Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / Oct. 26, 1929, edition 1 / Page 4
Part of Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
Four THE DAILY TAR HEEL Saturday, October 26, 1923 Dr. Collier Cobb Describes Migration Of The Palatines (By Dr. Collier Cobb) Each one of us is an omnibus on which all his ancestors ride; and the direction we take and the speed we make depends on which forefather is driving. The hold that heredity has on . us, stated in the first clause of the sentence, must bring, us pause, and thought when we con sider the second clause. Which ancestor is driving us? A principle known as Men del's Law, governing the inheri tance of many characters in plants and animals, was dis covered by Gregor J. Mendel, an Austrian abbot, about the time that Qharles Darwin was mak ing his studies of .plants and animals under domestication. As a result of his breeding experi ments with peas he showed that height, color, and other charac ters depend on the presence of determining factors behaving as units and that the second and later generations exhibit these characteristics in all possible combinations, each combination in a different proportion of in dividuals. Power of Environment But this law does afford a chance at saving grace to every one; for even among the great from whom many in this socie ty are descended, men whose Mr. Hyde was as much in evi dence at the start as their Dr. Jekyl, there have come un broken lines of high-minded men and women. We are all what we are large ly because we are where we are. This is a very definite statement of the influence of environment. Many human geographers and and sociologists today are dis posed to see environmental con trol rather than the influence of environment, following not far off the thesis of Henry Thomas Buckle in his "History of Civilization in England," a book that created as much dis cussion and as much opposition as "The Origin of Species," which appeared at about the same time. But it will not do to hold altogether with these peo ple, or with their next of kin, the Ibehaviorists. Where Man Came From The Palatinate was a name ap plied to two little countries of the old German Empire, the Up per Palatinate and the Lower or Rhonish Palatinate, which were politically connected until 1620. The Palatinate was origi nally a feudal district whose ruler, the Count Palatine, a prince of the Holy Roman Em pire, exercised all the preroga tives of a king. These Counts Palatine were so paternal in their government, that their people rather than subjects took pride in calling themselves the Palatines. The Lower Palatinate (Unter pfalz), was made up of territory on both sides of the Rhine, em braced roughly, within the space marked off by the cities of Mainz, Worms, Heilbronn, Lan dau, and Zweibrucken. It in cluded the Electoral Palatinate with Heidelberg, and for a time Mannheim, as its capital; the Principality of Simmern, the Duchy of Zweibrucken Deux ponts), the Principali ties of Veldenz and Lautern, and some others. Its capital was Heidelberg. First Count Palatine The first Count Palatine of the Rhine was Henmann I., who ruled from 945 until 996, and al though the office was not hereditary it appears to have been held mainly by his descen dants until the death of Count Hermann III., in 1155. In 1155 the German king, Frederick I., appointed his -step-brother Con rad as Count Palatine. In 1214, on the death of the reigning count, the Palatine was given by the German king Frederick II. to Otto, the infant son of Louis L, duke of Bavaria. The Pala tinate was ruled by Louis of Bavaria on behalf of his son un til 1228, when it passed to Otto who ruled until his deth in 1253. When the possessions of the, house of Wittelsbach were di vided in 1255 and the branches of Bavaria and the Palatinate were founded, dispute arose over the exercise of the electoral vote, and the question was not settled until in 1356 the Golden Bull bestowed the privilege up on the Count Palatine of t he Rhine, who exercised it until 1623. The Palatinate was di vided into four parts among the sons of the German king Rupert in 1410, but in 1559, on the ex tinction of the senior line, Fred erick, Count Palatine of Sim mern, succeeded to the Palati nate, becoming the elector Frederick III. Introducing Frederick III. This Frederick HI., was the elector, who introduced Calvin ism in the Palatinate and made it the established religion. Un der his direction the Heidel berg Catechism was drawn up (1563). He also aided the French Huguenots and extended his protection to Protestant refugees of every sect, especial ly to the Protestants of France. He was often called by his ad mirers the Alfred the Great of the Palatinate. Under his kind ly rule Lutherans, Presbyterians and Anabaptists flourished, not withstanding severe Calvanism which was the theology of the established or Reformed Church. During the wars of Louis XIV. the. Palatinate, one of the rich est ana most lertiie lands m Germany, was mercilessly de vastated by the French armies in 1674 and 1689. In 1685 the Simmern line died out and was succeeded by the collateral line of Neuburg, whose members were, of the Catholic faith. This led to the emigration in 1709-10, of a large number of Protestant inhabitants (estimated at 13,- 000) to England. These went at the special invitation of Queen Anne, who was seeking desirable subjects to train in British ways and later send to her colonies in America. In England these people from the Palatinate were pitiable objects of English charity and at the same time creators of serious discontent among the English poor; for bread was scarce and commanding double price, while these foreigners were supported by public collections and by the Queen. It is not surprising that they are so often spoken of as "the poor Palatines." How They Migrated In England these people lived in tents from the early summer of 1709 until they sailed in mild weather in January, 1710. From there a large body crossed over to Ireland, while others went to North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Virginia., In 1710 between 3000 and 4000 Palatines, as they were called, settled in Columbia and Ulster counties, New York, whence many removed to Mont gomery and Herkimer counties, to the region around Worcester, Massachusetts, and to Pennsyl vania. For. more than a century these good people continued to come to the United States, and a colony of Palatines settled in New Jersey as late as 1850, finding there some who had come a hundred years earlier. Baron Christopher de Graf fenreidt and Ludwig Michel, who had been attracted to North Carolina by their previous as sociation with the now , de ceased Duke of Albemarle, found these "poor Palatines" in England "yitermingled with Swiss and people front several of the German provinces!" "He and Mitchell," Dr. Vass tells us, were looiong ior a profitable speculation, and ready to grap ple with this problem for a con sideration. It was understood that "the Queen would not only assume the expense of their transportation, but also bestow upon them considerable assis tance.. This really took place; and this last sum amounted to 14,000 pounds sterling I - "Other advantageous prom ises gilded the enterprise. Be tween DeGraffenreid . and the Lords Proprietors was drawn up an elaborate contract, which still exists. His pay was five and a half pounds apiece for six hundred and fity Palatines trans ported to North Carolina more than $18,000. Liberal provi sion was made for their comfort on arrival, and for their support for a year in their new homes. . . . . Young people, healthy and laborious, and of all kinds of oc cupations, were selected, and ample provision was made for their comfortable voyage in well equipped ships. De Graffenreid appointed three" directors, notables from North Carolina, then in London, one of whom seems to have been Lawson, the surveyor-general; for he could not himself sail with them, as he had to await his colonists from Bern." In the group then were French Protestants from Gui enne and from Gascony, a few French Swiss, and .German Swiss, and Germans from be yond the Palatinate. One of these young Germans was'a son of August Hermann Francke, professor of Oriental languages changed to to professorship of theology in 1698 at Halle, a pupil of Spener and the teach er of Zinzondorf. 'Professor Francke was a pietist preacher, whose activity, however, took the practical direction of found ing, endowing, and organizing schools for the religious train v 70) atr ADVEITE It m ilinie r L ing of -the poor and neglected children of his city and its sur rounding country. Taught Them Practical Things Nor did Francke overlook their more material needs of a practical sort. He set up a print ing office for his boys, and open ed an apothecary's shop. He had them instructed in the na tural sciences and in their na tive language. He gave them systematic " physical exercises, - 1 1 .1 1 . . . - . ana naa tnem instructed in manual trades. All his founda tions exist at the present time, and several thousand pupils an nually receive, instruction in the buildings grouped around the Francke Platz in Halle. A bronze statue of the founder a- dorns the center of the square. The pietist preacher had been in correspondence with Cotton Mather about the chance his son Johann already a man might have to make a man of himself in New England; and Hans was now in London ready to sail for Boston. But fate decreed other wise. Hans saw among the poor Palatines a beautiful girl named Sevil Muller; and New Bern, rather than Boston, became the destination of John Martin Francke,- and Sevil Muller was his destiny. Sevil Muller was the daughter of Jacob and Katherine Muller, who came with their children to New Bern from the Palatinate in 1710. Francke had with him his sur veying instruments, and he brought along many small wares that he thought might, be use ful to colonists. He went up one bank of the Trent river and down the other, starting out with his surveyor's compass on his shoulder and his peddler's pack on his back. He returned to New Bern in less than two years, with' a fine estate called Little Germany not far from the head of .the river, with land on both sides of the Trent, and Is An Unusual BECAUSE eaches AH Chapel EVERY oeise Our Advertisers Bar sully with his pockets full of ready money. He was almost imme diately elected a member of the General Assembly of 1712, and he returned to New Bern as a justice of the peace. His sons took wives from the best that the colony afforded; and his wife's brothers, the Muller-Ja-cob, John, and Philip have also an honorable part in building up this and other states. Where Descendants Are Found Descendants of de Graf f on- reidt and of Michel are found throughout our broad land, num bering among them many of the old Huguenot and other French Protestant families. Many French Protestants who fled to the Netherlands after wards found their way to our country. At Old Mankin in King Wil liam County, Virginia, were three hundred families with Claude Phillipe de Richbourgh as their pastor. He afterwards led many of the mto New Bern, and later to a South Caro lina home, meeting there a stream of good men and women who had come direct from the French Holland settlement in 1686. These and many other French colonists in America, as well as other German colonists, are often mistakenly called Palatines. In the middle of the XVIII century, however, many people from the Palatinate moved on down through Virginia and into Piedmont North Carolina ; and their descendants are today the leaders in everything worth while in the up-country of both Carolinas. Gaston. Lincoln. Ca tawba, Caldwell, Cabarrus, Cleveland, Rowan, also in Guil ford, Alamance and Randolph practically all of our piedmont counties are the better for their presence. .They are scat tered over South Carolina, par ticularly in the northwest, and MEDIM DAY a number of the people 0f Charleston and Savannah have kindred from the Palatinate, French Protestants from Guj. enne and Gascony. DR. DABNEY RESEARCH DOING WORK HERE Dr. Charles W. Dabney, for. merly president of the Univer sity of Tennessee and later presi dent of the University of Cin cinnati and at one time a pro. fessor of chemistry here, is spending some time in Chapel Hill doing historical research work in the .University library. Dr. Dabney has an enviable record as a scientist and edu cator. In addition to having served as president of two uni versities, he has served as state chemist, as a director of the United States agriculture experi ment station, and is said to have been instrumental in the writing of the charter for what is now State college. EYES CORRECTLY FITTED W. B. SORRELL J)orit Experiment . With yoafAppeormce Pritchard-Patterson Incorporated Hil """""" Me! r 1
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Oct. 26, 1929, edition 1
4
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75