they do now, and the body was taken when dressed, immediately to a small stone building called the corpse-house, and here remained until the funeral.”[108]
Mrs. ⸺ said that she lost her parents before she was three years old, and was taken into the sister-house, and her brothers into the brother-house. Even those who had parents living sometimes preferred to live in these buildings.
Some simple details of home-life were given to me by Mrs. C., of Bethlehem.
In their own family, in her youth, they rose about five, and breakfasted at six, usually on bread, butter, and coffee, perhaps with the addition of molasses. At nine they had a lunch of cold meat, pie, and bread and butter; and at a quarter before twelve came the dinner of meat and vegetables. Often they had soup. There was soup every day at the sister-house, and I was told that in cases of sickness it could be bought there.
“We always had pie for dinner. At two we had coffee and bread and butter. This was called vesper. At six was our supper of cold meat, bread and butter, and pickles. We always had pickles, and every day in the year we had apple-butter.”
Mrs. C.’s father was a miller, and perhaps lived more “full and plenty” than some of his neighbors.
She continued: “Every Saturday, we baked bread, pies, and sugar-cake. We made a great many doughnuts, or Fast-nacht gucke.” (Shrove-Tuesday pancakes, as we may say.) “We made crullers, and called them Schtrumpf-bänder” (“garters,” doubtless from their form). “Nearly all our cakes were made from raised dough. One we called Bäbe. ‘Snow-balls’ were made with plenty of eggs, milk, flour, and a little sugar, and were fried in fat.
“At Christmas we always had turkeys; and then we baked a great supply of cakes, from four quarts of molasses and four pounds of sugar, and these lasted all winter. Then every evening before we went to bed we had Christmas cakes, sweet cider, and apples.
“The two o’clock vesper has generally fallen out of use, but if any one comes to town now that I want to invite, and it is not convenient to have them to dinner or supper, I say, ‘Come to vesper.’ Then we have coffee, and always sugar-cake.”
“It would not be a vesper without the sugar-cake,” said Mrs. C.’s daughter.
For a vesper-party for guests, Mrs. C. sets a table, and adds smoked beef, preserves, or anything that she chooses.
She further told me that her parents were married by lot, and lived very happily, and she added that as far as we hear, and have seen, most of the pairs thus married lived happily. But the young people were dissatisfied with these marriages. Although the young man had the privilege of putting in the names of several whom he would like, yet if none of these were drawn he became discontented.
“Should a name be chosen that did not please the young man, I believe he had liberty to withdraw.[109]
“In those times of strict rule, there was no opportunity for the young people of both sexes to become acquainted. This rule originated at Herrnhut. It was on account of it that an unmarried brother who worked in our mill was not allowed to sleep in our house, but must go every night to the brother-house to lodge until the rule was given up, about sixty years ago, and the brother was then allowed to sleep in the mill.”
While Mrs. C. was talking, her husband remarked that if he could find a town such as Bethlehem was in 1822 (when, if I remember aright, he had come to the place a stranger), he would go thousands of miles to get his family there to live. The whole town, he said, was composed of Moravians, and was like one family, living well, all in comfort, plain in their dress, happy and contented with their lot.