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The spirit of its culture has not been a narrow one, nor could it be, if true to the broad and catholic principles of the eminent worthies who founded the State of Pennsylvania, Penn, Lloyd, Pastorius, Logan, and Story; men who were masters of the scientific knowledge and culture of their age, hospitable to all truth, and open to all light, and who in some instances anticipated the result of modern research and critical inquiry.

Before long he united with the Episcopalians and founded Christ Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, but returned to Germany in 1700. Daniel Falckner, who had emigrated with Koester, opposed the Quakers in Germantown. In his struggle against the mismanagement of Pastorius, Falckner, in 1708, fell a prey to intrigues.

However, it was at Germantown, at present a suburb of Philadelphia, that Germans broke ground for the first permanent German settlement in North America. A group of Mennonites, 33 persons, landed October 6, 1683. They were received by William Penn and Franz Daniel Pastorius, a young lawyer from Frankfort on the Main. In Germantown Gerhard Henkel preached before 1726, and St.

In 1688 there originated in Germantown a protest against Negro slavery that was "the first formal action ever taken against the barter in human flesh within the boundaries of the United States." Here a small company of Germans was assembled April 18, 1688, and there was drawn up a document signed by Garret Hendericks, Franz Daniel Pastorius, Dirck Op den Graeff, and Abraham Op den Graeff.

While they were building houses in Philadelphia, the settlers lived in bark huts or in caves dug in the river bank, as the early settlers in New Jersey across the river had lived. Pastorius, a learned German Quaker, who had come out with the English, placed over the door of his cave the motto, "Parva domus, sed amica bonis, procul este profani," which much amused Penn when he saw it.

Resemblances to Quaker doctrine can, however, be found among many of them; and there was one large sect, the Mennonites, who were often spoken of as German Quakers. The two divisions fraternized and preached in each other's meetings. The Mennonites were well educated as a class and Pastorius, their leader, was a ponderously learned German.

This is from our Meeting at Germantown held ye 18. of the 2. month 1688, to be delivered to the monthly meeting at Richard Warrel's. gerret hendericks derick op de graeff Francis Daniell Pastorius Abraham op Den graeff."

Michael's Church was begun 1730 and dedicated by the Swede J. Dylander in 1737. Pastorius had landed in America with several families on August 20 of the same year in advance of the Mennonite emigrants, in order to prepare for their arrival.

Germantown had been founded by Francis Daniel Pastorius in 1683, but it was not until forty years later, after the devastating wars of the Spanish Succession, that his countrymen occupied in force the neighboring counties of Lancaster, Montgomery, and Bucks, pushed up into Lehigh and Northampton, and across the Susquehanna into Cumberland and Adams.

Indeed, Pastorius, the first mayor of Germantown, was a rather moderate pietist from the circles of Spener, but, as stated above, with him and after him came Mennonites, Tunkers, Moravians, Gichtelians, Schwenkfeldians, disciples of the cobbler of Goerlitz, Jacob Boehme, and enthusiasts who as yet had no name.