Journey back from Gettysburg. -Unusual night in Oxford. -Praiseworthy custom of sitting with the sick by neighbors. -Guarding of the dead at night. - Two German immigrants travel to Cincinnati. -Journey by way of Little York, -Seitsville, Susquehanna Bridge, -Columbia, -Mount Pleasant, -Lancaster. -Signs of the inns. -Long way in the dark. -Night quarters with Quakers. -Joumey over a high mountain. -Free accommodation by English planters. -Fertility of the mountain valleys. Journey in darkness through a thick forest. -Night quarters in a farmhouse. -Journey to Reading. -Many new German immigrants. -Journey to my home at the Moselem.

On the 4th of May at night after dusk I reached Oxford on the return trip, and went into the first inn I got to. Since everyone had already eaten, I ate again this evening by myself and was alone in the dining room during the meal, except for a maid who poured coffee for me. Everything was very quiet in the house, although more people than those that belonged in the house were present; all of them were very serious and several seemed to be sad. The innkeeper asked me whether I wished to go to bed and when I answered that with yes, he took me upstairs in the house into a large room where seven beds stood, in two of which people were already sleeping and the rest were still empty. When the innkeeper showed me my sleeping place, he went away; I then extinguished the light and lay down to sleep. Scarcely had I lain down when I heard several persons speaking in a side room and soon thereafter several came with the light through my bedroom and went into another. Soon several others came back again, lay down in the still empty beds, the ones sleeping were awakened and went simiIarly into the side room. Thus it went the whole night through and no thought could be given to sleep. The following morning I noticed that a corpse in the house had caused this nocturnal disquiet.

The praiseworthy custom and tradition exists there generally that the neighbors look after someone who is sick during all the time that he is sick and should the sick one die, then his corpse is guarded by several neighbors and others at night as long as it is above the earth. This latter I did not know up to that time; the reason why this happens I could not find out even with all my asking afterward, but always I got the answer: "It's the custom."

On May 5 early at 6 o'clock after I had paid the innkeeper a quarter dollar, I continued my journey again, for nowhere did I feel so good as in free nature between blooming grain fields, forests and other objects in the outdoors where I was constantly amazed at the vegetation which was far richer than I was used to otherwise, especially in the quiet, beautiful weather of the morning and the coolness of the evening. My way led to Little York and at 12:30 o'clock noon, as I was refreshing myself with a glass of cider in an inn at the side of the road, I heard that I was only five miles distant from this city. When I continued my journey again after 1 o'clock, two young people came toward me, whom I spoke to because I saw from their clothing that they were German immigrants. They were Bavarians, one a joiner, the other a butcher, who intended to travel to Cincinnati to seek their fortune there. They spoke of how splendid it was to travel in America and related that from Philadelphia to here they had gone into an inn only one single time and had eaten eleven pence worth (four Groschen); whenever they got hungry and thirsty they always went to a farmer; stayed overnight too only in such houses. Such farmers had up to now refused to be paid for it, and always they were accommodated splendidly. They asked me whether I didn't do the same? and I said to them that I had become acquainted already with the free hospitality of the Americans in this fashion, but on this my journey had not yet taken advantage of it. Then they asked whether I too had to pay bridge toll before I went under the roof of the big bridge? and when I answered yes to that, they related that the same had been demanded of them too, but when they said they had no money they were let go across free. They were hoping that the entire journey to Cincinnati would not cost a half American thaler, whereto I wished them luck, went my way and reached Little York still before night, through which city I went straightaway without delaying and late at night I went into an inn at the way, where I spent the night. Because I was very tired from the journey, I went to bed early and the next morning, after I had paid the usual fee, I started anew on the way at 6 o'clock and by 9 o'clock I was already in the town of Seitsville [Wrightsville], close to the Susquehanna, where I drank a small glass of cider in an inn, then I went over the long bridge mentioned earlier and came into the city of Columbia. Because I was very exhausted I first went into an inn upon exiting from this city, had a cold meal and again drank a glass of cider (there called cider following the English, the cheapest, healthiest and most envigorating drink in America), then I continued my journey to Lancaster, and after I had marched strong three hours I reached the town of Mount Pleasant²⁷ and wanted to pass through without delaying, but arthritic pain in my right hip and knee made it necessary for me to stop in here and a glass of cider strengthened me once again and also soothed the pain so that after a quarter hour I could march well again, in a short time cover five miles and be only one mile distant from the city of Lancaster. But suddenly I got severe arthritic pain again in the parts of my body mentioned before, so that I had to lie down under a tree and could only get up again after an hour. When I finally was able to move again, my watch showed quarter to 6 already, but since I had no desire to stay in Lancaster overnight, I went through the city this time without delaying there, but upon exiting from the same I missed the right way, which I first noticed when I was already a half mile distant from the city. When I came to a bridge, a man in a house standing by the road called me and I had to pay him one cent for crossing over the bridge. The same man said to me that I had gone only inconsiderably off the track and could soon come to the right way again. With determination, however, I stayed on this road in order to see another region the following day, for it was getting dark and I prepared to enter into the first inn that I would get to on the street and stay overnight there; for although it was soon dark, I still relied on the fact that I couldn't miss an inn because they all are right up against the street and all of them have a sign as big as a big gateway door which is fastened high all two big poles and swings between them, on which a horse, an ox, bear or other animal or aIso the president or another famous person in America is painted in life size; or also other paintings such as for example the sun, the moon, a coach hitched with horses, a plow with or without horses, two golden keys and yet many more things. Such a sign one sees in the day already at a great distance and even at nightime one cannot easily pass it without noticing it. On this road, however, I went for at least two hours in the night without spotting an inn sign. At last I came to a big, beautiful house into which several beautifully clothed men and women wanted to go and I asked them whether they could not put me up here because I had gone already two hours in the dark in vain in hopes of coming to an inn. "Verschteh net!" (I do not understand) was the answer. I further asked whether I couldn't get a drink of water. "Verschteh net!" was the answer again that I got and I had to go on. After half an hour I came to a little log house and asked whether they couldn't put me up. Man and wife assured me that they would gladly do this, but there was no room; and when I stepped in to quench my thirst and to light up a pipe of tobacco, I was convinced of it, for these still young people had nine living children and only two beds, also the room was so restricted that I could not have lodged there well. They assured me that I would come to an inn not far from there, but I went at least another hour before I came to such, through a dark forest and in the middle of it I came to a river through which the road that I had been following went, which upset me, but after a short search I found a foot bridge, over which I then went and at the exit to the forest I found the inn; upon entering the house the clock in the room just struck 10. Here I came among nothing but Quakers who understood not one German word and upon my question whether they could put me up I couldn't understand the answer, but I sat down in the room filled with guests and said: "ei em hungre; kohlt iht."²⁸ The innkeeper understood that I was hungry and was asking for a cold meal, took me by the arm and brought me to the dining room where I was served what I asked for and when I was full I gave the sign that I would rather stay in this room where the innkeeper's wife and her children also stayed. Then I smoked a pipeful of tobacco and afterwards indicated that I was tired and wanted to sleep. I was taken upstairs in the house through several big rooms where beds stood to a smaller one where only one bed stood and was asked to sleep there; but I fell asleep only towards morning, for during the whole night it did not get quiet in this house, but rather the walking and speaking of the persons in the rooms over which I had gone to bed continued constantly and the doors were continually being opened and closed. The next morning, May 6, 1 had a small glass of rum and some butterbread, paid the innkeeper for supper, lodging and the schnapps only twenty cents, continued my journey at 6 o'clock and went in one clip until 4 o'clock in the afternoon, without delaying. Then, however, I grew faint, sat down for about a quarter hour long under a tree and rested. Up to this point I had constantly come through the most flourishing territories, in which I now still found myself, only with this difference, that here the people live more scattered and there is more forest; but in the distance I saw high mountains with woods which appeared to be very rough, for you could see the big boulders grown over with white moss here and there already from a distance. At 5 o'clock I came to these mountains and had to walk upwards for a good hour until I stood at last on a very high mountain from which I could see out behind me at least twenty miles of flourishing territory sown with houses, fields and forests; it was really a splendid view. But close by me I saw bare boulders only grown over with moss, often of the size and so flat that one could have built a small city on them; next to this abyss, underneath which it was completely dark because of the great depth, were mountains again which seemed to have come into being through a rain of stones, for according to their position they had fallen one onto the other which was shown by the breaks of many big stones which lay on still larger ones similar to them, so that one could conclude nothing other than that they had once fallen on top of them and thereby split them vertically and diagonally in two. In order to convince myself even more of the probability of this my view, I climbed up onto one of the monstrous stone mountains and my hypothesis seemed to receive confirmation through the whole position of the same, so that I said to myself the words: yes, you were rained onto this place thousands of years ago; a monstrous volcano once hurled you into the air and you fell down again from the same and formed this monstrous mountain

Then I went farther and was overjoyed when I saw a house in the distance to which I hurried in order to rest there and still my hunger and thirst. In this house I found only a young woman who approached me in a friendly manner, but when she heard that I spoke German, she appeared to become somewhat apprehensive. I asked for a drink of water and some bread, and when she did not understand this, she asked: "Kähn ju net thak englisch gut?"²⁹ No! , I said, but added at once: Water, Bried. Then she asked: "thu ju net drink Seider?" Ah! Seider, Seider! jäs, jäs! I said. Then she brought me a big bottle full of cider and the most splendid white cake, butter and apple butter of apples³⁰ (or apple sauce), also a bottle full of brandy which I put to the side at once, however, and served myself the cider and the cake, at which I satisfied and refreshed myself well. When I was full and asked this woman as well as I could what she wanted for food and drink? her husband came home also with whom she spoke several words; this man was friendliness personified and both of them then gave me to understand by shaking their heads and other signs that they didn't want anything from me, indeed both of them asked me to stay overnight with them and showed me a bed next to their own where I was to sleep. Nothing made me feel more at a loss, than that I couldn't converse better with these hospitable, alert young Englishmen and speak more decently with them. When they saw that I definitely did not want to stay with them overnight, the man nevertheless insisted that I first try his whisky, which I then also did; it was the most splendid apple brandy of which I had not yet drunk as good in America.

With cordial best wishes I took leave of this couple and was amazed upon departing at the splendid wheat and rye fields here in this mountain valley between rocky mountains and at the great amount of fruit trees and their flourishing growth which there in the mountainous regions everywhere yield a richer harvest than in the lowlands. I went on at least two hours yet before it started getting dark and during this time passed by four houses where I could have taken night quarters; but, as most always, I wanted this time too to go in when it had become completely dark. It got dark, but for one whole hour I did not see a house and the forest grew constantly thicker. After about another hour I stayed standing still awhile and listened whether I wouldn't perhaps hear a dog bark, but I did not. However, I heard the heavy step of a man and he approached me, coming closer and closer to me. Then I went toward him and saw, when I came really close to him, that it was a Negro who had a manure fork on his shoulder. Good evening! I said, whereupon he stood still, propped his manure fork in front of him and said "good evening!" Then I asked him whether I would not sometime soon get to an inn where I could lodge? But he answered me that there was no innkeeper living on this road for another three miles because it was not well traveled. But from this road one led on to the right over this mountain which I must have missed, and if I had not missed it, I would have come to two inns. Then I remembered that this had happened when I walked past the big stone pile. After a good quarter hour, the black man said, I would get to a house in which a widow was living for whom he had worked and she would give me lodging, she was a good woman. Then I said good night to him, went my way, and after a quarter hour really did come to the house which the black man had described to me; however, the widow did not want to open the door to me for which I did not think ill of her, since she was in the house all by herself with her ungrown children and could not have known whether I was an honest man or not. She told me I should go only a little way farther to the next house where I would be taken in gladly. After a small half hour I saw a house in which was also a wife alone with her children, but they were already grown. When I saw no light, I knocked on the door. A woman looked out of the window above and asked who is there? whereupon I sincerely told her what had transpired with me. Ei, she said, she had already given many travelers lodging overnight, but these had all come earlier, etc. But she came down and let me in the house and called her daughter to light the light right away, and she did come right away with the light in her hand. ·"Yes," she said, "you can sleep here, but I guess you haven't eaten yet?" No I said, and the daughter flew into the kitchen and within a few minutes brought a good supper with coffee as is the custom there. The daughter, really a very pretty girl, sat down in a corner of the room while her mother conversed with me and I thought that she was tired. Therefore I said to the woman that perhaps her daughter was tired, and indeed now in God's Name could go to bed again. The mother assured me, however, that tiredness was not the reason why the girl sat in the corner, for she was much too eager to hear the conversations of strangers. "Then," I asked, "what is the reason for it?" She is a little bashful, the mother answered. That is a good virtue of young girls, I continued, but she need not be at all ashamed on account of me. The mother then said that her daughter was ashamed because she was already twenty years old and not yet married. Then I replied that this was indeed no reason at all for her daughter to be ashamed and that in my country seldom did a girl under twenty marry. Then she told that the oldest of her daughters had married already as a sixteen year old girl, and two others, both before their eighteenth year. Then I tried to persuade both mother and daughter by several reasons that nothing would be lost thereby, if a girl of twenty years was not yet married. Both at last agreed that I was right and seemed to be comforted by that.

I was genuinely glad that I had found shelter here, for while I was having supper and was conversing with this woman, it started to rain hard outside. After the meal I smoked a good pipe of tobacco, which was pleasing to the woman, although I was very worn and tired from the journey, while she, a German-American, really conversed well with me. She also told me that her husband's name was William Strunk and he was traveling now, that she didn't always live at this place, but earlier in the vicinity near Bethlehem and Nazareth. "Near Bethlehem and Nazareth?" I broke into her conversation, "there the Moravians live; I am curious to hear something here too about these good people of whom I heard much good earlier." But Mrs. Strunk for one would not praise these people at all, but assured me that because of the Moravians they had moved away from there. She told me among other things that the Moravians, proud of their piety (for they called themselves the chosen of God), despised other people who did not belong to them; their fear of God, however, was multifarious hypocrisy, and then she cited numerous examples to support this which made me sway in the belief I had held until then about the piety of these people, so that I changed my long.standing resolve to see Bethlehem and Nazareth, which cities were not quite fifty English miles distant from my home. When I had smoked my pipe of tobacco I went to bed, whereto Mrs. Strunk accompanied me with the light and with her daughter wished me a good night which I also wished to them and slept very well this night.

When I got up from bed the next morning, Sunday the 7th of May, it was still raining very hard. Then there appeared in addition to Mrs. Strunk and her twenty year old daughter her twenty-two year old son and her eighty year old mother, both of whom I had not seen the night before. All of them asked me to stay with them until the weather would get better. Then I ate breakfast with these people, and since it cleared towards 9 o'clock and the sun shone, I took my leave. For lodging and food these people asked nothing.

Then I traveled the road toward Reading, which city I reached toward evening, went into the inn "of the president" there again run by the Bottmer named at the beginning of the sixth chapter and stayed there overnight. But this inn was swarming with strangers who were lodging there, among whom many newly immigrated Swabians and Würtembergers were to be found, for the most part poor people many of them in ragged clothes and with drawn, pale sickly faces. This was a sad picture to me because the largest part of these people understood neither farming nor a trade, which is absolutely necessary in order to find upkeep and bread there. For this reason they frequently gather in this county and in this city, because the largest portion of German inhabitants of this area are descendants of Swabians and Palatines and also many of them are immigrants from these countries; these new immigrants would find an easier acceptance there too if only they were all tradesmen and farmers. Especially the latter can find upkeep and work there soon as day laborers and earn there in a day more than here in their fatherland in a whole week. But in scores of these young immigrants there was not one who was thus suited, for many of them had been merchants in Germany, several served as clerks, many were employed in banks, etc. Among them there were very talented young people, for I conversed with several a few hours and found that it was lamentable for them that their talents and knowledge should slumber in America, and yet nothing else could come of it because their kind had no value there. Two of these last visited me a year and some days later at my place at the Moselem. They had a knapsack of coarse linen on their back and were selling all kinds of small wares and assured me that this trade was not sung to them at their cradles, for the one was the son of a court official and the other of a businessman, both of Württemberg. The first was a Catholic and after about a year became the schoolmaster at the newly built Roman Catholic church³¹ about a good hour distant from my dwelling in Richmond parish, but the other still sold and lived in Berks County.

I ate at Bottmer's this evening in the company of fifty-six persons, most of whom had accommodations there; but the next morning the company at the table was only forty.two strong. For supper, lodging and breakfast here I paid forty cents.

Reading is one of the largest rural cities in Pennsylvania, very beautifully built and has almost all massive houses of brick. It lies at the foot of a very high and primitive forest mountain, at the Schuylkill, a medium sized river, over which a bridge with a beautiful roof and containing two lanes leads into the city.

It deserves to be mentioned that here was once the big assembly place where the great republic·minded heroes swore the holy oath of unbreakable faith under a great oak with huge branches, to fight united for freedom and to remain united until after the victory was won and to stand staunchly together as the branches of this tree.

In the morning on May 8 I made my departure here after visiting schoolmaster Deininger one more time. This time I did not take the direct route to the Moselem, but a route off to the side. Because I had made some arrangements with a farmer in this vicinity named Daniel Kaufmann about a house and several acres of land and spent several hours with this man and also because other affairs with other inhabitants detained me, I got home in the evening at 11 o'clock. My wife who was already in bed did not want to let me into the house because she believed nothing as little as that I could be home again already. It cost me effort to convince her that it was really I who wished to be let in. There I found everything in order and again as I had left it.

The entire journey of at least 130 English miles from the Moselem to Gettysburg and as many miles back again cost me not all of five dollars; naturally it would have cost me far more if I had not lived extraordinarily conservatively and not saved the money. But I could also have traveled more cheaply yet if I had more often taken advantage of the open hospitality of the American farmers which is the native custom there with all travelers, especially those who travel by foot. But I was kept from doing that partly because of an inborn timidity but partly also because of my dominating desire to know, since in an inn one associates with more people and can find out far more than in a farmhouse. In addition to what I have related in this and the previous chapter, I found out many more things on this journey that belong in another chapter and will keep them for that.

Source: Edited by Bryan Wright