Boston certainly has the soft R sound. Back in revolutionary times almost half the population was German speaking, what influence did this have on our speech? I have been researching a book on the Revolutionary and post revolutionary period. There Scots immigrants were described as having a thick Scottish accent. My source book was printed in 1850 based on a 40 year collection of anecdotes.
German settlers in N America antedated the notorious Hessians -- a number of the latter though wound up staying to settle after The Revolution (or at least, their part in it) was over. The haven for religious freedom was particularly important as motivation to risk a 3000 mile Atlantic crossing. Much later, late-19th c, there was a wave of German Catholics who emigrated to escape the
kulturkampf and they were not alone -- there was a belief among Germans that the three wars Otto von Bismarck had used to weld the independent realms into one German Empire were just the beginning of internal and external wars. Turned out that Bismarck was a genius and built a system of treaties and alliances that kept the peace in (most of) Europe for over forty years.
Allegheny Passage by Emmert Bittinger
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