of value, and at other times their divining-rod was called into service to incline toward hidden springs or indicate the presence of precious metals under the surface of the earth.' A number of astrological instruments, with which the brotherhood was provided, ultimately passed into the possession of the Philosophical Society of Pennsylvania. Another interesting superstition was their faith in talismans (Anhängsel). The latter consisted commonly of small pieces of parchment or paper, or sometimes of thin stone or metal, on which were written some magic symbols, consecrated with occult ceremonies, at moments when the planets were supposed to be of particular power. The talisman was supposed to be effectual in securing personal safety, bodily and spiritual, against accidents and evil spirits, or to be possessed of magnetic power, or virtue to heal wounds and diseases. Mystic healing powers were attributed also to the saintlike Kelpius, who, after the brotherhood became better known, was visited by many sectarians of Pennsylvania. Abel Noble, the leader of the Sabbatarians, frequently visited the brotherhood in their tabernacle in the forest, and conferences took place also with the Swedish pastors, Rudman and Aurén. An effort was made by Kelpius to combine the numerous sects under one church roof, in a united Christianity, but it was without success. Conrad Matthai was prominent in this attempt. The Moravian Zinzendorf, nearly half a century later, tried again to realize that glorious dream, but was likewise unsuccessful.

Sachse, in his youth, was shown a bed of iron ore, not far from Germantown, which was said to have been located by one of the divining-rods. See Sachse, The German Pietists of Provincial Pennsylvania, part I.

One of the Anhängsel most in demand was prepared at midnight on St. John's Eve and buried for a time where the Sonnenwend fire had been. This special one was supposed to protect against all evil spirits. Sachse, The German Pietists, part 1.

Kelpius lived until 1708 or 1709, an interesting account of his dying day coming down to us through an attendant, named Geissler. Kelpius suffered from the widespread disease so well called the white plague, and his consumptive frame wasted away slowly. He pleaded with his Lord for a transfiguration, such as was granted Enoch and Elias, but upon the third day of his prayers he said resignedly to his faithful famulus: "My beloved Daniel, I am not to attain that to which I aspired. I have received my answer: it is, that dust I am, and to dust I am to return. It is ordained that I shall die like all other children of Adam." With that the hermit handed Geissler1 a box which he told him to cast into the river. Geissler, thinking that the box might contain objects of value, hid it away, but on his return, Kelpius told him that he had not obeyed his behest. Frightened by such clairvoyance, Geissler took the box and threw it into the river, when it flashed and thundered (geblitzet und gedonnert). Returning to Kelpius, the master thanked him. This is an instance of the faith which people reposed in the occult powers of the mystic brotherhood.

The logical successor of the hermits on the Wissahickon was the Ephrata Community on the banks of the Cocalico,2 Lancaster County. A branch of this new society flourished in Germantown and vicinity, and a massive stone building was erected in 1738 on the Wissahickon, a short distance from the spot where the original tabernacle stood. The location is within the confines of Fairmount Park, where an interesting history is hidden behind such park signs as

Geissler, when an old man, reported these incidents to Mühlenberg, in 1742. See Hallesche Nachrichten, pp. 1265–1266. Reprint (Philadelphia), vol. ii, p. 640.

* For an account of the Ephrata cloister, and its founder, Conrad Beissel, see Chapter v, pp. 114-115.

"Hermit Glen," "Hermit Bridge," "Hermit Lane," suggesting, alas, to but few of the thousands of daily visitors, the memory of the ancient hermit of the Wissahickon.

With the settlement of Germantown in 1683 and its increasing prosperity, the Germans had gained, by the end of the seventeenth century, a permanent foothold on American soil. Located close to Philadelphia, the leading port of entry, and founded just in advance of the larger migrations of the eighteenth century, Germantown served as a base for the distribution of the German people over the area most favorable, through climatic and natural conditions, for the increase of their race. They fully availed themselves of this splendid opportunity, as will be told in succeeding chapters.

CHAPTER III

INCREASE IN GERMAN IMMIGRATION IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, AND ITS CAUSES

Conditions in the Palatinate and in the southwestern German countries Causes for emigration — Immigrant hunting-Newlanders and their methods -The redemptionist system; advantages and evils - Crowding, extortion, shipwrecks - The Deutsche Gesellschaft of Philadelphia improves conditions.

In the first decades of the eighteenth century there rose a great tide of German immigration. Its volume presents a strange contrast to the sparseness of German settlements in the seventeenth century, the period that has just been passed in review. The change was produced by historical causes, operating as mighty forces. Destructive wars, religious persecution, relentless oppression by petty tyrants, rendered existence unendurable at home, while favorable reports from earlier settlers beyond the Atlantic, more plentiful means of transportation, and an innate desire for adventure (the German Wanderlust), made irresistible the attraction of the foreign shore. The area which furnished the largest number of immigrants was the southwestern part of Germany, the Palatinate, Würtemberg, Baden, and Switzerland, perhaps in that very order. Sometimes all of the causes just mentioned united to compel an exodus from a particular district, as in the case of the Palatinate, while in Switzerland, with a nominally freer government, religious persecution was the main cause of emigration. The emigrations from the Palatinate' for a time surpassed in 1 The geographical borders of the Palatinate at that time exceeded the present limits of the Rhenish Palatinate, which is to-day a part of Bavaria.

extent those from all other parts of Germany, so much so that in England and America emigrants from Germany were commonly called Palatines, and curiously enough we meet in an historical document the phrase, “a Palatine from Holsteyn."

In order to understand more clearly the situation as it existed in the Rhine country and in the southwestern part of Germany at the beginning of the eighteenth century, it will be necessary to get a closer view of each of the main causes of discontent, viz., the wars, the religious persecutions, and the tyranny of small rulers.

The most destructive of all the wars that devastated Germany was the Thirty Years' War, 1618-48, than which none more terrible is known to history. It is an accepted fact that in its material development Germany was set back two hundred years. Throughout Germany seventyfive per cent of the inhabitants were killed, and the property loss was far greater. Statistics are furnished by Freytag for the county of Henneberg, showing that in the course of the war seventy-five per cent of the inhabitants, sixtyIt extended from the Neckar Valley, downstream on both sides of the Rhine as far as Oppenheim, Alzei, and Bacharach, and from the Bergstrasse (the old Roman road running along the Odenwald from Darmstadt to Heidelberg) on the east, to the Hardt Mountains on the west. Mannheim, Heidelberg, Worms, Alzei were within its borders. Its area was about 340 German square miles, a little less than the area of the present state of Massachusetts, and the number of inhabitants about 500,000.

1 Cf. the following: Dändliker, Geschichte der Schweiz; Freytag, “ Aus dem Jahrhundert des groszen Krieges," vol. iii of Bilder aus der deutschen Vergangenheit; Häusser, Geschichte der Rheinischen Pfalz.

For brief accounts see: Kapp, F., Geschichte der Deutschen im Staate New York (N. Y. 1867), pp. 58–145. Reprinted in Geschichtsblätter (edited by Carl Schurz), vol. i, New York, 1884; Kuhns, German and Swiss Settlements of Pennsylvania, chap. i.

2 Within the present borders partly of Saxe-Weimar, Prussia, and the Saxon Principalities, i. e., in Central Germany. For statistics, see Freytag, pp. 234 ff.