Who Were the Hessians?

Hessian hussars in America

The historical note in the back of a novel can only cover just so many topics, and I recently discovered a few holes in mine. A very “meh” review on my newly released title The Cumberland Bride (granted, it was a 5-chapter free preview) made me realize I’d never addressed a particular issue of the family’s backstory—that is, the heroine’s father, Karl Gruener, having been a Hessian in the employ of the British army during the American Revolution.

So who were the Hessians? Essentially, they were German mercenaries hired by Great Britain, and not just for the American Revolution. Surprising? Let's look at the details.

During the American colonial era, Germany was not one unified country. It was a collection of imperial states, each granted authority under the Holy Roman Empire, which included Prussia, Bavaria, Hesse-Hanau, and Hesse-Kassel. The troops of the last two in particular regularly hired out to other countries during the 1700’s, and in at least one case even fought on opposite sides, such as during the War for Austrian Succession, under Britain and Prussia. Because so many came from Hesse-Kassel and Hesse-Hanau, these troops were often referred to as simply “Hessians,” and so the term stuck.

The first German mercenary troops used during the American Revolution landed in 1776 and fought in many of the battles between British and Continental troops, including during the Southern Campaign. These troops were comprised of Jagers (infantry), Hussars (cavalry), artillery, and grenadiers. Jagers were the ones I’d heard most about, many of them sharpshooters and brought in as “anti-sniper” troops because they often carried German-made rifles that rivaled the ones carried by backcountry militia. Their skill could be as legendary as American riflemen, and the faith was attested to, albeit mockingly, by the British colonel Lord Rawdon, who had this to say about their behavior under pressure (in this case, at the prospect of being fired upon while crossing a river):

The Hessians, who were not used to this water business and who conceived that it must be exceedingly uncomfortable to be shot at whilst they were quite defenceless and jammed so close together, began to sing hymns immediately. Our men expressed their feelings as strongly, though in a different manner, by [cursing] themselves and the enemy indiscriminately with wonderful fervency.

And yes, for those who have read The Cumberland Bride, this event, from September 1776, is the one I reference in the opening scene.

The Capture of Hessians at Trenton

A large number of Hessians were taken captive in the Battle of Trenton, December 26, 1776, and farmed out along with British soldiers to the surrounding countryside. While the British-born reportedly did not take well to their captivity, many of the German prisoners wound up abandoning military service in favor of the American colonies. I’ve heard stories of the British deserting as well, but apparently Hessians did so in larger numbers. Maybe because the British felt they had a larger stake in the conflict?

 ~*~

Quote from Redcoats and Rebels: The American Revolution Through British Eyes, Christopher Hibbert. Also thanks to Wikipedia for an excellently footnoted article on the Hessians ... and to a particular group of reenactors I met years ago at the Battle of Parker's Ferry, whose name I've sadly lost track of.

A Fragmented Palatinate -- Mid-eighteenth Century by Carrie Fancett Pagels

The picture above is of the modern-day German Palatinate, courtesy of Pixabay. Isn't this a pretty photograph landscape?

During my research for Saving the Marquise's Granddaughter, I learned that there was much upheaval in the area during the mid-eighteenth century. One surprising finding was that the Palatinate was geographically fragmented. Some parts of the duchy were situated near Alsace-Lauraine while others were in Bavaria and some land that was also to the west of what is modern-day Germany (in modern-day France.) Germany was divided into many duchies at that time, all under different ducal rulers.  The Palatinate was an almost ruined duchy because of the attacks they suffered from the French, who'd been incensed over their taking in Amish and other Protestants and Huguenots.

In my recent release, Saving the Marquise's Granddaughter, my heroine's aristocratic family are Huguenots who are "discovered" and betrayed. She must flee, and is aided by a Palatinate farmer and woodsman. Getting her there was tricky. But she has a wonderful hero, Johan, to help her!

Saving the Marquise's Granddaughter was the first full length Christian fiction novel that I wrote so I had the luxury of spending a lot of time in the research stacks.  I spent several years researching, reading, and writing trying to get my story accurate. I was surprised to learn that the impact of the war in Europe had so decimated the region where my own real-life ancestor, Johan Adam Rousch, had lived. I don't know why Johan left the area, but in conducting the research I understood why so many Palatinaters departed. Their land had been decimated. I was dismayed to read that despite King Louis XV's supposed end to punishing wars against the Palatinate for taking in Huguenots, there were still skirmishes and burning of villages well into his rein. 

Bio: Carrie Fancett Pagels, Ph.D., is the ECPA bestselling and award winning author of Saving the Marquise's Granddaughter which received a 4 Star Romantic Times rating (White Rose/Pelican, June, 2016). Carrie is the founder of Colonial American Christian Writers and the administrator of the Colonial Quills blog. www.carriefancettpagels.com

German Migration to the American Colonies

When my Hochstetler ancestors arrived in Philadelphia aboard the ship Charming Nancy on November 9, 1738, they were part of a great migration of Germans to the American colonies. During the 18th century, more than 100,000 Germans arrived in this country. Among them were Mennonites, Amish, Swiss Brethren, and Pietists, who were the largest group. The Amish, which included my ancestors, and the Mennonites made up only about 5,000 of the German immigrants. Most of them settled in Pennsylvania, while smaller numbers made their homes in New York, Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. Together they became the largest non-English-speaking community in colonial North America.

German Peasants' War (1524-25), Lizenzstatus 1539

Why did so many Germans migrate here? During the 16th and 17th centuries, religious and political wars ravaged Germany and much of Europe. Armies trampled farmers’ crops, stole livestock, and put homes to the torch. Famine spread across the land and, along with ruinous taxes levied to pay for the wars and religious disputes resulting from the Reformation, made life intolerable. In addition, rulers determined what church their subjects belonged to, with no regard for personal conscience. The British colonies in North America, especially Pennsylvania under the Penns, offered them not only religious freedom and escape from constant wars, but also economic opportunity in the ability to own land, a right denied religious dissidents in Europe.

Conditions in Europe were bad, but the decision to move to America was not an easy one and required staunch determination and deep personal faith. The ocean crossing was often harrowing and could take as long as 2 months. A diary attributed to Hans Jacob Kauffman lists the deaths of many children and adults during his voyage. Below is Gottlieb Mittelberger’s vivid description of the conditions passengers endured during his passage in 1750.

The ocean crossing

“Children from one to seven years rarely survive the voyage; and many a time parents are compelled to see their children miserably suffer and die from hunger, thirst, and sickness, and then to see them cast into the water. I witnessed such misery in no less than thirty-two children in our ship, all of whom were thrown into the sea. The parents grieve all the more since their children find no resting-place in the earth, but are devoured by the monsters of the sea. It is a notable fact that children, who have not yet had the measles or small-pocks [sic], generally get them on board the ship, and most die of them. Often a father is separated by death from his wife and children, or mothers from their little children, or even both parents from their children; and sometimes whole families die in quick succession; so that often many dead persons lie in the berths beside the living ones, especially when contagious diseases have broken out on board the ship.”

Once they arrived, the troubles of the hard-pressed immigrants were not necessarily over. Many were forced to bind themselves as indentured servants until they could pay off the cost of their passage. In most cases this was voluntary, but sometimes individuals were kidnapped, bundled aboard a ship, and sold to the highest bidder as soon as it reached port in America. Either way, they often found their masters difficult or even abusive.

Others, however, moved to the frontier, where they built homes, communities, and churches. My ancestors were among these, settling along Northkill Creek in Berks County, Pennsylvania, along with other members of their Amish church, where they lived peacefully for many years. But in time they faced another tide of destruction and loss as England went to war with France and her Native allies.

I have been fortunate that many records and oral stories exist about my ancestors who came to this country in 1738. Does your family have information about your own ancestors who came to this country, whether in colonial times or later? If so, share a little bit about their history.

~~~

J. M. Hochstetler is the daughter of Mennonite farmers, an author, editor, and publisher, and a lifelong student of history. Her novel Northkill, Book 1 of the Northkill Amish Series coauthored with bestselling author Bob Hostetler, won ForeWord Magazine’s 2014 INDYFAB Book of the Year Bronze Award for historical fiction. Book 2, The Return, releases in Spring 2017. Her American Patriot Series is the only comprehensive historical fiction series on the American Revolution. One Holy Night, a contemporary retelling of the Christmas story, was the Christian Small Publishers 2009 Book of the Year.

Saving the Marquise's Granddaughter, by Carrie Fancett Pagels - Cover Reveal

Saving the Marquise's Granddaughter by Carrie Fancett Pagels

Isn't this a gorgeous cover that White Rose/Pelican Book Group created for my upcoming release?  Saving the Marquise's Granddaughter is set in the 1740's in France, Germany, and Colonial America. It releases in June, 2016 in ebook and softcover.  The NetGalley download for bloggers will be available in July, so bloggers, please mark your calendars!  

How a Small Group of Moravian Missionaries Changed America

The Moravian Church is a small Christian denomination in the United States, but it had a major influence on the spiritual life of Colonial America. On August 13^th, 1727, a revival broke out with a small sect of Christians in Germany called the Moravians. On that day, they started a 100 year round-the-clock prayer meeting that launched the missionary movement that is still going strong today.

A group of persecuted Moravians first landed in Pennsylvania and another group in Savannah, Georgia in 1735. The ship to Georgia also carried John and Charles Wesley, brothers who planned to preach in America. During the voyage a fierce storm caused havoc, but John Wesley noticed the Moravians, even the women and children, weren’t afraid. When he asked a Moravian pastor about it, the pastor said that his people were not afraid because they knew Jesus. Wesley admitted that, although he knew about God, he didn’t have a witness within him that he was saved. Wesley credited this conversation with his eventual salvation. The Moravian colony in Savannah didn’t last long. Within a few years, the Moravians fled Georgia because of pressure to serve in militia to defend Florida against Spanish raids.

Christian Henry Rauch started the first mission to convert native peoples in New York City. Mahican chiefs Tschoop and Shabash invited Rauch to visit their village and teach them. Two of the chiefs became Christians, and within two years, the first native Christ congregation was established.

Several missionaries and their families joined Rauch, including Gottlob Buettner and his daughter Anna, and more missions were established. Rumors were started that the Moravians were really Catholic Jesuits allied with the French, and in 1744, Governor Clinton expelled the missionaries from New York.

In Pennsylvania, Revivalist George Whitefield invited the Moravians to Pennsylvania to preach. There they established a colony in Nazareth, but when they had a falling out with Whitefield, they moved on to other colonies. Pennsylvania had religious freedom in its charter, so the Moravians did better there. They founded also established colonies in the towns of Bethlehem, Nazereth, Emmaus, and Lititz there. The Moravians also established colonists in Maryland and North Carolina.

Many of the Pennsylvania Moravians learned the language of the Lenape (Delaware) Indians and translated a Bible into a written language for them. When the Lenape were forced into Ohio, some of the Moravians moved with them and founded the first Ohio settlement (Schoenbrunn) and school in 1772. A year later, they founded another nearby settlement of Gnadenhutten. Converted Lenape populated much of the villages and sat on the councils for the towns.



Schoenbrunn Village

During the Revolutionary War, the leader of the Moravian villages in Ohio, David Zeisberger, was accused by the British of passing along information to the colonial army. Although the Moravians were pacifist and wanted to remain neutral, the accusations were probably true. The Moravian villages were forced to relocate in 1781. The following year, a band of Moravian Lenape went back to Gnadenhutten to harvest their crops and collect food and supplies they left there.

160 Pennsylvania militia led by Lieutenant Colonel David Williamson surprised the Christian Lenape, rounded them up, and accused them of raiding towns in Pennsylvania. Although the Lenape denied the charges, Williamson held a council that voted to kill them. Some of the militiamen left the area, outraged by the decision.



Gnadenhutten Massacre Memorial

The Lenape were informed and requested time to prepare themselves. They spent the night praying and singing hymns. The next morning, the militia brought the Lenape to two buildings called killing houses, the men in one and the women and children in another. The militia murdered and scalped 28 men, 29 women, and 39 children before piling their bodies in the mission buildings. Then they burned both Moravian villages to the ground. Two boys, on of who had been scalped, survived and lived to tell about it.

Reactions from the massacre were mixed. Some were appalled at the way Christian men, women, and children were treated. Others figured the Lenape were deserved no better because they were Indians. The Lenape of the area decided to fight with the British against the Americans causing further deterioration of Indian relations.

Although Moravians continued to minister in America and established missions in Alaska and Canada, many missionaries from the Moravian Church decided to focus their efforts on Africa, but they influenced our nation's early days. They brought awareness of the treatment of Native Americans. They made a profound impact on preachers of the Great Awakening like the Wesleys and George Whitefield. The missionary movement they started moved through the United States which became the nation with the largest amount of missionaries throughout the world. The Moravian denomination continues today in 18 states with headquarters in Bethlehem and Winston-Salem.

 

In A Christmas Promise, you can read a fictional novella about the Moravian missionaries in Schoenbrunn.

A Tale of Two Germans - Review By Carrie Fancett Pagels

Souls for Sale, Nonfiction book

Souls for Sale: Two German Redemptioners Come to Revolutionary America—The Life Stories of John Frederick Whitehead and Johann Carl Büttner, Edited by Susan E. Klepp, Farley Grubb, and Anne Pfaelzer de Ortiz, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006.

Book Description (from Amazon): In 1773, John Frederick Whitehead and Johann Carl Büttner, two adolescent Germans, were placed on board the same ship headed to colonial America. With few options in Germany, each had been recruited by the labor contractors known popularly as soulsellers—men who traded in human cargo. On arrival in America they were sold to different masters, and, years later, each wrote a memoir of his experiences. These two autobiographies are valuable historical records of immigrant attitudes, perceptions, and goals. Despite their shared voyage to America and similar condition as servants, their backgrounds and personalities differed. Their divergent interpretations of their experiences provide rich firsthand insights into the transatlantic migration process, work and opportunity in colonial America, and the fates of former bound servants.

Souls for Sale presents these parallel accounts—Whitehead's published for the first time—to illustrate the condition of German redemptioners and to examine the religious, economic, familial, and literary contexts that shaped their memoirs. The editors provide helpful introductions to the works as well as notes to guide the reader.

Comments and Review by Carrie Fancett Pagels

In the coming months, I will be contributing several posts on Palatinaters—German immigrants from the Palatinate duchies during the 18^th century. I’d been investigating some genealogical links to the Palatinate and found this book. My ancestor John Adam Rousch (Johannes Rausch), hailed from the Palatinate, as did a great many immigrants who crossed the ocean to Pennsylvania in the mid 18^th century. From all appearances, Johannes’ family purchased their fares and I’ve found nothing showing he was forced into servitude to pay for his transport. His experiences inspired me to write a fiction (totally fiction other than a few similarities!) I initially entitled Souls' Journey: Escape from Versailles. I found that ironic when I located this nonfiction book, afterwards, with similar way of looking at the whole business of indentured servitude.

In the nonfiction book Souls for Sale, one of the men is from a wealthier background. Each account of Büttner and Whitehead is a separate narrative about experience as a redemptioner, or an indentured servant whose passage was paid to America in return for years spent paying off the debt.  The Penn State book is the first to combine both accounts, which makes for fascinating comparative reading.  While there are some commonalities, it is the differences in their experiences that I found especially intriguing and which would be helpful to those either writing about 18^th century German immigrants or male indentured servants in general during that time. These two men came to America several decades after the hero in my upcoming novel but much of the information appeared relevant.

One of the things I enjoyed about reading the men's accounts was their lyrical language. Whitehead in particular has a poetic voice. Sadly, today, we don't write with the same level of vocabulary as in previous centuries or even at the same level as we did in the United State even one century ago. The word choices, although some arcane, are not difficult to decipher, also.

Highly recommend!

Available on Barnes and Noble’s and Amazon’s websites (note although over $30 in paperback it is well worth it if you are researching and writing about this era and topic)

Question: Do you have an 18^th century immigrant ancestor from the German duchies? What do you know about him or her?

Carrie Fancett Pagels is the founder of Colonial American Christian Writers Group and blog administrator of Colonial Quills. Her European and colonial novel,  Saving the Marquise’s Granddaughter, will be published by the White Rose imprint of Pelican Book Group in 2015. The hero is from the Palatinate duchy and departs to Pennsylvania in the mid 1740’s, as a redemptioner. 

Coming to America

Detail of John Michael Groves's Gale Coming On

In researching my latest release, Northkill, the story of my Amish ancestors who came to this country in 1738, I ran across several descriptions of what immigrants in the 18th century endured just to get to America. Many Anabaptists made that journey because of the persecution they were subjected to in Europe, but it was not for the fainthearted. Below are three accounts of the 3,000 mile sea voyage, condensed from articles in the April 2004 issue of the Mennonite Historical Bulletin. The first is quite positive though it took place at a dangerous time during the War of the Spanish Succession.

Twenty-nine Mennonites from the Palatine boarded the ship Mary Hope in London, June 24, 1710, and landed in Philadelphia, September 23, 1710. Although they embarked on “a beautifully calm Sunday,” they quickly encountered a storm that made most of the passengers seasick, snapped off several masts, and sent their ship back to England for repairs. Finally back at sea, they joined a convoy of Russian battleships for protection. After the Russian ships left them, the passengers were frightened by the appearance of several French warships. Thankfully a heavy fog allowed the Mary Rose to creep safely away.

The voyage turned out to be very pleasant. “I think that I never was on a more healthy vessel,” a Quaker passenger named Chalkley recorded in his journal. He noted that fellow passengers were fascinated by seafowl, porpoises, flying fish, and whales, and that amid a great storm they watched mountainous waves rise above the ship’s deck with outward calm. Chalkley held Quaker meetings on the deck, and the Mennonites seemed to him “tender” and moved by his words. They “behaved soberly, and were well satisfied; and I can truly say, I was well satisfied also.”

The article also included a delightful description by a German schoolmaster, who recorded that two days before his ship sighted land, a sailor told the passengers that he could smell America. After a while the passengers “also felt a sweet, pleasant aroma, because a gentle wind came from there to us.” When they entered Delaware Bay, “we saw right and left the land that we had wished to see with such great desire for such a long time, although still in the distance, since the bay at its mouth is very wide; but the farther we went in, the closer the banks on both sides came toward us. We then ran from one side of the ship to the other, so as to overlook or miss nothing. . . . It is an indescribable joy when one has seen nothing in such a long time except sky and water and now all of a sudden sees the wonderful green of the forests, the mountains, the valleys and fields.”

A diary attributed to Hans Jacob Kauffman, written in the margins of an almanac, gives a very different and heartwrenching account of his 1737 voyage on the Charming Nancy (the same ship that brought my ancestors the following year) that illustrates the often horrendous conditions passengers in 18th century vessels endured.

Port of Philadelphia in 18th century

“The 28th of June while in Rotterdam getting ready to start my Zernbli died and was buried in Rotterdam. The 29th we got under sail and enjoyed one and a half days of favorable wind. The 7th of July, early in the morning, Hans Zimmerman’s son-in- law died.

“We landed in England the 8th of July, remaining 9 days in port during which 5 children died. Went under sail the 17th of July. The 21 of July my own Lisbetli died. Several days before Michael’s Georgli had died.

“On the 29th of July three children died. On the first of August my Hansli died and the Tuesday previous, 5 children died. On the 3rd of August contrary winds beset the vessel and from the first to the 7th of the month 3 more children died. On the 8th of August, Shambien’s Lizzie died and on the 9th Hans Zimmerman’s Jacobli died. On the 19th, Christian Burgli’s Child died. Passed a ship on the 21st. A favorable wind sprang up. On the 28th Hans Gasi’s wife died. Passed a ship 13th of September. Landed in Philadelphia on the 18th and my wife and I left the ship on the 19th. A child was born to us on the 20th—died—wife recovered. A voyage of 83 days.”

Kauffman’s report is not unusual for sea voyages during this period. In 1750, Gottlieb Mittelberger vividly detailed the miserable conditions on crowded vessels.

“Children from one to seven years rarely survive the voyage; and many a time parents are compelled to see their children miserably suffer and die from hunger, thirst, and sickness, and then to see them cast into the water. I witnessed such misery in no less than thirty-two children in our ship, all of whom were thrown into the sea. The parents grieve all the more since their children find no resting-place in the earth, but are devoured by the monsters of the sea. It is a notable fact that children, who have not yet had the measles or small-pocks [sic], generally get them on board the ship, and most die of them. Often a father is separated by death from his wife and children, or mothers from their little children, or even both parents from their children; and sometimes whole families die in quick succession; so that often many dead persons lie in the berths beside the living ones, especially when contagious diseases have broken out on board the ship.”

Clearly incredible determination and courage were required to make the voyage across the ocean in the 18th century. I’m inspired by these stories and that of my ancestors, portrayed in Northkill, to remain steadfast amid the trials I encounter today—none of which,I have to admit, are near as challenging as theirs were! In what ways do these stories speak to you?

Colonial Treasures Where I Dwell

One thing I love about the area of central/western Maryland where I live is the abundance of history. As I walk in the historic district in my town, I pass town homes, churches, and shops, that were built as far back as 1742 on down into the early 1900s.


There is one such place that I'd like to share, a place you most likely have never heard of.

Built sometime in 1758, Schifferstadt is the one of the oldest and most treasured historic buildings in Frederick, Maryland. It is one of the best examples of early Colonial German Architecture in the country, and as a home built as refuge.  Settlers in central and western Maryland were in fear of attacks by the French and their Indian allies during the French and Indian War.


'Joseph Bruner, a German immigrant and his family left their village of Klein Schifferstadt in 1729 in hopes of gaining independence, including the right to own property and build a home in the "New Land." He purchased 303 acres of virgin timber in 1746, cleared and farmed the land, and built a modest wood structure for his family home. Joseph Bruner named his farm Schifferstadt after his hometown in the Palatinate region of South Western Germany.
 

Joseph's eighth and youngest son, Elias Bruner, bought the farm from his father in 1753, and built the stone farmhouse in 1758 that we know today as Schifferstadt. Although its exterior and interior have been altered over the years, Schifferstadt maintains many original architectural features.'

 Quoted from the Frederick County Landmarks Foundation website

http://www.frederickcountylandmarksfoundation.org/fclf_schiffgen.html

A few weeks ago, my husband and I took a walk on the grounds. The first thing I noticed was the exceptional craftmanship of the laying and chinking of the sand stones.  The house has a warm feeling to it. The door inviting to all guests. Inside one finds fireplaces with built in cupboards alongside them, broad windows that allow plenty of light to enter, a winder staircase, and a  vaulted cellar. In spring and summer there are gardens of flowers and vegetables.


Schifferstadt is now a historical museum. If you ever in this neck of the woods, Schifferstadt is located 50 minutes from Baltimore and Washington, DC and 30 minutes from Gettysburg, PA, and only open on Saturday afternoons, April through October.