Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

for a party of German emigrants starting out to form a settlement to take with them a schoolmaster. One of the first buildings erected was a schoolhouse, very often before a church, and until the church building was provided the schoolhouse was used for religious services. It was many years before the different settlements and villages were able to have a regular minister, and in the absence of a pastor the religious services were usually conducted by the schoolmaster. The latter was very often the most important person in the settlement. He was usually well educated and generally he was the one to whom nearly everyone went for advice on almost any matter. He was the scrivener for drawing up legal papers or writing letters for those who were unable to write, and generally being an expert penman he was frequently called upon to draw up marriage certificates or certificates of baptism, which very often were executed in a very artistic manner. This facility in using the pen was put to use in making Rewards of Merit for the children in the school, usually comprising pictures of flowers and birds, an example of which is shown in one of the illustrations. These pen drawings were colored with inks made from various vegetables. In the original of the one illustrated the roses are colored different shades of pink, the ribbon with which they are tied is blue, and the eagle yellow. As a rule, though not always, the schoolmaster was an elderly man and not unfrequently, like Goldsmith's schoolmaster,

"A man severe he was, and stern to view;

I knew him well, and every truant knew:
Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace
The day's disasters in his morning face."

Sometimes in employing a schoolmaster the German

settlers were deceived by an adventurer, for there was a considerable number of unprincipled dissolute individuals travelling about through the colonies seeking employment wherever they could, sometimes even posing as ministers and securing control of the churches; and as these men were usually well educated they sometimes found employment as schoolmaster, though there were not very many instances of this sort.

If the schoolmaster was unmarried and had no family of his own he generally lived with the families whose children came to his school. "Children were not merely sent to school and their entire mental training left to the schoolmaster. Parents assisted their children in learning their lessons at home, and when schools and schoolmasters were wanting parents were the teachers of their children. . . . The German A B C Book and Spelling Book were frequently printed in this country, also Arithmetics, Readers, including the New Testament, Psalter and other books. The Catechism and Hymn-Book were also used in teaching the young to read. In many homes children would gather in the long winter evenings at the table at which meals were served during the day, that parents might assist them in learning their lessons."73

The best known of the early German schoolmasters of Maryland was Thomas Schley, the progenitor of Admiral Winfield Scott Schley, who, in 1735, settled in the locality where ten years later the town of Frederick was laid out. Mr. Schley is said to have built the first house in Frederick. From all accounts of him he appears to have been a man of considerable education, but his abilities were not

73 Rev. Dr. F. J. F. Schantz, "The Domestic Life and Characteristics of the Pennsylvania-German Pioneer," in Proc. and Add. of the PennsylvaniaGerman Society, Vol. X., p. 54.

confined to the teaching of the children, for he took an active part in all the affairs of the settlement. Speaking of him, Rev. Michael Schlatter says:74 "It is a great advantage to this congregation Frederick that they have the best schoolmaster that I have met in America. He spares neither labor nor pains in instructing and edifying the congregation according to his ability, and by means of singing, and reading the word of God and printed sermons on every Lord's day."

Another Pennsylvania-German schoolmaster who settled in Maryland and took an active part in affairs was Benjamin Spyker, Jr., a son of Peter Spyker, president judge of the courts of Berks county, Pennsylvania. He was born in Berks county in 1747 and was given an unusually good education for those times. Shortly after reaching his majority he went to Sharpsburg, Maryland, which had been laid out about five years before, to become the schoolmaster of the German Reformed congregation of that place. Steps were immediately taken to build a schoolhouse, and in 1769, by means of a lottery, the sum of six hundred dollars was raised for this purpose and for completing the church. The managers for this lottery were George Strecher, Christian Orndorff, Joseph Smith, William Good, Abraham Lingenfelder, John Stull, Michael Fockler, George Dyson, and Benjamin Spyker.75 At the outbreak of the Revolution Spyker raised a company and served as captain in the Flying Camp and later in the Maryland Line.

74 Harbaugh's "Life of Michael Schlatter," p. 177.

75 Maryland Gazette, June 8, 1769.

The first settlers of Maryland brought with them a large number of servants, as according to the different "Conditions of Plantation," the amount of land which a settler was entitled to take up was determined by the number of servants he brought in. It has been estimated that among the original emigrants the ratio of servants to freemen was six to one.76

Later there were large numbers of Redemptioners, as they were called, who came to the colony. These were people whose services were sold to the settlers for a term of years, in order to pay for their passage to the colony. Some of the Redemptioners became so voluntarily in order to obtain passage to the colony, but many were forced into this involuntary servitude through misfortune or, as was often the case, through the criminality of the captains and owners of the ships which brought them to this country. While the condition in which these people found themselves was one of servitude, they were, as a rule, not treated badly, and many of them, when their term of service was ended, became landowners themselves. For many years, however, there were few Germans among the Redemptioners who came to Maryland, for the reason that very few German emigrants landed at Maryland ports; but as the German settlers increased in numbers and prospered and required additional help, it was no unusual thing for them to obtain Redemptioners from Philadelphia. This was only natural, for it was at that port that most of the Germans landed, and as the settlers naturally desired those of their own nationality as servants, it was necessary for them to go to that port to obtain them. That there were a great many servants obtained in this is evident from the fact that in a record of Redemp76 Johnson, "Foundations of Maryland,” p. 173.

way

[graphic][merged small]
« ПредишнаНапред »