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THE BROBST CHRONICLES
A HISTORY OF THE EARLY BROBST/PROBST
FAMILIES IN PENNSYLVANIA
Index
and Table of Contents to The Brobst Chronicles
Title Page
Foreword
Introduction
Chapter
One - The Early Swiss/German Probsts
Chapter
Two - The History Of The German Immigration To America
Chapter
Three - The Struggles of the Settlers
Chapter
Four - The Early American Pennsylvania Brobsts
Chapter Five - Children of Philipp Jacob Probst
Chapter Six - The Other Children of Philipp Jacob Probst
Chapter Seven: The Other Children of Christophel Probst
Chapter Eight: Other Interesting Brobstology Intermarriages
Appendices
Chapter III
THE STRUGGLES OF THE SETTLERS
The Pfälzische Probst family emigrated from Germany to America in
1732, well after the German emigration movement had started, and moved
into what was then referred to as the "Allemäengle" region of eastern
Pennsylvania. The root word for Allemäengle is the word for the southwestern
district of Germany: "Allemagne" (French) or "Allemaine" (German). This
area of Pennsylvania, lying in the general area between today's Allentown,
Pottsville, and Reading, had been first explored by the Dutch. Soon after
that, Swedish settlers landed and built some small villages near what
is now Philadelphia. In 1664, the English acquired control of this entire
region.
(Note: "Allemäengle" is, according to some
sources, German for "a land wanting in fertility of soil"1;
just what the settlers didn't need! Actually, the land of the Pennsylvania
Allemäengle was wonderfully fertile in those days, just as it is
today. In modern Pennsylvania farming, with the use of chemical fertilizers,
power machinery, and modern land use methods, even higher yields are realized.)
Few had gone before them; it was a wild region still occupied by hostile
Indians. The Allemäengle included what is now Berks County and Lynn
and Weisenberg Townships of Lehigh County. The Allemaengle is about fifty
miles northwest of downtown Philadelphia. The district lacked roads, horses,
cattle, wagons, agricultural implements, grain, and protection against
the Indians.
Those early settlers faced terrible adversity. In order
to survive in this wilderness, the Germans had to live up to their reputation
as being stolid, strong, obstinate, stubborn, and courageous. But there
were others as well: English, Scandinavian, Dutch, and many others. Once
they cleared the medical inspection and pledged allegiance to the King
of England, they had to buy horses, wagons, provisions, find out about
routes and hazards along the way, probably had to hire some kind of guide,
and probably had to travel in at least small wagon trains to try to protect
themselves against Indian attacks. Then they had to travel into southeastern
Pennsylvania by wagon and foot over unpaved roads/trails/riverbeds, not
having much of an idea at all about what dangers might face them during
the journey. There were no trains or steamships in those days along their
path, so they had to rely on wagons and their feet. When they had to cross
large rivers, there may have been a ferry they could use, but the small
rivers they had to ford with their wagons.2
Somewhere along the way they had to buy their livestock -- cattle, pigs,
chickens, goats, and take them along with them on their journey.
"While still in Philadelphia, the settlers had
to arrange for their land warrant. Those warrants were a source of much
misunderstanding, for the settlers had earlier understood them as being
title to their land, and didn't realize that later they had to pay for
them! After they received their warrant, the pioneers purchased a wagon
and team, or a few pack horses or mules, or even oxen, loaded their worldly
goods, and set out for the Allemäengle. To get there, they had to
cross a barren, swampy wasteland of scrub oaks called Long Swamp, then
through the Rittenhouse Gap in the South Mountain, northward to the Schochary
Hills. They traveled the tops of the ridges because the valleys were full
of vines, mosquitoes, and swamp fever. Arriving at their warrant, they
set up a camp-site, usually a small lean-to, at a spring near the protected
land of a low valley. Sometimes the wagon was the only shelter for the
first several months until a cabin could be constructed."3
Land was measured in acres and "perches". The exact length of a perch
varied from 16� feet to 24 feet, depending on the reference used. Land
was surveyed using stones, trees, creeks, and even bushes as references,
leading to uncertainty as to the exact boundaries of the property!
One can only imagine the dismay and disappointment of the German settlers
when they completed their journey up the rivers and creeks, only to run
into both a solid wall of forest and the Schochary and Blue Mountain Ridges
of the Kittatinny Mountains. On their arrival in what is now Berks and
Lehigh Counties, they had to clear land for crops, cut trees for log cabins
and firewood, build the cabins and barns, find springs for water, and
fend off irritated Indians. Winters were cold and heating was primitive,
summers were hot and cabins poorly ventilated. No running water, no electricity,
no air conditioning, no telephone, no paved roads, no school buses, no
department store to buy clothes. Only the hardy survived, and most of
the weak succumbed. The area of Berks County in which they settled is
called "Stony Run" today; the name is not a coincidence. The settlers
not only had to clear trees, but many hundreds of large boulders as well.
"The Triumph of the Human Spirit" (Slogan of the World Paralympic
Games)
Arriving at their land warrant, they would set up a campsite, usually
a small lean-to, at a spring near the protected head of a low valley.
Sometimes the wagon was the only shelter for the first several months
until a cabin could be built. Some of the first settlers had to resort
to caves and dug-outs for their first shelter. Built into an embankment,
with earth on three sides, some lined with timber, the shelter usually
had a crude chimney and a simple arrangement for fire built into the side
or back. Poles were laid across the top and covered with boughs, leaves,
bark, grasses, or sod. Others were sheltered in improvised huts or various
kinds of covered wagons.
In 1759, a project was undertaken to build a road from Fort Henry (near
Reading) to Fort Augusta (in Sunbury). The committee report said the road
would cost about 1000 Pounds, a great sum back then. The committee recommended
the new road be built directly from Reading to Sunbury, due to the mountainous
terrain of the territory (Tuscarora and Kittatinny Mountains, known as
the Blue Mountains). This road was likely the old Sunbury Road or the
Tulphehocken Path, now Route 61.
For a description of the manners and customs of the
German settlers, readers are referred to an excellent book about Mathias
Probst by Carolyn Price4.
Colonial American ancestors dressed in plain practical clothing. The men
wore heavy buckled shoes or moccasins, knee pants and long stockings,
a pullover shirt, a vest or jacket, and either a three-cornered hat or
a coonskin hat. The women wore dresses with long sleeves, collars that
buttoned up to the neck, skirts that came within a half-inch of the ground,
and either a sunbonnet for outside or a white cotton cap for indoors.
The log cabins in which the settlers lived provided only marginal shelter
from the elements. Wind whistled through the chinks in the grouting between
the logs. Rain leaked through the roof. There were no insulated walls
to keep out the cold, although the logs served as insulation. Snow blew
through the cracks around the doors and windows. They must have been very
cold all winter long. The accompanying photo shows Mary Ann Brobst Stauffer
(1837-1920) in 1920, shortly before she died. Mary Ann was a great-granddaughter
of "Jurg" Probst (1740-1795).
The thick forests were inhabited by deer, bear, raccoon, and Indians.
There was a lot of game to be had, but the real game was to get the game
before the Indians played their game. The beautiful fall colors did little
to offset the apprehension of the impending cold and harsh winter: no
central heat, the wind whistling through cracks in the walls, cold children
huddled around the wood stove in the morning to dress. Except for the
very youngest children, families in the colonies worked together.
Because many hands were needed to keep up with the work, families were
large. The men and boys farmed and hunted, and the women and girls tended
livestock, prepared food, baked bread, and spun, wove, and made clothes
for the entire family. The smaller children shelled peas, shucked corn,
gathered firewood, and drew water from the well.
In those early days in the 1700s, most children in farm families were
born on the farm in the mother's bed. They were then taken a few weeks
or months later to the family church for baptism. Many early Brobst children
were born in Lynn Township, Northampton (now Lehigh) County, but taken
to the Jerusalem Church in Albany Township, Berks County for baptism.
The child's birth was then recorded in the church, thereby causing confusion
as to the actual birthplace!
There were certain family protocols that were strictly followed. The
eldest son was expected to take over the family farm after the father
died or chose to step back. Children married in their birth order. Babies
were named according to a specific pattern (see Appendix 3 of this report).
Boys worked the farms and forests, girls worked the wells and the household.
There were few or even no schools, so teaching was done at home, either
by the mother or by an older daughter; most of the German families were
illiterate in the early 1700s.
It is noted that well over half of the deaths of those early settlers
occurred in the months of January through March, attesting to the severity
of the winters. It is also noted that the preponderance of births occurred
in the months of August through November, attesting to the relatively
increased level of snuggling during the cold winter months!
It must also be noted the high incidence of the births of the first children
taking much less than nine months. There were a lot of shotgun weddings
in those days, but many of these were caused only by the lack of a local
minister. Couples would have to wait sometimes for months for a traveling
minister to marry them. There were no civil authorities there in the early
1700s entitled to perform marriage ceremonies.
The settlers may well have thought from time to time that they would
have been better off staying in Germany. William Penn died in 1718, before
they arrived. That may have been fortunate for him, for the settlers may
well have felt he betrayed them, since he extolled the virtues of the
new land of Pennsylvania, but probably forgot to tell them how rugged
and wild the country was. And he may have conveniently forgotten to warn
them about the Indians!
For all his faults, Penn, more than any other man, opened up the "western"
frontiers of the New World to settlement by the Europeans. He also founded
the most humane legal code in the American colonies. As Penn intended,
Pennsylvania flourished as a haven for oppressed religious minorities
from Europe. As Pennsylvania grew, so did political strife. In 1712, Penn
became so tired of disputes between Pennsylvania's leaders that he threatened
to return the Colony to direct rule by the British Crown. By the mid-1700s,
Pennsylvania had become the wealthiest and most populous English colony.
It was about this time that the Moravians tried to move in on the Berks
County German Lutherans. They attempted to convert the Lutherans to the
Moravian outlook on religion, which had been founded in Saxony in 1722
by Hussite emigrants from Moravia (in Czechoslovakia). In 1741, the Moravians
settled Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and spread out from there. The German
Lutherans responded with political and religious aggression by Rev. Melchoir
Mühlenberg, and successfully resisted the Moravian movement. Rev.
Mühlenberg was the moving force behind the establishment of the Jerusalem
Church in Stony Run, Albany Township, Berks County. (See Appendix 5 on
the Jerusalem Church.)
A note here on women's rights in the colonial days.
The laws of colonial society gave few legal rights to women, perpetuating
the European view of women as dependent on men. Though a single woman
could run a business, pay or collect wages, sign deeds, or enter into
a legal contract, a married woman could not. Her husband owned all the
family property, which even included his wife's clothing! A married woman
was not responsible for her own debts, and could not sue or be sued. If
she worked, her wages were given directly to her husband. She could not
dispose of her property upon her husband's death; an administrator had
to be assigned by the court. If divorced (rare), her husband would normally
acquire custody of any children.5
They could not enter universities, law schools, or medical schools. They
could not serve on juries, and they could not vote. Professions open to
them were few -- domestic drudgery, factory work, teaching, prostitution,
and, for the exceptional few, writing. Men were allowed all sorts of sexual
license, but a woman who committed adultery was subject to a jail sentence.
They just did not count as legal entities, only as baby factories and
homemakers!
TROUBLE WITH INDIANS
The European immigrants were not the first settlers of southeastern Pennsylvania.
The peaceful southern and western Pennsylvania Algonquian Indians descended
from the original Lenni Lenape family which emigrated from western American
and Canada to the east 12,000 years ago. In the early 1600s, they were
referred to by the Europeans as the Delaware tribe, part of the Algonquian
Nation.
The other Indian nation, with a different language than the Delawares,
were the more warlike Iroquois who ruled northern Pennsylvania; they were
the Shawnees and the Susquehannocks. ("Susquehanock" is an Indian name
meaning "long crooked river".) Other Indians in that area besides the
Algonquians and Iroquois were members of the Wyandot, Mningos, and Mohican
tribes. In both the Algonquin and Iroquois nations, the dominant rulers
were women!
The Indian culture was that of the late stages of the Stone Age, primarily
agricultural. There were no livestock; they did not use horses or oxen
-- they had not yet discovered the wheel! The hallmark of an advanced
civilization -- a written language -- had not yet been developed. Although
they potted, worked leather, and wove, they were acquainted with only
the primitive uses of metals. European tools, implements, and utensils
were understood by the Indians and recognized as superior to their own
metalwares. The formerly autonomous Indians became dependent on the intruders.
They had no formal government of their own, and did not understand how
the European governmental system operated; this was to cause many problems.
The local Indian tribes were generally peaceful until
they were overrun by the Iroquois in about 1677 which left them paranoid
about intruders. It is estimated6
that there were 15,000 Indians in Pennsylvania in 1730. By 1790, the numbers
had dwindled to perhaps 1300. Some were killed or driven off by the settlers,
but thousands succumbed to the smallpox, brought to America with the settlers.
The Indians were skillful farmers who grew corn, beans, peas, pumpkins,
and squash, and who raised sunflowers for meal and oil. They made use
of wild vegetables as well, such as a kind of potato, onions, roots similar
to yams, and a wealth of nuts. Fruits included grapes, mulberries, crabapples,
persimmons, and berries. Corn was the basic food, planted and eaten together
with legumes. Permanent farming communities were not at all unusual, many
with several hundred acres planted in corn. Meat and fish were plentiful.
Understandably, they were upset with the intrusion of the settlers.
They had their own system of highways -- animal trails (none of them
straight, of course) marked with various markers, leading from one village
to another. Hundreds of years later, one such trail became a road leading
through the village of Buck's Horn, later called Buckhorn, just northwest
of Bloomsburg in Columbia County. The area was named after an Indian trail
marker -- the horn of a buck deer placed in the crotch of a tree. The
horn had long since disappeared by the time the settlers arrived, but
the Indians told them about it. It was only a legend for many years, until
a lightning bolt split the tree open in front of the hotel around 1900,
and the weathered buck horn was exposed!7,8
At first, the Indians, observing the initial European attempts at survival
in an environment in which the Indians easily survived, condescended to
save the settlers from starvation. The Indians were hospitable; they provided
food, helped to build fish traps, and showed the settlers how to plant
crops. Europeans, likewise certain of the superiority of their own way
of life, responded to the Indian aid by increasing their colonies, changing
the face of the landscape, depleting its natural resources, and always
moving westward, pushing out the Indians. Unfortunately, the settlers
took advantage of the Indians, and trouble started.9
From the time that the first white man took a pot shot at a prowling
Indian, there were "raiders in the valley". Naturally, the Indian resented
the white man in his domain. The pioneer, working in his clearing, always
had his rifle with him. Many a cabin door had the marks of a tomahawk
or war club.
In opening up those lands to settlement, William Penn had insisted, somewhat
unsuccessfully, that no settlement could take place on any lands until
they were properly purchased from the Indians. Penn wanted to avoid war
between the Indians and settlers. He was essentially kind and paternalistic,
and wanted to deal with the Indians in that spirit. In "Certain
Conditions and Concessions" (1681), he dictated a careful regulation
of trade for the Indian protection as well as a policy of equal rights
and privileges before the law (of course, this would be English
law!).10
Penn's colonial diplomat to the Indians, Conrad Weiser of Tulphehocken,
himself a German immigrant, was respected by the Indians as a fair bargainer.
He lived for ten years with Indians as a youth and learned their language
and culture. They named him for one of the gods in their pantheon. But,
although he single-handedly prevented many major skirmishes between Indians
and settlers, he was only one reasoned voice in a growing turmoil and
conflict. It is noted that he was the father-in-law of Rev. Henry Melchoir
Mühlenberg, founder of the Jerusalem Church in Berks County and of
Mühlenberg College in Allentown, PA. Weiser also opened the first
store in Reading, Berks County, PA.
Almost from the beginning there were practical problems. To the Indians,
the treaties meant that the Europeans were invited to share their hunting
grounds. The Europeans, of course, understood something much more exclusive
in land ownership, and insisted that the Indians vacate the purchased
tracts entirely. The Indian nations were decentralized, so several tribes
hunted on the same land, causing great confusion among the settlers. In
some cases, several different chiefs had to be paid for a certain piece
of land.
"I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from
the Indians. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and
the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves." (John Wayne)
The Walking Purchase
"This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land; This Land Belongs
to You and Me." (Arlo Guthrie)
One of the greatest land rip-offs of the Indians occurred in 1737. The
Indians had agreed to sell to the settlers, for a stipulated price, a
strip of land in the Delaware Valley. The Indians understood that the
land would be along the river, on either side of it, and as far up-river
as a man could walk in a day and a half of sunlight (about 18 hours).
This was referred to as the "Walking Purchase." For the Indians, this
meant about 40 miles at the most, and they thought that a settler couldn't
walk as far through the thicket as an Indian could.
To the Indians' surprise, the settlers, led by Thomas Penn (William's
son), got together a group of men known for their expert hiking ability,
and planned to have them all walk as fast as they could (or run?) at their
best pace for the allotted 18 hours, and then use the distance covered
by the "furtherest" walker as the purchase area.
The walk started in Wrightstown, south of Allentown. A runner named Charlie,
known for his big feet and great endurance, covered a distance of 65�
miles! He started up the Delaware Valley, along the route agreed on, and,
to the Indian's dismay, when he reached about 20 miles, he swerved to
the northwest along the Lehigh River Valley. He finished his "walk" in
an area of the Poconos called "Mauch Chunk", meaning "Home of the Mountain
Bear" in Iroquois. (Mauch Chunk is now the town of Jim Thorpe.)
Then the settlers claimed all that land. This devious tactic by the settlers
netted them over 12,000 acres, probably more than ten times as much land
as the Indians expected to sell to them!
The Indians protested about this abuse of their venerated custom, of
course, but to no avail. The settlers had the upper hand. The Indians
later expressed their wrath in the form of additional scalps taken, but
they still lost their land. So it was a monumental feat on monumental
feet. However, in 1758, Thomas Penn gave over the northern part of the
purchase to the Iroquois, and four years later compensated the Delaware
for the southern portion by a payment of �400.11
(Note: The village named "Jim Thorpe" is located there now, named
after a famous latter-day Indian! When I took the picture of the sign,
I felt a small bristling of hair on the back of my neck from the faint
thought that a tomahawk might be headed my way and my scalp be added to
the total!)
According to one record12,
after the "Walking Purchase" of 1736, there were many happenings which
showed the growing hatred between the settlers and the Indians. By 1754
the Indians and the French from Canada decided to drive the English and
German settlers from this area; this led to the French and Indian War
which lasted until 1763. This war itself was fought mostly in western
Pennsylvania, and along Lakes Erie and Ontario and the St. Lawrence Seaway.
There was little direct involvement by the British and French with the
Brobsts of Berks County. But the Indians were certainly stirred up throughout
the area.
Indian Attacks
The Pennsylvania history books are full of stories about the terrible
battles between the Indians and the settlers. Only a few of them are included
in this book.
All the settlers lived in fear of sudden attacks by the Indians. The
strongest homes were chosen for places of refuge. The Indians engaged
in a guerrilla-type of warfare with which the Germans had no experience
or understanding. The settlers built their hamlets in the style they had
in Germany. Their cabins provided little protection against the Indian
attacks, and so they built forts from which they could defend themselves.
Fort Everett near Lynnville in Lynn Township and Fort Augusta in Northumberland
were two examples of such forts.
There were many small but terrible raids on the little settlements. In
1755, a Captain Wetherhold, who was in command of Fort Everett13
in what is now Lynnport, asked the men of the settlements to work together
to protect their families and homes. He reported that in that year, in
Albany (Berks) Township and Lynn and Heidelberg (Lehigh) Townships, 56
persons were killed by the Indians and 10 taken prisoner. Most of the
prisoners would probably have preferred to have been killed in the attacks,
considering their treatment by their captors.
In 1742, a treaty was signed in Philadelphia between the colonists and
the six ruling Iroquois nations. In 1744, a second treaty was signed in
Lancaster. This reduced the conflict for about ten years. Then things
exploded again, and reached a peak in the mid-1750s.
During the French and Indian War, which began in 1754, the Indians made
an attack upon a family living near what is now Lynnport. In that war,
an entire colony of Amish settlers in northern Berks County was wiped
out by the Iroquois. One document14
relates that one family saved itself by throwing live coals from the bake-oven
at the savages.
Not all Indians were unfriendly, and there are stories of some unusual
relationships. Dean Cunfer tells of a story that one young settler, plowing
his cleared field, drew closer to the forest each day. A young Indian
watched him and one day when the settler was close to the trees, the Indian
rushed out of the forest to engage him. They grappled for some time, but
the Indian got the best of the fight. He tied the settler to a tree, and
took his bow and arrow as though to shoot him. As he pulled back on his
bow, the settler cried out, "Schuss nicht, schuss nicht!!" ("Shoot not,
shoot not!!") The Indian eased up on his draw, threw the bow and arrow
to the ground, ran to the man and said "Kanst du Deutsch sprechen?" ("Can
you speak German?") Evidently the Indian discriminated against other nationalities!
In 1755, bands of Ohio Indians had massacred settlers in the Tulphehocken
and Forks of Delaware regions. This led to the formation of militias by
the settlers. Those militias clashed politically with the Quakers who
just wanted to keep the peace with the Indians, but unfortunately the
Quaker policies only encouraged the Indians to try to retake some of their
territory. The desperate attempts at peace led the colonists to strike
out against renegade groups of settlers who were attacking Indians. In
1763, a regiment of the Pennsylvania Militia defeated the Paxton Boys,
a settler group who busied themselves massacring Indians in western Pennsylvania.
The immigrant (Jean) Valentine Probst wrote to his father-in-law, Jacob
Levan, about the terrible Indian raid of February 7, 1756, which occurred
near the foot of Hawk Mountain at Eckville (where now stands the Bolich
Church in Old Rosenthal)15:
"I cannot omit writing about the dreadful circumstances of our
Township, Albany. The Indians came yesterday morning, about 8:00 o'clock,
to Frederick Reichelderfer's house. As he was feeding his horses, two
Indians ran upon him, and followed him into the field 10 or 12 perches
[a perch is equal to 5� yards] behind; but he escaped and ran toward
Jacob Gerhart's house, with a design to fetch arms. When he came nearer
Gerhart's, he heard a lamentable cry `Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus', which made
him run back towards his own house, but before he got quite home, he saw
his house and stables in flames; and heard all the cattle bellowing, and
thereupon he ran away again. Two of his children were shot, one of them
was found dead in his field, the other was found alive (and brought to
Hagenbuch's house) but died three hours after. All his grain and cattle
were burnt up. At Jacob Gerhart's they had killed one man, two women,
and six children. Two children slipped under the bed; one of which was
burned; the other escaped and ran a mile to get to people. We desire help,
or we must leave our homes."
But, by the time assistance came, the Indians had made their escape.
The only survivor was believed to be 12-year-old Jacob Gerhart, Jr., who
had jumped out a window after having his hair burned off. Another account16
stated that after Gerhart had been shot by the Indians, the family knew
that they had no chance to survive, and chose to burn to death rather
than to be captured and then tortured and killed by the Indians. Frederick
Reichelderfer died three years after the Indian attack, in 1759. Jacob
Gerhart, Jr., moved into Schaumbach's Tavern, near what is now the Hawk
Mountain Sanctuary.
Valentine's letter17
to Jacob Levan continues:
"On the 24th of March [1756], following, ten wagons went to Allemaengel,
to bring a family, with their effects, away; and as they were returning,
about three miles below one George Zeisloff's, they were fired upon by
a number of Indians from both sides of the road, upon which the wagoners
left their wagons and ran into the woods, and the horses, frightened at
the firing and terrible yelling of the Indians, ran down a hill, and broke
one of the wagons to pieces. The enemy killed George Zeisloff and his
wife, a young man of twenty, a boy of twelve, also a girl of fourteen
years old, four of whom they scalped."
The Centennial History Book of Kempton, PA, describes another Indian
attack:
"On the farm now owned by John Turn, there lived a family by the
name of George Schissler. With them lived a brother Conrad Schissler.
These people had erected a dwelling about the time of 1738, after the
fashion of those early colonial days, and were enjoying themselves and
living by the fruits of their labor. One day while the men were away from
the house, a party of Indians appeared. Mrs. Schissler was engaged in
baking bread. The Indians took advantage of this, heated a liberal amount
of dough, opened her abdomen and poured the heated dough into her body,
leaving her lying, and next satisfied themselves by burning down the cabin
and escaped before the men arrived. This woman was still alive when the
men returned but soon expired."
Captain Wetherhold, in his report for 1757, listed 56 people killed and
ten more taken prisoner, including George Zeisloff, John Eckroth, Adam
Drumm, and Abraham Sechler's wife; those names are interwoven in that
early Brobst history.
As late as 1763, there was still serious trouble, and more was to come.
A group of settlers from Connecticut had moved into the Delaware Valley
in Northampton County.
"At noon on October 14, when the men from Connecticut were working
in the fields of the valley they had claimed as their rightful abode,
the Delawares descended suddenly upon them with revenge in their hearts,
and in the attack thirty of the settlers were killed. Immediately consternation
spread in all the vicinity. Men, women and children fled to the mountains,
from coigns of vantage in which they saw their homes plundered and burned
and their portable property and cattle taken away."18
Also in 1763, Philip Martzloff, a former provincial lieutenant and assistant
to Negotiator Conrad Weiser, petitioned the Pennsylvania Assembly for
financial and material relief, stating:
".... the Petitioner lately dwelt at the Foot of the Blue Mountain,
on the North Side, in the County aforesaid [Berks], where he had, with
great industry, made a small Plantation; that on the Tenth Instant, while
the Petitioner was abroad, five Indians came to his House, and cruelly
murdered and scalped his Wife, two Sons and three Daughters, burned the
house, barns, etc., with all his Corn and Hay, and every valuable Thing
belonging to him, whereby himself, and one Daughter, who alone escaped
from his House by Flight, by running and secreting herself in a thicket,
are reduced to extreme Distress ...."
A book on the history of the F�rst family19
of Pennsylvania tells of one Indian attack in Northumberland County on
the farm of young George and Maria Barbara (Schaeffer) F�rst, g'g'g'g'grandparents
of the author of this book, William A. Brobst:
"During the late 1700s, Indians came by the George F�rst farm occasionally,
but there was no trouble. The Indians were hunters or scouts, and never
came into or even very near to a white man's house unless invited. This
rule was well known and strictly observed. If you ever let an Indian intimidate
you or push into your house, or even in your yard, you never again had security
or safety. As a matter of fact you were likely to be soon murdered or scalped.
Barbara F�rst knew all this. Her husband, George, had covered these matters
frequently with her, and had trained her in the use of his flintlock rifle.
It was always loaded and hanging above the door. One hot July morning, in
their second year on the farm, George was working in the corn field 200
yards south of the house. Two Indians came out of the woods about 60 yards
north of the house, and stood looking at Grandmother Barbara working on
the back porch. She stepped out and ordered them away by word and gesture,
as they seemed to be drunk. The Redskins didn't know they were facing a
resolute and determined person of skill, and continued their approach to
the house, doubtless to steal food or equipment. Barbara grabbed the rifle
from above the door and stepped to the edge of the porch, at the same time
calling to George and ordering the Indians to halt. The larger of the two
Indians said something to his smaller and older companion who loosened a
knife in his belt and shuffled on. One more step was all he ever took. Barbara
didn't even raise the rifle to her shoulder, but fired from the hip, hitting
Mr. Redskin in the chest. A puff of dust came off his dirty garment as the
bullet hit him, and he pitched forward on his face. The other Indian took
to his heels as George burst upon the scene. When George reached Barbara's
side, she assured him that she was all right. He then stepped over to the
Indian who was lying dead only a few feet from the porch steps. Judging
from the smell, he had been drinking heavily. Nothing further ever came
of this incident and life soon returned to normal. It remained so for some
twenty years."
There is an unverified story, documented in the author's family history,
that 16-year-old Christian F�rst, with his father (Hans, an immigrant
from Uri, Switzerland), mother (name unknown), brother (Johann Peter)
and sisters, was at a family reunion near Mt. Shawaungaunk in Pennsylvania
around 1773, just sitting down to dinner. There was an Iroquois Indian
attack, and Christian escaped and survived; he returned to the scene to
find his family killed and scalped. He went on to become a fierce Indian
fighter, putting a notch in his gun for each Indian he killed! He was
a tough youth; a couple of years earlier he had been attacked by a panther,
resulting in a dead panther but many ugly scars down Christian's back.
In many cases, the settlers fought back, although it was illegal for
the settlers to mount an offensive attack against the Indians. In one
famous case, on January 10, 1768, six Indians visited the home/tavern
of Frederick Stump in Penn Township, Cumberland County, PA. Stump later
claimed they were drunk and demanding rum, and that "they intended to
do him mischief". He killed and scalped them! The Indians considered scalping
a declaration of war. Stump cut a hole in the ice and put the bodies in
the water. The next day, fearing retribution from the Indians, Stump and
his indentured servant, Ironcutter, went on the warpath again. They went
up Middle Creek to the Indians' cabins on Stump's Run. They killed four
more Indians and then burned their cabins to hide their deed. Ten days
later they were captured by a posse near Selinsgrove, Union County. They
were jailed, but freed by some of their sympathetic friends, thus enraging
the government. They were recaptured, but found not guilty in trial.20
In 1778, during the Revolutionary War, the Iroquois allied with the English
and mounted one final attack against the settlers. They were repelled,
however, and this essentially ended the rebellion of the Indians against
the Pennsylvania settlers.21
Another record22 discusses
the life of Jacob B. Probst (1796-1873), grandson of "Jurg" Probst (1742-1795),
and his conflicts with Indians in Montour County, PA, in the early 1800s,
nearly a hundred years after the initial immigration of the German Probsts
to America.
"He was a man of great force of character, sturdy and independent
in views, and possessed of all the characteristics required by a man in
order to make his way successfully in those rugged days. At that time,
the country was covered by a dense forest, and Mr. Brobst's neighbors
were the Indians and wild animals that roved through the woods. He purchased
a large tract of land and in due time cleared a farm from the wilderness
and established a comfortable homestead, upon which he remained until
he passed to the silent land. His home was used as a trading-post between
the Indians and the white settlers, who would journey there from many
miles distant; (he) had many skirmishes with the Indians who would burn
his hay-stacks and commit other depredations."
Many of the graves of the early settlers were deliberately unmarked so
that the Indians would not find them and disturb the site and the remains.
Many of the graves were also unmarked because the settlers had little
money to spend on a fancy gravestone; they were often marked only by a
boulder or a wooden marker.
The last known Indian attack in the Allemaengle occurred at Mountain
in 1790, when a lone Indian shot at Magdalena "Polly" Friesz, a daughter
of Peter Friesz, early one summer morning of that year as she opened the
"Dutch" door of the house, preparing to go for a pail of water at the
spring.
When the Germans and Scandinavians came to Wisconsin in the early 1800s,
they found Indians, too, but they were Chippewa and Menomonee Indians,
much more friendly than the Pennsylvania Iroquois and Susquehannocks!
REFERENCES
1. History of Berks County, 1886 It should be noted,
however, in talking with several Pf�lzische historians in Germany in 1997,
the author of The Brobst Chronicles could not confirm this meaning. [return]
2. Bobbie Kalman, "Early Travel", The Early Settler
Life Series, Crabtree Publishing Co., 1981 [return]
3. Amos Long, Jr., The Pennsylvania German Farm, p.73
[return]
4. Carolyn and Forrest Price, Brobst/Probst -- A Genealogy
of the Family of Mathias Brobst and Maria M. Stambach, 1997, Gordon Printing,
Inc., Strasburg, Ohio. [return]
5. Carter Smith, "American Historical Images, Colonial
America" [return]
6. Floyd, History of Northumberland County, Pennsylvania,
1911 [return]
7. Story courtesy of Beatrice Brugger, Charlottesville,
VA (descendant of the early Pennsylvania Hartmans). [return]
8. "The Passing Throng', a column in the Bloomsburg
(PA) Morning Press. [return]
9. Research conducted by the National Park Service.
[return]
10. History of Pennsylvania, p. 22. [return]
11. Encyclopedia Americana, Vo. 28, 1995 [return]
12, "Brobst Family", Our Lehigh County [return]
13. (1) Fort Everett in Lynn Township, Lehigh County,
was named after the grandfather of Magdalena Catharina Everett (1725),
wife of Michael Brobst (1751-1814) who was the son of the immigrant Jean
Michael Probst (1724). Ref: "Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania", Vol I, 1916,
pp 152-153. (2) It was located just north of Lynnport, Lynn Township,
Lehigh County. Ref: History of Lehigh County, 1914. [return]
14. History of the Allentown Conference, p. 161 [return]
15. History of Berks County, 1886, p. 125 [return]
16. Account by George Bolich, who owned the land on
which the Gerhart cabin had been built. [return]
17. History of Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, 1845 [return]
18. Donehoo, Pennsylvania, A History, Vol 1, 1926 [return]
19. History of the F�rst Family, LDS Family History
Library, Salt Lake, City, Utah [return]
20. Schuyler Brossman, "Keystone Families", Column
1282, May 15, 1991 [return]
21. Carter Smith, "American History Images on File,
Colonial and Revolutionary America" [return]
22. Book of Biographies of Leading Citizens of 17th
Congressional District, Pennsylvania, 1899, pp 130-131 [return]
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