What Did Patriotism Look Like for Mennonites in 1776? - Romaine Stauffer

When they immigrated and came to Philadelphia, they went into what is now Independence Hall and had to sign allegiance to the king. So now they're being asked to break this promise and be loyal to this new government. To break a promise was a serious sin, so what are they going to do? Who is their rightful—who's their Caesar?

Romaine Stauffer, welcome to the podcast today. Thank you for having me. So I've known about your work, but I actually haven't read much of what you've written until recently. And you've written—we were just talking before we turned the cameras on—you've written 17 books, which I didn't realize you'd written that many, which is amazing. But this one in particular, we want to talk about the stories here. And this is called "Loyalty Test" and some of the Mennonite experience in the Revolutionary War here in America, and what all went into that story, how it affected our people, some of the characters that were involved in that. And, yeah, we want to get into that story today.

So could you lay maybe some context for—for the Revolutionary War—how it affected our communities? Maybe we can start big picture and then go from there. Our Anabaptist perspective of the Revolutionary War is a lot different than what we were taught in our textbooks in school. The history of the United States has been romanticized and fictionalized to portray the nation as founded on Christian principles and the Founding Fathers as men of God who released—freed us from oppression.

The Declaration of Independence mentions God, but it says that government gets its authority from the people who have the right to change it. And we believe government gets its authority from God.

And there are, I said, about history being fictionalized. Two examples of that are George Washington kneeling in the snow to pray at Valley Forge. Oh, yes, I've heard this story. Okay, yeah. And Patrick Henry's famous statement, "Give me liberty or give me death." Both of those, there is—they were conceived many years after the fact. Patrick Henry didn't say that then? As far as we— There's no proof for it. I didn't know that. Someone wrote up his speech. I don't remember how many years later, but it was years later. Somebody wrote up his speech. Did he actually say that or not? We can't prove that he did.

Okay. I didn't—I didn't realize. I've heard that so many times, you know. There's been a lot of debate whether he actually said that or not. We aren't sure. And the one—the very famous image of George Washington kneeling in the snow and praying at Valley Forge, that—there's just no proof that ever happened as well. No, somebody did a painting of that. Well, yeah. Yeah, exactly. I've seen the painting. And then we have the story.

Okay. Well, that's—okay. That's interesting. And another myth is that the sentiment for independence was overwhelming in the colonies. The patriots were actually a highly—a highly motivated and organized minority that put the pressure on the unorganized, silent majority that was satisfied with the status quo.

Do we have rough numbers of how that would have been? When you say minority, we mean like a tiny, tiny minority, or like 48% kind of minority? If you know what I mean. One-third. One-third. Yeah. That is not what I got from the textbooks in school. You know what I mean? Yeah. You know, when you read the history, it's like, okay, one-third.

So when I wrote "Loyalty Test," that is an attempt to reveal at least a measure of what our Anabaptist ancestors experienced. It was a time when their faith was really tested.

And especially in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania had the largest Peace Church population in the colonies. Now, when I say Peace Churches, that is Quakers, Mennonites, Amish, Brethren, Moravians, and a few smaller sects like the Schwenkfelders and the Seventh-day Baptists. The Moravians, that's an area that's today what? In the Czech Republic, right? Or that was called Moravia at the time. So it was people from there that had come over. Yeah, yeah. Same with the Quakers, I guess. And the Moravians had settlements in Bethlehem, Lidice, and a few other places. Okay.

They were not Anabaptists. They did infant baptism, but they did believe in non-resistance. So when I say Peace Churches, not all of them were Anabaptists, but they all shared the same belief in non-resistance.

Non-resistance is not a word you'll find in the Bible, but it comes from the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus said, "Resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. If any man will sue thee at the law and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you."

So non-resistance—resist not evil—that's where we get the word non-resistance. It's not only an objection to being in the military, but it is a lifestyle of peace. And love, not force, is the way to conquer enemies. And that is still true today.

Violence begets violence, and love changes hearts. So Peace Churches comprised about a quarter of the population of Pennsylvania. Oh. That's—well, that's—is that the highest it's ever been in history? Or that seems like a lot. Well, I wouldn't know. Population has increased since then, so I'm not sure what number to give today.

But at that time, it was about a quarter of the population of Pennsylvania. Now, Pennsylvania wasn't settled the whole way east to west. It was—the majority was east of the Susquehanna River. But still, like a quarter, that seems—that's definitely higher than I would have expected it to be. I'm sure that caused some issues in the—during the war and— Oh, yeah. Yeah. And some people, of course, a lot of them were Germans. And Benjamin Franklin was worried about how many Germans are coming.

Oh, no.

He was afraid the Germans might take over. Called them Palatine Boers.

Okay. But Pennsylvania was a very hospitable place for Anabaptists. William Penn's frame of government, 1682, promised freedom of religion to all. And his government ruled without a militia and accepted the affirmation instead of the oath, which was two things that really fit with the Anabaptist beliefs.

And so that would have just naturally attracted anybody, say, fleeing from Europe, any of the Mennonites, Amish, whatever, they would have naturally wanted to come to Pennsylvania. In that case. He actually had gone to some Mennonites and invited them—personally invited them—to come and urged them to come.

One of the reasons he left Europe was because the Quakers were persecuted there. And he understood what persecution is for the Anabaptists. And so, "Come to my colony, and you will have freedom of religion." Ah. That makes a lot of sense.

I didn't really know that. He called it his holy experiment. That we can—we can have a government, a peaceful government that doesn't need a militia.

And of course, the Quakers were—did not believe in swearing oaths either. So it was a very good place for the Anabaptists to settle. And they were happy with the Quakers in government. Everything was going well for them. But eventually, the Quakers lost control.

The other Presbyterians and others overruled them, and they got voted out. And so the Quakers lost control in 1775, and then after that, things headed toward war pretty quickly. Oh, that's—boy, that's like right up to the—right before the Declaration of Independence, right before the war. I didn't realize that. So the Quakers would have been governing authority, the government, the—okay, for those—well, the entire colony of Pennsylvania. I guess now it's a state, but. From the late 1600s when William Penn came until 1775. Oh, wow. So almost 100 years then. Yeah.

And so then there's your question: what was life like for the Anabaptists during the Revolutionary War? How did it affect—how did it affect their lives, the lives of the Peace Churches? And they tried to remain neutral, but how did that work out? And a lot of what I will say is taken from that book. It affected Mennonites in other parts of Pennsylvania, but most of what I will say is from Lancaster County, because that's the part that I have studied and know. But what happened to them in Lancaster County happened in other counties as well.

Well, can you give us a bit of the timeline, I guess you could say, leading up to this? I feel like I'm a little fuzzy on the details surrounding the Revolutionary War. Like, what were the grievances, and then how did the Mennonites respond to those? Where the colonies are saying, "There's all these issues, and we want to break away from England." And, you know, I don't know how much detail you want to say there, but kind of the build-up to get us to the point of war. And then, again, what did the Mennonites think of those grievances? I guess—I don't know if that's the right word to use. Yeah, whatever you'd like to say on that.

I don't have a lot of details. You know, everybody heard about the Boston Tea Party and that kind of thing. What I would say is the Revolutionary War was stirred up in the New England states, and it was rooted in a long rebellion against English—against England.

And the Welsh and the Scotch-Arish people carried with them across the ocean. The Welsh had never gotten independence from England and resented that. And the Irish, you know, they had problems too with England.

And at least a third of the signers of the Declaration of Independence had Welsh ancestry. The Welsh were the first to come to Pennsylvania and establish a colony.

They came and established a colony that they wanted to rule themselves—be within Pennsylvania, but rule it themselves. And they lost that as people came, and it grew. They lost that. And at least a third of the signers of the Declaration of Independence had Welsh ancestry, including Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. Oh, I didn't realize that.

Okay. And the British hired Hessians to fight in the war. Hessians. So where—where would those be from? They were from Germany. Germany was not united into a country at that time. The part of Germany that was called Hess.

So Germans were great fighters. And so they hired Hessians to fight. And a Hessian captain wrote this in 1778: "Call this war by whatever name you may, only call it not an American rebellion. It is nothing more or less than a Scotch-Arish Presbyterian rebellion."

That's a—that puts a different spin on it. We don't really hear that. Yeah. But the Presbyterians pushed the Quakers out and took control. And that's back to that 1775, right? Where the Quakers are no longer in charge of the—I'm sure that's way oversimplified—but in charge of the government in the colony of Pennsylvania. It's a Presbyterian group, or something. However you want to describe it. Well, they weren't all Presbyterians.

Some of them were not professing Christians, really. Oh. Would they be like deists, some of them? Yes. Is that the word? Yeah. Some of them. Thomas Jefferson was a deist. Ben Franklin as well? Yeah. And—okay. Yeah. And Unitarian.

Oh. Before we go on, can you define deist and Unitarian? I believe there is a God, but he's not really involved with us. And Unitarian didn't believe in the Trinity. Oh, so like Jesus isn't—isn't God, basically. Yeah. And Thomas Jefferson, it is said that he had his own version of the Bible, that he cut out everything that he didn't like, like miracles and things like that. Oh, boy. So, yeah. Yeah. But as far as what was happening affected the Peace Churches in Pennsylvania, things in Lexington, Concord, Boston, things that happened up there, the shot heard around the world, the Boston Tea Party, and so on.

That didn't affect the Peace Churches in Pennsylvania till 1775. The Continental Congress headquarters were in Philadelphia. The 13 colonies, their headquarters were in Philadelphia, and that's where the Continental Congress met. And then they formed a militia. They pushed the Quakers out. They said, "We cannot have a government without a military."

And so they formed a militia and appointed George Washington commander in chief. And then men were required to enlist. They were told, "This is your duty to God and the country. You need to enlist and help us fight this war." And then that became a personal matter for Anabaptists, non-resistant people. Up to this point, the Mennonites would have had to have been hearing about all the things that are happening, etc.

What was their position? Were they just like, "We're not involved"? We—like, this would have been complicated, because then, like, who's the governing authority then? You know, because they're supposed to be part of the British Empire, essentially, but yet now there's a rebellion that's trying to leave that. So do they get stuck in the middle somewhere? Well, up until 1775, that's up in New England, they're having problems. It doesn't affect us. That's far away. And they heard about it, but they weren't concerned, because that's people in New England fighting.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But then, when it came to, "Now you need to enlist," then it was a personal matter for them. That was their problem. When they immigrated, they had—when they immigrated and came to Philadelphia, they went into what is now Independence Hall and had to sign allegiance to the king.

Okay. And when they were naturalized, they had to promise allegiance to the king. So now they're being asked to break this promise and be loyal to this new government. To break a promise was a serious sin. So what are they going to do? Who is their rightful—who's their Caesar?

Yeah. I mean, what did they do then? Well, that was the problem. Yeah. How do they decide what they're going to do? And other problems were, should they pay a war tax? This tax was imposed by a self-appointed rebellious government. And should they—like, what did they do? Like, specifically on the war attacks, for example.

Well, that caused a lot of debate. They did pay a lot of taxes.

They, of course, were not going to register with the military and fight. And so those who did not register or drill were harassed by those that did. And they accused the Anabaptists of being cowards and staying home to fill their pockets—stay on their farms to fill their pockets.

And so in July of that year, the Committee for Public Safety posted—put up broadsides, which we would call posters, telling people that those with religious grouples need to voluntarily contribute generously, quote, "toward the necessary and unavoidable expenses of the public." Oh, boy.

I'm always thinking, is that the one—you have a picture of that—of that poster in here? Of that poster, yeah. I'm always thinking, you do. I saw that, and I was like, "Oh, this is like—can you imagine seeing this hanging up in your town or something?" I'm trying to find it here in the book, but I found—oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, here it is.

June 30, 1775. Or no, July—no, sorry, July 11, 1775. So what was the unavoidable expenses of the public?

See, it's vague. They're not really saying what this is going to be used for. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Christian Burkholder, my ancestor, he responded, and he gave—there's a list of those who contributed. He contributed 1 pound 2 shillings, which today would be about $200.

But he understood that this is going to be used for humanitarian purposes, not military. And his—I have a list where his name is at the top of the third page. How about that? It's a list of all the non-associators in Earl Township that's described as non-associators. So non-associators would say, "We're not taking sides." Was that a declaration of neutrality? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, okay. Let's—let's—let's take a look at the Christian Burkholder figure then. You're saying that's your ancestor. That's one of the key figures that you talk about in the book here. Yeah. He's the main character in the book.

Yeah. Yeah. So who was he? Also, if he was your ancestor, I'm curious, like, how many generations back would have that been?

Seven, maybe? I'm not sure.

Off the top of my head, I'm not sure. Yeah. That's interesting, though, because this is not—that makes it a little more real. That's not just, "Oh, here's some—somebody back there, back in the day, had to face this." This is someone in your—in your family. Both my parents were Burkholders.

Descended from Christian Burkholder. So I'm—when I'm writing this story, it's not, yeah, some vague figure. It's my ancestor. Yeah. This isn't a theoretical or—I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Tell me about Christian Burkholder. I'm sure there's a lot that could be said, but let's start with basically, you know, who was he? Where does he come into this story? Where did he live? And so forth. Well, "Loyalty Test" is a sequel to my earlier book, "Hidden Riches." And in "Hidden Riches," I tell how he was 9 years old when he came with his widowed mother and five siblings.

They came from Switzerland to Philadelphia October 1, 1754, and they settled in Lancaster County.

In "Hidden Riches," that book ends with him going to the effort of cloister and buying a copy of "The Martyr's Mirror." And then the first chapter of "Loyalty Test" overlaps with the last chapter of "Hidden Riches," starts again with him getting his martyr's mirror.

Okay. And we know when he bought that martyr's mirror then? Like, do we still have—yeah. 1761, he bought it. He wrote inside that he bought it in 1761, and he paid 1 pound 17 shillings for it, which would have been roughly 13 days' wages. 13 days' wages? That's a lot of money. And the book—oh, my. The book is preserved in the Buddy Creek Library at Ephrata. You said Muddy Creek Library? Mm-hmm. So you can go see this. Yes. Okay. So I just have to—this is in translation, because you wrote it in German script, right? So what you have here—let me just quick read this in the beginning of your book. This is what Christian writes in the beginning. "This martyr book belongs to me, Christian Burkholder, and I have bought it for my good and for the salvation of my soul in the year of Christ 1761."

And then it says, "It cost me 1 pound and 17 shillings." That's pretty neat, actually. You can go, like, right back to that event, in a way. Yes. And he also has—in the book, he has his family records. So you were able to use that to reconstruct a lot of the story, really. Who the—who his siblings were. That book had been lost, and then one day it came up on a public auction. Wow. And we didn't know the names of his sisters.

His sisters' names were not correct. And then with that family record in his martyr's mirror, we found the correct names of his sisters and one of them who she married. So he goes and buys this—again, it's the 13 days' wages. That's a lot of money. So that was expensive at the time. He would have been young then as well, 1761, right? Yes. But he buys it at the Ephrata Cloister. What is the Ephrata Cloister? Like, I'm driven by it. Like, I think even this time, when I'm here in Pennsylvania, I was going somewhere to meet someone for lunch or whatever, and I was like, "Oh, there's the Ephrata Cloister." No idea what it is. Yeah.

You know? And then now you're telling me it was there when he bought this in 1761. So it's an old place. Yes. It was established in 1732 by Conrad Biasol, who had been German Baptist, which today we call Brethren.

But he got ideas that you should keep Saturday as the Sabbath instead of Sunday, lived in celibacy, and a very strict lifestyle, asceticism. And they developed a very thriving, self-sufficient community. They had a farm, and a mill, and a print shop, and were quite prosperous, even in spite of the way they lived.

And then when Biasol died, Peter Miller took his place as the leader of this society. He was a university graduate from Germany. He was fluent in several languages. And the Mennonites, when they saw the French and Indian War coming, wanted to have—the martyr's mirror was printed in Dutch, and they wanted to have that in German for their people. And so they asked the Dutch to do a translation for them, but nothing happened.

So the Mennonites from the Franconi area went to Ephrata and asked Peter Miller if he would translate the martyr's mirror into German. And he knew, like I said, several languages, so he had the ability to do it. And so the brothers there at the cloister helped him. They made the paper, do the printing, and all that. And he did the translating. It took 3 years to translate and print that book.

And they printed 1,300 copies. And it was the largest book printed in the colonies.

So the town of Ephrata sort of grew up around the cloister. It was the wilderness when Biasol went there. But they developed a whole—eventually a whole town. And that's where Christian Burkholder went to buy his book. Christian was ordained as a minister at Groffdale in 1770, and then as bishop in 1780. He was 26 when he was ordained as a minister, and then later became the bishop. And he served as bishop during the Revolutionary War and was involved in the things, the issues of that time. They petitioned the government several times and things like that, until the war ended. And then after the war ended, in 1791, I think it was, he wrote a book called—he wrote it in German—"A Useful and Edifying Address to Youth."

And it was published in 1804, and it's still in print today in English and German. Whoa. 200 years later. Yeah. So you can still go read this. You can still buy it. Whoa. The German version is used by the old orders in their instructions for church membership. Really? So it's like, I don't know what you call, like, yeah, like the instruction class for—or I mean, like a membership in the membership process. Yeah.

He did it in a question-and-answer style. No way. 200 years, and it's still being used. So he was really a pretty influential—yes. I mean, in many ways. Well, yeah. I mean, even today then, still influential. Yeah. His legacy still lives.

So in this whole process—I mean, the Revolutionary War is starting to kick off, you know, a few years after he's ordained—there's this challenge between this upstart American experiment, I guess you could say, and their loyalty to the king, like to the crown. So they made a promise that this is the country that they—so there's tension there. So they're taking a position of neutrality. When I say they, I guess I'm thinking of the Mennonites because that's where we're going to be focusing on more so. What resulted from that, from them taking that position? Can you give us some tangibles there? Yeah. Well, one of the things they did, the peace churches met to discuss these war issues and what they should do, and should they even register as non-associators.

Okay. And so they—it was the Mennonites and the Brethren, or the German Baptists, got together to discuss this, and they decided it's okay to register as a non-associator because that is only stating our position, like we would register as a COO.

Oh, okay. So like. It's not taking a side. Like if the United States military system, and there's a draft, we're registering, but we're registering as a conscientious objector. Like, we're not going to—which is interesting. That's a whole nother topic. We just—we're going to be releasing an episode on the Mennonites during World War I and how they had to go through that process, because it was pretty complicated. And my great-grandfather went through that and actually still has his records of—he registered, but like, "I'm a non-combatant. I can't be a part of this," basically. But anyways. Yeah. So first of all, they stated their position as a non-associator.

We're not taking either side. We're not patriot or loyalist. And at that meeting, Bishop Benjamin Hershey was the oldest bishop and the moderator of the whole group. And he wrote a short and sincere declaration that was signed by the Mennonites and the German Baptist elders. And they presented it to the assembly in Philadelphia in November. What year?

November of 1775. So really early on in the, I guess you could say, rebellion. This is—the war has started at this point, right? Yes. So they're stating their position that they are non-resistant. They said the petition said that they are willing to help anybody in need the way they had always done. Okay.

And then they said this: "We have dedicated ourselves to serve all men in everything that can be helpful to the preservation of men's lives, but we find no freedom in giving or doing or assisting in anything by which men's lives are destroyed or hurt."

Oh. You have this in the book. So this document is preserved somewhere. Do you know where it's even held? Like, where did you find this? I don't remember. I'm sure you can—I'm sure it's on the internet somewhere, but also it'd be interesting to know where the copy of this—yeah, wow. I think. This is really neat. I think the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society that is now called Mennonite Life, it's either there or in the Meridian archives at Lititz. Okay. I'm not sure.

You actually have in here the non-associators in Lancaster County. Just to reiterate who we're talking about, it was almost entirely of Mennonites Quakers, German Baptists, and members of other peace churches. So maybe there were a few other people who would have taken this position. But on the whole, it was these peace churches that we've been identifying, as you've been pointing out. Like, what was the response to this document? It's fairly lengthy, actually. I'm looking at this. It's a pretty big sheet of paper here.

They graciously received it. Okay. And responded by imposing a tax of 2 pounds 10 shillings on all non-associators between the ages of 16 and 50. Oh. That would have been something over $400. Now, all men between 16 and 50. So if a man had several sons in that age group, think what that cost.

And these are people that don't have a lot. I mean, there's this—still early days, they're still, you know, trying to get their farms set up, etc. Like, I guess. It would have been difficult to pay a fine like that.

In 1776, after the Declaration of Independence was signed in '76, then the Pennsylvania Convention said that all non-associators must be disarmed and their guns were seized. Now, they had only used them for hunting, but that was a quick way for them to get guns.

Oh. So they fine you. They take your gun. They take your gun, which, especially if you're in rugged, you know, backwood country or whatever, that would actually be kind of important to have, right? Well, yeah, because there were wild animals around that would come after your pigs or whatever.

Oh. Plus a rifle like that, I'm sure it cost a decent amount of money at the time. Oh, well, the Pennsylvania rifle was the one they liked the best. I don't know that much about guns. I can't describe it, but it was the one they liked the best. So there's pretty immediate consequences at the beginning of the war. Like, did this continue on through the duration of the war, or was it, "Okay, now that we got that out of the way, you're not associated with this," and they kind of leave you alone? It continued. Yeah. The next thing that happened, June of 1777, all males were ordered to enroll for duty, for military duty. And that's when the test oath was established.

Tell me about that. What is the test oath? Because that's a phrase that comes up as I'm reading through the book. Like, what was that? The test oath was renouncing allegiance to King George and swearing allegiance to the new government.

And they were told that they must swear this oath before a justice of the peace by August the 1st, 1777. There's where the real loyalty test came in. What are they going to do? They had promised to be loyal to the king when they immigrated or were naturalized.

And now, to take this oath, they're breaking their promise and swearing allegiance to a new government, which they could not do because they didn't swear oaths. That was the first thing wrong with it.

Jesus had said, "Swear not at all. Let your communication be yea, yea, nay, nay, for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil." In other words, Jesus said, "Your word is as good as your promise, and you don't need to swear an oath."

The second thing is, it would break a promise. It would break a commandment of Jesus. And the next thing is, it included a vow to report to the authorities all treasons or traitorous conspiracies, which I now know or hereafter shall know.

So in effect, it was they were promising that they would spy on their neighbors. Oh, I don't think that went over very well, probably. No. I mean, but like, what are the options? Like, if they say, "Sorry, we're just not doing that," I mean, what do they do? Like, fine you again or impose another tax or, you know? Well, those that refused to take the test oath, they were forbidden to hold public office, buy, sell, or transfer land.

And now, they didn't care so much about the public office, but they couldn't buy, sell, or transfer land. At least 10 Anabaptist men that we know of were jailed in Lancaster for refusing to take the test oath. Lancaster City, that would be today, right? Yeah.

And taxes were increased to 3 pounds 10 shillings. Instead of 2 pounds, it's 3 pounds. And those who refused to take the test oath were called non-jures and charged double taxes. So now we're up to 6 pounds. Had they already paid the original tax, like the year before, I think it is, they had imposed it? Oh, this is coming around every year. So this is the yearly tax that hits. Oh boy. But it started at like just over 1 pound, and now we're up to 6 pounds. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And how many sons do you have that need to pay? And also the land aspect would have been significant, right? Because these are—maybe they haven't lived here very long, they're immigrants, etc.

They're trying to establish, say, a farm. And now you can't buy any more land, so you're kind of stuck, or you can't transfer or sell it. Like, that's a huge hit for people that are agrarian. And that's one of the reasons they wanted to come so they could own land, because they couldn't own land in Europe.

And they wanted to be landowners. A lot of them bought big lots, like hundreds of acres, and then they would split it between their sons. Now you can't do that. Yeah. So yeah, they were getting hit different ways. And if they couldn't pay their taxes—I mean, these taxes are really high now—if they couldn't pay them, their crops, their animals, their wagons, things could be confiscated as payment for the taxes.

Isn't there—you had in here that Christian Burkholder's wagon, for example, gets taken because he can't pay the tax. So they come and just, "Well, we'll take this instead." Yeah. Right? I don't know. Do you want to say more on that? Well, I don't know that for a fact, that his wagon was actually taken, but that's the kind of thing that happened. You're using that as an example of—this is things that they faced, as you're telling the story. Yeah. And Patty McCulloch comes and gets his wagon. And Patty McCulloch is the antagonist in that story.

I used—he's a fictitious character, but I used him to show how those who did associate it felt about those who didn't and harassed them and, you know, took advantage of them wherever they could. So they have high taxes, their crops and animals and things could be taken as payment. And they were supposed to report for drills every so often.

And if they didn't report, if they didn't show up, then there were fines for that too. I'm curious on that one. Did they ever show up for drills just to avoid the fine, or was that part of their agreement as, "We're not associated, so we're not going to show up for that either"? That's a good question. It's the next thing I'm going to talk about. Okay. Yeah.

Julia Wiger did a study on the Lancaster County Militia Ledger titled Return of the Delinquents. And this lists the names of the men who did not attend when they were called up for military drills. Then the names were turned over to the sheriff, and he went around and collected the fines.

So this ledger—it's easy to spot who were the Mennonites by their surnames. And it shows the reason for not attending, whether they were excused or not, the amount of fine, whether it was paid or appealed. A few of the—it's interesting to look at their responses, their answers, why they didn't attend. It's really a variety of reasons why they didn't attend. There weren't a whole lot. You would expect that they would say, you know, it's their beliefs.

But there's not very many. There's some that said conscientious, scrupulous, against bearing arms, but that wasn't accepted as a valid reason. So they would be more likely to give another reason why they didn't show up for drill. Reasons that would be more likely to be excused. I have some here.

Some of the excuses—are reasons they gave why they didn't show up. This is really neat that we have access to records like this. Please do read some of those. Too much work. Wife about to lie in, that is, give birth.

It was seeding time.

A little lame. A rupture, which would be a hernia.

Can't see well. Sick.

Physical reasons were more likely to be accepted as excuses. Okay. Yeah. So sometimes they were excused, and then there would be no fine. So you would try to get excused if you can. But really, it was because they didn't want to be part of the military.

So there were a lot of people that were arrested, jailed for not participating. There was one little congregation in Lehigh County that all the men were imprisoned for refusing to take the test oath. Sorry, where was that? In Lehigh County.

All of them? How many? Do you know how many? A small congregation. Sure, but I don't have the exact number how many it was. How long would have they been jailed? Because that could be devastating for the congregation and for their farms, obviously, and so forth. Yeah. Well, I don't have—I don't have the facts for that, how long it was, but usually until they could pay the fine, whatever it was.

There were 11 families in Northumberland County that the men were arrested, and all their possessions were seized and sold. The women and children were left with nothing. I mean, where did they go? I mean, that would be devastating.

They had to depend on relatives and friends for help because all their household goods and everything was sold. And there were two women from those 11 men—two women that filed a petition asking the government for mercy, but it was tabled and nothing happened. So they were left to the mercy of their friends and relatives.

And in Burks County, there were Amish that were imprisoned for not taking the test oath. So it did happen quite a bit. This is still pretty early in the Revolutionary War. You said 1776 still. Is that the year we're in, or are we a little later? Or '77? I think '77. Okay.

It's about '76, '77. Yeah. There's still, what, five more years of this war that's going to happen yet. So like, that's how it affected them for being neutral, I guess you could say, or non-associated. Were there other effects? Like, the war didn't really end up in the Lancaster area that much. Did it? Did the Mennonites have direct interaction with the soldiers, with any of the conflicts, etc.?

Yeah. There were battles fought in Pennsylvania and not that far away. The headquarters was Philadelphia. The headquarters for the colonies was Philadelphia. Okay. The worst part was the winter of 1777 to '78. At that time, the British were in control of Philadelphia.

And anyone that went to Philadelphia—you know, Lancaster County isn't that far away from Philadelphia—so anybody that went to Philadelphia was suspected of aiding the British. And that's all you had to do. Go to Philadelphia and you could be arrested. And there were some that were.

Yeah. Wendell Bowman went to Philly to get some legal documents for his widowed mother and was arrested and jailed just because he went there to get legal papers. Oops. Wendell Bowman. Yeah. And the other problem was, because Philadelphia was cut off, Lancaster County farmers would take their crops to Philadelphia to sell. Their wheat and so forth.

Now they can't market their products. So what did they do? Like, that's a pretty big financial hit. Were there other markets they could sell to? Or also, you're saying the winter of '77 and '78 was significant. Is that the winter of Valley Forge? Yes. Okay. The famous, you know, history there of Valley Forge. Okay. So what was the market for their wheat? Well, it would have probably been the army. Well. Right?

Yeah. Washington's army was camped at Valley Forge, and they were starving. And so foragers would go out to farms in the surrounding area, take their crops, their animals. They're hungry and take those things for food. And in Lancaster County, farmers tried to—and I suppose the surrounding area—the farmers tried to hide their crops.

But, you know, threshing was done in the winter. They would take—they would take the harvested grain in the summer and take it into their barns and then thresh it in the winter with flails. Thresh it with flails. And so that winter, Washington issued an order that all farmers within a 70-mile radius of Valley Forge must have their grain threshed by a certain date in March.

And if it was not threshed, it would be taken and paid for a straw. So commissioners went out to buy the grain from the farmers. They didn't seize it. They bought it, and they gave them receipts that could be redeemed for continental currency, but it wasn't worth the paper it was printed on.

This would have been—basically, they're trying to—because, well, we're declaring independence, we're going to issue our own currency, but it wasn't just—it was more the idea of a currency?

And the continental currency—it developed the saying "not worth a continental." Oh. Oh, that's not good. That's not good. Because inflation was out of control. And the depreciation continued. I'm saying this—they were paying for this grain in the spring of '78, March of '78, but the depreciation continued until by 1780, continental money was only worth 1/40th of face value. Oh, that happened quick. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So they come and take the grain. They give you a receipt for it. Oh, you can go turn it in for this currency.

But— And the money's not worth anything. Oh, my. That's a bad deal. They couldn't sell it. And when they did give it to the—they basically gave it to the government. Oh, yeah. Because they can't sell it in Philadelphia like they used to. Because that's—oh. Oh boy. You are kind of stuck, though, at that point. So, but the grain was going to the army.

To make bread. Yeah. Right. So what did the Mennonites do with that? Was there resistance to that of, "Wait, this is material—supplying materials to the army, and we don't want to do—like, we can't do that"? Or were there times where maybe, "Well, we can't stop you from taking this grain"? Yeah. That was their attitude.

Okay. "I won't sell it to you, but if you take it, I can't do anything about it." We're non-resistant. Yeah. But there—the inflation kept running unchecked until it was so bad that they wouldn't even accept their own money as payment for taxes.

Then it had to be paid in coins. And then that continental currency went out of circulation. So it died out. The army was also in short supply of paper for—they needed paper to make cartridges. They needed that for gun wadding.

And so soldiers came to Christopher Tower's print shop in Germantown. He was a German Baptist man and had a print shop. And they came to his print shop and took all his German Bibles that he had printed. And then they went to the Ephratah Cloister and raided that and took 325 unbound copies of Martyrs' Mirror for gun wadding.

Tyrannic. The books that were printed to promote peace turned up being shredded and shot out of muskets in this war of rebellion. Ten years later, after the war was over, the government offered that lovers of the volume have the opportunity to buy it back. And so they did go and get 175 of those books. Most of them were damaged or incomplete, but they got them back. So those would have been ones that hadn't been turned into musket wadding, basically, or something. Well, most of them, pages were torn out. They were incomplete and damaged, but. And they had to pay to get them back? They had to pay to get them back. Oh, that kind of hurts.

But they did. They wanted them back. And there's one man, his name was John Van Gundy. He bought a complete copy and had it bound. And he wrote in there that he paid 60 cents for it and another dollar to have a leather cover put on it. So he bought a complete Martyrs' Mirror for $1.60.

If you want to buy one today, what do you think they cost? I don't know. What are they? $50? Something like that? Yeah. Yeah. Try well over $1,000, $2,000. Printed in 1748. Were you saying an original? Oh, my. Oh, I'm sure it's, yes. At least there can't be many of those left. Oh, no. Those are much more expensive. So did he note in there that it had been one of the copies that was confiscated? Yes. Where can we go see that? Is that preserved somewhere, that particular copy? I'm not sure where that is.

If it's at Muddy Creek or not. Yeah. The irony of that story is palpable. So it wasn't only the Mennonites that suffered for loyalty to God. There were, you know, the Quakers.

Israel Pemberton was the leader of the Quakers, and he and 20—yeah, 20 others—were arrested and exiled to Virginia for about eight months until they were finally released and let go home. Christopher Tower, the Germantown printer, he was arrested in 1778. And he was in prison for a couple of days and then released, but exiled from Germantown. He could not go back to Germantown, which accomplished their purpose, put him out of business. Wait, why did they arrest him? What was the charge? Because he was a non-associator, and he printed things that contradicted the patriots.

He was loyal Mennonites and Baptists. They were—they didn't—they walked a tightrope between the loyalist and the patriots, trying to stay neutral. But they leaned toward the British. Because that's who they had made the promise to when they came over. Yeah. That's who they had made the promise to. They didn't know if the colonies win this war. They didn't know what kind of government they were going to have.

Would they have freedom of religion like they did before? Or was there going to be some kind of a state church like they had in Europe? What will be the outcome of this war? They didn't know what's going to happen. And they were satisfied with the way they had it and would have liked to keep that. That's ironic.

Yeah. Because the story is today, you know, of course, oh, this horrible tyranny and the rebellion that had to happen, the war, so we can get, you know, freedom. And the early Mennonites are just seeing, huh? Like, they're not really tracking that, you know. But now we're 250 years removed. Kind of lose touch of some of that, I guess. Yeah. You know. When they arrested him and then exiled him or whatever, kicked him out of town, what happens to his print shop? Was that confiscated and becomes government property then?

I don't know if the government took it over, but it was shut down. Well, yeah. And then his son took over the business, but he went to New York. Okay. Eventually, the center of government shifted from Philadelphia to New York later on. But he went up there and continued the printing business up there. Yeah. As far as how they felt about it, there were—most of the Anabaptists favored English rule. There were a few that were leaned toward the loyalists.