The January 1990 issue of Penn Pal , the newsletter of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the Palatines to America, carried an article by Klaus Ahne on " The Beginnings of German Emigration to America ". The material from Penn Pal appeared in Beyond Germanna , page 409.
German emigration to America began on 6 October 1683 when thirteen families from Krefeld landed in Philadelphia. More than seven million German-speaking emigrants followed these in the next three centuries, more than from any other country. Prior to 1683, there had been a few Germans who came to America, but 1683 marks the start of a permanent German settlement. Why this one particular group came then is closely tied to one German, Franz Daniel Pastorius.
One can hardly discuss this man without mentioning his father and grandfather. The two, plus the tumultuous events of the Seventeenth Century, shaped Franz Daniel Pastorius. The grandfather was Catholic, a citizen of Erfurt. During the Thirty Years' War, their house was ransacked by the Protestant Swedes in 1631 and the family fled. The grandfather was attacked by bandits and so badly injured that he died shortly thereafter.
The father, Adam Melchior Pastorius, born in 1624, was sent to be taught by the Jesuits in Rome. Then he went to Paris as a scholar. In the political uprisings there, he was almost executed as a spy. In 1649, he went to Sommerhausen on the River Main, where he became a Protestant, married, and started a law practice. In 1658, he moved to Windsheim, where he gained wealth and fame. He served as a judge and the mayor. A street in Windsheim is named for him, the Pastorius-Strasse.
The son, Franz Daniel Pastorius, was born in 1651 and moved with the family to Windsheim, an imperial city, in 1658. He spent his youth here and received his first education there. He studied Law at the universities of Altdorf, Strassburg, Basel, and Jena. As was typical of education is those days, he also studied philosophy and theology. His education culminated in a Doctor of Law in 1676, and he returned to Windsheim to work as a lawyer. Shortly thereafter, he moved to Frankfurt-am-Main, where he continued his law practice. From 1680 to 1682, he traveled throughout Germany, Holland, France, England, and Switzerland as a companion to the nobleman Johann Bonaventura von Rodeck.
A deeply religious and moral person, Franz Daniel Pastorius was extremely disappointed at the lack of piety and the shallow attitude of the people he had met in his two years of traveling. By chance, he was introduced to the Frankfurt Pietists, whose religious ideas fascinated him.
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.