"1683-1920" / The Fourteen Points and What Became of Them—Foreign Propaganda in the Public Schools—Rewriting the History of the United States—The Espionage Act and How It Worked—"Illegal and Indefensible Blockade" of the Central Powers—1,000,000 Victims of Starvation—Our Debt to France and to Germany—The War Vote in Congress—Truth About the Belgian Atrocities—Our Treaty with Germany and How Observed—The Alien Property Custodianship—Secret Will of Cecil Rhodes—Racial Strains in American Life—Germantown Settlement of 1683 and a Thousand Other Topics

by Frederick Franklin Schrader

That as we abhor a state of slavery, we do Join and unite together under all the ties of religion, honor, justice and love for our countrymen never to become slaves, and to defend our freedom with our lives and fortunes.

Of the 71 names attached to the declaration, 48 were distinctly German, and six Dutch or Low German. Some of the names appear in their anglicised form in the minutes, due to clerical errors and gross indifference of their bearers; but their identification is based on the careful researches of Friedrich Kapp, the historian of the German element in New York, and others. Fuchs was changed into Fox, Teichert into Tygart and Klock into Clock. The change was also due to an inherent desire to hide the German origin of the names which assume such important historical value. That the writing ofLoucks for Lux was an error is proved by the discovery that a descendant of the same family, one Adam Lux, played quite an important part in the Baden revolution of 1849, while descendants of the Petrie family are living today in Wurtemberg, Germany. The list of 54 German signers (inclusive of the Hollanders or Low Germans) is as follows:

Adam Lux, Johann Frey, Major; Andreas Finck, Jr., Major; Andreas Reiber, Peter Wagner, Lieutenant-Colonel; Johann Jacob Karl Klock, Colonel; George Ecker, Nikolaus Herckheimer, Major-General; Wilhelm Sieber, Major; Johann Pickert, Ensign; Edward Wall, Wilhelm Petrie, Surgeon; Jacob Weber, Markus Petrie, Lieutenant; Johann Petrie, George Wentz, Lieutenant; Johann Frank, Philipp Fuchs, Friedrich Fuchs, Christoph Fuchs, Adjutant; August Hess, Michel Illig, Captain; Friedrich Ahrendorf, George Herckheimer, Captain; Werner Teichert, Lorenz Zimmermann, Peter Bellinger, Lieutenant-Colonel; Johann Demuth, Adjutant; Wilhelm Fuchs, Christian Nellis, Heinrich Nellis, Heinrich Harter, Hanjost Schumacher, Major; Isaak Paris, (Elsaesser) Heinrich Heintz, Friedrich Fischer, Colonel; Johann Klock, Lieutenant; Jacob James Klock, Major; Volker Vedder, Lieutenant-Colonel; Fried. Hellmer, Captain; Rudolph Schuhmacher, Hanjost Herckheimer, Colonel; Johann Eisenlord, Captain; Friedrich Bellinger, Adam Bellinger, Second Lieutenant; Johann Keyser, First Lieutenant; Johann Bliven, Major; Wilhelm Fuchs, Lieutenant.

Samuel Ten Broeck, Major; Antoon van Fechten, Adjutant; Harmanus van Slyck, Major; Abraham van Horn, Quartermaster; Willem Schuyler, Gose van Alstijn.

Franz Daniel Pastorius and German, Dutch and English Colonization.

Franz Daniel Pastorius and German, Dutch and English Colonization.—What the Mayflower is to the Puritans, the Concord is to the descendants of the Germans who were among the pioneer settlers of America. It was this vessel that bore to American shores the first compact German band of immigrants, under the leadership of Franz Daniel Pastorius.

While the first Dutch settlement, that of Manhattan Island, or New York, was founded in 1614, and that of Plymouth by the Puritans in 1620, that of Germantown, Pennsylvania, occurred in 1683, although long prior to that date Germans in large numbers were settled in the New World, and there is evidence that there were Germans among the Jamestown pioneers and those of the Massachusetts Bay colony.

But German immigration is reckoned to have begun with the arrival of thirteen families from Crefeld under Pastorius. They embarked July 24, 1683, on the Concord, and arrived October 6, 1683, in Philadelphia.

Pastorius was born September 26, 1651, at Sommernhausen Franconia,studied law and lived in Frankfort-on-the-Main. By the so-called Germantown patent he acquired 5,350 acres near Philadelphia from William Penn and founded Germantown. Acting for a company of Germans and Hollanders, 22,377 additional acres were acquired under the Manatauney Patent. Germantown was laid out October 24, 1685. (See “[Germantown Settlement].”)

The principal occupation of the settlers was textile industry, farming and the establishment of vineyards. Pastorius was elected mayor in 1688 and the next year the town was incorporated. In 1688 Pastorius and others issued a judicial protest against slavery. He became a member of the Philadelphia school-board, twice was elected to the Assembly and also acted as magistrate.