see: a 2022 felonious attempt on The Conrad Reiff Homestead, by the
Berks History Research, LLC, a bookstore, tagged a product from their shop. on FB, Joseph L. Mitchell https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21AAdjbGkeGXveMdQ&cid=CB88AD3F78E6EBA1&id=CB88AD3F78E6EBA1%21120136&parId=CB88AD3F78E6EBA1%21120129&o=OneUp
--Christopher Sower, early description of Pennsylvania Letter of Christopher Sower, Written in 1724, Describing Conditions in Philadelphia and Vicinity, and the Sea Voyage from Europe
--The Journal of Kelpius, 11-28, including his voyage of 1694, ed by Sachse in The Diarium of Magister Johannes Kelpius
Gottlieb Mittelberger's Journey to Pennsylvania is studied as a classic in college classes made Conrad Reiff a fallen star. But in the end that article in the Berks County Historical Review proved him changed, with evidence that at least some of the accusations were an old world fabrication of the new. Thus the single most important contemporary publication about Pennsylvania from the wider view of Europe was compromised.
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| Just returned from a visit to Conrad Reiff, Sept 2012, the estate in decline, the apple orchards still bearing, but the roof, the shutters falling.The smithy stands more solidly along the road where we arrived at the end of a long day, nobody home. |
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| Smithy. "The clay tile roof, is more abundant in Oley than any other place. There are thirty-eight tile-roofed buildings in the township, six on the Conrad Reiff farm alone. Known as Oley Valley tiles, they are fashioned of native clay, designed with grooves to channel water to the central overlapping section. Because of their weight, heavy roof timbering and bracing was required." |
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| House |
Journey to Pennsylvania was Pennsylvania's comeuppance in 1756, exposing the foibles of all its informal religions, but especially regarding Conrad Reiff and the Newborn, a serious malefactor. For more than two centuries the allegations of Gottlieb Mittelberger were unchallenged, except with Pendleton and Brunner. Biographers such as Fred Riffe pass over the events in embarrassed silence. The situation is worsened with Conrad's younger brother Jacob, who got in as much trouble with the Reformed about 1727 as Conrad ever did in his odyssey with the Newborn. A dozen Reformed historians with selective memory and rhetorical edits exonerated themselves and their principals in the founding of the Reformed church in Pennsylvania. Two brothers scandalizing two different religions at the same time is almost too much to hope for. More of Conrad Reiff's odyssey can be found at Outbreaks of Pennsylvania Lawless.Outlaw Outtakes on Conrad Reiff
Some of Conrad Reiff's biography in the Historical Review fell to the cutting floor, but suppositions continue that he and Gottlieb Mittelberger were friends of a sort. We get a glimpse of this at Anna Reiff’s funeral in 1753. Before he left Pennsylvania in 1753 for Germany Mittelberger must have attended that funeral service. All the Reiffs were there.The object of his pejorative, Conrad Reiff, was. We develop the likelihood of their contact in the article. At the funeral of their mother various contacts among the frontier brothers occurred, at the funeral and also at the reading of the will of their brother George in 1759.
Prodigal Son and Conrad Gehr
Oley and the Newborn influenced Conrad Reiff, brothers Peter and George and Jacob's daughter Catherine, all who either lived there or owned land there. Spiritually the effects of Oley were more serious upon Conrad Reiff's mother and sister (Anna Maria and Anna) through the aforesaid sister's husband Conrad Gehr. The connection between Gehr and Conrad Reiff involves Gehr's experience of the Newborn, which is as important as Conrad's because they together flesh out the satirical Newborn beliefs and show the influence in the family. Genealogist Harry Reiff says the "family knew about Conrad's (Gehr) peccadilloes, as indicated in the will of Hans George's son, George (d.1759), who died leaving a legacy to nephew Baltazar with an admonition not to permit his father, Conrad Gehr, to have any of the legacy" (Letter of 2/13/2002).
Conrad Gehr's peccadilloes were 1) that he operated a tavern in Germantown (before 1753) where he sponsored a mock religious service on Sunday where Newborn blasphemy was commonplace and 2) that he had been imprisoned for fraud. In that account in Muhlenberg's Journals (I, 352-3) Conrad Gehr is called the "blasphemer" who "became entangled in a money-making scheme, was caught, and was thrown into prison. There, unbidden, he took up the Bible again." Muhlenberg would know this because of his close relation with Gehr's wife Anna and mother, and from the report of George Stoltz, who told the particular incident of a fire in the adjoining house to him. Gehr figures prominently in Muhlenberg's writing after the funeral of Conrad's mother, Anna. The daughter, Anna Maria, had been "attached to the Evangelical (Lutheran) Church," which means Muhlenberg must have heard firsthand the distress Gehr put his wife through by his behavior. This distress doubled because at that time the mother lived with her daughter. Muhlenberg says:
"During my first years here [1742 and following] she was living with her daughter in Germantown…for the sake of her daughter the distressed old widow stayed at the former's home…she was obliged to listen to many a blasphemous utterance and witness many an offense on the part of her son-in-law, who was Reformed by birth, but in this country not only forsook the Word of God and the other means of grace, but also despised and ridiculed them" (I, 352).
Muhlenberg stipulates that the "offenses" included, that "the said man maintained a public house and it occurred to him that he might institute a so-called assembly of worship in his house on Sundays. For this purpose he associated himself with a half-educated but totally perverted Christian who was to deliver a sermon or address on physic or natural science at every meeting. The auditors were obligated to pay three pence apiece each time, and this money was to be consumed in drink after the speech" (I, 353).
New Born ideas gave a metaphysic to this tavern talk, even if it sounds like Paine's Age of Reason (1795) or other enlightenment doctrines. Such attitudes were early 18th century and German, the specific form that Mittelberger saw affecting Conrad Reiff. But these were not isolated from all the other revisions of order in PA, from Wohlfarth and Beissel [of Epherta] standing on the court house steps to argue which day of the week was the sabbath (Sachse, German Sectarians, I, 154) to Gehr's substitution of tavern for church, science for scripture and the price of a drink for the offering. These suggest that the 1701 Blue Law of the General Court of Germantown was not being enforced which said: "no inn-keepers on the first day called Sunday in God's service, shall hold gatherings of guests. . .on pain of whatever penalty the court of record shall inflict" (Pennypacker, Germantown, 283). Gehr was the brunt of gossip Muhlenberg had heard: "a trustworthy man named Georg Stoltz came to me and related the following incident. One evening he and a Swiss gentlemen were obliged to stop at the blasphemer's house and put up for the night. He went out of his way to annoy his two guests with sinful talk. Among other things he said that the context of nature is God, that the world came into existence by an accident in eternity, that the universe maintained itself, etc. What the parsons say about God, about a revealed religion, about a Saviour, and about heaven and hell, they have to say to make a living and in order to lead the masses by the nose."
Although Muhlenberg does not name it so, such views easily mask themselves as naturalism. Gehr's satire is very much in the Newborn manner, like Conrad and those others to whom the sacraments were "ridiculous and their expressions concerning them are extremely offensive" (Muhlenberg), who uttered "such blasphemous words against our Saviour" (Boehm), who theatrically mocked preachers in parody (Mittelberger), who "despise preachers, churches and sacraments without discrimination" (Muhlenberg), who scoff that manure is life and pig the destiny of the soul. The Newborn catechism was as active in the tavern of Gehr as in the township of Oley except that Gehr went his brother-in-law one better and mixed the scoff with drink.
Such tavern philosophy is reported in practically every contemporary account of the Newborn. Gehr's metaphysic implicates both brother and brother-in-law in the Newborn practice. While Boehm's summary of the sects names Puritans, Baptists and Pietists it is really the Newborn of Gehr's metaphysic that he exposes:
"Independents, Puritans, Anabaptists, Newborn, Saturday-folks, yea even the most horrible heretics, Socinians, Pietists, etc., among whom dreadful errors prevail; indeed heinous blasphemies against our great God and Savior and their own exaltation over His Majesty; for they claim that they have essential divinity in themselves; that they cannot sin…they believe there is no other heaven or hell than what is here on earth; they even deny Divine Providence, and assert that nothing needs God's blessing, but that all products of the ground and all offspring of animals and of the human race, come simply from nature, without any care on the part of God, and that prayer also is useless. (Life and Letters, (1728) 161."
The conflicted Balthaser Gehr, son of Anna Reiff II and Conrad Gehr, (mentioned in PA supreme court case, (see genealogy here) also probably attended. He had fiduciary and legal care of his cousin Philip Reiff, Conrad’s son, from 1786 to his death in 1815. Sort of like the son of the innkeeper in the Fellowship of the Ring, Balthaser Gehr (cf. Pendleton, 137, 147) married the daughter of that equally wealthy neighbor of Conrad Reiff, Antony Jaeger. In 1767 Jaeger's "sons Daniel and Henry, and his son-in-law Balthaser Gehr were tried for assault and battery on the Jaegers' lifelong neighbor, miller Heinrich Kerst. A neighbor, Jacob Silvious, also stood trial for coming to Kerst's defense" (Pendleton, 147). As said, Balthaser exercised a power of attorney for his infirm cousin, Philip Reiff, second son of Conrad, in 1786 (Pendleton, 137). But in more outbreaks of the lawless, Baltes too went Oley.
The disposition of another son of Gehr, Philip, is unknown, who appears in the ledger of the Old Salford Store (c. 1766-1774), reported as, "Gehr, Philip; Conrad Gehr's son of Germantown" (John R. Tallis, The Perkiomen Region, II, 33).] Conrad Gehr is also mentioned near the bottom of the will of Hans George Reiff (d. 1726), in a different handwriting than the will reads: "Cunrad Gehr married Anna," (Riffe, 20), suggesting this was written after probate. Gehr had been issued a patent by the land office for 34 acres in the Salfords in 1735, the same year as Garrett Clemens, Christopher Dock, Peter Wentz and Hans Reiff, among others (H. W. Kriebel in The Perkiomen Region, V, 11), but Heckler speculates he possibly was there confused with Conrad Custer (Heckler, Lower Salford, I, 13). Gehr had at least two sons. Baltazar, or Baltes Gehr served in the Pennsylvania legislature. He is mentioned in his uncle's will, (George Reiff) in 1759, "my will is after my sister's son Baltes should set up his trade, my wife shall give him twenty pounds to buy tools for it" (Riffe, 28). It should be noted that Anna was not called Anna Maria as her full name is suggested to be, but merely Anna, like her mother, who signed Anna in the Landes will and on the board in the attic.
There was also a Peter Gehr, d. 12 May 1764 at Ephrata Cloister mentioned also in Chronicon (131).
While Conrad became a prodigal in joining the Newborn at midlife, he later seems to repudiate them in word and deed, which suggests that he came home. For that story you have to get the Review.
Conrad was not a recent immigrant to Philadelphia. He had lived in Skippack with his family from at least 1717, the first mention of his father's land. His brother Jacob was named in 1723 as an agent for the government. Though Reformed, his father, Hans George, was a signatory witness of the trust agreement for the Salford Mennonite Meeting House in 1725. There has been some suggestion [Harry Reiff] that Conrad's mother, Anna Maria, was the educated daughter of a Dutch Reformed church minion.
Conrad's first explicit mention occurs in his father's will of 1726 where the estate was equally divided between himself and his siblings. His name next appears with his brothers, Peter and George, in their petition to Governor Gordon of April 29, 1728 where 74 "Back Inhabitors," residents along Skippack Creek, sought protection against the Indians. He was an executor (with Henry Funk and Christian Allebach) of the will of Claus Upleger, drawn up August 3, 1730: "Guardians or Executors over my wife, children and all the goods which I left behind" (Heckler, History of Franconia Township, 10-11).
About this time he left Skippack for Oley, where he bought 300 acres in 1730. Remaining yet a while, he again petitioned the Assembly with his neighbors in 1731 to be "permitted to enjoy the rights and privileges of English subjects" (Riffe, 26). He is doubtless included with his brothers in the recriminations of the rival Reformed shepherds, George Michael Weiss and John Philip Boehm which preoccupied the founding of the Reformed Church in Skippack. These disputes began with Weiss's arrival in September 1727. Boehm includes them all in the phrase, "Jacob Reiff and his brothers" (Letter of 1730 in Life and Letters, 217). In these years, 1727 – 1731, Conrad probably took care of his brother Jacob's farm while Jacob was abroad, that is, from the end of 1727, with one six month respite, until September 1731 when he returned from his second voyage.
Conrad may have bought the land in Oley in anticipation of his marriage of 1733. Maybe he was tired of being of the "party of Reiff" that Boehm so incessantly argued his brother Jacob ran in Skippack, sort of an out of the frying pan into the fire thing. Maybe it was the expression of a pioneering spirit. If however he was seeking peace and quiet from religious disputes he could not have gone in a worse direction. He was one of those worldly sons that Muhlenberg disapproved. Ruminating over the matriarch Anna's obsequies in 1753 he says, "she had several married sons who are well thought of, and some of these profess the Reformed religion while others believe in nothing but the transitory riches of this earth" (Muhlenberg, Journals, I, 352).
Conrad moved to Oley in 1733 and married Anna Margaretha Kuhlwein, Mary, daughter of Philip Kuhlwein, brother-in-law of Matthias Baumann, founder of the Newborn. Kuhlwein had pioneered that area as an advance for Baumann in 1709. When Kuhlwein chose the Oley Valley as the site for the perfectionist Neugeborene colony, he and Jean LeDee were the first German-speaking settlers (Pendleton, 106). Since Baumann came to Oley at Kuhlwein's advise, it is no surprise that Kuhlwein took over leadership of the colony after Baumann's death in 1727.
We should probably assume Conrad Reiff's acceptance of Newborn beliefs, although they were pretty different from those in which he was raised. In marrying the scion's daughter, a family with no sons, he would inherit extensive land holdings. Marriage transported him into the bosom of the Newborn community. Thus, he immediately is identified with the twenty or so families that originally settled the north Oley valley starting about 1712 (Pendleton, 27): Baumann, Bertolet, Levan, DeTurk, Joder (Yoder), Kuhlwein, Huffnagel, Schenkel, Keim, Schneider, Hoch, Ballie, Peter, Herbein, Weber, Kersten, Aschmann, Ritter, and Kauffmann (Pendleton, 18). No one benefited more from the Newborn than Conrad Reiff, who gained a wife, a homestead, two sons and inherited Philip Kuhlwein's estate in less than four years, ranking him among the largest landholders and candidate for richest man of Oley, far surpassing his brother Jacob down in Skippack. He had success in the "transitory riches."
Not only did Conrad Reiff inherit Kuhlwein's estate upon his death in 1736 (Pendleton, 108), he seems to have inherited Baumann's as well. Comparing Pendleton's maps of the Oley Zone of 1725 with 1750, the configurations of the Baumann and Kuhlwein estates of 1725, which adjoin on a southwest axis, are roughly equivalent to the Conrad Reiff estate of 1750. In the 1750 map which indicates Conrad Reiff's holdings (the estate of Philip Kuhlwein), the two tracts seem to join, as if Baumann's estate were inherited by Kuhlwein and then that augmented section inherited by Conrad Reiff. When Baumann died in 1727 did he deed it to his brother-in-law? The two estates that became one were then inherited by Reiff in 1737. Why wouldn't he remain stanch when after Baumann's death the Yoders, John Lesher, Casper Griesemer, Gabriel Boyer, (c. 1736) founded the Oley Reformed Church ( Hinke, Life and Letters, 34)? Conrad must have seemed in 1733 a good prospect to his father-in-law for all that he, even then, intended to trust him with.
Conrad's Religion
Whatever the outcome, the reputation of Conrad Reiff was materially damaged by the Journey that was "widely read and quoted" at the time of its publication in Frankfurt in 1756. "Writers in the latter half of the eighteenth century borrowed freely from it" and "the book remained well known in the nineteenth century" (Mittleberger, Handlin and Clive, xvii). Folks back home and in subsequent generations must have wondered what happened to Conrad Reiff. But folks closer to Skippack and Germantown also wondered what happened to him, as if the geography of Oley had spiritual connotations.
The Collection
That Conrad Reiff didn't die until more than 20 years after the report of his death suggests there may be more truth to the eagles than we can literally recognize. How dramatic did it have to be? His change of heart is evidenced in a collection taken in September 1764 for the building of the Wentz Church, successor to the previously established Reiff Church.
"The Evangelic Reformed Congregation in Skippack found themselves necessitated for building of a House of Worship by Reason of the Great Distance they have to church or meeting, which is Six miles or more." Their intention, "their indispensable Duty" was so that "their Youth might be the better brought up in the Nurture of the Lord and to the Praise of His Holy Name." The fundraising efforts however had fallen short, "they find themselves obliged to apply to the Charitable Benevolence of all well disposed Christians to contribute their Mite towards the finishing of the said Meeting House according to their good Will and Abilities-Knowing that the Lord will richly reward all Such Charitable Gifts or Alms, Which are given with a Simplicit Heart" (The Perkiomen Region, I, 38). Since the first collecting tour raised only 12 pounds, 4 shillings a second effort was made outside the immediate congregation. George Alsentz, the Evangelical Reformed minister, urged (August 1764): "In as much as the generous contributions hitherto received from kind friends were far from sufficient to defray the expenditures of our church we are obliged to turn to other benefactors to find out their benevolent disposition toward our enterprise…May the God of all mercy send his richest blessing upon all benefactors, such is my wish, and in witness of the foregoing I hereunto set my hand" (4l). This tour raised 15 pounds, 9 shillings.
Three collections in all were made, the first in New Jersey, the second throughout Goshenhoppen and the third "through Frederick township to Falckner's Swamp and then up towards Oley" (44). Over 400 names are listed with the amount of their contributions. For example, from Goshenhoppen, Philip Boehm gave l shilling, Peter Miller gave l shilling, Friedrich Hilligass gave 5. In Oley, Casper Griesemer gave 7 shillings and so did Abraham Lewan, a comparatively generous gift. This tour raised 14 pounds, 7 shillings.
The two largest gifts of 10 shillings each were given by Georg Welker and Conrad Reiff (39-44). Considering the language of the subscribing petition, its references to "pious exercises," "the Nurture of the Lord " and "the Praise of His Holy Name," it is obvious that Conrad Reiff is no longer sympathetic to Newborn practices which "called the Holy Scriptures old, outworn fables, tomfoolery, and the like, and said that the parsons had to make so and so out of it in order not to lose their bread and butter"(Muhlenberg I, 139). Not only does his acceptance of such pious language witness a change, but we also discern in the gift a reaffirmation of his Reformed roots, supporting the attempt to restart the Skippack Reformed Church in a permanent structure again: "When George Alsentz first reported this congregation to the coetus in 1763, he called it Skippack, a name which was often used during its early years to identify it" (Gladfelter I, 384). The Newborn were never politic in their beliefs but "harsh and uncharitable" as Philip Bayer had been before his reconciliation (Muhlenberg I, 357).
To demonstrate how short funds were when the first church was dedicated in November 1763, the "costs of this undertaking were greater than anticipated. Moreover, they were incurred just as a depression hit the colonies following the French and Indian War" (Gladfelter I, 384). The assembly authorized a lottery to pay the debt, since "the members of the German Reformed church in the township of Worcester, in the county of Philadelphia, have erected a church and school house in the said township, the expense and costs whereof have been so great as to amount to a debt of six hundred pounds more than they are able to pay" (Gladfelter, I, 384).
To speculate, Conrad may have taken up with the Moravians since the language of his will is like the way they spoke. He appears in the Moravian archive Nov. 1, 1763 (Our Savage Neighbors, Silver, 2009, 343), "as if the Bethlehem [European] People had likewise a Hand in it" (dep. of Conrad Reiff, Nov. 1, 1763, Morav. Recs).
Notes
[Speaking of those pastors of the first Reformed Church in Pennsylvania, Boehm and Weiss, Sachse observes that it is "a strange coincidence that both Boehm and Baumann came to Pennsylvania about the same time from Lambsheim, in the Palatinate" (The German Sectarians, I, 157). Five years separated them. Hinke has Baumann arriving in Philadelphia in 1718, Sachse in 1719, but Pendleton (176) cites land office records that show Baumann already residing in the Oley Valley in 1714. Since Baumann had left Lambsheim in 1714 and Boehm did not resign his position as schoolmaster in Worms until November 22, 1715 (Hinke, 15) their paths did not cross in Lambsheim and at least his one indignity can be spared Mr. Boehm.]
If it is wondered why this sect rejected the Bible and its teachings, the text recorded above by Spangenberg (6) should be noted, that is, I John 1.8: "if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us."
We don't really need to prove Conrad was a Newborn from his reputation or his speech. Interesting as it might be, it is a much bigger topic. We know he was a Newborn from his marriage and we know the Newborn mockeries of religions from testimonies from nearly every contemporary source.
...when the Yoders, John Lesher, Casper Griesemer, Gabriel Boyer, (c. 1736) founded the Oley Reformed Church (Hinke, Life and Letters, 34). By 1736 however, with both leaders gone, the Newborn were on their way out.
A broader case for Newborn membership includes every spirit of anticlericalism and unbelief. As with Boehm's catalogue of sects, this seems to be focused by the more spectacular Newborns. Mittelberger laments: "In Pennsylvania there exist so many varieties of doctrines and sects that it is impossible to name them all. Many people do not reveal their own particular beliefs to anyone. Furthermore there are many hundreds of adults who not only are unbaptized but who do not even want baptism. Many others pay no attention to the Sacraments and to the Holy Bible, or even to God and his Word. Some do not even believe in the existence of a true God or Devil, Heaven or Hell, Salvation or Damnation, the Resurrection of the Dead, the Last Judgment and Eternal Life, but think that everything visible is of merely natural origin. For in Pennsylvania not only is everyone allowed to believe what he wishes; he is also at liberty to express these beliefs publicly and freely" (Journey, 22).
The reason the Newborn speak so fully for all such ideas is that they are a genera. Thus the farmer says his situation good is because "I have worked hard" and none other. "I am perfectly without sin" is the metaphysical justification. Being without sin had been the contention of Newborn founder Matthias Bauman, taught in his pamplet of ..... As the Chronicon says, "there arose about that time [1720] a people in the neighborhood of Oley" (16). Through a series of propositions Bauman ends with the notion that "with the body one cannot sin before God" (Chronicon, 17) which to the Calvinists was of course impossible. Worse that these "dangerous conclusions" (17) was their technique, "...to confound men, a work they also diligently carried on during ten years, so that their disputations at market times in Philadelphia were often heard with astonishment" (17).
All the Church folk, Lutheran, Reformed, non church sectarians say "Ishmaelites,Laodiceans, Naturalists... Atheists, of whom the country was full... had forsaken their mother-church" Pennsylvania (Chronicon Ephratense. Translated by J. Max Hark. Lancaster: S. H. Zahm & Co. 1889, 71).
How exactly Mittelberger knew of the attack he doesn't say. Embellishment may swell the breast. A provocateur of all that had gone wrong in his eyes with the freedoms and frail order of Pennsylvania, Mittelberger would not himself know what he would write when he began the following year. Presumably he was taking notes. The funeral occurred about a year and a half before he left to return to Germany.
Conrad Reiff's change of faith occured when he moved to Oley and married Anna Margaretha Kuhlwein c. 1733, Mary, daughter of Kuhlwein pioneered the area for Baumann in 1709, chose the Oley Valley as the site for the perfectionist Neugeborene colony. Kuhlwein and Jean LeDee were the first German-speaking settlers (Pendleton, 106). Baumann came to Oley at Kuhlwein's advise but didn't last long; it is no surprise Kuhlwein took over leadership of the colony after Baumann died in 1727. In marrying the scion's daughter, a family with no sons, Conrad Reiff became a rich planter. He was the richest man in the area.
(Raymond J. Brunner. "That Ingenious Business" Pennsylvania German Organ Builders. Birdsboro, PA: The Pennsylvania German Society, 1990.
Chronicon. Abstract of the diary of the Brotherhood, which had been kept by Brother Lamech, and continued and edited by Brother Jaebez (Agrippa) i.e. JohanPeter Miller. Brother Lamech has been identified as Jacob Gass by Seidensticker (First Century of German Printing in America, p. 117). Evans19558: "This biography of Johann Conrad Beissel, the founder of the EphrataCommunity, is the principal source of information regarding that remarkable institution. Brother Agrippa is Johann Peter Miller; and Brother Lamech's secular name is said to be Jacob Gass
...ouˈgoost gôtˈlēp shpängˈənbĕrk, 1704–92, a bishop of the Moravian Church and a founder of that church in America, b. Prussia. While at the Univ. of Jena, he met Graf von Zinzendorf, and in 1730 he paid a visit to the Moravian colony, Herrnhut. In 1732, Spangenberg joined the theological faculty of the Univ. of Halle, but disagreement with the views of his superiors led to his dismissal. He became assistant to Zinzendorf and was sent by him on a mission to America in 1735. There, for a large portion of his life, Spangenberg was active in establishing settlements, churches, and schools in Georgia, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. In 1744 he was made bishop. Zinzendorf died in 1760; two years later Spangenberg returned to Herrnhut, where he held a place of leadership among the Brethren. His Idea Fidei Fratrum (1779, tr. 1784) was adopted as the declaration of faith of the Moravian Church. Among his other writings is a biography of Zinzendorf. If you read around the Blake entry in Flowering Heart you will find this Zinzendorf was a freak of tantric sex.
On Baumann, by Stoudt, xvii,
Further, “Herbein was hardly alone in suspecting that the real intent of the missionary effort was make everyone into good Moravians” Pendleton, 114
“One of the authors forebears was banished from Germany because he refused to accede to the magistrate’s domination of his conscience. On 3 January 1702 he told the Court at Grankfurt-am-Main that magistrates are established merely to punish evil and encourage good. In matters of faith they have no authority. This is an American principle, for Matthias Baumann became an American….
Oley
Oley was a territory of mockery: "Many agitators appeared among the backwoods, among them Matthias Baumann from Oley who came in 1719 (sic.) to conduct revivals among the godless settlers. A visionary, he taught that his disciples were free from sin and had no need for Scripture, sacraments or marriage. Many converts flocked to even Quakers, Reformed and Lutheran" (Earnst, 48). Mittelberger, three times references Oley and the newborn. (Philip E. Pendleton. Oley Valley Heritage. The Colonial Years: 1700-1775)."One of our churchmen approached a rich scoffer in
The rich man said to the poor man, "Do you know who my God is?"
The poor man replied, "No."
The rich man pointed to his manure pile outside the door and said, 'there is my God; he gives me wheat and everything I need" (I, 138).
Wheat, of course, was the region's cash crop. Was this rich scoffer our Conrad?
Another, admonished to give thought to his death, laughed "that he had long since thought of his death and decided, as far as his soul was concerned, to enter into a swine, since he was fond of pork anyhow" (Muhlenberg, I, 138).Mittelberger's homily against Conrad Reiff and Arnold Huffnagel for their contempt and mockery of the clergy is his most detailed report of Oley. (Journey to Pennsylvania, 84) In it we understand the fundamental mission of the Newborn to mock the clergy. Mittelberger made example such an "objectionable preacher" giving a Newborn parody.
"Alas, among the preachers there are also several quite irritating ones who offend many people, besides causing much annoyance to our ministers. At a gathering of young farmers from the township of Oley with whom he ministers. I will cite one example of such an objectionable preacher. His name was Alexander. At a gathering of young farmers from the township of Oley with whom he had been carousing he announced that with his sermon he would so move the people standing in front of him that all of them would begin to cry, but at the very same time all of those standing behind him would start laughing. He wagered these same young farmers a considerable sum that he would be able to do this. And on a certain agreed day he appeared at a church meeting, stationed himself in the midst of the assemblage, and began to preach with a great deal of power and emotion. When he saw that his listeners had become so moved that they began to cry, he put his hands behind him, pulled his coat-tails apart, and revealed through a pair of badly torn breeches his bare behind, which he scratched with one hand during this demonstration. At this those who were standing behind him could not help roaring with laughter; and so he won his bet. An account of this disgusting incident appeared both in the German and English newspapers of Philadelphia" (45).
Following the riches theme, Muhlenberg says life in Oley was "lucrative and lascivious." A third time, June 10, 1747, "eight miles from New Hanover we stopped in at the home of an old man, one of the sect called Newborn. . .he separated from the (Reformed) Church and the Lord's Supper and refused to give the oath of loyalty to the then ruling elector, for which he was examined by the consistory and imprisoned. According to his opinion he had been persecuted and expelled for the sake of Christ and the truth, but as a matter of fact he was only confirmed in his stubbornness. He will listen to no advice, accepts neither reason nor a higher revelation in all its parts, since he is weak in understanding, headstrong, and hot-tempered; and unfortunately he abuses the freedom of Pennsylvania. When he came to this country, he joined the turbulent sect of people who call themselves Newborn."
Confounding Men
With apology to Kafka's Gregor, Matthius Baumann had his own metamorphosis during a sudden illness in 1701. His only publication was a tract written in Oley in 1723 intended for distribution in Pennsylvania, Ein Ruf an die Unwiedergebohrene Welt (A Call to the Unregenerate), part of which are preserved in the Chronicon Ephretense (1786). In mockery of the famous Quaker inner light Baumann was "translated to heaven and given the power of prophecy" (Sachse, German Sectarians, I, 73). He had trances for 14 days, saw the end of the world, had an interview with the divine. "All church and sect life as it was known - clergy, sacrament, ritual, catechism, scripture, prayer, communal worship-was an abomination before God and a waste of time. The only way to salvation was through a traumatic experience of spiritual death and rebirth, which incorporated an actual interview with the heavenly Being. Those who underwent this wrenching transformation emerged saved and, from then on, forever free of and incapable of sin" (Pendleton, 106).
The Newborn believed "perfection" was a massive internal revelation from which the "babe" could not fall. Whether the faith was Lutheran, Reformed, Moravian or anything else it was sin. More traditional communities thought that "New Born beliefs more dangerous to people's souls and to the social order than those of any other sect in Pennsylvania" (Pendleton, 106). The ridicule and blasphemy the Newborn urged was first cited in the Chronicon (17), a result of their desire to "confound men," to disrupt their religious services and rhetoric. In this confounding, Oley and the Newborn joined at the hip. Oley, derived from the Lenape name, meaning "hole" or "kettle," was thus a hollow ringed with mountains, a caldron of prophetic thornapple.
But while early it continued a little. In 1753 (although the account is published in 1756), Mittelberger, three times references Oley and the newborn in his Journey. But Mittelberger gives the Newborn current status, including them equally in his heterogeneous catalogue of "Lutherans, members of the Reformed Church, Catholics, Quakers, Mennonites or Anabaptists, Herrenhuter or Moravian Brothers, Pietists, Seventh-Day Adventists, Dunkers, Presbyterians, New-born, Freemasons, Separatists, Freethinkers, Jews, Mohammedans, Pagans, Negroes, and Indians" (41).
Silencing the newborn
Boehm wrote of Oley in 1740: "The worst were those who called themselves 'The New Born.' Without hesitation they declared themselves to be equal to God and greater than our Saviour; they pretended to be free (from sin)…however, after God had removed such shameless blasphemers of His name, the true Christians met and desired to establish, by the help of God, a congregation according to our true Reformed doctrine" (Life and Letters, 1740, 278-79) He refers to the founding of the Oley Reformed Church in 1736. Boehm said he had been aware of the Newborn since he was first in the country, eighteen years before, that is, in 1722. He mentions them first in his letter of 1728 among "all sorts of errorists, as Independents, Puritans, Anabaptists, Newborn, Saturday-folks" (Life and Letters, 1728, 161).
The multiple references of Muhlenberg and Mittelberger to the Newborn contradict Boehm's statement that they had been silenced, as does the Old Moravian record of the Oley church in 1736 that "there were at that time all kinds of spirits in Oley, of which the Newborn were the dominant party" (cited by Hinke in Life and Letters, 110). The Moravian version of the silencing is that it came about as a direct result of their efforts, namely of Spangenberg's, who in 1737 "…came to Oley and there he gave such testimony regarding the meritorious death of Christ, (this language, also that of Conrad Reiff's will, suggests he became a Moravian) with such a demonstration of the Spirit, that the power of darkness received a severe blow. His first sermon was delivered in the house of Jonathan Herbein and the second in the house of Abraham Bertholet. He attacked the newborn in his discourse from the words of I John 1:7,8,9. Through this address the spirit of the Newborn was so broken that it could not gain strength again and is daily becoming weaker" (Hinke, Life and Letters, 111).
Everybody wanted a part of the Newborn's demise. Ephratites claimed "it was observed that from this time on [after Baumann's audience with Beissel] they lost all power to spread their seductions any farther, which finally died out with their originators" (Chronicon, 17). Thus Boehm must share Baumann with the Moravians and the Moravians with The Ephratites.
Newborn notoriety was so much greater than their actual numbers, for as Boehm said, some partially agreed with them, swelling their ranks. We discern true believers, partial believers and in the pond that supports the lily pad where the fish blogs, a great swell of anti-clericalism and unbelief that the Newborn focused and gave expression to.
II. Some Sources for the Reiff Brothers of Schuippach.
The lives of the Reiff brothers, especially Conrad (c. 1696-1777) are a target for social equalizers. Conrad was one of the richest men in Oley, but he and his younger brother Jacob (1698-1782) of Skippack so ran afoul of contemporary piety that they are both immediately likable to the modern mind. In matters of religion the Reiff brothers, Conrad (c.1696-1777) and Jacob (1698-1782) ran afoul of contemporary piety, but they are likeable to the modern mind. Their biographies document as much about Pennsylvania religion as about either of them. This stream of events concerning battling shepherds, religion founders and feuding families was pretty much concluded between the death of their father in 1727 and their mother in 1753. The mutual offenses of religious practices was enough for several lifetimes. Of the four sons, George was a Reformed elder and Jacob could "discern good as well as evil" (I, 353), but Conrad and Peter lived in the Oley of ill repute. That tears it.
Also, the husband of the only daughter of that family, Conrad Gehr,gets significant mention, for he too had "despised and ridiculed," according to Muhlenberg, the "means of grace." When we compare Muhlenberg's description of Gehr with Mittelberger's of Reiff a pattern emerges. There are odd facts that seem to run counter to patterns, much as in real life. For instance how was Conrad Reiff executor of Claus Upleger of Franconia, when he then lived in Lower Salford, and that his co-executor was Henry Funk, the Mennonite Bishop. Common sense suggests that this was some other Conrad, except there was no other. Was he acting as a translator like his brother? No. Obviously the relations of the community were more wide than narrow. What did Reiff and Funk have in common that Upleger chose them, unless there was some Mennonite influence on Conrad, unlikely as this seems. In any case the question makes us take more seriously than we otherwise would the note in the Sunday Eagle Magazine (January 12, 1969) of Reading, PA, that Conrad was a "Mennonite preacher."
Also, the husband of the only daughter of that family, Conrad Gehr,gets significant mention, for he too had "despised and ridiculed," according to Muhlenberg, the "means of grace." When we compare Muhlenberg's description of Gehr with Mittelberger's of Reiff a pattern emerges. There are odd facts that seem to run counter to patterns, much as in real life. For instance how was Conrad Reiff executor of Claus Upleger of Franconia, when he then lived in Lower Salford, and that his co-executor was Henry Funk, the Mennonite Bishop. Common sense suggests that this was some other Conrad, except there was no other. Was he acting as a translator like his brother? No. Obviously the relations of the community were more wide than narrow. What did Reiff and Funk have in common that Upleger chose them, unless there was some Mennonite influence on Conrad, unlikely as this seems. In any case the question makes us take more seriously than we otherwise would the note in the Sunday Eagle Magazine (January 12, 1969) of Reading, PA, that Conrad was a "Mennonite preacher."
There were plenty of Reiffs in trouble in 18th century Philadelphia
1) His lengthy defense in the Answer (September 1733) to a court complaint against him the previous year is his only extant writing, for he seems to represent himself. He however is quoted frequently in the letters of Boehm.
2) The Wills of Hans George, Conrad and George are extant, with numerous deeds, records of transactions and agreements, formal petitions, newspaper notices and accounts, church records, and tax lists.
3) The Journals of Henry Melichor Muhlenberg is an important primary source for the funeral of Anna Reiff in 1753 and of events in general in Perkiomen (1742-87). Muhlenberg lived in New Providence or Trappe, 8 miles from Skippack where the four Reiff brothers grew up. He traveled extensively in that region and beyond in his service as a pastor, frequently wrote of the common people he met, of their problems, births, baptisms and deaths with names and details. His Journal was kept mainly as a record for himself, but he writes with veracity. Muhlenberg sounds a keynote in remarks in his Journal after the funeral address he gave to a "large and distinguished assembly" on the occasion of the Reiff matriarch's death, January 8, 17 53 (I, 353). These reflections are an excellent jumping off point into the labyrinth of civil and religious fratricides of that day.
Anna Reiff, widow of her husband, Hans George, who died in 1726, was one of three women at whose death Muhlenberg presided in the month of January 1753. The journal gives his private thoughts on the course and significance of her life, things he would not have said out loud. These are not the official remarks, except for the biblical text. His thoughts sum up the Reiff brothers' reputations:
"In the same month of January I was called upon to bury a ninety-year-old pious widow who fell asleep in the Lord. She lived eight miles from Anna Reiff, widow of her husband, Hans George, who died in 1726, was one of three women at whose death Muhlenberg presided in the month of January 1753. The journal gives his private thoughts on the course and significance of her life, things he would not have said out loud. These are not the official remarks, except for the biblical text. His thoughts sum up the Reiff brothers' reputations:
4) John Phillip Boehm before 1742 in his Letters (1728-1748) gives a wealth of particulars concerning Jacob Reiff, notably his calling the
Continuing the meditation Muhlenberg says, "at her funeral her son, who can discern good as well as evil in others, testified with tears that she had been a pious widow, a domestic preacher, an intercessor, and a model of godliness (I, 353)." If Muhlenberg says Jacob Reiff can discern "good as well as evil" long after the many vicious allegations had passed, we take his judgment after the fact as evidence of exoneration of the many charges against his character.
5) Gottlieb Mittelberger's disgruntled record of his Journey to Pennsylvania (1756) where he had gone in 1752 to become the organist in Muhlenberg's church famously details Conrad Reiff.
George Reiff (1692-1759). The Innocent, we might christen him in contrast with his brothers, was among the elders and the early founders of the Reformed Congregation of Skippack, the first Reformed church in Pennsylvania Holland Reading
Peter Reiff (c.1694-c.1782) was a smith like his father (who however left his smith's tools to Jacob), but although he was the son of Hans George Reiff he managed to confound a generation of genealogists by founding a strain of Riffes in West Virginia
All three brothers, Conrad, Peter and George, appear on the tax rolls of Oley in 1757, the first year of the organization of that township (Rockland Township April 29, 17 28 for protection against the Indians (Riffe, 26). Likewise with George and Conrad, Peter petitioned the Assembly in 1731 to be "permitted to enjoy the rights and privileges of English subjects" (Riffe, 26). Brother Jacob did not sign any of these petitions because he took two trips to Holland etc. in those years. Three of Peter’s children were born in Rockland Township
Conrad Reiff
Conrad (1696-c.1777) had two sons, Daniel and Philip, with the rank of Captain and Lieutenant respectively, who maybe fought in revolutionary battles of 1777. Conrad operated a large farm, some 970 acres by 1775, with its own sawmill and gristmill. Based on the 1767 tax assessment Pendleton says he was one of only three men "who did not have to work with their hands" (44). This tax assessment lists 20 acres of grain, a gristmill, sawmill and several tenant farms. He had taken on several indentured servants in 1745 and following. He sued the equally wealthy ironmaster Johannes Lesher in 1766.
He began the move to Oley, buying land there in 1730 and moving in 1733. His two sons Daniel (b.1736) and Philip (b.1739) are registered as being born in Philadelphia County , but at this time Philadelphia County
How rich is rich?Conrad's Organ connects the two protagonists. Reiff willed it to his son Daniel in 1777. At that time "the organ can be considered to have been somewhat of a rarity as a home instrument. Those individuals who did own an organ were often wealthy persons of the community" (Brunner, 10). Conrad Reiff may have inherited the organ from his father-in-law Philip Kuhlwein in 1737, he certainly inherited all of his land. The organ mentioned in the will of Matthias Zimmerman in Philadelphia is of 1734. Conrad Weiser had one prior to 1760 in Tulpehocken (10). A schoolmaster and organist of Old Goschenhoppen c.1779 was paid five pounds a year. A schoolmaster-organist at Trappe, 11 pounds in 1760. Compensation could include other items such as use of the schoolhouse as living quarters, free use of church land, donations of firewood, food and clothing. An average for the middle of the eighteenth century, including playing the organ, free rent, singing at funerals and conducting the singing school was approximately 20 to 25 pounds a year. (Ingenious Bus, 44). Mittleberger got 10 pounds in his last year (43).
Works Cited
Raymond J. Brunner. "That Ingenious Business" Pennsylvania German Organ Builders. Birdsboro, PA: The Pennsylvania German Society, 1990
Chronicon Ephratense. Ephrata, 1786. Tr. By J. Max Hark, Lancaster, 1889.
T. S. Eliot. Four Quartets. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1943.
Ernest, James E. Ephrata A history. Allentown: Schlechter's, 1963.
James Y. Heckler. History of Franconia Township. 1901. Bedminster, PA: Adams Apple Press, 1993.
The History of Harleysville and Lower Salford Township. 1886. Bedminster, PA: Adams Apple Press, 1993.
Glatfelter, Charles H. Pastors and People: German Lutheran and Reformed Churches in the Pennsylvania Field, l7l7-l793. 2 Vols. Breinigsville, PA: The Pennsylvania German Society, l980.
Mittelberger, Gottlieb. Journey To Pennsylvania. Edited and Translated by Oscar Handlin and John Clive. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960.
Motherwell, Robert, tr. The Dada Manifesto, in Dada Painters and Poets, NY: 1951.
Journals of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg. The Translated by Theodore G. Tappert and John W. Doberstein. Fortress, 1958. Reprinted by Picton Press, Camden, ME.
The Life and Letters of the Rev. John Philip Boehm. Edited by the Rev. William J. Hinke. Philadelphia: Sunday School Board of the Reformed Church in the United States, 1916.
Pendleton, Philip E. Oley Valley Heritage, The Colonial Years: 1700-1775. Birdsboro, PA: The Pennsylvania German Society, 1994.
Pennypacker, Samuel Whitaker. The Settlement of Germantown Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: William J. Campbell, 1899. Reprinted 1997 by Higginson Book Company, Salem, MA.
The Perkiomen Region. Vols. 1-5. Adams Apple Press, Bedminster, PA, 1994.
Reiff, Harry E. Reiff Families in America. Baltimore: Gateway Press, 1986.
Riffe, Fred J. Reiff to Riffe Family in America. 1995.
Sachse, Julius Friedrich. The German Sectarians of Pennsylvania, 1708-1742. 2 Vols.
Philadelphia: 1899, AMS:1971.
Wallace, Paul. Conrad Weiser: Friend of Colonist and Mohawk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1945.
Weiser, C. Z. The Life of (John) Conrad Weiser. Reading, PA: Daniel Miller, 1899.
George Whitefield's Journals (1737-1741). Gainesville: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1969.
Conrad Reiff was probably the last Newborn. We are scheduled to revisit the New Born in the Summer 2011 Berks County Historical Review. Make that, Fall. Actually, it was scratched.
The first part of this investigation, the article in the Berks County Historical Review on Conrad Reiff and the Journey to Pennsylvania is here.
Chronicon Ephratense. Ephrata, 1786. Tr. By J. Max Hark, Lancaster, 1889.
T. S. Eliot. Four Quartets. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1943.
Ernest, James E. Ephrata A history. Allentown: Schlechter's, 1963.
James Y. Heckler. History of Franconia Township. 1901. Bedminster, PA: Adams Apple Press, 1993.
The History of Harleysville and Lower Salford Township. 1886. Bedminster, PA: Adams Apple Press, 1993.
Glatfelter, Charles H. Pastors and People: German Lutheran and Reformed Churches in the Pennsylvania Field, l7l7-l793. 2 Vols. Breinigsville, PA: The Pennsylvania German Society, l980.
Mittelberger, Gottlieb. Journey To Pennsylvania. Edited and Translated by Oscar Handlin and John Clive. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960.
Motherwell, Robert, tr. The Dada Manifesto, in Dada Painters and Poets, NY: 1951.
Journals of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg. The Translated by Theodore G. Tappert and John W. Doberstein. Fortress, 1958. Reprinted by Picton Press, Camden, ME.
The Life and Letters of the Rev. John Philip Boehm. Edited by the Rev. William J. Hinke. Philadelphia: Sunday School Board of the Reformed Church in the United States, 1916.
Pendleton, Philip E. Oley Valley Heritage, The Colonial Years: 1700-1775. Birdsboro, PA: The Pennsylvania German Society, 1994.
Pennypacker, Samuel Whitaker. The Settlement of Germantown Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: William J. Campbell, 1899. Reprinted 1997 by Higginson Book Company, Salem, MA.
The Perkiomen Region. Vols. 1-5. Adams Apple Press, Bedminster, PA, 1994.
Reiff, Harry E. Reiff Families in America. Baltimore: Gateway Press, 1986.
Riffe, Fred J. Reiff to Riffe Family in America. 1995.
Sachse, Julius Friedrich. The German Sectarians of Pennsylvania, 1708-1742. 2 Vols.
Philadelphia: 1899, AMS:1971.
Wallace, Paul. Conrad Weiser: Friend of Colonist and Mohawk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1945.
Weiser, C. Z. The Life of (John) Conrad Weiser. Reading, PA: Daniel Miller, 1899.
George Whitefield's Journals (1737-1741). Gainesville: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1969.
The first part of this investigation, the article in the Berks County Historical Review on Conrad Reiff and the Journey to Pennsylvania is here.
