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The Schwenkfelder Migration as told at the Day of Remembrance · Centrally Speaking

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Centrally speaking, is the central point of the church's podcast.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: It speaks about issues that would be of interest to our society.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: In particular, it addresses how a Christian worldview intersects with Western secular culture.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: In the spirit of the church's founder, we take the perspective of the middle way, which is in agreement with the historic Christian church.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Dr.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Drake Williams, Minister of Mission and Theology of the Church.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: Our website is www.cncfamily.org.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: The Schwingfelder's first came into existence in the 1500s.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: And they did so through the teaching of a man named Casper Schweinfeld von Ozig, who was originally a Roman Catholic, who then uh became enamored with uh the teachings of Martin Luther, but then chose uh a separate path from Luther, particularly when it came to the Eucharist.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: There are many, though, that had an affinity in Casper Schweinfeld's teaching, and they worshiped the Lord in the ways that Schweinfeld was promoting until about the 1700s.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: But it was about that time that the Jesuits started putting uh pressure on the Schweinfelders, so that the Schweinfelders left from Silesia and then moved on to Saxony to encounter a man named Count Ludwig von Zinzendorf and to the uh city of Hernhood.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then after a few years, the Schweinfelders moved on from Heronhood going through the Netherlands and then on to England, and from England to then many of the Schweinfelders migrated across the Atlantic and then reaching Pennsylvania.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: And there were several migrations.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: The largest party arrived on September the 22nd in 1734, with 171 Schwankelders on a ship called the St.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: Andrew.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: The Schwenkelders were led by Reverend George Weisen.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: And after they arrived in Pennsylvania, unfortunately, George Weisen lost his wife.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: But on that next day, on September 24th, 1734, just shortly after arriving on the 22nd, it was George Weisen that instituted the very first day of remembrance.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: A meal that uh includes bread and apple butter.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: And it's one that we as joined calendars have commemorated every single time since that time.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: And it is the longest continuous Thanksgiving observance in the United States, and it is open to all who wish to attend.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: At each of our day of remembrance services, there is some recounting of the migration.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: This migration story now will be told by my father as he recounts how the Schwankfelders came across the Atlantic on the St.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: Andrew, and trusts that you will enjoy the story as he tells it now.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: We talk about the Declaration of Independence.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: Most of you probably can tell us and wouldn't be happy to tell us maybe what you were doing on 9-11.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember when I was about three or four, that was during the Second World War, my mother was in the Grey Ladies, and I used to be with my grandmother, and she always promised me she would read me a book, a story, and from a book after I woke up.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I always asked for the same story.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_02: And if she were here, she would laugh and tell me she'd know what it was.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_02: It was called Jack the Giant Killer.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: And she didn't really need to read it to me because I knew the story.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: And the point is that we like to hear the same stories over and over again.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: Another reason this story is because it's special.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's about us, it's about real people, it's about our ancestors, our relatives.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: A third reason why it's important to do this, it reinforces and affirms our faith.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: And the fourth reason, it validates our ancestors' monumental effort to get over here.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: These bad things and good things actually happen.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's no myth.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's real life.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: It actually happened.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: Now, um, what I'd like you to do is now sit back, relax, why tell the story that you know, but don't close your eyes.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: That could be dangerous.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: Particularly those in Central who were very worn out after yesterday's successful affair.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: Well, let's start with Schwenkfeld.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: Schwenkfeld was born in 1489 in Silesia.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: Now I used to tell the story, and I used to think when I said Silesia, I know where every everybody knows where Silesia is.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: But I found out from being with an IC right here in the front row, somebody shaking their head, meaning she had the foggiest idea where Silesia is.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I found out from my grandkids that not everybody knows exactly where Silesia is.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking to you about that, but let me just say it's in Central Europe, if you know where Ukraine is, and you're more likely to know that because of what's going on over there.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: Well, if you go east maybe a few hundred miles, maybe even a thousand miles or whatever, you'll get to Silesia.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: Silesia is actually full of German people before, but it's now in Poland, it's mostly full of Polish people.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_02: Let's now talk about what Central Europe was like back in that time.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: Schwinkfeld died in 1561, and Central Europe was totally awakened by the Reformation.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: Europe and Germany, Germany was not made of a full-sized country, a complete country as we know it today, until 1871.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: So in the 1500s, 1600s, then 1700s, Germany was really made up of a thousand small countries, duchies, and city-states.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: They were most of them part of the Holy Roman Empire.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: Those of you who have had history will know your professors like to remind you that the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy nor Roman nor an empire.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: The area was affected by what had been going off the Reformation.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: There were lots of reformers, and we know, of course, some of them Luther, Schwankfel, Calvin, Knox, Winley Tyndale, Melanchthon, Men and Simons, and even the King of England, Wycliffe, Us, Erasmus Hoffman, and I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: Religiously speaking, you were whoever your king was, or whoever your leader was.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: There was no such thing as religious freedom.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: That came later with the Quakers over here in Pennsylvania, for which that's a great thing.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: And let's not talk about that.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: So the Schwenkfellers were persecuted as were others in this time.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: Judge Christopher Heydrich, a good old Schwenckfeller descendant, wrote that Bible.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: And then 1580, here's what these are about the Schwenckfellers now.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: They were refused marriage, their leaders were expelled from the church, their books were taken and burned, they were arrested and imprisoned, chained and starved, and their men were frequently sent to Vienna, which was the capital of Austria, and forced to fight for Cereborn ship galleys.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: Now, ship galleys, in case you don't remember that, just think back of Ben Her and what happened before Ben Her.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: He was in the ship's galley rowing away, whatever.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: The major remaining settlement of Schwenckfelder's at that point was in and around Harperstorf.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_02: And many of the Schwenckfelder families were finding the Lutherans appealing.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_02: They were being pressured by Lutherans, they were being pressured by Jesuits.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_02: And the Jesuits in the 1700s, early 1700s, made a final push to convert or eradicate the Schwenkfelders.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: Their women and children were forced to learn Catholic teaching.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: European children were claimed by Jesuit missionaries.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: They could not sell their own property, and they were even buried in something called the Veg, which some of you know about, and that's a whole nother story, which I certainly will not get into today.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: But it's an interesting story.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: So they decided to appeal to the Austrian Emperor.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: And this took several years.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: They've had a committee that went down to Vienna and tried to meet with him and convince him that they should have less pressure on them.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: While this appeal was going on, another committee, Schwankfellers always have like committees, wanted to investigate emigration.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: And part of the committee wanted to go to Holland, and other parts of it wanted to go to America.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: The Dutch Mennonites, and this falls right in with David's message today, and he and I did not talk, and he did not know what I was going to be saying, although he heard this before.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: The Dutch Mennonites had helped other people, and the Dutch Mennonites were known to help people who were in trouble.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_02: So the Schwankfellers wrote a letter to the Dutch Mennonites asking for help.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: But the Dutch Mennonites were a little wary.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: They didn't know who these people were, so they did a little bit of investigation.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_02: After a period of time, they concluded the Schwenkfellers were who they said they were.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: Now, for you younger folks, I want to be sure that you understand they didn't go to Google, they didn't go to Facebook, they didn't go to TikTok or any of those fancy things now in the IT world.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: They actually did some research and they found out that the Schwenkfellers were genuine.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_02: And the Schwenkfeld, the Dutch Mennonites at that point, uh sent them money.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: Now, let's go back to 1726.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: In 1726, after all this pressure they had, the Schwenkfellers left Harfersdorf and they went to Saxony.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: Saxony is a bigger German country at the time, and next door, where a count, Count Zinzendorf, some of you may have heard of that man, had promised sanctuary, and the Schwenckfellers settled in Hernhut and Bertelsdorf for several years.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: And when they left, and this is always part of the good part of the interesting part of the story, a sad part of the story, but it's good to know what was going on.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: They went on foot.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: They didn't go by bus, they didn't go by plane, they didn't go by train, they didn't go by electric car, they went on foot, and they took only what they could take with them in many cases.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_02: They took with them with some food and some books.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: By 1733, the political winds had changed, and Count Zendorf gave noticed that he could no longer protect them.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: So now they had to decide what to do.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: They decided amongst themselves that maybe America was the place to go.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: They had a few Schwankfellers who had already been to America and sent back some glowing reports.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: So they left from a little town called Pyrna.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: Some of you have been there.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: I have been there in April 1734, and they went down the Ilba.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: They burst the land in Altuna, this is the Netherlands, in Altuna and then Harlem.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: And in Harlem, this is where the story gets interesting.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: Again, it ties in with what David said to us earlier today.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_02: While they were in Harlem, the Dutch Mennonites showed great hospitality to them.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_02: They saw them and they worshipped with them, and they worshipped with them at a place called the, or described as the Schilkirke, which is a hidden church.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_02: The church was completely hidden from view at street level behind a wall and a large door as required by enforced government laws.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: Those who had opposed the idea of going to America, wanting to go to Holland, suddenly all of their arguments faded away, and now they realize that the freedom of worship was only going to be in the U.S.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: in America.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: And not really there in Holland.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: So they left for America on June 28th with a great blessing from the Dutch Mennonites who looked after them and gave them money so they did not have to go as indentured service.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: One of the ways that you came to the new country was you committed yourself to being an indentured service so that somebody paid for you, and then when you came over here, you spent seven years as an indentured servant, like a regular slave, until you paid off that debt.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: But the Dutch Mennonites paid for us, for our ancestors, so that that did not happen.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: They additionally gave us money, they fed us, and they sent us on our way.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: And here's what we hear about this trip.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: Christopher Schultz, some of you may remember who Christopher Schultz is, maybe many of you do.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: He's sitting up on that trunk in the library over there, up at the Heritage Center.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: But he wrote a wonderful diary.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: I often wonder what he was thinking about or what made him write this diary, but whatever.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: He wrote it.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: And here are some of the things he said about the trip.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: He said, first of all, we had a contrary wind.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: Now let me just remind you that the way you went, you went by wind power.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: So if you were going this way, you needed the wind behind you.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: Whoops.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: A contrary wind is the wind that's coming in front of you.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: A contrary wind held them back.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: Then he says, a wife of gregarious maesture gave birth to a healthy boy.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: They ran into a sandbar.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: They were forced to anchor.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_02: They were nearly all sick.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: Christopher Krebel, a small child, died, was buried at sea.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: They were become almost worse than having contrary wind was no wind at all.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_02: That's what become means.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: A young Palatinate boy died.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_02: And this is all before they got to England.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: And then after England, here's the other things he said about the trip.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: Shortly after leaving, David Hebner, a child died.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_02: They were swapped by a large wave.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: Gregorious Schultz died.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: Adam Yenkel's son died.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: The weather was rough.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: The mast broke from the weather.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: Melchior Maester's child died.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: They were had fog.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: They had rain.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: Thunderstorms.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: Stormy weather brought waves breaking over the ships, and he claimed the waves were 25 feet high.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I don't know if any of you have been on the ocean much, but I have been on the ocean a bit.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_02: And you don't want to see 25-foot high waves.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: You can just hear what do you think the ceiling is?
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: 15 feet, maybe?
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's 10 more feet.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: That's a big, big wave.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: The son of David Schubert died.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: Then Maria Schubert, the mother died.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: The water tasted bad.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: It was unbearably hot.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: They all slept on the deck.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: The captain gave extra water from his allotment.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: They were becomed, and so and so and so and so it went.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: And then finally, before they reached land, and of course they had no idea when that was going to be.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: They thought land was over there, but finally, somebody hollered up from the top of the ass, land, land.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: And on September 22nd, they landed in Philadelphia.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: And on September 23rd, men and boys, 16 and over, pledged allegiance to the King of England.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: On September 24th, they took time to thank Almighty God for their safe arrival and pledged always to set that date aside in remembrance of their delivery.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: And every September 24th, or close to Sunday there too, it has continued even during COVID.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: And so it has been, and so may it always be.