The German migration.—The causes of the German migration are to be found in the disturbed condition of Germany. Religious persecution, political oppression, and economic distress caused by wars and bad seasons, each played its part in the movement. Most of the immigrants came from southwestern Germany, especially from the Palatinate, Württemberg, and Baden, and from Switzerland. The first period of migration, dating from 1683 to 1710, was characterized by a small movement of persecuted sects; but after 1710 an ever-increasing migration took place in which the religious, political, and economic causes blended.
Principal Areas of German Settlement before 1763.
The early migration to Pennsylvania.—The first German settlement in the English colonies may be traced directly to William Penn's visit to the Rhineland in 1677. A group of pietists from Frankfort-on-the-Main purchased fifteen thousand acres of Penn's land and in 1683 sent over a young lawyer, Francis Daniel Pastorius, as advance agent, who became the recognized leader of the Pennsylvania Germans. He was soon followed by a considerable number of emigrants. More land was purchased and the settlement of Germantown begun. In 1684 a group of Labadists settled on the Bohemian River in the present state of Delaware. Every year a few people joined the original group at Germantown. The most important addition was in 1694 when forty Rosicrucians under John Kelpius settled on the banks of the Wissahickon.
The migration to New York.—Not until 1710 did the great flood of migration begin. In 1707 a portion of the Palatinate was devastated. The following year sixty-one homeless people led by Joshua von Kocherthal made their way to London. The Board of Trade sent them to New York, where Governor Lovelace gave them lands on the Hudson, where they began the town of Newburg. Religious persecution, political oppression, the devastation of Württemberg and a part of the Palatinate, and a hard winter caused a great exodus in 1709. In May of that year the Germans began to arrive in London, and by October the numbers had swelled to thirteen thousand. About thirty-five hundred were sent to the colonies. Six hundred and fifty were settled at Newbern near the mouth of the Neuse River in North Carolina, and about three thousand were sent to New York, where Governor Hunter hoped to settle them on lands where tar and pitch could be produced. The story goes that in London the Palatines had met a delegation of Indian chiefs who had promised them lands on the Schoharie, a branch of the Mohawk. Instead of being sent there, however, many were placed on lands along both sides of the Hudson near Saugerties. The colony on the west side was called West Camp, and contained about six hundred people. The East Camp, which was located on the manor of Robert Livingston, received nearly twelve hundred; it was here that difficulties occurred. The attempts to produce tar and pitch failed, and the colonists demanded that they be moved to the Schoharie. After much bickering with the governor, in 1712 and 1713 many of the people from East Camp moved to the Schoharie; but their troubles did not end, for the question of land title brought them into disputes with certain landowners from Albany. Some of the Palatines moved again, many taking up lands in the Mohawk Valley between Ft. Hunter and Frankfort, while others in 1723 and 1727 migrated to Pennsylvania, settling in Berks County.
The later Pennsylvania migration.—The harsh treatment in New York and the kind reception of Germans in Pennsylvania made the Quaker colony a favorite place for their coming. Between 1710 and 1727 from fifteen to twenty thousand entered Pennsylvania and settled in Lancaster, Berks, and Montgomery counties. Between 1727 and 1740 the arrivals numbered about fifty-seven thousand, and between 1741 and 1756 about twenty thousand. Many of the newcomers settled in Philadelphia, and neighboring counties, but the desire for cheap land carried a large number into the fertile valleys of the Susquehanna, Lehigh, and Shenandoah. In the words of Professor Faust, "They ... pushed northward and westward to Lehigh, Northampton, and Monroe counties, and to Lebanon and Dauphin; reaching the Susquehanna they crossed and settled the counties of York, Cumberland, and Adams, then following the slopes of the mountains they went southward through Maryland into Virginia, ascending the Shenandoah Valley and settling it from Harpers Ferry to Lexington, Virginia. Using this main avenue for their progress, they settled in North Carolina and Virginia and later in Kentucky and Tennessee. Pennsylvania, therefore, was the distributing center for the German immigrations, whence German settlers spread over all the neighboring provinces."
New Jersey.—As early as 1707 several members of the German Reformed Church appear to have settled in Morris County, and later spread into Somerset, Bergen, and Essex counties. Later groups, mainly of Lutherans or German Reformed, settled in Hunterdon, Somerset, Morris, Sussex, and Warren counties, and there were scattered settlements elsewhere.
Maryland.—A few Germans came to Maryland before 1730, but with the founding of Baltimore in that year a considerable German migration began, enterprising Germans from Pennsylvania finding the new town a place for their capital and energy. At about the same time the Germans were settling in western Maryland. In 1729 Germans from Pennsylvania settled about ten miles north of the modern town of Frederick, and soon many German settlements dotted Frederick and neighboring counties.
Virginia.—The first Germans in Virginia were skilled iron-workers from Westphalia, brought in by Governor Spotswood to operate his iron works which were located on the Piedmont Plateau at Germanna, in modern Orange County. The settlers at Germanna afterward migrated to Germantown near the Rappahannock and to Madison County. A far more important movement was the migration into the Shenandoah Valley. The northern part was settled almost entirely by Germans, but in the southern part they formed only a small part of the population. The first of the settlers came from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in 1726 or 1727, settling near Elkton. They were soon followed by others, among them Joist Hite at the head of sixteen families from York, Pennsylvania, who settled at the site of Winchester. In 1734 Robert Harper founded Harper's Ferry. The most remote settlements were located in the Alleghanies within the present state of West Virginia; one on Patterson's Creek, another on the south branch of the Potomac, and a third on the New River, which with the Greenbrier forms the Great Kanawha. Thus the frontier had already reached the "Western Waters."