My situation and connections in America in the year 1824 and up to spring 1825.

My situation as schoolteacher and organist in Richmond parish as well as the condition of my school in winter 1822 and 1823 I told in detail in the fifth chapter of this writing. In order to seek a better fortune I started a journey in spring 1823 which, however, I did not complete, but went back again from the city of Gettysburg whereto I had come, which is told in detail in the sixth and seventh chapters. I made more trips afterward with the same intention; since I had almost the same experiences on these, however, I have passed over them in silence. Indeed I often found the opportunity to buy a small piece of land and to live completely free and independent; but alway there arose considerations that again held me back from it. Especially, however, I was hindered from undertaking something for myself alone through letters from my fatherland, through which the cheerful news was brought to me that many persons were determined to follow after me who would undergird my favored plan to found a colony and to bring it to completion, and for that reason decided, if the congregation itself would not terminate my services, to remain living there and to continue this service up to spring of 1824. The congregation said nothing to me and I started my school instruction again in late fall of 1823. The school was increased only through several grown-ups and I did not have any school child longer than two months at the most, then I again got new pupils; thus it went again the whole winter through. At Christmas a schoolteacher came to me who had heard that I wanted to leave my term of service in the next spring and asked me whether this was founded and upon my "yes" he applied with the congregation to be schoolmaster. He was a native Swabian who had already been a schoolteacher in his fatherland. The people, however, had first asked questions about his way of life and when they found out that he was a strong brandy drinker, they all preferred to keep me on as their schoolmaster rather than risk choosing another. Thereupon the members of the church council gathered together in my house, asked me first whether I had really decided to terminate my service and told me therewith that they all wished rather to retain me because I was an honest man and no drunkard; they reminded me that I could indeed live even if the school was not as strong as it had previously been, etc. But the written assurance in many letters that a whole colony of persons from my fatherland would appear with certainty next spring let me stick with my intention. Twice again the persons named came to me with the goal of talking me into remaining their schoolteacher there and gave me what I never expected, even good words, and pleaded with me to continue my office longer still and I would well have done this if I had stayed there still another year. But how could I know or believe that the people in my fatherland who sent me such firm and binding assurances of fulfilling my fervent wishes would not keep their holy promise? Anyone else in my position would indeed have done likewise. I really did not want to obligate myself for a year so that upon the arrival of my countrymen the next summer I would be in a position to travel farther west with them at once in order to settle there; nor did I doubt their arrival in the least. For that reason I took leave of my service which had become so very disgusting to me anyway, rented a house and garden for an unspecified time to which I moved the next spring, thinking to live there until the arrival of my countrymen, and planted the garden, did field work and also many other tasks. My wife, however, who had already earlier spun for several American women and had made herself very popular through this because no one could spin yarn as fine as she, had enough to do with her spinning.

Then I waited with pain for the arrival of my countrymen, but in vain; the whole summer also went by without getting a letter from the fatherland. More than ten times I went to the post office in Kutztown to ask whether a letter had not arrived for me; but in vain. Finally though a letter arrived which I opened with trembling. A friend and colleague wrote me that my hope for a group from the fatherland was in vain, for the people were entirely too changeable; first they had assured faithfully and truly that all of them, firmly decided on emigrating, would leave with certainty and then all of a sudden they thought differently again and could not break from their loved ones, etc.

There I stood as though struck by lightning, as can easily be conceived; for all my plans were gone awry all of a sudden and my sweetest hope, to still become fortunate in America, was all at once extinguished. Up to that time the hope of betterment soon forthcoming helped me to bear the harshest fate with composure, but when this hope was lost also I was really most unfortunate and I sat for quite awhile as though turned to stone without first reading the letter entirely. Finally I read further that a relative of mine had given my friend the assignment to write to me that if I wanted to come back to my fatherland again, he would take up for me and in case I had no means of finding an occupation he could and would give me and my wife bread our life long and keep us. Also this friend thought that if I came back again, which he advised me to do, then I would most certainly be employed as a schoolteacher again. Then I sprang up from my chair and said to my wife the words: "Do you know what? We're going to Germany again!" She became frightened, started to complain and to sigh that I could get something like that into my head; asked whether I had forgotten how much the journey to America had cost us and that indeed the little money that we still had would scarcely be half sufficient to cover the travel costs. In that she was right, for if the second trip would cost as much as the first I would have to give up the hope of ever seeing my fatherland again for the time being, but I also knew that the half of the costs would be sufficient for it and wrote a letter to an acquaintance in Philadelphia in order to ask about a ship leaving for Hamburg or Bremen without telling my wife who would not have approved of it, whereupon the report came that on a certain day a ship would leave for Hamburg with which I could travel very cheaply; but I got the letter with this report too late so that I could not make use of it. Upon the most urgent pleading of my wife I then had to honor her wishes to try even further to see whether I could find the opportunity to stay in America and support myself there; but I did not want to become a schoolteacher again, for which I found opportunity enough; but my means were too little to buy a small piece of land in addition to a small house; but then so many considerations got in the way again that I also could not decide in favor of that. The chief consideration was always this: I had the insight that I, so separate among the Americans, without having a countryman with me with whom I could share myself, would never be happy again in my life, and so this too could not be.

Finally I decided to become house teacher with the Jew often mentioned in chapter five whose children I had previously instructed to his greatest satisfaction and who pleaded unceasingly and urgently with me to do so; this occupation I then carried out in the winter months of 1824 and 1825. For my wife I took up another house where she lived with human companionship during my absence.

Since during that winter also no opportunity occurred to improve my situation according to my wishes and I was once and for all firmly determined, if God would extend my life and keep me healthy, not to remain separate for long anymore among those people, I had no rest until I got my wife inclined to some degree to make our departure from there. Nothing went harder for me than this. I quieted her somewhat with this, that perhaps in Philadelphia opportunity could yet arise for our further stay in America where she had liked it very much when, after our landing there, we spent several weeks in this city. Then, without first being concerned about booking passage on a ship, I determined a day on which I let the things which I did not want to take along be sold at public sale to the highest bidder, hired a driver to Philadelphia and on May 16,1825 departed from the Moselem congregation in Richmond parish in Berks County.

From Pastor Miller in the town of Oley I had requested a certification of my conduct of office and my moral behavior and he also gladly promised me such; but at the determined day I had not been able to come to him and wanted then, at this opportunity when I was passing by his house with the wagon, to pick up this certification and at the same time give him my last farewell, but unfortunately I did not get there when he was at home. It was really a misfortune for me, which I did not indeed consider it in America, but in my fatherland had to feel it so much the harder.

On our journey of 64 English miles from Moselem to Philadelphia nothing of note happened than that already mentioned and that our driver, a young twenty-year-old chap was almost constantly drunk. He had hired himself out in addition to his five dollars pay, which I gladly paid him because it was extremely cheap, for yet free meals and as much brandy and cider as he wanted to drink. He drank little cider, but so much the more brandy. The brandy cost me nothing because I had a big stone jug holding a gallon with me on the wagon filled with this drink which a farmer there who owned a brandy distillery gave to me and I allowed him to help himself to the jug as often as he wanted to. However, he did this too often unfortunately, so that for most of the time I had to drive myself and also hitch, unhitch and feed the horse because he had rendered himself totally incapable of doing this. But disregarding this, our trip went quickly and after two good days' journey we arrived safely in Philadelphia where we took quarters with our old innkeeper Schröder, North Third Street.

Source: Edited by Bryan Wright