Page:Mennonite Handbook of Information 1925.djvu/58



The great forward movement of German emigration to America by way of the sea-ports of Philadelphia and New York, the story of such as landed at the latter place has long been very meager in the details, until we have the account related by Rudolph Cronau. It is related by him that all emigrants who took ship for New York were Palatinates from the Rhine valley, and that among them were people of different religious faith including, as is subsequently shown, numbers of whom were Mennonites who, after enduring great distress and privation in New York, a remnant finally joined company with their brethren in settlements in Pennsylvania. The following extracts written by Cronau and published in 1901 at Boppard am Rhine by Otto Maisel, are here presented in an English translation made by Dr. John W. Wayland in 1907 while at the University of Virginia:

"It was in the spring of 1709 that the Rhine became the theater of one of the most extraordinary events. All floating craft in the shape of rafts, skiffs, boats, and other vessels went gliding down the beautiful stream, all laden with unfortunate people who with their bundles, boxes, and chests were carrying with them the few things they still possessed. These emigrants took ship in Holland, passed over from there to England, where they tarried at London, to obtain from the English government a passage to North America.

"Here there were soon assembled from 13,000 to 14,000