Life in Mid-Eighteenth Century Pennsylvania

By John T. Humphrey

Page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Travel Presented Obstacles

Usually newly arrived settlers made their journey to Lancaster, Berks, Northampton, and York counties on foot, and the trip took several days.  Immigrants leaving Philadelphia would have set out on one of the three roads leaving the city.  As the traveler left Philadelphia, he or she would have seen barns with some frequency.  But, once the sojourner reached upper Bucks, Montgomery, or Berks Counties, the distance between farmsteads would have grown considerably.  In an early journal entry Muhlenberg noted, “When one travels on the roads, one constantly travels in bush or forest.  Occasionally, there is a house and several miles down the road there is another house.” [31]

Rivers and streams set up serious obstacles to travel.  In more settled areas boats or canoes could be found along most rivers and some streams, but once a traveler entered the forest, there were no ferries.  For the sojourner traveling on foot, a horseman or boatman passing by might be persuaded to carry him to the other side.  If not, the traveler’s only alternative was to swim. Accounts in several journals kept by Moravian missionaries noted that they did swim streams both in the warm and cold weather months.  On a trip in November, 1743, Leonard Schnell and Robert Hussey, “…lost their way several times and had to cross several rivers, through one of which, the Nottway, they had to swim, as there was no one at hand to take them across in a boat.” [32]

In the mid-eighteenth-century much of southeastern Pennsylvania was still forested.  Muhlenberg noted, “ The settlements here are totally surrounded by forests.” [33]  The forest caused sounds to echo and re-echo.  One of Muhlenberg’s colleagues, an Anglican minister, noted in a report sent to England that, “the whole country is one continuous woods!” [34]  The Anglican missionary complained bitterly about it.  He told his superiors in London he could not send a proper report, as he had no idea how many people were members of his congregation.  He had no way of counting them because they all lived in the woods;  when he went out to find them, he generally got lost. [35]

Water was the single most important factor that determined where immigrants settled.  Most settlers wanted an accessible water supply.  Studies of land sales from the Penn family to first-time purchasers reveal that tracts of land along rivers, streams, and feeder creeks sold first.  Land between streams was sold later. [36] They needed water for domestic and farm use, such as irrigating the meadow.  Faced with the task of building a shelter and clearing the land of trees, settlers did not want to dig a well too!

Foreigners traveling through Pennsylvania noted this pattern of settlement.  Johan David Schoepf commented in 1783, “…farmsteads were irregular in their appearance, they were frequently set far back from the roads and most often adjacent to a spring or stream.” [37] 

One method used by settlers to find productive land was to follow a creek or stream, which in effect became the path that led them where they wanted to locate.  A speculator searching for land wrote, “…the soil appears to be wholly made up of decayed leaves and wood.  Once cleared, this land yields perhaps the finest crop in the first year.” [38] In the first years after clearing the land, many early farmers produced forty to forty-five bushels of wheat per acre. This handsome bounty enabled them to pay for their land and the expense of improvements within a relatively short period of time. [39] Mittelberger noted, “The land is not really dear.  One takes up two-hundred acres, promised to pay by installments in ten years and instead clears off the debt in five years.” [40]

Temporary Shelter Came First

Building a temporary shelter was the first task settlers faced after they found and purchased new land. Perhaps it did not have a chimney or a door.  A blanket might have been used to cover the entrance.  One example is described without windows—light entered where the smoke exited. [41]

Life in such a primitive cabin proved difficult at best.  There was no way to keep out a cold, raw winter wind or a driving rain.  Muhlenberg noted that during the first years of his pastorate, “…he preached in barns and transparent [meaning drafty] wooden churches.  The poor assembled from miles around.  They were cold and wet and wore poor thin clothes.” [42]

Problems with nature were not limited to the wind and rain.  One Moravian minister, while reading in his cabin, looked up to see a snake crawling up through the floorboards.  The snake then slithered along the floor and went back under the boards. [43] In another account, “Snakes have frequently crept into houses and even into the beds of people who lived in the woods so that the people lay on them in the night til the snakes grow restless…” [44]

After building temporary shelter, work commenced on erecting a more permanent cabin and clearing the land of trees.  In general, Germans approached the task of clearing the land in a manner different than the British.  Germans did not girdle or strip the trees of bark and leave them to die in place, which was the custom of the English and Irish.  Germans tended to cut the trees down, burn what they could not use, and then dig out the roots.  By destroying the tree and by grubbing the roots, the field was fit for cultivation.  The farmer could plow and harrow the field; he did not have to spend years working around dead trees and stumps; he did not take the risk of dead branches falling from trees and destroying valuable crops.  He avoided the risk of breaking or damaging his plow with roots still embedded in the soil. [45]

Clearing the land was a burdensome task, but it was approached with fervor.  Settlers developed a dislike for trees and for the forests that perpetually surrounded them.  One early traveler shared those sentiments as he wrote in his travel journal, “Reaching a settlement is like a feast for an inexperienced traveler—to see sun shine on some open grounds, to view clear fields.  You seem to be relieved from that secret uneasiness and involuntary apprehension which is always in the woods.” [46]

Next Page > Tax Lists Show Land Usage > Page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7