The Religious Roots of Familie Allwein

                

    Duane F. Alwin

       March, 2000

  Ann Arbor MI 48103

 

Ideally, genealogical research results in more than a list of descendants and the relationships of families.  Although birth and death dates, marriages and kinship relations are extremely important, it is often necessary to go beyond the demographic information to achieve a more comprehensive view of families and the nature of their lives.  Knowing more enables the analyst to begin to construct a narrative of family history.  If one knew something about their religion, their ethnic and cultural background, their schooling, their occupations, their military service, their family life, and their achievements, we would be able to tell so much more about their lives.  The timing of historical events in their lives is also important, and being able to place their lives in an historical context is essential to understanding the opportunities and constraints they faced.  It would, of course, be even more valuable to have descriptions of family members’ lives in their own words, and thus, diaries, letters, and biographies are important instruments for the construction of such narratives.  However, rarely is one blessed with such materials -- too often they simply do not exist -- and it becomes important to rely on less direct methods of gaining knowledge into the lives of family members of the past.  Such inquiries are fraught with difficulties because the available information is relatively sparse.  This brief summary is no exception.  

 

The present document resulted from an inquiry aimed at understanding the religious origins of our progenitors in America, Hans Jacob Allwein and his wife Catharina.[1]  He was part of the German immigration to Pennsylvania in the 18th century, at a time when many different groups were seeking religious freedom there.  I became very curious about Hans Jacob and Catharina’s religious orientations and decided to approach this question from the point of view of a social scientist interested in the religious history of Europe and America in the 17th and 18th century, and even before.  I decided that in order to appreciate the possibilities of religious faith for Hans Jacob and Catharina, one needed to place their lives in the religio-historical context of such major social events and processes as the Protestant Reformation during the 15th and 16th centuries in Europe, the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), the Huguenot expulsion from France (1685), and the Great Awakening in America (1730-1750).[2] 

 

What do we know about Hans Jacob Allwein?  While we may assume he was German, this does not necessarily clarify his nationality or geographical origins.  We know that he was a passenger on the St. Andrew, commanded by Charles Stedman, which qualified for entry into the port of Philadelphia on October 2, 1741, sailing from Rotterdam or one of the other northern ports of western Europe.  We know from the ship records that he is listed as age 22, suggesting he was born in 1719.[3]  We know also that his wife was named Catharina, but we do not know her family name.[4] We do not know where they were born or where they are buried.

 

We also know from Höhn’s Church Records, 1745-1805 that a son was baptized on April 24, 1748 at St. John’s Reformed Church in Heidelberg Township (now Lower Heidelberg Township) in Berks County, Pennsylvania to a Jacob Alwein and wife.  The county and township listed make it very likely that the Jacob Allwein listed there is Hans Jacob Allwein who, along with his wife Catharina, are the progenitors of the Allwein/Alwine family in America.[5]  It is worth noting in this regard that it was customary for these German people to go by their middle name rather than their first, so it is entirely possible that Hans Jacob went by the name Jacob.  Given the baptism in the Reformed Church, one might assume they were of the Reformed faith, given that the vast majority of German-speaking immigrants to Pennsylvania were either Lutheran or Reformed.  It is, however, probably not that simple.  Germans of many different religious faiths were immigrating to America during the 18th century, and it is necessary to consider several possibilities. 

 

There is little known about what were the religious origins of the progenitors of the Allwein family in America.  Given Hans Jacob Allwein’s presumed origins in the region of the Rhineland Palatinate, there are several possibilities.  Some believe, for example, that Hans Jacob Allwein was born to Mennonite (Swiss Anabaptists) parents in the Alsace-Lorraine region of France, who moved to the Palatinate in Germany in the early 1700s to escape religious persecution in France.[6]  Of course, if were one is inclined to believe that Hans Jacob might have descended from families that were involved in the Swiss Anabaptist movement, one might consider other radical pietistic religious groups as well, which would include not only the Mennonites but also the Amish, the Dunkards (German Brethren), Moravians, Schwenkfelders, and Waldensians.[7]  Moreover, many Protestants fled to the Rhineland Palatinate in the late 1600s.  In 1685 King Louis XIV of France revoked the Edict of Nantes, which was the first official recognition of religious freedom by a major European power.  As a result of Louis XIV, there was a vast movement of Protestants (called Huguenots), estimated at about 200,000, out of the region of Alsace-Lorraine into the surrounding areas, especially the areas of Germany west of the Rhine in the region of the present-day state of Baden-Wurttemberg.

 

There are several things that make me doubt that Hans Jacob Allwein was a Mennonite or a member of any of the other radical pietistic groups.  As I have noted, Germans of many different religious faiths were immigrating to America during the 18th century.  First, if we knew nothing else, from the point of view of statistical probabilities it is unlikely that Hans Jacob might have been a Mennonite.  Of the roughly 65,000 German-speaking immigrants to Pennsylvania in the 1700s less than 6,000 were from the radical pietist sects, which included Mennonites as well as others.  Second, there was a major influx of Mennonites during the early period (1717-1737), and later on during the mid-18th century (1749-1754), but relatively few in the intervening years.  The date of Hans Jacob Allwein’s arrival in Pennsylvania does not fit with the major periods of Mennonite immigration.  This does not preclude him being a Mennonite, but it makes it seem less likely.  Third, Mennonites and other radical pietist sects tended to come in groups and to settle together, and we do not have any evidence that Hans Jacob settled in an area with other members of these sects present in large numbers.  Specifically, there do not appear to be any Mennonite or Amish congregations in the area of Bern and Heidelberg Townships (see Fogelman, 1996, p. 109), which is where we believe Hans Jacobs settled in Berks County, but there is an abundance of Lutheran and Reformed congregations (see Glatfelter, 1980, 1981).  If he was a Protestant, Hans Jacob is more likely to have been a member of Lutheran or Reformed congregations than part of the radical pietist groups. 

 

There is one thing that is consistent with the possibility that Hans Jacob Allwein was a Mennonite.  We have no record, for example, that Hans Jacob signed the loyalty oaths -- the Declarations of Fidelity and Abjuration -- which was required of all people entering the port at Philadelphia during the time he arrived there.  We know that the provincial authority did respect the right of Mennonites to refuse to take such oaths, so the lack of a record of him signing these loyalty oaths is consistent with his being a Mennonite.[8]  Of course, it is also consistent with him being Amish, Brethren or any other radical pietist, or even a Catholic. 

 

The loyalty oaths in question were anti-Catholic in content and demanded allegiance to the throne of the Protestant king of England.  A devout Catholic would have difficulty signing them, and there is one view that suggests that whatever Hans Jacob might have become, once in America, his origins were Roman Catholic.  Jerome Allwein’s (1902) GENEALOGY OF THE ALLWEIN-ARNOLD FAMILIES indicates that the original family may have been Catholic or at least located at the Catholic Mission founded in 1741 by Rev. Theodore Schneider, a German Jesuit priest at Goshenhoppen, Berks County, Pennsylvania.[9]  We know that Hans Jacob’s son, Conrad I (b. May 23, 1753 - d. May 12, 1816), his grandson, Conrad II (b. April 24, 1783 - d. Feb. 9, 1846), and many descendants of those Alwine families in Lebanon and York/Adams Counties, were integrated into the Roman Catholic faith community.  According to Jerome Allwein’s 1902 GENEALOGY OF THE ALLWEIN-ARNOLD FAMILIES the first authentic record of the Allwein family is found in the marriage register at Goshenhoppen where is recorded the marriage of Conrad Allwein and Catharine Weibel on May 16, 1773.  They were married at Christian Henrich’s house at Sharp mountain near Goshenhoppen.  The Weibel family, it is noted, was among the first of the old Catholic families who settled at Goshenhoppen (p. 4).

 

The massive reference work CATHOLIC TRAILS WEST (vol. 2) by Edmund Adams and Barbara Brady O’Keefe (Gateway Press, Baltimore MD) also connects several Allwein families to Goshenhoppen and other early Catholic congregations.  They list Hans Jacob and Katrina Allwein as one of the founding Catholic families of Goshenhoppen, however, the information listed seems to come from a 1768 Bern Township, Berks County Proprietary Return.  They also list Conrad and Catharine (Weibel) Allwein as founding families of Goshenhoppen.[10]  There was obviously some connection of Hans Jacob and Catharina to the Catholic congregation in Goshenhoppen, but the nature of that connection is not exactly clear.  I expect, however, that prior to coming to America, Hans Jacob and/or Catharina could have been Roman Catholic as likely as anything else, but it is hard to say without actually knowing.  

 

To complicate things even further, Hans Jacob and Catharina Allwein were apparently christened in March of 1749 at the White Oak Brethren Church in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, suggesting that whatever their original religious orientations, they were involved with the Brethren faith community at about age 30.[11]  There were several Brethren groups in 18th century Pennsylvania field.  As is known, the Brethren groups descendant from the Schwarzenau community in Westphalia settled in Germantown in 1719 and others came later.  The Schwenkfelders are interesting in this context because they settled originally in the Skippack and Perkiomen creek areas of Montgomery county, just over the line from the Goshenhoppen area in Berks county [see Glatfelter, 1981, p. 67].  What may seem odd about Hans Jacob and Catharina’s christening in a Brethren Church is that it appears to have occurred less than a year following the baptism of their son John in a Reformed Church in Heidelberg Township.  On the other hand, we know that people then, as now, could freely change their religion, based on the opportunities that exist for them as well as their own personal preferences.  We do not know the true nature of the connection of Hans Jacob and Catharina to the White Oak Brethren Church, but it does suggest some interesting possibilities. 

 

Why might Hans Jacob and Catharina have baptized their son John in a Reformed Church in April of 1748 and then less than a year later were themselves baptized in a Brethren Church in an adjacent county?  If they were Mennonites what is the rationale that one can give to the fact that they baptized their son at all?  Or, if they were of the Roman Catholic faith, why would they partake in the sacraments of Protestant churches?  One rather intriguing hypothesis for this, advanced by Christine Alwine Paige, is that Hans Jacob and Catharina might have been motivated by a desire to qualify for naturalization as British citizens by getting certification that communion had been taken at a Protestant church (Rootsweb, Oct. 7, 1999).  This would account not only for the baptism of their son at a Reformed Church, but their own baptisms in the Brethren Church as well, and it is not inconsistent with their connection to the Roman Catholic Mission at Goshenhoppen.

  

In conclusion, German-speaking people of many different religious faiths were immigrating to America during the 18th century, and without better evidence it is difficult for us to know the religious beliefs of Hans Jacob and Catharina Allwein for sure.  Rather than solving the puzzle of the religious origins of the Allwein family in America, this exercise seems to have yielded an even greater degree of uncertainty on this question than we had at the beginning of this search.  Indeed, as to the religious origins of Hans Jacob Allwein the main facts we have at the present time do not lead conclusively in any one single direction.  We know that Hans Jacob and Catharina appear to have had an important degree of contact with at least three different religious groups.  The first was the record of their contact with the Catholic Mission at Goshenhoppen in 1741.  The second was the Reformed Church in Heidelberg Township where they baptized their oldest son John in April of 1748.  The third was with their own baptism in the Brethren Church in the adjoining area of Lancaster County in March of 1749.  In any case, we have not solved the mystery of whether they were part of the Mennonite movement to America, or the immigration of other religious sects.  Neither have we solved the puzzle of whether they were Catholics at some early point, and took the sacrament of baptism at the Reformed and Brethren churches in order to gain the necessary credentials for British citizenship.  Given the conflicting nature of what we do know, perhaps we need to acknowledge that finding the answer to this question may not be possible; and until then, it is probably best to keep an open mind.

 

Endnotes

 


[1]. This short summary is based on a more lengthy treatment of the religious origins of Hans Jacob and Catharina Allwein by the author, titled The Religious Roots of Familie Allwein.  A copy of the larger document may be obtained by writing to: Duane F. Alwin, 5230 Dexter Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48103.

[2]. There are many sources one may consult on the religious history of the American colonies and the German immigration to Pennsylvania.  Some that I have found particularly useful are:  Sydney Ahlstrom’s A RELIGIOUS HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE (Yale University Press, 1972), Charles Glatfelter’s PASTORS AND PEOPLE: GERMAN LUTHERAN AND REFORMED CHURCHES IN THE PENNSYLVANIA FIELD, 1717-1793 [The Pennsylvania German Society, 1981), and Aaron Fogelman’s HOPEFUL JOURNEYS: GERMAN IMMIGRATION, SETTLEMENT, AND POLITICAL CULTURE IN COLONIAL AMERICA, 1717-1775 [Philadelphia:  University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996).

[3]. The book PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN PIONEERS (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1980), edited by William Hinke, lists the early arrivals in Pennsylvania, and this is the source of the information on Hans Jacob Alwine (pp. 303-305). We do not actually know from this source what was the point of origin of the St. Andrew, although the PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN PIONEERS suggests it would have been one of the northern seaports of the European continent, either Amsterdam, Rotterdam or Hamburg.

[4]. The source for this is John Alwine’s DESCENDANTS OF HANS JACOB ALWEIN [Buxton NC 27920] and the compilation for Hans Jacob Alwine given by Michael Lau in ALWINE FAMILIES OF YORK COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA AND SURROUNDING AREAS [Adams County Historical Society, Gettysburg, PA.  August, 1999).  Catharina is spelled various ways, including Katerina, Katrina, or Catharine.  These two sources, along with Jerome Allwein’s GENEALOGY OF THE ALLWEIN-ARNOLD FAMILIES, are among the most useful sources I have found on Allwein/Alwine family ancestry.

[5]. The source of this information is PENNSYLVANIA VITAL RECORDS, volume 1, p. 431.  There is some ambiguity here regarding the date.  Is this the date of birth, or the date of the baptism?  It appears from what is known about Hans Jacob and Catharina’s son John, he would have been 2 years old exactly when he was baptized, since most sources give April 24, 1746 as the date of John’s birth (e.g. John Alwine’s DESCENDANTS OF HANS JACOB ALWINE gives April 24, 1746 and Lau’s ALWINE FAMILIES gives 1746).

[6].  See, for example, John Alwine’s DESCENDANTS OF HANS JACOB ALWEIN (p. 1), which states:  AHans Jacob Allwein -- born April 16, 1719 of a Mennonite family who moved from France (Alsace Lorraine) to Germany because of religious persecution.  The family was granted asylum by the King of Wittgenstein, Germany and they worked for him while living in Schwarzenau.

[7]. For rich discussions of the immigration of the Anabaptist and pietistic sects to Pennsylvania, see Sydney Ahlstrom’s A RELIGIOUS HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE (Yale University Press, 1972) and Aaron Fogelman’s HOPEFUL JOURNEYS: GERMAN IMMIGRATION, SETTLEMENT , AND POLITICAL CULTURE IN COLONIAL AMERICA, 1717-1775 [University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996).

[8]. This information is available in William J. Hinke (ed.), PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN PIONEERS: A PUBLICATION OF THE ORIGINAL LISTS OF ARRIVALS IN THE PORT OF PHILADELPHIA FROM 1727 TO 1808 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1980).

[9]. The early genealogical work by Jerome Allwein, GENEALOGY OF THE ALLWEIN-ARNOLD FAMILIES, published in 1902, is an invaluable source of information on Allwein family history.  It does not, however, give any information about Hans Jacob and Catharina Allwein.  Rather, it begins with the marriage record of their son, Conrad, to Catharine Weibel, daughter of Valentine and Anna Maria (Eck) Weibel at Goshenhoppen (now Bally], Pennsylvania.  The best source of information on the possible Catholic origins of Allwein families, see Edmund Adams and Barbara Brady O’Keefe, CATHOLIC TRAILS WEST: THE FOUNDING CATHOLIC FAMILIES OF PENNSYLVANIA.  Volume 2, p. 456.  (Baltimore MD: Gateway Press, Inc., 1989). 

[10]. Conrad I and Catharine are listed as one of the founding Catholic families of Lancaster, Pennsylvania by Edmund Adams and Barbara Brady O’Keefe, CATHOLIC TRAILS WEST: THE FOUNDING CATHOLIC FAMILIES OF PENNSYLVANIA. Volume 2, pages 534-541.  (Baltimore MD: Gateway Press, Inc., 1989). 

[11]. The source of this is Michael Lau’s extensive compilation, ALWINE FAMILIES OF YORK COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA AND SURROUNDING AREAS  (p. 29) suggests that they were christened at the White Oak Brethren Church in Lancaster County.