The Conquest of the Old Southwest | Page 8

of the Shenandoah Valley sloping to
the north was almost entirely settled by Germans."
It was about the middle of the century that these pioneers of the Old
Southwest, the shrewd, industrious, and thrifty Pennsylvania Germans
(who came to be generally called "Pennsylvania Dutch" from the
incorrect translation of Pennsylvanische Deutsche), began to pour into
the piedmont region of North Carolina. In the autumn, after the harvest
was in, these ambitious Pennsylvania pioneers would pack up their
belongings in wagons and on beasts of burden and head for the

southwest, trekking down in the manner of the Boers of South Africa.
This movement into the fertile valley lands of the Yadkin and the
Catawba continued unabated throughout the entire third quarter of the
century. Owing to their unfamiliarity with the English language and the
solidarity of their instincts, the German settlers at first had little share
in government. But they devotedly played their part in the defense of
the exposed settlements and often bore the brunt of Indian attack.
The bravery and hardihood displayed by the itinerant missionaries sent
out by the Pennsylvania Synod under the direction of Count Zinzendorf
(1742-8), and by the Moravian Church (1748-53), are mirrored in the
numerous diaries, written in German, happily preserved to posterity in
religious archives of Pennsylvania and North Carolina. These simple,
earnest crusaders, animated by pure and unselfish motives, would visit
on a single tour of a thousand miles the principal German settlements in
Maryland and Virginia (including the present West Virginia).
Sometimes they would make an extended circuit through North
Carolina, South Carolina, and even Georgia, everywhere bearing
witness to the truth of the gospel and seeking to carry the most
elemental forms of the Christian religion, preaching and prayer, to the
primitive frontiersmen marooned along the outer fringe of white
settlements. These arduous journeys in the cause of piety place this
type of pioneer of the Old Southwest in alleviating contrast to the often
relentless and bloodthirsty figure of the rude borderer.
Noteworthy among these pious pilgrimages is the Virginia journey of
Brothers Leonhard Schnell and John Brandmuller (October 12 to
December 12, 1749). At the last outpost of civilization, the scattered
settlements in Bath and Alleghany counties, these courageous
missionaries--feasting the while solely on bear meat, for there was no
bread--encountered conditions of almost primitive savagery, of which
they give this graphic picture: "Then we came to a house, where we had
to lie on bear skins around the fire like the rest . . . . The clothes of the
people consist of deer skins, their food of Johnny cakes, deer and bear
meat. A kind of white people are found here, who live like savages.
Hunting is their chief occupation." Into the valley of the Yadkin in
December, 1752, came Bishop Spangenberg and a party of Moravians,
accompanied by a surveyor and two guides, for the purpose of locating
the one hundred thousand acres of land which had been offered them

on easy terms the preceding year by Lord Granville. This journey was
remarkable as an illustration of sacrifices willingly made and extreme
hardships uncomplainingly endured for the sake of the Moravian
brotherhood. In the back country of North Carolina near the Mulberry
Fields they found the whole woods full of Cherokee Indians engaged in
hunting. A beautiful site for the projected settlement met their delighted
gaze at this place; but they soon learned to their regret that it had
already been "taken up" by Daniel Boone's future father-in-law,
Morgan Bryan.
On October 8, 1753, a party of twelve single men headed by the Rev.
Bernhard Adam Grube, set out from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, to trek
down to the new-found haven in the Carolina hinterland--"a corner
which the Lord has reserved for the Brethren"--in Anson County.
Following for the most part the great highway extending from
Philadelphia to the Yadkin, over which passed the great throng
sweeping into the back country of North Carolina--through the Valley
of Virginia and past Robert Luhny's mill on the James River--they
encountered many hardships along the way. Because of their "long
wagon," they had much difficulty in crossing one steep mountain; and
of this experience Brother Grube, with a touch of modest pride,
observes: "People had told us that this hill was most dangerous, and
that we would scarcely be able to cross it, for Morgan Bryan, the first
to travel this way, had to take the wheels off his wagon and carry it
piecemeal to the top, and had been three months on the journey from
the Shanidore [Shenandoah] to the Etkin [Yadkin]."
These men were the highest type of the pioneers of the Old Southwest,
inspired with the instinct of homemakers in a land where, if idle rumor
were to be credited, "the people lived like wild men never hearing of