Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/232

 filled with squat houses and a great church, where Herman Op den Graeff was born. He was a delegate to the Convention of Dordrecht in 1632 and the grandfather of the three brothers and sister who came to Germantown in 1683.

In Cologne we saw a remnant of the old Roman Wall, the great cathedral, the skulls of the eleven thousand virgins wrapped around with red velvet, the vase in which the water was turned into wine, and Dr. James Tyson, the noted Philadelphia physician. We are related in two ways, since he is a Pennypacker and I am a Tyson. We went up the Rhine by boat and every foot of the journey called up some early family association. At Worms we saw the stately mansion of Johann Pfannebecker, Geheimer Regierungs Rath, and Stadts Advokat, with its memorial tablet setting forth that there he had entertained the Emperor William. From there we drove across the Palatinate, whose well-tilled fields suggested Pennsylvania, though they were without barns and fences. At one place was posted a large advertisement informing the people that a negro was on exhibition and could be seen for ten cents. At the village of Oberflorsheim we stopped to water the horses and a healthy-looking, vigorous young fellow came across the road carrying a rake. I said to him:

“Was ist ihr nahm?”

“Mein nahme ist Pfannebecker,” was the rather surprising response.

“Und mein nahme ist Pannebecker auch.”

I continued: “Was ist ihr handel?”

“Ich bin ein Bauer,” he said.

“Ich bin ein Richter,” and we parted.

At Kriegsheim, the village from which came also many of the early settlers of Germantown, I endeavored to locate the place where Penn had preached and was referred to the wiseacre of the place, who was likewise the town-gauger. He could tell me nothing of Penn, but he was hospitable and he took me to the cellar where were kept the hogsheads of 218