SWITZERLAND
Mennonites
Between 1700 and 1930, over 250,000 Swiss people emigrated to America. Early arrivals sought religious freedom in Pennsylvania and the Carolinas, while 19th-century farmers and industrial workers moved to Midwestern states like The Swiss Center History Wisconsin and Illinois.Key Eras of Migration Colonial Era (1700–1776): About 25,000 Swiss settled in British America, drawn by cheap land and religious tolerance for groups like the Mennonites.
The Swiss and Indians on the Conestoga River in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
Swiss families commenced escaping religious persecution in the early 1700s. Among those oppressed were the Kreiders and Hostaters, who fled for their lives from Switzerland to Wurtemburg, taking nothing from their Fatherland except their families, and small quantities of tow* cloth, a few linens, and some wearing apparel.
Afterward, Kreider emigrated to America and, in company with Hostater, settled in Pennsylvania, on the north side of the Conestoga River, approximately two miles south of present-day Lancaster, where he acquired 800 acres of land in 1716 or 1717. Here, he erected a temporary shelter, a tent covered with tow brought from Switzerland, which served him and his family till autumn, when the tent gave way to a cabin built of round, unhewn hickory saplings, and covered with bark cloth.
Indians paid Kreiger regular night visits to shelter with him and sleep by the side of a genial fire. They were on perfect terms of intimacy and friendship; the Indians frequently supplied him and his family with fish and venison, which they gave in exchange for bread.
Fish were very abundant in the Conestoga River and all the streams of the country; the Indians fished with nets made of bark, or speared them with a gig made of Ashwood.
Source: History of Lancaster County by L. Daniel Rupp (1844).
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Books: Lancaster County History; Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vols. 1-46;
How to make a fish-gig
Christian Kreider, grandson of the first settler, says, “ The Indians took a very slender sapling of Ashwood, preferred on account of its hardness, and burned it to a point at one end.”
On a certain occasion, after Kreider had consulted his almanac to regulate his clock by the rising and setting of the sun, noted that the moon would, in a few weeks, be eclipsed. He informed his Indian friends that, on a certain evening a few weeks away, the moon would hide her face just as the clock struck. To hear that the moon would refuse to shine was nothing new to the Indians, as they had seen eclipses before!
However, that their white neighbor should possess the knowledge beforehand was strange to them. At the time specified when the broad-faced moon was to hide her face, fifty or sixty Indians assembled. Scarcely had the clock struck, to their utter astonishment, the moon’s face began to lessen. Profound silence prevailed. Their spokesman expressed the cogitations of the wonder-stricken visitors, uttered it as their sage conclusion, in these words: "Tis the white man’s God tells him this, else how would he know it beforehand."
Note — *Toe cloths from a two-toed sloth mammal.
Swiss Colony in New Bern, North Carolina
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(Craven County: Transcripts of Wills filed with the Secretary of State)
1. Anne Bryan
2. Hardy Bryan
3. William Bryan
4. John Caruthers
5. Mary Conway
6. James Craven
7. John Fonvielle
8. John Martin Franck
9. William Herritage
10. Christian Isler
11. Grace Pilson
12. William Wickliffe
Swiss Colony in Purrysburg, South Carolina
Founder: Jean-Pierre Purry from Neuchâtel, Switzerland, planned the town. 300 Protestant colonists (French-Swiss and German-Swiss settlers) arrived in Purrysburg, South Carolina, in 1732 and 1733. The colony was located on the Savannah River, where the royal colony urged farmers to make silk and wine. The expedition was led by the Swiss wine merchant Jean-Pierre Purry. Disease and competition from Savannah caused many to leave.