Old Stone Forts of the Shenandoah Valley

Backcountry Notes ^ | March 27, 2010 | Jay Henderson

[jay1949]

One of the more durable contributions of the German settlers of Virginia's Shenandoah Valley are the stone houses, barns, and other buildings which they construction during Colonial times. Typically made of cut limestone blocks, these sturdy buildings sometimes were designed to serve as 'forts' during Indian attacks. Thus in many Shenandoah Valley communities there is, or at least was, an 'Old Stone Fort' which had been built by Pennsylvania Germans.

[alexander_busek]

I take it that the familiar expression "Pennsylvania Dutch" is actually a corruption of "Deutsch," and thus that many people who are proud of their Dutch ancestry are, in actual fact, of German extraction.

Regards,

[jay1949]

Correct. The term "Dutch" in this context does not refer to persons from the Netherlands, but to western German folk. The British use of the term "Dutch" to refer to Netherlanders alone developed later, around the time of the establishment of the German nation. In Germany, the usage survives; the German term for "German" is Deutsch and the nation is called Deutschland. The term "Pennsylvania Dutch" means "Pennsylvania German." My own German ancestors in North Carolina were known as "North Carolina Dutch" down to the time of my grandfather Slack. The North Carolina Dutch became thoroughly assimilated, however, and the usage has largely disappeared.

[TLEIBY308]

You are correct.

[FoxPro]

ping

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

H.L. Mencken claimed that in Nineteenth Century America the word Dutch was applied to both Germans and people from the Netherlands. Since New York had a sizable Dutch population (Van Buren's first language was Dutch) before there was any significant German immigration, the superficial resemblance between a Dutch and German accent might have contributed to the confusion. He cites a little ditty:

The Dutch Company is the best company
That ever came over from old Germany
There's the Potsdam Dutch and the Rotterdam Dutch
And the Amsterdam and all the other damn Dutch

Sometimes "ist" is substituted for "is" and "Shermany" for "Germany", "Dat" for "That", etc. Note the explicit association of the Adjective "Dutch" with "Germany". All three cities are imputted to Germany, though two are Dutch.

[fieldmarshaldj]

*ping*

[Tennessee Nana]

My ancestors were Palatine Germans to Albany, NY, 1710...

Queen Anne sent 3,000 of them on to America from London where 10,00 of they were camped out in the parks etc...

Some went to Ireland, Canada etc...

The ones who came here were to cut down trees and produce tar and pitch to seal the wooden warships of the English Navy...

However NY was to cold to grow the trees needed...they were down in the Carolinas...

Having little to do and being from farming communities back in Germany...

Several families moved west across the Hudson to Middleburg to farm...(mine did that)

and others went south to Pennsylvania...

Many of the original “Pennsylvania Dutch” were from the Palatines...

[jay1949]

See: http://www.pgs.org/ and http://americanfolklifeinstitute.org/index.html

[Ditter]

Very nice. I wish I knew when my ancestors arrived on American shores. They were all in Texas by the early 1800’s after making the wagon trek across the US. People like that don't leave many tracks except wagon track in the mud.

[RipSawyer]

Some say my grandfather was kinda slack too.

[jay1949]

Everyone should be kind to Slacks! They’re good folks.

[Taft in '52]

I am actually part of the Palatine diaspora. An ancestor of mine was born in or near Reichshofen, France, which is about 160 miles east of Paris, in 1726. At the age of 14, he made his way to Rotterdam, probably by sailing down the Rhine, where he boarded a ship for America. Most of the passengers on the ship were fellow Palatines, some, like himself, from Lorraine, and others most likely from Rheinpfalz, to the north.

After arriving in Baltimore, he settled in Frederick, Md., and the family moved steadily westward as the nation grew.

[mountainlion]

I liked the “loophole”= Gun port

[jay1949]

Me, too. I hadn’t been educated in the history of “loophole” before researching the old stone forts. Headline: old dog learns new trick!

http://everything2.com/title/Loophole

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrasure

[jay1949]

After arriving in Baltimore, he settled in Frederick, Md., and the family moved steadily westward as the nation grew.

Frederick, MD, was Grand Central Station for Germans during the 18th century. Several of my ancestral German families met up in Frederick -- there is a surviving marriage record for a pair of gggggp's in the Reformed church there -- before moving en masse to North Carolina.

[Inyo-Mono]

Correct. The term "Dutch" in this context does not refer to persons from the Netherlands, but to western German folk.

Which is why The Lost Dutchman's Mine in Arizona is really the "Lost German's Mine."

My ancestors too, settled in North Carolina in 1750 after leaving Pennsylvania with the Boone family and stayed there till they were run out by the Cherokee in 1763.

[Taft in '52]

There's the Potsdam Dutch and the Rotterdam Dutch
And the Amsterdam Dutch...

Interestingly, Amsterdam and Rotterdam were named after dams, but the name Potsdam, a suburb of Berlin located about 400 miles from the other two cities, is of Slavic origin.

[jay1949]

I'll bet they intermarried with or at least lived in the proximity of some Scotch Irish or Scots while they were in NC. ". . . stayed there till they were run out . . . " The use of "till" in this manner is a characteristic of Scottish English which was imported into Appalachian English.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Tell someone to gives a damn ;)