Chapter XII: Part 12

Changes in the names of persons of the same family in Pennsylvania will be observed. I know a gentleman in Lebanon County with an English name, who tells me that his mother’s name was Besore; supposed to have been La Bessieur. The name has also been spelled Basore, Bashor, and Bayshore. The name Beinbrecht is said to have gone through these changes; in Philadelphia there is a Bonbright, in Chambersburg a Bonbrake, and there are Bonebreaks. In Lancaster County, I hear of a father who writes his name Bear; but one son is Barr, and another Bair. There is a large Reformed family in Pennsylvania named Wotring, now turned into the English Woodring, which was originally the French Voiturin. Probably within the Reformed German Church are more French Calvinistic families than in the Lutheran.

Of the Buchanans and Livingstones in our country we might assume the Scottish origin; but _Der Deutsche Pionier_ tells us that the German name Buchenhain [meaning Beech grove] has been changed to Buchanan, and Löwenstein to Livingstone. A more grievous change is said to have befallen the name Hochmayer or Hochmier [high steward], for in Virginia it has become Hogmire!

POLITICS.

One of the most remarkable distinctions between our Pennsylvania Germans is that which ranges the counties and townships inhabited by the wehrlos, or peaceable sects, with one political party; and those where the Reformed and Lutherans are strongest with the other. We might once have thought that the Democratic party was the war party; but during the great rebellion the counties of Berks, Lehigh, and Northampton still remained adherents of the Democratic party in its opposition to the war. The county of Montgomery, in the eastern part of the State, is thus divided; the Mennonites, Schwenkfelders (with Quakers), are almost invariably Republican; while the strong Democratic townships are almost entirely Reformed and Lutheran. Of course there are in all such localities many who do not belong to any religious body.

A Democratic editor in the same county of Montgomery says that he does not know a Mennonite or Schwenkfelder who is not Republican; so also are the great majority of the German Methodists. He, however, added that the Reformed and Lutherans are nearly equally divided in politics. But every politician who knows the people must concede that the counties which are the stronghold of these two churches are an immense Democratic stronghold.

Mr. H., of Easton, tells me of a man who stood looking at a procession in honor of the funeral of Jackson, Harrison, or some other distinguished person. In the procession were Freemasons, Odd-Fellows, and other societies. “Oh,” said he, “_des ish alle letz!_ That is all wrong. There ought to be only two societies,—the Democrats and the Lutherans. If a man lives up to the principles of General Jackson and Martin Luther, that is enough.” He took his boys to delegate or town-meetings. “Now, boys,” he said, “are you going to vote the Democratic ticket as long as you live? Always stick to the Democratic party, and carry out the principles of General Jackson. If you intend to do this, you can vote for delegates.” (This anecdote is a little injured by the introduction in the beginning of the name of Harrison, who was a Whig. But it was given to me by a person of a well-known Democratic and Lutheran family.)

A few years ago, in an adjoining county, an adherent of the Democratic party told me that the word democracy has a magic sound for the people of Lehigh. “A Democratic parade,” he added, “can easily be got up in Allentown two miles in length, composed in a great measure of farmers on horseback; and in Presidential campaigns sometimes farmers’ daughters also appear on horseback in the procession. A skilful speaker, generally a lawyer, who speaks the dialect, and who will frequently introduce the words democrat and democracy, can lead the crowd. Even if he do not speak the dialect, if he will introduce those words, he can bring out the applause of his hearers.”

An acquaintance tells me of a political speaker in Berks County, that Democratic stronghold. He was telling of _die Demokratie_, which he said goes over hill and dale, over the sea, and strikes the seat from under kings. “And if you ask where that democracy comes from, they will tell you from Berks County.”

YANKEES.

An acquaintance once explained to me the prejudice against Yankees by telling me how, about fifty years ago or longer, the tin-peddlers travelled among the innocent Dutch people, cheating the farmers and troubling the daughters. They were (says he) tricky, smart, and good-looking. They could tell a good yarn, and were very amusing, and the goodly hospitable farmers would take them into their houses and entertain them, and receive a little tin-ware in payment.

A lawyer in Easton, from the State of New York, says that he never saw so large a body of people so honestly inclined as the Pennsylvania Germans. He speaks from a knowledge of the people of Northampton and Lehigh. They have an especial dread of the people of New England and New York, from their having been so terribly victimized by patent-rights’ men. He adds that they are not a reading people, but by their careful and slow manner of getting along they really accomplish more than the people of New England and New York, who, he says, make a great display, and then frequently compromise with their creditors by paying fifteen or twenty cents on the dollar. A person present added of these Pennsylvania Germans that they never headed any great moral reforms and never drowned witches.

Another thinks that in his youth the Yankee drovers in Lehigh County were respected for their acuteness. He adds, however, that when the “Dutch” call a man a Yankee, it is not near so opprobrious as to call him a Jew. “But,” says another, “when a Yankee comes to Reading with patent rights and inventions they point and say, ‘_Do geht en Yoot_.’” (There goes a Jew.) Dr. L., of Lebanon County, says that the “Dutch” idea of a Yankee is not of one who starts out to cheat for the pleasure of cheating, but of one who prefers to make his living by his wits rather than by hard labor. He starts with the idea of making money easily, and does not care much finally about the honesty of his proceedings.

In the market at York a learned man of New England origin asked a farmer, “What is the price of your apples,—twenty-five cents?” “Yes, you can have them for that; but I wouldn’t let Kochersperger have them for a quarter,—he’s a Yankee.”

THRIFT.

In his speech in Congress upon the death of John Covode, Simon Cameron declared that he honored Covode for his true courage when he proclaimed in Philadelphia what weaker men would have tried to suppress, giving as a reason for his hostility to every species of human bondage the fact that his father had been sold as a redemptionist near the spot where he was then speaking. “Scarcely a generation had passed away,” adds Cameron, “before the hired servants began to buy their masters’ lands, to marry their masters’ daughters, and to make good their claim to full equality with those whose bondsmen they had been. For a time the Scotch-Irish made a sturdy stand for that supremacy and superiority which seem to be their peculiar inheritance, place them where you may. At length the thrift, the superior patience, and the perseverance of the German blood prevailed. They bought, and still possess, the old homesteads, and have furnished us with an array of distinguished men of whom every citizen of our State is justly proud.” The superior patience, says Mr. Cameron. _Geduld ist das beste Kraut, das man in America baut_,—patience is the best plant grown in America,—is a saying I have heard in Lancaster County. But I must interrupt my regular course to explain the word redemptionist used by Mr. Cameron. It was applied to persons coming here from Germany who were unable to pay the expenses of their passage, and who were sold or indentured for a term of years until that expense was paid. Minor children were bound out until of age.

Mr. Cameron also speaks of the Pennsylvania Germans dispossessing the Scotch-Irish, and plenty of corroborative evidence of this can be found. A learned gentleman has said to me that the Scotch-Irish element, which used to be the leading one in Franklin County, is in a great measure replaced by the Pennsylvania German. “As the Irish farmers got poor and sold their land it was bought by the Pennsylvania Germans, who then got rich by their extreme thrift or severe economy and great industry.” A correspondent of the Philadelphia _Press_, in 1871, goes further, and writing from Brown’s Mills in the same county, from “the fertile and picturesque Cumberland valley,” speaks of the Pennsylvania Germans of that region as wearing the short gown and petticoat, the shad-belly coat, and broad-brimmed hat. The district, he says, was first settled by Scotch-Irish and Welsh, but these have mostly been replaced; a few families of Lutherans and German Reformed linger here, but their numbers annually grow less, and the difficulty of supporting their ministers is yearly more serious. Then, if we may trust this correspondent, it appears that the _wehrlos_, or defenceless men (who do not pay ministers), are gaining possession of that region. It was said of old time that the meek shall inherit the earth. Far east of Franklin County, in Montgomery, I was told of peacemen, the Schwenkfelders and Mennonites, that they buy good farms. “They don’t buy the hilly, stony ones; and, at the same time, I don’t know how it comes they can afford to pay for them.”

The severe economy of the Pennsylvania Germans has been just mentioned. One New-Year’s day I saw in a bank a young man who was asked to subscribe for something. He declined, and spoke of “our old Dutch rule that it is a bad plan to buy on New-Year’s morning. Always get money in before you pay it out.” In Northampton County an old resident is reported to have said, “Do you know the difference between a Yankee farmer and a Dutch one? When a Yankee farmer has apples, he sells the scrubby ones and eats the good ones at home; and a Dutch farmer picks out the scrubby ones to eat at home, and sells the good ones.”

One of my Lancaster County neighbors has grain-bags that have been in use on the farm for about seventy years, and bid fair to last for twenty more. They were made from flax and hemp grown on the farm. A young member of the family says that their preservation not only shows the economy, but impresses him with proofs of the good judgment of those who made them, in selecting material, and in the thorough manner of their work. He adds, “All these characteristics were, I think, possessed in full measure by the people, somehow and somewhere misnamed Dutch, in whose hands the largest part of Lancaster County has become what it is.”

CHARMS AND SUPERSTITIONS.

Mrs. G., born in Lebanon County, says that when they were children one would take a looking-glass and go down the cellar-stairs backward, in order to see therein the form of a future spouse. Another custom was to melt lead and pour it into a cup of cold water, expecting thence to discover some token of the occupation of the same interesting individual. A person in York also remembers that at Halloween her nurse would melt lead and pour it through the handle of the kitchen door-key. The figures were studied and supposed to resemble soldier-caps, books, horses, and so on. This nurse was Irish, but the other domestics were German. A laboring woman from Cumberland County, and afterward from a “Dutch” settlement in Maryland, says that she has heard of persons melting lead to see what trade their man would be of. My German friend before quoted says that in the Palatinate they melted the lead on New-Year’s eve. In Nadler’s poems in the Palatinate dialect, St. Andreas’ night is the time spoken of for melting the lead. This is the 30th of November. Further, in a work called “The Festival Year” (_Das Festliche Yahr_), by Von Reinsberg-Duringsfeld, Leipsic, 1863, the custom of pouring lead through the beard, or wards, of a key is mentioned.

A lawyer, born in Franklin County, tells me that it is a common superstition among Pennsylvania Germans that persons born on Christmas night can see supernatural things and hear similar sounds. He adds that his mother told him of a person who was sceptical and ridiculed the idea, and was told to go out into his feeding-room and listen. He lay down on the hay, and while there one of the oxen said, “_Uebermorgen schieben mir unser Meschter auf den Kirch-hof._” (Day after to-morrow we will haul our master to the graveyard.) And his funeral was on the day specified. My German friend before quoted says that in the Palatinate they believe that as it strikes twelve on Christmas eve, all animals talk together. She adds, “I think that idea is through Germany.”

A gentleman connected with schools in Northampton County says that at Halloween his daughters meet their companions and melt lead into water to tell their fortunes. They also fill their mouths with water that they may not speak, as speaking would break the charm; and walk around a block of houses. The first name which they hear is that of their future spouse. Another practice, which, unlike the foregoing, may be tried at any time of year, is to take a large door-key and tie it within the leaves of a small Bible, the handle remaining out. Two girls rest the handle upon their fingers, and repeat some cabalistic verse; of which, he thinks, each line begins with a different letter, and the key will turn at the initials of the future spouse. These, he says, are the remnants of old superstitions, and he suspects that the human mind is naturally superstitious. He adds, “The population of Easton is mixed so that we cannot tell how many of these are purely German; but by going into the rural German districts of Northampton County you will find many strange ideas, such as that on a certain church festival, say Ascension day, you must not sweep your house, lest it become full of fleas.”

A simple-minded woman in Lancaster County, who showed some regard for the Reformed Church, said that she had sat up late sewing the night before, so as not to sew on Ascension day. “My mother,” she said, “knew a girl that sewed on Ascension day; and there came a gust and killed her.”

One of my German acquaintances calls my attention to the salt-cake eaten in Lancaster. It is made extremely salt, and is eaten by girls, who then go to bed backward without speaking and without drinking; and he of whom they dream is to be their future husband. This, he says, is a custom also in Germany.

But the most universal ideas of this superstitious kind are those connected with the signs in the almanac. Baer’s Almanac, published in Lancaster, still has the signs of the zodiac down the pages, like one shown to me in the Palatinate, where a man of some education said, “Here is where I see how to plant my garden.” What, however, is very mysterious is that when our people tell you you must not plant now, for IT is in the Posy-woman (and the things will all run to blossom, and not bear fruit), they cannot tell _what_ is in the Posy-woman, or Virgo. I infer, however, that it is the moon.

I have been shown a German Bible, which belonged to the grandfather of one of my neighbors, wherein the family births were entered in the German language. I endeavored to decipher one, as follows:

“_1797, September den 9ten 1st uns ein Sohn gebohren ihm Zeichen Witter, ehr ist ihn dem nehmlichen Mohnat ihm Herren entshlafen._”

“On the 9th of September, 1797, a son is born to us in the sign of the Ram [Aries]. In the same month he fell asleep in the Lord.”

The same neighbor who owns the old Bible just mentioned tells me that one of the Russian Mennonites showed him a pamphlet in the German language, which the man had brought from Europe; wherein was told what would be the fortune of a child born in each sign, his health, wealth, etc.; but my neighbor says that he, himself, had no faith in it.

“Grain should be sowed in the up-going; meat butchered in the down-going will shrink in the pot.” But my worthy neighbors do not appear to know what it is that is going up and going down. I infer, of course, that it is the moon. Is it not remarkable that my neighbors should be so attached to book-farming? I knew a woman, born among Friends, but in a Pennsylvania German settlement, who was lamenting the smallness of the piece of meat on the table. “What a little piece, and so big before it was cooked! How it has shrunk! It is in the down-going. And those strawberries, too, that I preserved, that went away to so little; they were done in the down-going.” But one of her family spoke up, bravely, “Just so, mother; that must be it. Now I know what’s the matter with my portemonnaie, that it shrinks away so; it’s the down-going.”

These beliefs in the influence of the heavenly bodies must be the relics of astrology remaining in the almanacs, and never drawn now from actual observation of the weather and the planets.

Mrs. Nevin relates the following (Philadelphia _Press_, June 2, 1875): “There are several superstitions connected with death and funerals in the country, which are a strange blending of the ludicrous with the mournful. One is that if the mother of a family is dying, the vinegar-barrel must be shaken at the time to prevent the ‘mother’ in it from dying. Said a man once in sober earnest to me, ‘I was so sorry Mr. D. was not in the room when his wife died.’ ‘Where was he?’ ‘Oh, in the cellar a-shaking the vinegar-barrel; but if he had just told me, I would have done it and let him been in the room to see her take her last breath.’”

Mrs. Nevin adds: “Another superstition is that the last person that goes out of a house at a funeral will be the next one to die, and as the audience begins to thin, you may see people slip very nimbly out of a back or kitchen door to avoid being that last one.”

The belief in _spooks_ or ghosts is not lost in “Pennsylvania Dutch” land. In some of his verses Mr. Schantz tells (Allentown _Friedensbote_) of an abandoned school-house standing near a sand-pit, beside some woods. He says,—

“_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 in _spooks_ myself, but plenty of people do; and sad enough it is that there should be such superstition.”

MEDICAL SUPERSTITIONS.

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, edge upward; 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 be _verhext_, 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 the _Wurst-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 as _powwowers_; 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 was it 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, or _abnehme_ (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.”

HOLIDAYS—EASTER.

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, like _Bellschnickel_. 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 all over 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 of _Das 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.

HALLOWEEN.

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 born in 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 called _Die 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 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 a supper. 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.

THE PLAINER SECTS.

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; he was 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 they _blead_.”

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 must _bray_ for 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 a _Gristian_, 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, having been 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’s _Temple 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 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 to school 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 beeves were 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 about eight 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 words _said to be_ significant,—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.

THE PEOPLE CONTRASTED.

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 alluded to 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.