A long time ago I was shopping in the sewing section of a store in Roanoke and a young woman came in. She was a "Dunker." She wore the plain dark dress of the religious sect, floor length with full-gathered skirt similar to that of the Amish, a long cloak and the gathered bonnet with large brim which covered her hair and most of her thin face.
The Dunkers stay to themselves and never seemed to notice people around them. I watched her as she stopped to admire a piece of pink flowered cotton goods. She touched it and turned it and looked at it longingly for several minutes. I wanted so much for her to have it. I hoped in my silent observing that this somber young girl could have a pretty dress. After awhile she turned and walked away.
The memory of that episode came back to me as I read Klaus Wust's scholarly and comprehensive work, "The Virginia Germans," published by The University Press of Virginia. He tells of the Dunkers and their settlement in the valley of Virginia. He reports on the Germans in Virginia with tender attention to detail, practical consideration and integrity. A more comprehensive work will not appear again soon.
"The Virginia Germans" tells of those first Dutchmen brought by Capt. Christopher Newport to Jamestown in 1608 to engage in "burning sope ashes, and in making of Pitch, and Tarre, and Rosen." The book also tells of settlements in the Piedmont, the Valley, the building of houses and churches, the Germans' struggles with Indians, their participation in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War.
Wust gives the names of leaders and followers, of German pioneers and the religions their religious beliefs: Amish, Anglican, Baptists, Dunkers (German Baptist Brethren), Catholic, Episcopa lian, Evangelical, Lutheran, Mennonites, Moravians and Reformed.
Wust worked through all extant files and copies of German-language newspapers in Virginia and western Maryland. He scoured diaries and letters, public records in Philadelphia and Lancaster, European libraries and emigrant files, municipal archives, church records, private collections and personal histories and courthouse records in Virginia and Maryland.
Understanding the different German peoples who came to Virginia is not easy. Each area developed histories which suited the prejudice or covered realities with romance. Indian fighting, political conniving, language and cultural barriers and land barons from eastern Virginia greatly affected settlement in the western valleys.
In 1772, it was said of the Valley of Virginia that "There are now seated a great number of Germans who grow considerable quantities of good wheat, rye, barley, oats, hemp and flax and they keep much livestock so that this Province is now acquiring a very beautiful aspect."
Language and cultural barriers were strong, but in a chapter titled "First Consolidation," Wust tells of the awareness and associations and eventual mixing and sharing of hardships and work which brought together the Quakers, Moravians, Lutherans - the Valley people. Because of their different cultures and languages and lack of knowledge of the political system, the settlers in the Valley were a minority with little voice in bustling eastern Virginia. In different ways the settlers of the Valley found themselves to be in a minority. Governor Gooch had said that their "shocking doctrines" might bring "mischievous consequences." This position was the view of the powers of the Anglican church ruling Virginia at the time. But the eastern English cared little for what happened in the Valley since the settling of it provided a buffer against Indians and riches to land speculators.
The story of amalgamation, of religions combining forces to give help and the eventual changes of dialect and brogue are recounted in Wust's chapters. The melting pot was working.
The index lists family names: Albracht, Argobrite, Bauer, Bernhard, Brunk, Burkholder, Conrad, Forster, Fry, Haas, Hite, Holt, Holtzclaw, Huber, Kempe, Link, Meyer, Moyers, Obenchain, Rouse, Showalter, Steinmetz, Thalhimer, Weber, Westfall, Woltz, Yost, Zicafoos, Zimmerman and Zwilling. These are among many hundreds of surnames in the index.
The settlers of the Valley of Virginia are everywhere and thousands of Peninsula residents are descendants of mixed lines of the Germans, the Irish and the Scotch-Irish who came into the Valley from Pennsylvania and Maryland and eastern Virginia.
- Virginia Rollings is director of the Family History Center in Denbigh.