corn cutting in amish country

The high quality of the Pennsylvania Dutch was especially noticeable in the first group of Germans to arrive in America in 1683. Their vigor of mind and outlook on life is proved by the fact that in 1688, only five years after landing, they were the authors of the very first organized protest against slavery made in America. The names of Francis Daniel Pastorius, Dirck Op den Graeff, Abraham Op den Graeff and Gerhard Hendricks were thus immortalized as the harbingers of America's liberal stand almost two centuries later against this oldest of human curses. They used almost Lincolnian language in their protest, calling slavery "traffic in the bodies of men." Slavery had been introduced into America in 1609 at Jamestown, Virginia, and the bondages of some of the Dutch for their passage money was also smacking of slavery. This protest was quite of a piece with the sense of social justice which made the Pennsylvania Dutch so liberal and honorable in their dealings with Indians, and with the instant readiness of the. Dutch to fight English tyranny in 1776.

The coming of the larger body of Mennonites in 1710, Swiss-German religionists of a very unique order, then set the stage for more demonstration of the quality of the Pennsylvania Dutch. Martin Kundig, at Amsterdam, Holland, took title for the Men- nonites to 10,000 acres at Conestoga, and when he had shepherd- ed the first group to America went back to Germany and Switzerland for more, perhaps visioning for these people the actual fact of 1935 that Lancaster County (where they settled) was to be the richest agricultural county in the entire United States (thanks largely to their industry and skill). Not even the lush lands of the Mississippi Valley have been able to seize from Lancaster County the laurels of America's most highly developed agricultural county