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German Achievements in America
1603 Germans Craftsmen were with John Smith at the colony of Jamestown.
They were the first to manufacture tar, glass, pitch, and soap in America.
1620 Four millwrights from Hamburg erected the first sawmill in America in
Virginia.
1626 The first prominent German-American was Peter Minuit, director of the
Dutch colony of New Netherland, who purchased Manhattan for $24.
1653 Germans from Heidelberg introduced vineyards and winemaking to
America.
1683 Thirteen families from the Rhineland, led by a Frankfurt lawyer, Franz
Daniel Pastorius, founded Germantown in Pennsylvania, the first German-
American settlement in the New World.
German-American schools established at Germantown.
1688 The first protest against slavery issued at Germantown, not in English but
in German.
1690 William Rittinghausen established the paper mill in America at
Germantown.
Jacob Leisler, born in Frankfurt, was elected the first people's governor of New
York, and called the first Congress of American colonies. It was one of the earliest
protests against British rule.
1714 The first book on teaching was published, not in English but in German, by
Christopher Dock, a German-American teacher. He introduced the blackboard
into the American classroom.
1734 John Peter Zenger established freedom of the press by protesting British
rule in his New York newspaper, the New York Weekly Journal.
1739 Caspar Wistar built a glassmaking plant at Salem, New Jersey.
1743 The first bible printed in America was not in English, but in German.
Christopher Sauer of Philadelphia published it.
1771 First foundry for making type established by Christopher Sauer.
1776 An early publication of the Declaration of Independence appeared in
German in the Philadelphia Staatsbote on July 9th.
Congress established a German-American regiment consisting of four companies.
1778 Baron von Steuben wrote the first U.S. Army training manual and helped
to organize the U.S. Army.
1789 Frederick A. Muehlenberg became the first Speaker of the newly formed
House of Representatives.
1798 Gottlieb Graupner arrived in Boston and became known later as the
father of orchestral music in the U.S.
1800 German-Americans voted overwhelmingly for Thomas Jefferson and
helped elect him to the Presidency.
1830s German-Americans introduced gaily-decorated Christmas trees to
America.
1834 The richest man in the U.S. was John Jacob Astor, a German immigrant
who had organized the American Fur Company.
1835 Wilhelm Wesselhoeft introduced homeopathy to the U.S.
1837 The Pennsylvania legislature began publishing its laws and governor's
message in German translation.
1839 Theodore Bernhard organized and introduced the first system of free
textbooks at Watertown, Wisconsin.
1846 Maximilian Schaefer established the first great lager beer brewery in
America.
1849 Eberhard Faber established in New York the pencil business which still
perpetuates his name.
Dr. Abraham Jacobi opened the first free clinic for children in the U.S.
1851 The famous painting, "Washington Crossing the Delaware," painted by
Emmanuel Leutze.
1850s First kindergarten in the U.S. established by Mrs. Karl Schurz in
Wisconsin.
1852 The Studebaker Company became the world's largest producer of wagons.
It later produced automobiles.
1860 Carl Schurz won the German-American vote for Lincoln by going on a
21,000 mile speaking tour which took him from the middle west to the
Pennsylvanian Germans.
1860-65 516,000 German-Americans fight for the Union. 500 officers in the
Union army were born in Germany; of the 2,213,363 soldiers in the Union army,
over 23% were German-Americans.
1871 Thomas Nast, the first great American Caricaturist, was instrumental in
the destruction of the Boss Tweed ring of New York City.
1874 Alfalfa introduced to the U.S. by Wendelin Grimm.
1877 Carl Schurz named Secretary of the Interior by President Hayes; first
German-born German-American to belong to the Cabinet.
Also, the "original conservationist" because of efforts to prevent destruction of
forests.
1884 The Brooklyn Bridge, designed by Johann A. Roebling, was built.
1892-93 German-Americans selected as governors of Kentucky and Illinois.
1898 Admiral Winfield Schley destroyed the Spanish fleet at Santiago, Cuba,
during the Spanish-American war.
1917 General John Pershing, a German-American, commanded the American
Expeditionary Forces in World War I.
1923 Charles P. Steinmetz became one of the greatest electrical wizards.
General Electric Corporation provided him with everything he asked for in his
work.
1928 Herbert Hoover becomes first president of German descent.
1929 Some of the greatest stars of baseball history were German-Americans:
Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Honus Wagner, and Frank Frisch, to mention a few.
1941-45 One-third of the eleven million soldiers in the U.S. armed forces in
World War II were of German descent. Eisenhower was of Pennsylvanian-German
descent. Other German-Americans were General Carl Spaatz and Admiral
Chester Nimitz, commander-in-chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. 700 admirals and
generals were German-Americans.
1950 Wernher von Braun became head of the U.S. Army Ordinance Guided
Missile Center and paved the way for the U.S. space program.
1958 Formation of the German-American National Congress in Chicago.
1966 A person of Prussian-German Extraction - John Raymond Lawrora - is
appointed Festival Secretary of the Plattduetsche Volksfest-Vereen of New York
and New Jersey.
The Northern New Jersey School of the German Language (German Education
Society) is formed at Schuetzen Park, North Bergen, NJ with an office and library
in Jersey City, NJ and classes for children and adults in Union City, NJ and North
Bergen, NJ. The school conducteds classes in Kindergarten, grades 1 through 8,
classes in German history and culture, Music Appreciation, and Folk Dancing.
A special award is granted for German proficiency to five year old Dolorest
Boettjer of Union City, NJ at a picnic sponsored by the United Singers of Hudson
County, New Jersey, at Forest Hill Park, off Germantown Road and Route 23,
Newfoundland, New Jersey.
1968 Society for German-American Studies established in Youngstown, Ohio.
A German-Hungarian, Elizabeth Koble, becomes Miss SchuetzePark, at the
Plattduetsche Volksfest under the auspices of the Plattduetsche Volksfest-Vereen
of New York and New Jersey at Schuetzen Park, North Bergen, New Jersey
1969 A person of German-Prussian Heritage, John Raymond Lawrora
(Johannes Rammund De Balliel-Lawrora) is appointed Public Relations Director
for "America's Oberammergau" Passion Play, at the Park Theatre, Union City,
New Jersey. He held that post until 1982.
1972 The Plattduetsche Volksfest-Vereen of New York and New Jersey
celebrates their one hundredth anniversary at Schuetzen Park, North Bergen,
New Jersey. Wernher von Braun is the guest speaker at the prestigious event.
The "German-American World" Newspaper debuts at Schuetzen Park, North
Bergen, NJ, under the supervision of Johannes Rammund De Balliel-Lawrora,
Editor.
Miss Elizabeth Koble, a German-Hungarian from Clifton, NJ was chosen as Miss
German America.
1974 Association for German Language Authors in America formed to further
German-American Literature.
1980 52 million Americans are of German descent, according to the 1980 U.S.
census.
1976 America's German Heritage, German American National Congress,
Cleveland, OH, 1976, adapted by Don Tolzmann
1983 The German-American Tricentenniel celebrates the 300th anniversary of
the founding of Germantown, the first German-American settlement.
1987 German-American Day was proclaimed; has been celebrated nationally
ever since.
1991 Johannes Rammund De Balliel-Lawrora opens a computer training school
in Jersey City, New Jersey. The school, (Gak-Law Training Institute. now closed,
because of retirement, taught WordPerfect, Microsoft Windows, Excel, and
Secretarial Courses to adults. Diplomas and Certificates of Awards were issued
by the school.
school.
2003 The German-American World Historical Society, Inc. is established by
Johannes Rammund De Balliel-Lawrora in North Bergen, New Jersey. The
Society operates a historical website for the organization.
2008The German-American Quadricentenniel celebrated their 400th
anniversary of the arrival of the first Germans in America at Jamestown, Virginia.
Peter Minuit
Peter Minuit was born in Wesel, Germany in 1580.Later, Mr. Minuit settled in The Netherlands. In 1624 Dutch
merchants established a settlement that became known as New Netherland. The Dutch government gave
exclusive trading rights to the Dutch West India Company.
Minuit was one of those who decided to settle in America and in 1626 became director-general of New
Netherland. Minuit purchased Manhattan Island from Native Americans for $24 worth of trinkets, beads and
knives. Over the next few years other colonists arrived a large settlement was established on Manhattan Island.
The chief port on Manhattan was named New Amsterdam (later changed to New York).
In 1638 the Swedish government employed Minuit to help them establish a colony in America. Soon afterwards
two vessels owned by the Swedish West India Company arrived with 50 colonists and established a small
settlement in Delaware Bay. They named the town Christina in honor of Sweden's young queen. Peter Minuit
died at sea in 1638.
Franz Daniel Pastorius
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.
The people who influenced Franz Daniel Pastorius in Frankfurt were the followers of Phillip Jacob Spener, who
in turn had been influenced by William Penn. In August of 1677, in anticipation of his claim to Pennsylvania,
William Penn was on his second trip along the Rhine River. He had multiple motivations including the sale of
his land in Pennsylvania and the advancement of the Quaker religion. His major themes were piece and
happiness in America, free of religious or superior authority.
The Pietists, who were dissatisfied with the religious situation and wanted more freedom in the Protestant
teachings, were the first to decide to follow Penn's calling and to emigrate to a new, unspoiled country. They
joined the Frankfurt Land Company with the goal of acquiring land in America and helping the emigrants.
Pastorius was fascinated by the plan to emigrate. He became a member of the Land Company, working toward
achieving its goals. The other members recognized his ability and devotion to the cause and made him the
Secretary of the Frankfurt Land Company.
Had it not been for Pastorius, the whole scheme would probably have failed. As the date for emigration grew
closer, the original members started selling their memberships. Speculators entered the picture, but without a
desire to emigrate themselves. Pastorius had to look hard for replacements. He traveled widely to spread the
thought of the original purposes. In Krefeld he stayed with a Mennonite family and worked closely with the
Mennonites. Perhaps they were more receptive because, like William Penn's Quakers, they did not believe in
oaths, original sin, christenings, or military action. Because they did not believe in military actions, their fellow
citizens did not trust them. Under these conditions, the arguments of Pastorius were well received.
Pastorius went on to Rotterdam, where there were both Quakers and Mennonites. He conferred with Penn's
agents, Benjamin Furley and Jakob Teiner, who had good connections with the Quakers in London and New
York. Rather quickly, Pastorius went on to London and then to America, where he arrived at Philadelphia on 20
August 1683. There, he reached an agreement with Penn about land for the immigrants. Hard on the heels of
Pastorius was a group of families, largely Mennonites, who arrived in October.
Pastorius had 6,000 acres of land from Penn for the immigrants to settle on. This was about six miles northwest
of original Philadelphia (now a part of present-day Philadelphia). Forty-four had left Germany but forty-five
arrived in Pennsylvania even after one death on the trip.
William Rittenhouse
1644 - 1708
Founder: Rittenhouse Paper Mill
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
Wilhelm Rittinghausen, born in 1644, learned the papermaking trade in Mulheim, Germany, while working at
his uncle Mathias Vorster's mill. The two men later went to Holland, where they were employed in a Gelderland
mill near Arnhem. In 1688, Mr. Rittinghausen, by now a Dutch citizen, emigrated to British North America and
changed his name to William Rittenhouse. In 1690, he established a paper mill on the Monoshone Creek near
Germantown, which is now Philadelphia. Joining him in the venture were three partners, Robert Turner,
Thomas Tresse, and a printer named William Bradford.
Mr. Rittenhouse's knowledge and skill played a major role in this courageous undertaking. His ability to
organize financial backers as partners and a printer-partner as a contractual customer for the products led to an
expedient and successful enterprise. Previous to this operation, all paper was imported from Europe and taxed
accordingly. The new mill provided a local source of printing, writing, and wrapping paper, as well as pasteboard.
Mr. Rittenhouse could well be called America's father of recycling, since all of the mill's fiber for hand
papermaking was obtained from discarded rags and cotton.
In 1706, Mr. Rittenhouse bought out the other partners and became sole proprietor of Rittenhouse Paper Mill.
He, and later his son, Claus, trained and developed a versatile work force to produce good products. This
eventually led to starting up additional mills in Pennsylvania. Mr. Rittenhouse proved that papermaking in
America could be a viable, economically sound business. Thus began the saga a vital and dynamic industry that
fulfilled a significant role in America's growth.
Mr. Rittenhouse died in 1708 and left the paper mill to his son, Claus. The business prospered at the site, and
was operated by six generations of family descendants. For twenty years, Rittenhouse Paper Mill was the only
paper mill in the Colonies. In 1710, William Dewees, who was married to Claus Rittenhouse's sister, built a mill
nearby in Chestnut Hill, having learned the trade at Rittenhouse Paper Mill. In 1729, the Willcox Ivey Mill was
built in Chester County.
Forty years after the founding of Rittenhouse Paper Mill, the number of printers and paper mills grew
exponentially. The Rittenhouse family monopoly in paper was over, but Mr. Rittenhouse's descendants continued
making paper on the Monoshone Creek until the 19th Century Industrial Revolution, when the development of
the Fourdrinier, with its endless web and cylinder papermaking, changed the industry forever.
Jacob Leisler
1640 - 1691
By Dr. David William Voorhees
Best known as a leader of a 1689 New York rebellion that came to bear his name, Jacob Leisler was one of late
seventeenth-century New York's most prominent merchants, land developers, and foremost exponent of
Reformed religious fundamentalism and Orangist political ideology. He was intimately bound to the social,
economic, and political development of New Netherland and New York from 1659, when he was employed as a
nineteen-year-old in the Dutch West India Company's Amsterdam office, until his execution for treason in New
York City in May 1691.
Jacob Leisler was born into a prominent European Calvinist family that included Dr. Jacob Leisler, his
grandfather and chief counselor to the Counts of Oettingen, Reverend Jacob Victorian Leisler, his father and
pastor of the Frankfurt-am-Main French Reformed congregation, and the noted Huguenot theologian Simon
Goulart. Leisler's brothers, Johann Adam and Frantz, were Swiss bankers who financed such Protestant states
as the duchy of Wuertemburg. As a member of the Calvinist elite, Leisler was connected with such political and
intellectual figures of his day as Dutch artist Henri Couturier, the pro-Orangist Rotterdam group of English
exiles, which included Gilbert Burnet, Charles Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury, and Charles Mordaunt, earl of
Monmouth, as well as with the New England Divines Cotton and Increase Mather.
In the New World, Leisler catapulted to fame in 1689 when, in the wake of England's Glorious Revolution, he
assumed the role of King William III's governor of New York. He thereupon implemented a program based on
direct popular representation that had, as contemporaries noted, wide impact from the Chesapeake to New
England. The following year he called for and hosted English America's first intercolonial congress and organized
the first intercolonial military action independent of British authority. Leisler's administration of New York split
the province into two distinct camps that were closely aligned with the Regent and Orangist factions in the
United Provinces and the Whig and Tory factions in England, the legacy of which, according to some historians,
is America's unique two-party system. Other historians see in Leisler's assumption of the New York
government a forerunner of the American Revolution.
Christopher Dock
1698 - 1771
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Christopher Dock was a Mennonite educator. He immigrated to the United States by 1714, becoming a teacher
at Skippack in Montgomery County by 1718. After teaching for ten years, he turned primarily to farming, and
bought 100 acres in Salford Township in 1735. Three years later, he returned to teaching and continued as a
schoolmaster until his death late in 1771, when he failed to return home from the Skippack school. He was
found there on his knees, where it had been his habit to pray for his students.
He wrote, in German, the earliest known teaching methods text in the U.S.: Schul-Ordnung (School
Management), a book on general pedagogy. The book was completed on August 8, 1750,[1] but was not published
until 1769.[2] It was written through the efforts of Christopher Saur of Germantown, a printer whose son was a
student of Mr. Dock’s. He was so impressed with Dock’s teaching style, which was becoming well known, that he
asked him to write a guide so that others who taught children could benefit as well.
The Christopher Dock Mennonite High School, in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, is named for him.
Dock was a practioner of fraktur, the Pennsylvania Dutch folk art named after the fraktur typeface.
Christopher Dock gave his students little illustrations of a bird or a flower, as well as "Vorschrift" (a writing
lesson) as a reward.
Methods:
Contrary to the harsh methods common in some colonial schools, Dock preferred to use gentler techniques. He
sought to build character in his students, using persuasion, discussion, and positive peer pressure to encourage
the highest standards of behavior among them. He disciplined poor behavior and attitudes with thoughtfulness
and understanding, seeking to make the punishment suitable to the student as well as to the infraction being
addressed.
References:
“Christopher Dock.” American Eras, Volume 3:The Revolutionary Era, 1754-1783. Gale Research, 1998.
Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.:Gale, 2008 Document Number: K2438000307
“Christopher Dock.” Dictionary of American Biography Base Set. American Council of Learned Societies, 1928-
1936. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.:Gale, 2008
Further reading:
Christopher Dock, Colonial Schoolmaster: The Biography and Writings of Christopher Dock by Gerald C.
Studer. 1967.
Reissued by Herald Press, 1993. ISBN 0-8361-3644-6
Skippack School: Being the Story of Eli Shrawder and of one Christopher Dock, Schoolmaster about the year
1750 by Marguerite de Angeli. 1939. Illustrated children's book, ages 9-12.
Reissued by Mennonite Publishing, 1999. ISBN 978-0836191240
"The Gift is Small the Love is Great" by Frederick S. Weiser.
John Peter Zenger
Freedom of the Press
By Doug Linder (2001)
No country values free expression more highly than does the United States, and no case in American history
stands as a greater landmark on the road to protection for freedom of the press than the trial of a German
immigrant printer named John Peter Zenger. On August 5, 1735, twelve New York jurors, inspired by the
eloquence of the best lawyer of the period, Andrew Hamilton, ignored the instructions of the Governor's hand-
picked judges and returned a verdict of "Not Guilty" on the charge of publishing "seditious libels." The Zenger
trial is a remarkable story of a divided Colony, the beginnings of a free press, and the stubborn independence of
American jurors.
Background:
The man generally perceived to be the villain of the Zenger affair, William Cosby, arrived in New York on
August 7, 1731 to assume his post as Governor for New York Province. Cosby quickly developed a reputation as
"a rogue governor." It is almost impossible to find a positive adjective among the many used by historians to
describe the new governor : "spiteful," "greedy," "jealous," "quick-tempered," "dull," "unlettered," and
"haughty" are a sample of those that have been applied.
Within a year after arriving on American shores, Cosby embroiled himself in a controversy that would lead to
Zenger's trial and ultimate acquittal. The man with whom Cosby chose to pick his first fight, Rip Van Dam, was
the seventy-one-year-old highly respected senior member of the New York provincial council. Cosby demanded
that Van Dam turn over half of the salary he had earned while serving as acting governor of New York during
the year between Cosby's appointment and his arrival in the colony. The hard-headed Van Dam agreed--
providing that Cosby would split with him half of the perquisites he earned during the same time period. By Van
Dam's calculations, Cosby would actually owe him money--over £4000.
Governor Cosby responded in August 1732 by filing suit for his share of Van Dam's salary. Knowing that he had
no chance of prevailing in his case if the decision were left to a jury, Cosby designated the provincial Supreme
Court to sit as a "Court of Exchequer" (without a jury) to hear his suit. Van Dam refused to roll over, and had
his lawyers challenge the legality of Cosby's attempt to do an end-run of the colony's established jury system.
The decision on the legality of Cosby's creation of the new court fell to the three members of the Supreme Court
itself, and in April 1733 it voted 2 to 1 to uphold Cosby's action. Cosby wrote a letter to the dissenting judge,
Chief Justice Lewis Morris, demanding that he explain his vote. Morris did so, but to Cosby's great displeasure,
his explanation appeared not in a private letter to the Governor, but in a pamphlet printed by John Peter Zenger.
Cosby "went ballistic," removing Morris as Chief Justice and replacing him with a staunch royalist, James
Delancey.
Cosby's action of firing Morris intensified the growing opposition to his administration among some of the most
powerful people in the colony. Rip Van Dam, Lewis Morris, and an energetic attorney named James Alexander
organized what came to be known as the Popular Party, a political organization that would constitute a serious
challenge to Cosby's ability to govern.
Cosby attempted to maintain his grip on power by employing Francis Harison--a man called by historians Cosby's
"flatterer-in-chief" and "hatchetman"--to become censor and effective editor of the only established New York
newspaper, the New York Gazette. Harison defended Cosby both in prose and strained verse, such as this poem
that appeared the Gazette's January 7, 1734 issue:
Cosby the mild, the happy, good and great,
The strongest guard of our little state;
Let malcontents in crabbed language write,
And the D...h H....s belch, tho' they cannot bite.
He unconcerned will let the wretches roar,
And govern just, as others did before.
James Alexander, often described as the "mastermind" of the opposition, decided to take the unprecedented
step of founding an independent political newspaper. Alexander approached John Peter Zenger who, along with
William Bradford, the Gazette's printer, was one of only two printers in the colony, with the idea of publishing a
weekly newspaper to be called the New York Weekly Journal. Zenger, who had made a modest living the past
six years printing mainly religious tracts, agreed. In a letter to an old friend, Alexander revealed the Journal's
mission: "Inclosed is also the first of a newspaper designed to be continued weekly, chiefly to expose him
[Cosby] and those ridiculous flatteries with which Mr. Harison loads our other newspaper which our Governor
claims and has the privilege of suffering nothing to be in but what he and Mr. Harison approve of."
On November 5, 1733, Zenger published the first issue of the Weekly Journal. The issue included a detailed
account of the victory the previous week of Lewis Morris as Popular Party candidate for assemblyman from
Westchester. Morris won the election despite the best efforts of Cosby to rig the election against him by having
the sheriff disqualify Quaker voters (expected to be heavily pro-Morris) on the ground that the Quakers only
"affirmed" rather than swore the oath required at the time of all voters. The election story, almost certainly
written by Alexander, included this description of the sheriff's intervention:
[T]he sheriff was deaf to all that could be alleged on that [the Quaker] side; and notwithstanding that he was
told by both the late Chief Justice and James Alexander, one of His Majesty's Council and counsellor-at-law, and
by one William Smith, counsellor-at-law, that such a procedure [disqualifying the Quakers for affirming rather
than swearing] was contrary to law and a violent attempt upon the liberties of the people, he still persisted in
refusing the said Quakers to vote....
No doubt to the surprise and disappointment of Cosby, Morris won the election even without the Quakers'
votes. The Journal story told of Morris's election being celebrated with "a general fire of guns" from a
merchant vessel and "loud acclamations of the people as he walked the streets, conducted to the Black Horse
Tavern, where a handsome entertainment was prepared for him."
Subsequent issues of the Journal, in addition to editorializing about other dubious actions of the Governor,
contained ringing defenses of the right to publish, authored by Alexander, such as this offered in the second
issue:
The loss of liberty in general would soon follow the suppression of the liberty of the press; for it is an essential
branch of liberty, so perhaps it is the best preservative of the whole. Even a restraint of the press would have a
fatal influence. No nation ancient or modern has ever lost the liberty of freely speaking, writing or publishing
their sentiments, but forthwith lost their liberty in general and became slaves.
Cosby put up with the Journal's attacks for two months before deciding that it must be shut down. The first
effort to silence the Journal occurred in January 1734 when Chief Justice Delancey asked a Grand Jury to
return indictments based on the law of seditious libel. The Grand Jury, however, refused. Delancey tried again
when the next Grand Jury met in October. He presented the grand jurors with broadsides and "scandalous"
verse from Zenger's Journal, but the jurors, claiming that the authorship of the allegedly libelous material could
not be determined, again refused to return indictment.
Cosby responded to these frustrations by proclaiming a reward of fifty pounds for the discovery of the authors of
the libels and by issuing an order that Zenger's newspapers be publicly burned by "the common hangman."
Then, in an effort to get around the Grand Jury's refusal to indict, Cosby ordered his attorney general, Richard
Bradley, to file "an information" before Justices Delancey and Philipse. Based on the information, the Justices
issued a bench warrant for the arrest of John Peter Zenger. On November 17, 1734, the sheriff arrested Zenger
and took him to New York's Old City Jail, where Zenger would stay for the next eight months.
The Weekly Journal was not published the next day, November 18. It would be the only issue missed in its
publishing history. The next week, with the help of Zenger's wife, Anna, the Journal resumed publication with
an issue that included this "apology":
As you last week were disappointed of my Journal, I think it incumbent on me to publish my apology, which is
this. On the Lord's Day, the seventeenth, I was arrested, taken and imprisoned in the common jail of this City
by virtue of a warrant from the Governor, the honorable Francis Harison, and others in the Council (of which,
God willing, you will have a copy); whereupon I was put under such restraint that I had not the liberty of pen,
ink or paper, or to see or speak with people, until my complaint to the honorable Chief Justice at my appearing
before him upon my habeas corpus on the Wednesday following. He discountenanced that proceeding, and
therefore I have had since that time the liberty of speaking thro' the hole of the door to my wife and servants.
By which I doubt not you will think me sufficiently excused for not sending my last week's Journal, and hope for
the future, by the liberty of speaking to my servants thro' the hole of the door of my prison, to entertain you
with my weekly Journal as formerly.
The enormous bail of £800 set for Zenger turned into an important tactical advantage for the imprisoned
printer. As a result of his stream of "letters" from prison, an outpouring of public sympathy for his cause
developed.
The Trial
Zenger's defense would fall to sixty-year-old Andrew Hamilton of Philadelphia, perhaps the ablest and most
eloquent attorney in the colonies--though that was not the initial plan. James Alexander and William Smith
initially undertook Zenger's defense, but both were disbarred in April 1735 by Chief Justice Delancey when they
audaciously objected to the two-man court (consisting of Justice Delancey and Philipse) Cosby had hand-picked
to try Zenger's case.
Jury selection began on July 29, 1735, and once again Cosby attempted to influence events by having his
henchman, Francis Harison, produce a roll of potential jurors that included forty-eight nonfreeholders, men
presumed to be sympathetic to the Governor, including former magistrates and persons in Cosby's employ. This
departure from normal procedures was too much even for Cosby's handpicked judges who, sitting behind an
ornate bench in their scarlet robes and huge white wigs, rejected the ruse. Twelve jurors were quickly selected.
The trial opened on August 4 on the main floor of New York's City Hall with Attorney General Bradley's reading
of the information filed against Zenger. Bradley told jurors that Zenger, "being a seditious person and a
frequent printer and publisher of false news and seditious libels" had "wickedly and maliciously" devised to
"traduce, scandalize, and vilify" Governor Cosby and his ministers. Bradley said that "Libeling has always been
discouraged as a thing that tends to create differences among men, ill blood among the people, and oftentimes
great bloodshed between the party libeling and the party libeled."
After a brief statement from John Chambers, Zenger's court-appointed attorney, Andrew Hamilton rose to
announce that his client--sitting in an enclosed box in the courtroom--would not contest having printed and
published the allegedly libelous materials contained in the Weekly Journal and that "therefore I shall save Mr.
Attorney the trouble of examining his witnesses to that point."
Following Hamilton's surprise announcement, the prosecution's three witnesses (Zenger's journeyman associate
and two of his sons) were sent home, and there was a long silence. Finally, Bradley spoke: "As Mr. Hamilton
has confessed the printing and publishing of these libels, I think the Jury must find a verdict for the king. For
supposing they were true, the law says that are not the less libelous for that. Nay, indeed the law says their
being true is an aggravation of the crime." Bradley proceeded to offer a detailed and generally accurate account
of the state of law on seditious libel of the time, supporting his conclusion that the truth of a libel is no defense.
Andrew Hamilton rose to argue that the law ought not to be interpreted to prohibit "the just complaints of a
number of men who suffer under a bad administration." He suggested that the Zenger case was of transcendent
importance:
From what Mr. Attorney has just now said, to wit, that this prosecution was directed by the Governor and the
Council, and from the extraordinary appearance of people of all conditions, which I observe in Court upon this
occasion, I have reason to think that those in the administration have by this prosecution something more in
view, and that the people believe they have a good deal more at stake, than I apprehended. Therefore, as it is
become my duty to be both plain and particular in this cause, I beg leave to bespeak the patience of the Court.
Hamilton argued that the libel law of England ought not to be the libel law of New York: In England so great a
regard and reverence is had to the judges that if any man strikes another in Westminster Hall while the judges
are sitting, he shall lose his right hand and forfeit his land and goods for so doing. Although the judges here
claim all the powers and authorities within this government that a Court of King's Bench has in England, yet I
believe Mr. Attorney will scarcely say that such a punishment could be legally inflicted on a man for committing
such an offense in the presence of the judges sitting in any court within the Province of New York. The reason
is obvious. A quarrel or riot in New York can not possibly be attended with those dangerous consequences that it
might in Westminster Hall; nor, I hope, will it be alleged that any misbehavior to a governor in The Plantations
will, or ought to be, judged of or punished as a like undutifulness would be to our sovereign. From all of which, I
hope Mr. Attorney will not think it proper to apply his law cases, to support the cause of his governor, which
have only been judged where the king's safety or honor was concerned....Numberless are the instances of this
kind that might be given to show that what is good law at one time and in one place is not so at another time and
in another place.
His arguments might have been well-received by jurors, but Hamilton had almost no law to support his position
that the truth should be a defense to the charge of libel. Not surprisingly, Chief Justice Delancey ruled that
Hamilton could not present evidence of the truth of the statements contained in Zenger's Journal. "The law is
clear that you cannot justify a libel," Delancey announced. "The jury may find that Zenger printed and
published those papers, and leave to the Court to judge whether they are libelous."
In response to Delancey's ruling, Hamilton revealed the true nature of the defense strategy--jury nullification:
I know, may it please Your Honor, the jury may do so. But I do likewise know that they may do otherwise. I
know that they have the right beyond all dispute to determine both the law and the fact; and where they do not
doubt of the law, they ought to do so. Leaving it to judgment of the court whether the words are libelous or not
in effect renders juries useless (to say no worse) in many cases. But this I shall have occasion to speak to by
and by.
Hamilton's lengthy summation to the jury still stands as an eloquent defense not just of a German-born printer,
but of a free press:
It is natural, it is a privilege, I will go farther, it is a right, which all free men claim, that they are entitled to
complain when they are hurt. They have a right publicly to remonstrate against the abuses of power in the
strongest terms, to put their neighbors upon their guard against the craft or open violence of men in authority,
and to assert with courage the sense they have of the blessings of liberty, the value they put upon it, and their
resolution at all hazards to preserve it as one of the greatest blessings heaven can bestow....
The loss of liberty, to a generous mind, is worse than death. And yet we know that there have been those in all
ages who for the sake of preferment, or some imaginary honor, have freely lent a helping hand to oppress, nay
to destroy, their country.... This is what every man who values freedom ought to consider. He should act by
judgment and not by affection or self-interest; for where those prevail, no ties of either country or kindred are
regarded; as upon the other hand, the man who loves his country prefers its liberty to all other considerations,
well knowing that without liberty life is a misery....
Power may justly be compared to a great river. While kept within its due bounds it is both beautiful and useful.
But when it overflows its banks, it is then too impetuous to be stemmed; it bears down all before it, and brings
destruction and desolation wherever it comes. If, then, this is the nature of power, let us at least do our duty,
and like wise men who value freedom use our utmost care to support liberty, the only bulwark against lawless
power, which in all ages has sacrificed to its wild lust and boundless ambition the blood of the best men that ever
lived....
I hope to be pardoned, Sir, for my zeal upon this occasion....While we pay all due obedience to men in authority
we ought at the same time to be upon our guard against power wherever we apprehend that it may affect
ourselves or our fellow subjects....
You see that I labor under the weight of many years, and am bowed down with great infirmities of body. Yet, old
and weak as I am, I should think it my duty, if required, to go to the utmost part of the land where my services
could be of any use in assisting to quench the flame of prosecutions upon informations, set on foot by the
government to deprive a people of the right of remonstrating and complaining, too, of the arbitrary attempts of
men in power....
But to conclude: The question before the Court and you, Gentlemen of the jury, is not of small or private
concern. It is not the cause of one poor printer, nor of New York alone, which you are now trying. No! It may
in its consequence affect every free man that lives under a British government on the main of America. It is
the best cause. It is the cause of liberty. And I make no doubt but your upright conduct this day will not only
entitle you to the love and esteem of your fellow citizens, but every man who prefers freedom to a life of slavery
will bless and honor you as men who have baffled the attempt of tyranny, and by an impartial and uncorrupt
verdict have laid a noble foundation for securing to ourselves, our posterity, and our neighbors, that to which
nature and the laws of our country have given us a right to liberty of both exposing and opposing arbitrary power
(in these parts of the world at least) by speaking and writing truth.
Chief Justice Delancey seemed unsure how to react to Hamilton's eloquence. He instructed the jury that its
duty under the law was clear. There were no facts for it to decide, and it was not to judge the law. Delancey all
but ordered the jury to return a verdict of "Guilty":
The great pains Mr. Hamilton has taken to show how little regard juries are to pay to the opinion of judges, and
his insisting so much upon the conduct of some judges in trials of this kind, is done no doubt with a design that
you should take but very little notice of what I might say upon this occasion. I shall therefore only observe to
you that as the facts or words in the information are confessed, the only thing that can come in question before
you is whether the words as set forth in the information make a libel. And that is a matter of law, no doubt, and
which you may leave to the Court.
The jury withdrew to deliberate. A short time later, it returned. The clerk of the court asked the jury foreman,
Thomas Hunt, to state the verdict of the jury. "Not guilty," Hunt answered. There followed "three huzzas" and
"shouts of joy" from the crowd of spectators in the courtroom. Chief Justice Delancey demanded order, even
threatening spectators with arrest and imprisonment, but the celebration continued unabated. Defeated,
Delancey "left the courtroom to the jubilant crowd."
Trial Aftermath:
Anti-administration supporters hosted a congratulatory dinner for Andrew Hamilton at the Black Horse Tavern.
The next day, on the start of his return trip to Philadelphia, a "grand salute of cannon was fired in his honor."
The Zenger trial established no new law with respect to seditious libel, but in unmistakable terms it signaled the
public's opposition to such prosecutions. Concern about likely jury nullification discouraged prosecutions, and
press freedom in America began to blossom. A half-century after the Zenger trial, as members of the First
Congress debated the proposed Bill of Rights, one of the Constitution's principal drafters and great-grandson of
Lewis Morris, Gouvernor Morris, would write of the Zenger case: "The trial of Zenger in 1735 was the germ of
American freedom, the morning star of that liberty which subsequently revolutionized America."
Caspar Wistar
1761 - 1818
M.B. 1782
Professor of Chemistry 1789
Adjunct Professor of Anatomy, Mid-Wifery, & Surgery 1791-1808
Professor of Anatomy 1808-1818
Trustee 1789-1791
Physician
President of the American Philosophical Society
President of the Society for the Abolition of Slavery
Caspar Wistar was born in Philadelphia, the son of Sarah Wyatt and Richard Wistar, a Quaker and a glass
manufacturer. His early education was at the Friends School at Fourth and Walnut Streets. At age sixteen he
volunteered as a nurse at the Battle of Germantown, where he was inspired by
the horrors he saw there to study medicine.
That same year, 1777, Wistar began his three years of medical studies under
the renowned Dr. John Redman, studying during the last year also with
John Jones, a New York physician who had fled to Philadelphia. In 1779
Wistar matriculated in the medical department of the University of the State
of Pennsylvania (now the University of Pennsylvania), where he earned his
Bachelor of Medicine degree in 1782. His medical education was completed
during a three year tour of study in England and Scotland, receiving the
Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Edinburgh in 1786.
Upon his return to Philadelphia in 1787, Wistar soon established a large
private practice. That year he was also elected to the College of Physicians and
was appointed a physician to the Philadelphia Dispensary; in 1793 he joined
the staff of Pennsylvania Hospital. During the yellow fever epidemic of 1793,
Wistar joined Benjamin Rush's efforts to treat patients. Wistar successfully
recovered from his own bout with the fever, but afterward the friendship
between the two doctors ended when Wistar criticized Rush's drastic use of bleeding and purging as a treatment.
His first wife, Isabella Marshall died two years after their 1788 wedding. In 1798, Mifflin married Elizabeth
Mifflin, the niece of Governor Thomas Mifflin; they had three children.
For over thirty years from 1788 until his death, Mifflin was a member of the Penn faculty. He was a professor of
chemistry in the Medical Department of the College of Philadelphia from 1788 until the 1791 union of the
College with the University of the State of Pennsylvania to form the University of Pennsylvania. At that time
Wistar became adjunct professor of anatomy, midwifery and surgery. After William Shippen's death in 1808,
Wistar took over as professor of anatomy. Wistar was a popular teacher, enlivened by large models and drawings
so that the many students could follow his lectures. He was also the author of a two-volume anatomy textbook.
Outside the college, Wistar was a member and President of both the American Philosophical Society and the
Society for the Abolition of Slavery. He was also involved with the Pennsylvania Prison Society, the Humane
Society and the Society for Circulating the Benefit of Vaccination. Politically, Wistar was a Jeffersonian
Democrat rather than a Federalist, but he refused, despite the urgings of Philadelphia Democrats, to run for
office.
Wistar was a trustee of the College of Philadelphia (now the University of Pennsylvania) from 1789-1791. After
the formation of the University of Pennsylvania, Wistar served only as a faculty member, not as a trustee. At
Penn his name lives on in the Wistar Institute, which was founded by Wistar's great-nephew Isaac Jones Wistar
in 1892 from Wistar's private collection of anatomical specimens.
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REFERENCES
Matriculates, Alumni Record, University of Pennsylvania 1740-1900
Christopher Sauer
Christopher Sower House Site
5300 Germantown Avenue
Trinity Lutheran Church now stands on the site of Christopher Sower's printing
establishment. Sower is remembered as the printer of America's first German Bible
in 1743. (The first Bible printed in America was in an Indian language. The first
English-language Bible followed 40 years later.)
"As Printing Types are now made to a considerable degree of perfection by an
ingenious Artist in Germantown; it is recommended to the Printers to use such
Types in preference to any which may be hereafter imported."
–Pennsylvania Gazette
February 1, 1775
Sower is also known for priting the first German newspaper in America. Sower the
elder died on September 25, 1758, and Christopher Sower II, continued his father's
business and printed two more versions of the Bible in 1763 and 1776. He became a
Bishop of the Dunker Church, but continued his printing business up to the
Revolution. In 1772 or 1773 he cast the first type of American manufacture.
During the British occupation of Philadelphia, Sower printed an English newspaper
for them. After the British withdrew he refused to take the oath of allegiance to the State. As a result, he was
termed a collaborator and his property and goods were confiscated and sold. He died a ruined man. His house was
replaced by the church house attached to Trinity Lutheran Church in 1860. The business, Christopher Sower and
Co. was carried on afterwards by generations of the Sower family.
German-American History - Continued on German-American History 7
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John Peter Zenger's
Trial in England for "Seditious Libels"
Zenger was the Father of "Freedom of the Press"
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German-American Achievements will be
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