Germantown (Philadelphia)

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Germantown street sign
Cliveden Chew House, site of the Battle of Germantown on October 4, 1777 of the American Revolutionary War .

Germantown is a neighborhood in Philadelphia in the Upper Northwest district . It was originally an independent city ( township ), which was incorporated into the city of Philadelphia in 1854. The original name of the Pennsylvania Dutch is Deitscheschteddel 'Deutschestädtlein' .

origin

Pictures from Old Germantown. On display is Pastorius' first log cabin around 1683, Pastorius' later home around 1715, Caurs' print shop and home around 1735 and the market square around 1820

In 1683, Germantown was founded, initiated by Franz Daniel Pastorius , after the first closed group of German settlers arrived in North America on the Concord ship . The group consisted of 13 Quaker and Mennonite families from the Krefeld area, the so-called " Original 13 ".

On February 18, 1688, four Germantown residents, Franz Daniel Pastorius, Abraham Isacks op den Graeff , Herman Isacks op den Graeff and Gerrit Henderich initiated the first protest against slavery in America .

The first paper mill based on the European model was founded in Germantown in 1690 by William Rittenhouse .

In 1721 the German pastor Antonius Jacobus Henckel founded the first Lutheran church in Germantown. Henckel worked here until his death on August 12, 1728. He was buried in the cemetery of St. Michael's Lutheran Church in Germantown. In 1917 his descendants erected a memorial stone in the churchyard.

The Battle of Germantown took place near Germantown during the American War of Independence on October 4, 1777 , in which the Continental Army was defeated by British troops, but this defeat enabled the decisive victory at Saratoga a few days later.

The Swedish traveler Pehr Kalm wrote about the settlement in the middle of the 18th century:

“Germantown is six miles from Philadelphia. This place has only one street but is nearly two miles long. It is mostly inhabited by Germans who come to North America from their homeland and settle there because they enjoy rights here that they do not have anywhere else. Most of the inhabitants are artisans who produce almost everything in such quantity and excellent quality that this province will need very little from England in a short time. "

present

As a result of the Great Migration , more and more Afro-Americans moved to Germantown and many Germantown and Irish people left the area in the 1960s. The vast majority of the population today are African American.

Sons and Daughters of Germantown

Other personalities

See also

literature

  • Armin M. Brandt: Build your altar on a foreign earth. The Germans in America - 300 Years of Germantown. Seewald Verlag, Stuttgart 1983.
  • Jens Roepstorff: Germantown. Mülheim emigrants in America. Mülheimer Jahrbuch 2005, pp. 215–222.
  • Robert F. Ulle: The Original Germantown Families . In: Mennonite Family History . tape 2 , no. 2 , April 1983, ISSN  0730-5214 , p. 48-51 (English).
  • Bernd Brunner: To America. The history of German emigration. CH Beck, ISBN 978-3-406-59184-6 .

Individual evidence

  1. the-independent-friend.de, rp-online: "Krefelder Protest gegen Sklaverei", June 24, 2009, by Olaf Radicke, online article
  2. (en) Protest against slavery
  3. ^ Matthew J. Countryman: Up South. Civil Rights and Black Power in Philadelphia. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia 2006, ISBN 0-8122-3894-X , p. 72.

Web links

Commons : Germantown, Philadelphia  - collection of pictures, videos, and audio files

Coordinates: 40 ° 3 ′  N , 75 ° 11 ′  W