always remain a source of gratification to the Germans of this country and particularly to Germans of the great Northwestern Territory, in which fertile and progressive area they were destined to outnumber every other national element.

1

Small colonies of American settlers soon gained a foothold about the conquered French towns in Illinois and Indiana, as we see indicated on the census map of 1790, but it took a score of years before that territory received permanent settlers in large numbers. The sections along the Ohio River were settled first, and in those early settlements there were some Germans. In Indiana the Swiss settlement of Vevay was founded, in 1796. In that year a number of wine-growers had been sent from the Canton of Vaud (Waadt) to produce vintages on the Ohio, "the Po of the New World." The settlement (in present Switzerland County, Indiana) perhaps dates from 1802, when Dufour and a number of others bought thirtyseven hundred acres, and started vineyards. A number of German farmers followed the original French Swiss, and in 1810 the colony pressed their first good vintage, of twenty-four hundred gallons. In 1817, five thousand gallons of wine were produced. Extravagant hopes of supplanting the French wines were not realized, however, either in the quality or the quantity of the American product. The colony made no great progress, and many of its best men left Vevay for Cincinnati.2

Very successful as long as it lasted was the commun

A metaphor of Freiherr D. von Bülow, who had traveled in the West shortly before. For an account of the German settlements in Indiana, see W. A. Fritsch, Zur Geschichte des Deutschtums in Indiana. Eine Festschrift zur Indiana-Feier im Jahre 1900. (New York: Steiger, 1896.)

2

Among them was Captain Weber, the founder of the William Tell Hotel, in Cincinnati, which once had a considerable reputation. Cf. Eickhoff, In der neuen Heimat, pp. 276-277.

istic settlement of the Rappists, who in 1815 located on the Wabash, in Posey County, Indiana. This society had been founded by Johann Georg Rapp, a native of Würtemberg, a weaver and tiller of the soil, who in his native land had founded a religious sect called the Harmonists. He left Würtemberg in 1803, and sought refuge for himself and his community in America. In 1805 he founded the colony of Harmony in Butler County, Pennsylvania, where he continued until 1815.' In the mean time the farms and property of the Rappists had increased enormously in value, and Rapp was enabled to realize $100,000 from their sale. He then bought thirty thousand acres on the Wabash, where in a few years, through industry and thrift, the colony rose to still greater prosper ity. Another sale was effected in 1824 to Robert Owen,3 and this time fully $200,000 was the price, exclusive of seven thousand acres sold to William McClure for his reform school. The Rappists then returned to Pennsylvania, where they established their third colony, at Economy (Beaver County), and where the properties of the sect increased to the value of millions. The Rappists in Indi

3

1 Rapp was a benevolent autocrat, who held the material and religious affairs of his communistic order firmly in hand. Industry and economy were the secret of the extraordinary success of his model farms and mills. Rapp died in 1847, at the age of ninety. When there were withdrawals from the order, property was restored or services paid for; generally the members were fanatically devoted to the founder.

2 Robert Owen, founder of English socialism, established his socialistic community at New Harmony in 1825. It failed in 1827.

3 An excellent account of the Harmony Society is to be found in the German-American Annals, vol. ii, pp. 274, 339, 403, 467, 571, 597, 665; The Harmony Society; a Chapter in German-American Culture History, by John A. Bole. Many illustrations accompany these articles. The membership of the order reached its highest point in 1827, when there were 522 members. There was a defection in 1832, when 175 members withdrew in a body with Count Leon, receiving $175,000. In 1844 the membership rose again to 385, but since celibacy was enforced from the beginning, the order was not self

ana did not isolate themselves entirely, as did many of the other communistic societies. Friedrich Rapp, adopted son of the founder, and from an early period head of all the industrial activities of the Rappists, was one of the representatives of the county in the political affairs of the territory. He was, in 1820, one of the ten commissioners. of the state who chose a site for the state capital. Their choice was Indianapolis, a city which subsequently received a very large German population.'

In Illinois there were some Germans who settled in St. Clair County before 1820. L. Schönberger was a grand juryman in 1792; Friedrich Gräter in 1796 bought the first piece of land sold by the sheriff in Cahokia. In the latter place lived also the German Kramer, whose French neighbors changed his name to Cramour. Julius A. Barnsbach (Bärensbach) settled with his family in Madison County as early as 1809, and many of his relatives located near by. Dutch Hill, in St. Clair County, had its suggestive name before 1816, and was farmed by several Swiss families, under the leadership of Leonhard Steiner, from Aargau. The large current of German immigration, however, came after 1830, the possibilities of the Northwest Territory having been discovered during the Black Hawk War.3

perpetuating. Few new members joined, and in 1894 there remained but eighteen, in 1903 but four members (of whom three were women), who are the owners of a vast property.

1 Cf. Eickhoff, p. 286. Evansville (Posey County) and Fort Wayne (Allen County) likewise received large German populations. Tell City on the Ohio (Indiana side) was founded by Swiss Germans.

2 Cf. the researches of E. B. Hoffmann in Der deutsche Pionier, vol. xiii, p. 21. Cf. also E. Mannhardt," Die ältesten deutschen Ansiedler in Illinois," Deutsch-Amerikanische Geschichtsblätter, I Jahrgang, Heft 4, pp. 50-59. Vierteljahrschrift hrg. v. d. D. A. Historischen Gesellschaft von Illinois. (Chicago, 1901.)

The Black Hawk War took place in 1830-32. Under the provisions of

St. Clair County became one of the centres of German influence in Illinois. Across the river from St. Louis, beginning at the north opposite the mouth of the Missouri and stretching southward to the outlet of the Kaskaskia River a little above Chester, there is a stretch of fertile upland about a hundred miles in length and six to ten miles in breadth. The higher portions of this plateau are wooded, and the bottoms, stretching toward the Kaskaskia, are varied with woodlands, prairies, and lakes. Into this territory was poured the German immigration, far outnumbering the few wealthy Virginian and American landholders, the latter often of German descent, coming from Pennsylvania or North Carolina. The German immigrants had among them large numbers of born leaders and "Latin farmers." There were clustered together, notably at Belleville, a large group of men who had been members of the "Burschenschaften," the German student fraternities of a political cast, which had been made special objects of vengeance by the arbitrary governors of the reactionary period. Many friends of gymnasium or university days were now gathered together within the radius of a few miles. Such were Dr. G. Engelmann, Dr. G. Bunsen, Dr. A. Berchelmann, Gustav Körner, Theodor Hilgard, Theodor Kraft, Georg Neuhoff, Theodor and Adolf Engelmann, Karl Schreiber, Karl Friedrich, Ernst Decker, Wilhelm Weber, August Dilg. In 1849 there was added Friedrich Hecker, the leader of the inthe treaty with the chiefs of the Sac and Fox Indians at Prairie du Chien, July 15, 1830, the land east of the Mississippi was ceded to the whites. The chief Black Hawk refused to submit to the treaty. In 1831 he made an attack on some Illinois villages, but was driven off by a force of militia under General Gaines. The next spring Black Hawk returned with a strong force and renewed his attacks. United States troops were called against him, and upon his defeat on July 21, and on August 2, 1832, the war was ended. Encyclopaedic Dictionary of American History, vol. i, p. 80.

surrectionary forces in Baden during the revolution of 1848-49. At the university Hecker had fought a duel with Gustav Körner; now these men extended to one another the hand of comradeship in their new home.

Besides showing the usual German qualities of industry and thrift, the Germans of St. Clair County were interested and wide-awake in politics. In Belleville, with over fifteen thousand inhabitants, it happened that for years no native American sat in the city council, and that all civic offices were filled by Germans. The county officers likewise were generally German, and their influence extended beyond the county limits. Eduard Retz was three times state treasurer, and Gustav Körner was lieutenant-governor of Illinois in 1852. Under Julius Raith' a German company was recruited for the Mexican War, and during the Civil War all men capable of bearing arms fought for the cause of the Union. It is estimated that at present three fourths of the population of the county are German or of German descent. As early as 1836 a "Deutsche Bibliotheks-Gesellschaft" was formed in Belleville, which founded a library that in 1879 contained fifty-five hundred volumes, exclusive of public documents presented by Congress. For that time and in that section this fact may be recorded as noteworthy. The appellative "Latin settlement" or "Latin farmers" was probably first used in connection with the cultivated settlers of Belleville."

In 1862-1865 he was minister to Spain.

2 Julius C. Raith (b. 1820 in Würtemberg) served as captain in the Mexican War and in the Rebellion as colonel of the Forty-Third Illinois Regiment. He was killed in the battle of Shiloh (1862). Cf. Rosengarten, The German Soldier in the Wars of the United States, p. 231.

Cf. Körner, Das deutsche Element in den Vereinigten Staaten von Nordamerika, 1818-1848, p. 265.