10/19/2026
From Bob Lambert (PA Dutch group)
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“My father’s mother was a Pennsylvanian. Her forebears had come to Pennsylvania with William Penn, some in the same ship with him. They were of the usual type of immigrants of that particular place and time. They included Welsh and English Quakers, an Irishman with a Celtic name and apparently not a Quaker, and peace-loving Germans who were among the founders of Germantown, having been driven from their Rhineland homes when the armies of Louis the Fourteenth ravaged the Palatinate. And in addition, representatives of a by-no-means altogether peaceful people, the Scotch-Irish, who came to Pennsylvania a little later, early in the eighteenth century.” -Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States.
On October 6, 1683 after a seventy-five day Atlantic crossing the ship "Concord", also known as the German Mayflower, docked in the port of Philadelphia. Captained by William Jeffries, she had departed the port of Rotterdam on July 6, 1683 carrying thirteen German and Dutch families who had accepted William Penn's invitation to join his "Holy Experiment" in the colony of Pennsylvania.
Penn offered cheap land to settle, self-governance and "freedom of worship and conscience to anyone who believed in one Almighty God, the Creator and Ruler of the world, and who would live peaceably under the civil government". In Penn's colony, no one would be forced to attend or financially support a particular church or form of worship not of their own choosing. Penn’s main aim in promoting his colony was to attract persecuted Christians, Protestant dissenters such as Quakers, Mennonites and other nonconformists, from England and continental Europe and he had marketed Pennsylvania heavily there. At the same time Penn explicitly aimed to prevent “looseness, irreligion and atheism” from creeping into his colony under the pretense of "conscience". Penn's idea of religious tolerance was not like the modern concept of absolute religious liberty for every belief, or non-belief.
The passengers of the "Concord" were greeted at the dock by William Penn himself and Franz Pastorius, a German lawyer and close friend of Penn's who had legally prepared their settlement. Two of the thirteen families were headed by Jan Lueken and Reinert Tisen, the spelling of their names vary, both of whom were Teddy Roosevelt's ancestors. The two men were from the Krefeld area of the Holy Roman Empire, modern day Germany's Lower Rhine region of North Rhine-Westphalia, and both men were Mennonites who later became Quakers.
Pastorius had described the location of their new settlement as: "about six miles northwest of the brand-new city of Philadelphia on high, hilly, rocky ground with black fertile soil and many springs; oak, walnut and chestnut trees and good pasturage with an old indian trail (later Germantown Avenue) that ran through it". When they arrived at the site there were no existing buildings or cleared fields; just dense woodland. On October 24, 1683, they mapped out their plots and formally laid out the town along the old indian trail. They created a wide main street with side streets, each family receiving about 3 acres for a house and garden, and they left space for additional farmland farther out. The settlers, about 33 people of interrelated Krefeld families, faced immediate hardship. They spent the first winter in dug-out cellars or crude caves covered with temporary roofs and they had almost no money or food reserves left after their Atlantic crossing. Many had to walk the two-hour trip into Philadelphia to work for wages in order to survive. The settlement was mockingly called “Armentown” from the German/Dutch word "arm" meaning poor because of the extreme poverty.
Despite the rough start they turned "Germantown" into a thriving community within a few years. They cleared the land, built first log houses then stone ones, planted vegetables, grains and vineyards and improved the road to Philadelphia by repeated travel. In addition to being farmers most of the families were also experienced linen weavers. Within a year they were producing linen cloth and selling it in Philadelphia; Pastorius even ran a store for their goods. They grew flax, set up spinning wheels and looms, and later became famous for high-quality stockings and textiles. Local streams provided water power and by 1690 William Rittenhouse was operating the first paper mill in the British colonies. Other mills, tanneries, and craft shops followed. The official seal of Germantown later featured a grapevine, flax blossoms and a weaver’s spool with the motto: "Vinum, Linum et Textrinum" (W**e, Flax, and Weaving) summarizing the economic foundation they had built. The success of the Germantown settlement was a keystone for future waves of immigrants from the Palatinate region, the people who would become known as The Pennsylvania Dutch.
Jan Lueken served as Germantown's constable, sheriff and bailiff; while Reinert Tisen served as one of the burgesses (sort of a Justice of the Peace and lawyer) and later an elder at Abington Friends Meeting. Jan and Reinert's children, William and Elizabeth, married and would become Teddy Roosevelt's third great-grandparents. Both of their descendants stayed in Germantown and the nearby townships in what later became Montgomery County for several generations. William and Elizabeth moved a short distance north to the Horsham/Upper Dublin area around 1709 when Jan acquired land there. Later Lueken descendants continued spreading into Towamencin and other nearby townships, but many stayed in southeastern Pennsylvania as other Palatinate-Americans began moving westward. Reinert purchased land in Abington Township in present day Montgomery County where he died in 1745. His descendants followed the same pattern of remaining in the Philadelphia/Montgomery County area for the next couple of generations. William and Elizabeth's great-granddaughter, Margaret Barnhill, married Cornelius Roosevelt in 1821 and moved to Long Island, New York to establish their family. Margaret and Cornelius were Teddy Roosevelt's grandparents.
During his presidency Teddy Roosevelt publicly recognized the contributions German-Americans had made to the country on multiple occasions. On November 19, 1903, he received delegates from German-American societies at The White House and in that event's speech he said: “To no element do we owe more than we owe to that element represented by those whom I have the honor this day of addressing.” He went on to acknowledge that German immigrants to America had been vital since colonial times, including the founding of Germantown. On October 5, 1908, he sent a telegram to the president of the National German-American Alliance expressing his good wishes and commending the 225th anniversary of the Concord's arrival in Philadelphia. He also accepted an honorary membership in the German-American Historical Society later that year.
In 1987 the US Congress officially designated October 6th as German-American Day.
(Robin Williams portrayed Teddy Roosevelt in the "Night at the Museum" trilogy in 2006, 2009 and 2014; it was his final movie role.) See less
