48th Reunion
August 17, 1980
Dr. Jason F. Dreibelbis
Thank you President Earl for such a kind introduction. I am pleased to be here today and share with all of you some of my feelings about our ancestors and our country. I have chosen two areas for us to think about. First, the “Heritage of the Past” in which I will address indentured servants and their lives, the hardships they endured to make a life for themselves in a new and strange land, and to make this country what it is today. Second, the “Heritage of the Present” and how important it is to maintain our heritage throughout strengthening our families.
Heritage of the Past
Heritage is defined as an inherited quality or characteristic. There are a few things I would like you to consider as we honor our family of the past at a reunion. We are all here because we can trace our ancestry back to one, lone individual, John Jacob Dreibelbis, who had quite an ordeal, not only on his way over, but also after he arrived in America.
Paul M. Dreibelbis, also of Pittsburgh, in his addresses in 1976 and 1978 very ably the route of John Jacob Dreibelbis and the conditions which caused him to leave Switzerland and Germany. “Uncle Charles” (Charles B. Dreibelbis) in the family genealogy he wrote, mentioned in several places that John Jacob was “undoubtedly a redemptionist.” It is also highly possible that he was an indentured servant. The difference in the plight, flight, and life of these two terms is slight and we shall hear more about indentured servants and redemptionists shortly. We know that John Jacob Dreibelbis was indentured to Casper Wister, a Philadelphia merchant and button manufacturer, and that he worked for him for an unknown period of time. We have no record of John Jacob from September 26, 1732, when he arrived in Philadelphia on the ship, Mary, until 1743 when his first owning property was recorded. We know that he soon became the second largest older and taxpayer in Berks County, which at that time included what is now Schuylkill County, and that he willed substantial property to his children.
The fact that he even survived the trip and his early days in Pennsylvania – let alone became rich – is certainly testimony to his industry, character, and stamina. We can only speculate what kind of a person he was, since it is all history now. However, he must have had numerous, positive qualities which served him well. Our common parent must have been a remarkable and resourceful person to have emigrated from a life of poverty in the war-torn, strife-ridden Palatinate region to enjoy a station of great prosperity in life in Berks County in such a relatively short period of time.
The tests he survived were twofold, the ship’s passage coming to America as well as his indentured service, the exact nature of which we can only speculate. However, genealogists, Charles B. Dreibelbis and Raymond E. Hollenbach, as well as nationally known authors, have compiled a substantial record which justifies our conclusion. From page 5 of Hollenbach we read:
“Just what it what Johann Jacob Dreibelbis did and where he lived during the first eleven years he was in Pennsylvania is not definitely known, but he is said to have been sold as an indentured servant to Casper Wister, Germantown button manufacturer and land speculator. However, this could not have been for eleven years, because such indentures were usually limited to three years for adult persons. It is possible that he worked for Wister for wages after the term of his indenture expired. He began to acquire land at a rapid rate in 1743, indicating that he had in some way or another acquired sufficient funds to be able to do this.
There is a tradition that either Casper Wister gave him his first tract of land, or that he purchased his first tract from Wister. This I have been unable to verify. The first tract of which I can find record was 153 acres and 25 perches out of a manor-tract of the Penn family which totaled 2989 acres.”
The idea that Casper Wister gave him his first tract of land could be more than tradition for when an indentured servant had served his time, whether it was three years, six years, or as much as twenty-one years, as we shall hear later, depending on age, how well he behaved and the relationship he had with his master, he could have been given, as freedom dues, the 153 acres of land (though 50 acres was customary) along with two suits of clothes, 14 bushels of corn, 10 bushels of wheat, one ax and two hoes. Whether he was indentured for three or eleven years is not all that important, but it is important when we think what it meant to “be’ an indentured servant.
It is possible that some of John Jacob’s strength, character, and persistence to gather enough wealth to acquire his first 153 acres in 1743 was a result of his family upbringing as well as his will to succeed.
Let us look at a number of factors which could have applied to him. What was an indentured servant? What was the difference between a redemptionary and an indentured servant? What decisions had to be made to leave a homeland? How did John Jacob Dreibelbis become indentured? What were the conditions endured to get to America? What was the trip like? What happened upon arrival?
The John Jacob Dreibelbis family originated in the German speaking part of Switzerland and moved into the Palatinate area of Germany which was a very beautiful prosperous place. However, the ebb and flow of armies especially during the Thirty Years’ War and the Dutch War, along with the wars to unify Germany – – wrought the type of havoc you can well imagine was inflicted by the armies of old. Religious strife and the rule of petty tyrants contributed greatly to the inhabitants’ unhappiness. The German people of the early 1700’s were ripe for a move to any place. Since Pennsylvania had the greatest population of Germans, it was particularly attractive and most continued to come here. Clifford L. Alderman tells us of colonial Pennsylvania in Colonists for Sale on pages 79 and 80:
. . . Pennsylvania was probably the best-situated colony in America for industrial and commercial development. It had immense natural resources. West of Philadelphia rich farmlands were being developed. They not only produced food of all kinds but also flax to he spun into linen thread for household uses and clothing and hemp for rope needed to fit out the vessels that were being built from the limitless supplies of lumber in nearby forests. By 1692 iron ore had been discovered and was being smelted, the beginning of what would become Pennsylvania’s mighty steel industry. As for the weaving of cloth, the first settlers of Germantown were from industrial Krefeld near the Rhine in Germany, known as the “City of Weavers”. Irish and French settlers also were skilled in textile work.
By 1730 Pennsylvania was exporting wheat, flour, biscuit, barreled beef, hams, pork, bacon, cheese, butter, apple cider, beer, beeswax, leather, linseed oil, skins of several kinds and tobacco, although Pennsylvania never rivaled Maryland and Virginia in that crop. Ships to carry all these products were built, and before 1730 there were sometimes as many as twenty at once on the building stocks in Philadelphia, some of them big, three-masted, full-rigged ships, barks and barkentines. Smaller vessels were also built, many to be sold in the West Indies.
No wonder there was such a tremendous demand for labor in Pennsylvania in the late seventeenth century and during the eighteenth . . .
Many of the people chose to leave Germany. These were the ones who had enough money to purchase passes and begin a new life. They also had the quality of being able to hold on to their money for there were many scoundrels ready to relieve them of it in the emigration ports.
Sometimes the people ran out of money and had to borrow some before or during their passage; these then became redemptionaries. They would pay the money back to the lender in accordance with the terms of the loan and begin life as a free person. Or they might serve only a short time to repay a relatively small debt. Sometimes a relative would meet the ship and pay the remainder of the debt.
Most of the people, however, did not have enough money, so they became totally indebted to the captain of the ship, or others, for their passage to the new world. They were, in effect, physically sold for three to six years to a master in America who had paid for their passage. There was not too much difference between a redemptionist and an indentured servant; it all depended upon who bought you or who paid you out, and the number of years of service you had to give to pay off your debt. Redemptionist or indentured – – the trip with the hardships and conditions was the same.
Getting people to emigrate to America was big business. There was a set of people called Newlanders or soul-vendors whose business was to provide the ship captains with a full load of emigrants for the trip to America. These people were the real confidence men of the 1700’s; they were the ones who told the stories of the streets paved with gold, free land, that the emigrant would only have to open his mouth and a roast pigeon would fall in. These “con-men” would travel about the countryside selling the wonders of the new land. When sufficient people could not be convinced to sign with a captain voluntarily, the Newlanders resorted to shanghaiing even entire families. Sometimes, the soul-vendors would trick the peasant into thinking they were going as passengers or that they had inherited a large sum of money from a relative who had been in America for some time. Often the information was imaginary, gleaned from opened mail, or from letters which were forged by handwriting “experts” readily available in Rotterdam, Holland. A most shameful trick was to get emigrants, who were most unwise as to the ways of the world, to entrust their money to Newlanders during the trip down the Rhine River to Rotterdam. It would be “safe from thieves ore accidental loss” they were told. When the ship sailed, however, the Newlander was nowhere to be found.
I should like to summarize for you an account of one Gottfried Mittelberger who was accompanying an organ, built in Germany, to Pennsylvania. He traveled as a paying passenger, but his experiences on the voyage, which were not unusual, and those during his stay
in Pennsylvania, prompted him to write about them. This account describes in detail the common, everyday trials and tribulations that John Jacob Dreibelbis probably endured himself. As Clifford Alderman writes:
“The unexpected and shocking frightfulness of their venture began with the passage to Rotterdam. There were thirty-six customhouses along the way, one for each of the little duchies and principalities through which they passed. Again and again the riverboat had to stop for an examination of the cargo and the payment of customs duties or tolls imposed for passage through the region. It took such boats four or five, sometimes six, weeks to reach Rotterdam. For Gottfried Mittelberger himself, the entire journey from Enzweihingen to Rotterdam lasted seven weeks. The boat was packed from stem to stern, and the terribly crowded conditions made the river trip a nightmare. But this trip was easy compared to what lay ahead for the passengers.
First came a long delay in Rotterdam while the ship that was to take them to America loaded cargo and waited for late-arriving shipments. Mittelberger did not say just how long they were there, but he wrote that the usual delay for such vessels was five or six weeks. During this time the several hundred passengers had to shift for themselves.
The people had not expected this delay, and since food and other necessities were very high priced in Rotterdam, they found the money they had brought dribbling away. Some became penniless and others spent almost all they had, with their transatlantic passages still not paid. This made no difference to the promoters of the emigration to America; in fact, they were counting on it.
At last the time for embarking came. The shipping company took no precaution for the safety of the passengers as they crowded aboard, pushing and shoving, each anxious to have the best choice of accommodations. Mittelberger saw a man with two children crossing a slimy, ramshackle gangway into the ship; the children slipped, fell overboard and were drowned.
Mittelberger himself seems to have suffered no privation during the voyage; his passage money was assured and presumably he had a cabin to himself and dined with the officers. But what he observed tore his heart with pity and anguish.
He wrote that the emigrants were packed like herrings into the space set aside for them. Bunks two feet wide and six feet long had been placed side by side. Into each bunk went a passenger and all his belongings, including tools and implements, water barrels and provisions, if he had any left.
The vessel crossed the North Sea and put in at Cowes on the Channel of England. There some cargo was discharged and examined, customs duties paid and more cargo loaded for Philadelphia. The ship was in Cowes nine days. Then she began the Atlantic passage. From Rotterdam to Philadelphia the voyage lasted fifteen weeks.
Mittelberger wrote “The journey is made amid such hardships as no one is able to describe.” But he did describe it to the best of his ability, and the account is enough to turn one’s stomach.
He wrote of the vile conditions in which the emigrants lived. The rations were scanty, stale and had a sharp smell. Some of the meat was so putrid that a dog would have turned up his nose at it. Warm food was served only three times a week. The water was often black and full of worms.
A foul stench filled the passengers’ quarters. Almost all were sick and, unable to reach the upper deck in time, vomited in their bunks. Many suffered from fever, dysentery, constipation, boils and the seafaring man’s disease of that time, scurvy. Scurvy results from a lack of green vegetables or such citrus fruits as lemons and limes in the diet, and causes the gums to swell and bleed. Mittelberger called it mouth-rot.
On the stormy Atlantic, when a gale rose, conditions were made worse. As the vessel rolled and pitched, plunging down deep into the troughs between the tremendous seas, people were thrown about helter-skelter. In their terror, they thought the vessel was lost, and they cried and prayed piteously to be saved.
The passengers grew irritable and fights broke out between them. Mittelberger wrote that those who were not ill sometimes came near killing each other in these brawls. And among the people were some who lost no opportunity to rob and cheat others in the hope of improving their impoverished condition.
Mittelberger told of hearing passengers cry: “Oh, that I was home again and had to lie in my pigsty!” “O God, if I only had a piece of good bread or a fresh drop of water.”
Many died. One would think that the promoters of the emigration would have made some effort to keep the passengers healthy, since it would have been to their profit when the vessel arrived at Philadelphia. But they evidently considered it cheaper to lose a substantial part of the human cargo and to deliver others in poor physical condition than to spend more to give the people decent quarters, food and water.
Those who died were heaved overboard without ceremony. One wretched woman died in childbirth, unable to deliver the child because of her condition. Her quarters were far aft, and since the body could not easily be brought forward and on deck through the close-packed mass of humanity, it was stuffed through a porthole and into the sea.
The small children among the passengers suffered the most. Mittelberger wrote that those between one and seven years old seldom survived these voyages. He added that measles and smallpox often broke out aboard the transports and the younger ones usually contracted one or the other and died.
Of the older passengers, those who were able to creep on deck occasionally for a breath of fresh air sometimes suffered falls in rough weather, as the ship tossed in mountainous seas, and were crippled. Others were swept overboard, and Mittelberger made no mention of any effort to save them.
Mittelberger was not a skillful writer, but his diary conveys a vivid image of the passengers’ quarters – the fearful smell, the moans of the sick, the cries and pitiful prayers of others, the wailing of children, the disorder, the gauntness of those close to starvation. It must have been living hell.
As the voyage neared its end, after what must have seemed an eternity, a new catastrophe fell upon the passengers. The food supply had been scanty at best – except that for the officers’ table, of course, and doubtless the crew’s – but now even that ran short, due to the unusual length of the stormy voyage. The emigrants were fed only ship’s biscuit – hardtack – that had long since spoiled and was infested with weevils.
What a dreadful trip the future indentured servants endured. However, with the ship landing in Philadelphia, the troubles of the emigrants were far from over; in fact, what lay ahead might well be worse than what they had just experienced.
Anyone who could not pay for his voyage was not even allowed to go ashore. Those lucky people who had relatives able to redeem them by paying the remaining portion of their passage were allowed to depart, the rest waited for the next phase of their adventure. Again as Alderman describes in Colonists for Sale, pages 8 and part of 9:
A handful of them had managed to keep enough Dutch florins or German rix-dollars to pay for the voyage or had relatives waiting who would pay the money, so they were allowed to depart. The rest waited for their unknown fate.
Each day thereafter, prosperous English, Dutch and German colonists came from Philadelphia and surrounding towns, some as much as a twenty – to forty-hour ride away, and boarded the ship to bargain for the services of the penniless passengers. Those who suited their buyers signed indentures – – bonds which required them to serve their new masters for from three to six years without wages in return for the passage money and food, clothing and lodging during the service. The buyer would then pay the captain or an agent of the shipping company the amount agreed upon for the passage and take his human purchases with him.
All these unfortunate people were to become slaves with white skins – indentured servants who were indeed slaves in every sense of the word until they gained their freedom. Nor did all gain that freedom when their terms of servitude had expired.
Strength was what most buyers wanted. They had little use for scholars, teachers and other educated people, although there was some interest in mechanics. Hands to work in the fields of Pennsylvania were in great demand – – most of all, those who could hew down great forest trees, remove stumps and undergrowth and clear land for new fields and meadows. A muscular, healthy young man would get off with three years of servitude, but women, children and older men had to serve six years. Children between five and ten signed indentures, or had them signed for them by their parents, that required them to work without pay until they came of age at twenty-one.
There was an announcement in a Philadelphia paper, three months after it had docked that the ship, Mary, had indentured servants for sale. As we think of our heritage of the past, one can only wonder if John Jacob Dreibelbis was one of the early sales or one of the later ones!
Not only prosperous businessmen came to select and buy, but also “soul-drivers” made purchases. These buyers would survey the available individuals, or freight as they were called, still under the ownership of the ship’s captain, purchase a group and then drive them about the country like a herd of cattle from farm to farm, tavern to tavern and sell them for the best price they could get. Out and out slavery in its full definition. This practice was so disliked and the “soul-drivers” brought such a bad name upon themselves that the practice all but disappeared by 1758, fifteen years after the record shows John Jacob as a landholder in Berks County.
However, whether bought by a kindly, prosperous businessman, whether sold by a soul-driver, or by whatever means, these huddled masses who had survived the five to six month journey across the Atlantic Ocean became the absolute property of the master. The majority of the masters were cruel, but they controlled their lives totally. Indentured servants could not marry without permission, served from three to six years until a certain age was reached. They were given additional time to serve if they ran away, as is extra time of servitude to pay the master back for the money it cost to locate when they ran away. Certainly this was not the land and conditions which the Newlanders described as they enticed the people to sign up for passage to the wonderful new land.
So a substantial part of our personal, family heritage from the past comes not only a strong will, endurance, and desire for life itself in spite of the hardships of the voyage, the indignities of servitude and indentured master/servant role. It is a heritage of we can all be proud, a heritage which should encourage all of us to strive to emulate build upon as we make our lives more meaningful to all we meet. On page 153, Alderman summarizes:
The story of the German and German-speaking Swiss people in Pennsylvania is one of which their descendants may be proud. In spite of all their hardships in reaching America and working out their indentures, they made the Pennsylvania Dutch country the prosperous agricultural region it still is today and contributed much to Pennsylvania’s industrial importance.
Heritage of the Present
I would like now to move from presenting the Heritage of the Past to discussing the Heritage of the Present. Remember the trials of John Jacob Dreibelbis and his country-as they toiled to build a part of this country for us to enjoy and to live in today. A great country developed, but one which will remain that way only if we all apply our energy, skill, and our background to keep it that way.
The very foundation of life as we know it in America is under attack, perhaps on the road to deteriorating. Pleasure seeking and the “easy way” seem to be paramount for families. Among many people, materialism seems to be god.
One of my favorite pictures, issued by the U. S. Army, shows a family – – a woman and a man holding a child – – standing in front of an American flag. The picture is entitled MY BIRTHRIGHT – – Our Moral Heritage, and symbolizes how the family and country stand together, the strength of each supporting the other. It is incumbent upon those of us who hold the values of strong supportive families, living in a country which provides protection for that family to live and grow, to hold and work toward maintaining those values. By continuing to exercise our duties, we can preserve our strength for mutual benefit.
Those of us here today are building upon and strengthening our heritage by attending this family reunion. Each of you has said, in one way or another, that this family “Dreibelbis” is important to you. You pass this importance on to others here, to your families, and even to your neighbors when you return home and tell them of the gathering.
Friends and acquaintances continually surprise me with their reactions when they hear about our organization, the “John Jacob Dreibelbis Cousins of America.” Even some of those with an interest in genealogy have said they have nothing like our annual family reunion. Oh yes, some families have reunions the same as we do, but they are all too few. And just think, all this evolved long, long before the current interest generated by the television special, Roots.
We strengthen our heritage by listening to and applying talks like that which Paul M. gave a few years ago as he spoke of our past. This reminds us that, “He who does not profit from the past is doomed to repeat its mistake”. We strengthen our heritage of the present by reading and actively continuing our genealogy, by visiting Dreibelbis places, hallowed by our ancestors such as shrines, geographical places of import like the bridge, the homestead, the cemetery, by planting the dogwood trees at the Berks County Historical Society, by installing the plaque here inside of St. Peter’s Church, and by planning the 250th anniversary of John Jacob’s landing in America after the dreadful voyage previously described. All of these places and events remind us that our family is important to us. Even the commercial world has used our heritage in the dishtowels, ceramic tiles, and post cards portraying “our” bridge, along with the Pennsylvania Dutch Cook Book which includes Eleanor Dreibelbis’ Funny Cake recipe. All these items and mementos strengthen our families, and help us build upon our heritage of the present because they make us proud of something from the past and give us something upon which to build for the future.
We also develop our heritage of the present by keeping in touch with each other; expanding our knowledge of our family tree and cousins provides a foundation, a strength, and an enrichment to our lives. We can be comforted knowing that we are part of a much larger family group.
On September 4, 1932, when the Dreibelbis Clan met at Kutztown Park, Kutztown, Pa., Jacob Hoyt Dreibelbis gave the main address and told of one instance when he lived in the Philippine Islands. His mail began to go astray, and he had a call one evening from Fort McKinley where a package and several letters had been received and were marked, “Opened by mistake by J. H. Dreibelbis”. Upon checking J. Hoyt discovered a soldier by the name of Dreibelbis, even having the same initials as his. A second experience was the location of one David Dreibelbis who was visiting near J. Hoyt’s (then) home of Douglaston, Long Island, N. Y. These were the only two Dreibelbises he had ever met outside of his “home” area of Iowa in ten years. J. Hoyt goes on to tell of meeting many others and expanding his horizons, even to the point of looking over the faces of 600 Dreibelbis descendants as he delivered his address.
Another example of serendipity, finding the unexpected, occurred when I was living in Chatham, New Jersey. A seminarian from Drew University was typing my Doctoral dissertation on off hours in one of the offices of the university. One day I received a telephone call from Corrine Dreibelbis Whitlow, the wife of the seminarian. She had seen my name on the manuscript and called me, hardly believing that another Dreibelbis could be living close to her. We visited several times, established a Christmas card exchange that continues some 20 years later even though she now lives in the state of Washington.
That phone call from her, expanding our familial relationship, has lead to another; for, she wrote to me that her physician brother, Robert E. of Anaheim, California, was planning a trip east to see “Dreibelbis Country” and asked if I would send him a map of the area, marking some of the places he should visit. I sent the map but also arranged for him to visit my father, Paul L., who took him on an extended tour. Some of you will remember the very nice letter of appreciation from Dr. Robert’s son which was read at the 1977 reunion.
This contact with Robert E. developed into a visit to his home when I was in Anaheim for an educational conference. He invited me for supper and I spent a delightful evening with him and his family. Our discussion was devoted to the Dreibelbis history, families, and background.
As you can see, horizons can be expanded simply by having the name Dreibelbis and by meeting new cousins.
In summary, I leave you with these thoughts. We build our heritage through the memory and honor of our original ancestor in America, John Jacob Dreibelbis, his three sons and four daughters who form the various branches of the family tree represented here today. By profiting from the background of our common parent to strengthen our own families we will leave an inheritance to our descendants so they too can have a foundation for their lives.