Report45Rileypp6780 .pdf

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THE INDUSTRIOUS IMMIGRANT:

GERMAN ARTISTS & ARTISANS IN ANTEBELLUM SOUTH

CAROLINA

n 1867, in the wake of unprecedented

destruction wrought upon South

Carolina by the Civil War, Charleston's

German-born mayor and Commissioner of

Immigration, John Andreas Wagener, print-

ed a pamphlet entitled South Carolina: A

Home for the Industrious Immigrant.

Wagener courted the immigration of his fel-

low Germans to assist with Reconstruction,

for he and many of his fellow citizens in

South Carolina knew the degree to which

their industry could aid the state. Indeed, by

1867 South Carolina had benefited from the

political and religious engagement,¹ artistic

expression, and craftsmanship of its Ger-

man-American inhabitants for two hundred

years. On the coast, sixty-three German

families held land grants in and around

Charleston by 1674. After John Lederer

mapped the mountainous regions of western

South Carolina in 1669/70, passage through

the Appalachian mountains made "the Great

Wagon Road" possible. Those who had emi-

grated for religious reasons traveled and

lived under the guidance of their pastors in

the new world, but most were left to fend for

themselves, cut off from civilization by days

of travel through virgin territory. The state's

mid-section, however, was settled chiefly

with planned townships and land-grant in-

centives in the government's effort to

defend the frontier against French and

Spanish interests and encourage trade with

the Indians.² Many German immigrants

developed a broad range of art in various

media and practiced an incredible array of

handicrafts. The discussion which follows

here presents in broad outline the little-

known, but extremely rich artistic legacy

which German immigrants to South Caro-

lina have bequeathed their adoptive state.

A large number of the immigrants from

German-speaking areas of Europe were lit-

erate. Some had enjoyed superior schooling

and brought cherished books and artifacts

with them. A small silver box created by

Abraham Remshard in Augsburg to com-

memorate the Salzburger exodus of 1732

contains miniature paintings depicting the

event and is still in possession of South

Carolina Remshard descendants. The earli-

est examples of art by the state's inland set-

tlers are colorful Fraktur, illuminated docu-

ments in old German script which served to

commemorate special family events such as

the move to a new home or the birth of a

child. One of the only remaining artifacts

from the township of Purrysburg is such a

Fraktur.

In 1745, David Züble created a Fraktur

for his son John Joachim, who had just

arrived in the province after completing his

study of theology in Europe. John hoped to

find a pastorate in South Carolina. His

father, aware of the rivalry between the Re-

verends Zuberbühler and Giessendanner for

an available position at Orangeburg, knew

that the job search would not be an easy one

and advised his son to persevere but be pre-

pared for a lengthy search. The elder Züble

was a learned man. His will notes a substan-

tial number of German books, some silver-

cased and edged, and a case of geometrical

instruments. The Fraktur is an adaptation of

the proscenium painting for Avancini's

Jesuit drama Pietas victrix. With its depic-

tion of battle, conflagration, and narrow

escape, it is eerily prescient for the career of

INDUSTRIOUS IMMIGRANT__________

John Joachim Zubly. He became the most

distinguished early clergyman in the pro-

vince, received an honorary doctorate from

Princeton University, was pastor at Wando

Neck, S.C., and at Savannah's Independent

Presbyterian Church, served as Georgia's

delegate to the Continental Congress, suf-

fered the burning of his books and the de-

struction of his property during the Revolu-

tionary War, and had to flee to South Caro-

lina toward the end of his life.

The distinctive Fraktur of the Dutch

Fork³ and Orangeburg areas by the anony-

mous "Ehre-Vater"-artist are particularly

significant. The few surviving examples of

this exquisite South Carolina folk art are

today the pride of museums on the eastern

seaboard.

They document the location and

service of some early itinerant pastors in the

state. Many shed some light on the origin of

township names and bring life to tales of the

remote past. The birth certificate for Johann

Herrmann Aal (see Figure 1) establishes that

in 1780 Pastor Hochheimer was present in

Orangeburg, a township which is supposs-

edly named for the Prince of Orange. It is

much more likely, however, that Oran-

geburg is an Anglicism for Ahrensburg.

Immigrants often named settlements after

their home towns, leaders, or concepts, as

was the case with the South Carolina towns

of Hamburg, Sievern, Wagener, and Wal-

halla. In addition, Ahrensburg and Ahrens-

bök are well-known cities in Germany, the

family name Ahrens appears among early

settlers in South Carolina, and South Caro-

lina's earliest church record book, that of

the Rev. John Ulrich Giessendanner, spells

the township "Arinsburg" as in the Aal

Fraktur. Given the area's extensive German

Figure 1: "Ehre Vater" Fraktur (anonymous artist)

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and Swiss population in the eighteenth cen-

tury, that may well have been its original

name.

The Johann Herrmann Aal of the Frak-

tur is most likely identical with J. Herman

Aull,

who supplied the pulpits of St. James

at Prosperity and Newberry, Dr. O.B.

Mayer, nineteenth-century physician-writer

and resident chronicler of South Carolina's

colorful "Dutch Fork" area, writes that

Herman Aull spent a boisterous youth but

had a change of heart in his later years and

applied to the Lutheran synod for a license

to preach.

Herman Aull's mother-tongue was un-

doubtedly German. Mayer reports: "I was

young when I for the first time heard him

preach, and this "Broken English" was

plainly perceptible in his utterance. For

instance, such phrases as "The Grace of

God," "Come hither, souls," he pronounced,

"De crace of Cot," "Come heeder, souls."

As he describes the settlement between the

Broad and Saluda rivers, Mayer remembers

"the pensive emotion excited by the tender

persuasiveness" of this pioneer preacher.

Charleston, of course, was the place

which attracted serious artists. Settled by

1670 and the state's capital until 1786,

the

"great port towne" was the center of cultur-

al diversity that boasted the first public

library in the colonies (1698), a free school

(1710), and a theater (1735). By the nine-

teenth century Charleston was "owned by

the Germans, ruled by the Irish, and enjoyed

by the Negroes."

In April 1783, the

Austrian emperor Joseph II sent a scientific

expedition to America consisting of a scien-

tist, a physician, a painter, and two garden-

ers to select, paint, and collect exotic flora

and fauna for the imperial greenhouses and

zoo in Vienna. To the chagrin of their sover-

eign, both the imperial cabinet painter

Bernhard Moll and the physician-botanist

Matthias Leopold Stupicz defected from the

expedition team and remained in Charle-

ston. Moll opened a drawing academy and

quickly made contact with the city's leading

citizenry. Several dozen of his silhouettes

profile the foremost families of Charleston

society, among them the Draytons, Frasers,

Heywards, Halls, Middletons, and Purcells.

Moll's scissor-cuts show remarkable dexter-

ity and skilled characterization, and are

among the best of the genre.

The physician Stupicz treated the aged

pastor Christian Theus in 1787 in the prac-

tice he had opened in Charleston. Theus and

his two brothers, Jeremiah and Simon, had

arrived from Switzerland in 1735 with their

parents, who settled in Orangeburg.

Brothers Jeremiah and Simon soon moved

to the Charleston area, but Christian

remained in the back country and served

several Lutheran churches spread over a

large territory. The oldest of the three,

Jeremiah Theus, is known today chiefly for

his portraits. His approach is similar to that

of late seventeenth- or early eighteenth-cen-

tury European provincial artists. Theus'

style stresses honest likenesses which con-

vey not only the dignity but often also a

ruddy robustness in his sitters. Mrs. Samuel

Jones, a healthy- and resolute-looking

woman, is the pride of the Charleston

Museum's collection, and Mr. James

Habersham, a leading merchant, planter,

and public servant during Georgia's colonial

era, looks well-fed and satisfied in the col-

lection of the Telfair Academy in

Savannah.

The work of Jeremiah Theus has been

variously described as "wooden," or stiff.

Jeremiah himself was said to be "a painter

without dash or inspiration or any natural

ability," and in similarly deprecatory

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INDUSTRIOUS IMMIGRANT__________

terms,

yet he was sought after by the

wealthy and influential and had a substantial

following. The clothes often were not those

actually worn by the sitters, but were styl-

ized costumes painted before Theus added

the faces. The approach saved time, and the

sitters could choose the finery in which they

wished to be portrayed. That also explains

why the proportions in some of Theus'

paintings look wrong. The body is turned

the wrong way, the head is too large or too

small for the body and seems to be placed

on the torso as an afterthought, which it

was.

Jeremiah Theus did not paint many

children, but those that he did paint were

portrayed lovingly. He took great care with

his little sitters and often added back-

grounds, toys, or their pets to the pictures. In

contrast to his brother Christian, who died

in poverty, Jeremiah was fairly well-off

financially at the end of his life. He was not

too proud to do work that many artists

would consider demeaning today. He adver-

tised his services not only as portraitist, but

also as painter of crests and coats of arms

for coaches or chaises. He gilded the globe

on the spire of St. Michael's church, copied

a plat of the Cherokees, and gilded and

painted constable staffs. He also translated

German letters for the Commons House of

Assembly. Jeremiah Theus worked hard,

and in less than fifteen years he was able to

support his nine children comfortably. At

his death he owned seven slaves, several

pieces of property, and a considerable sum

of cash. In life he was a charitable and

sociable man. Theus was one of three to

petition for incorporation of the South

Carolina Society, founded to support

schools, orphanages, and alms houses. We

have no portrait of him. Perhaps—as

Picasso once joked about his own work—he

couldn't afford one; but Jeremiah Theus was

said to have been a little man with rosy

cheeks, who walked briskly and was an

extrovert: sociable, enthusiastic, and ener-

getic.

Charleston's German congregations

encouraged record-keeping, and today

sometimes our only knowledge of artists

and artisans is the result of that attempt to

preserve history for future generations.

Francis C. Hill (1783-1856), son of Paul

and Elizabeth Eckhardt Hill, also made his

living painting cornices, furniture, coaches,

houses, clocks, fences, coats of arms, ships,

and signs. Like Jeremiah Theus, but not as

successfully, he also painted portraits and

landscapes "on moderate terms," as he stat-

ed in an advertisement. None of these works

survive except the several exterior and inte-

rior views of Charleston's first German-lan-

guage church, St. John's Lutheran, which he

painted after his sketch of 1799. The Hills

were members of St. John, and the church

preserved his depiction of the initial wood-

en church's architecture and burial

ground.

In the late eighteenth and early nine-

teenth centuries, several German silver-

smiths produced beautiful work in Charle-

ston. Among them were C.C.L. Wittich and

his brother, and Peter Mood and his son

John.

A good craftsman was appreciated

in Germany, and often such an artisan did

not receive permission to emigrate. The son

of a Lutheran minister in Hainder-die-

Eichen near Frankfurt/Main, Christian

Charles Lewis Wittich may have arrived as

a Hessian soldier who defected in America.

After years of silence, we find him adver-

tising his jeweler's and silversmith business

on Broad Street in 1794. By that time he

was well established. His coffee urn and

wine trolley

show the graceful lines and

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classic beauty only a skilled craftsman can

create. Apparently, however, Wittich was

the subject of a powerful nobleman in Hesse

who wanted him back. On 27 November

1800, a head hunter in Pennsylvania placed

an advertisement Charleston's City Gazette

offering an attractive reward for information

on Wittich, dead or alive.

The advertise-

ment claimed that Wittich's "troubled moth-

er and relations can get no account of him,

either by letters or otherwise." The silver-

smith's reply to the Gazette was swift.

Refuting the claim that it was his mother

who was looking for him, he chided the

paper for printing the ad. He was well-

known in town as a good and hard-working

citizen, Wittich said, and showed proof that

he had forwarded letters and money to his

family in Germany. In 1802 he fetched his

brother Frederick from Europe and for sev-

eral years they worked together until he

retired from his business at the end of

1807.

Another important silversmith family

in Charleston were the son and grandsons of

Johann Peter Muth from Württemberg.

Son Peter (1766-1821) was in Charleston by

1785 and anglicized his name to Mood. He

opened a shop in fashionable King Street

and produced distinctive silver utensils and

flatware. A cream pitcher in the Charleston

Museum and the exquisite pair of salt cel-

lars in Atlanta's High Museum are good

examples of his craft (see Figure 2). Peter

Mood's oldest son John (1792-1864), also a

silversmith, continued the family business,

but left the Lutheran Church of his German

ancestors at age sixteen to join a Methodist

congregation. In mid-life he became a

Methodist clergyman. Four of his sons also

followed that calling.

The eighteenth century perceived

musicians and composers as craftsmen

rather than as creative artists, and many did

in fact build, maintain, and repair their

instruments. One of these was John Jacob

Eckhard (1757-1833), an early organist and

Figure 2: Salt cellars by silversmith Peter Mood

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INDUSTRIOUS IMMIGRANT__________

composer at St. John's Church, who is

known today as Charleston's "Father of

Music," Eckhard was born at Eschwege in

Hessen-Kassel, where he began his career

as church organist at age twelve. In 1776 the

nineteen-year-old was sent to America with

the Hessian troops and later settled in

Richmond. In 1786 he came to Charleston

as St. John's organist and schoolmaster and

immersed himself in Charleston's cultural

life. In 1789 he became a member of the

German Friendly Society; later he served as

the organization's president and was the

Society's treasurer for thirty-three years.

Charleston remembers Eckhard for the ben-

efit concerts he organized for refugees in

1793, and as director of the annual chil-

dren's concert at the Charleston Orphan

House. Among his known compositions are

the church anthems in his choir master's

book, and at least two patriotic songs. For

one of these he won first prize in a national

competition.

In 1809, Eckhard became

organist at St. Michael's Episcopal Church,

which had a superior organ, and he served

there until his death in 1833, although he

maintained membership at St. John's. The

church's new organ was built to his specifi-

cations and installed in 1823. At St. John's

Eckhard also served as vestryman and trea-

surer and is buried in the church yard there.

Two of his sons succeeded him as organists

at St. John's.

Beyond Charleston the rural "Dutch

Fork" area produced its own craftsmanship

in wood and textiles. Farming communities

didn't create to achieve fame or renown for

the artist, but crafted items for practical use.

Therefore many are unsigned and the iden-

tity of the artisan remains unknown. This is

especially true of the women and their beau-

tiful textiles. Often, their name is "anony-

mous." The Lexington County Museum

owns a large array of textiles which show

the many variations of creative stitching and

embroidery used by women from the

"Dutch Fork" area to beautify their homes.

The collection also includes antique textiles,

such as the sampler dated 23 June 1830

made by Jane Carolina Corley when she

was only thirteen.

Some of the museum's textiles carry

specific significance for South Carolina.

One is a quilt made around 1850 by women

of the Rauch household that features the so-

called "South Carolina" pattern. Its name is

derived from the fact that it appears only in

works from South Carolina and eastern

Georgia. Another name for the pattern is

"sundew," as the design resembles the

blooms of a carnivorous swamp plant by the

same name. Of particular significance is the

lovely blue indigo dye seen in Susannah

Busbee's embroidery thread on a hand-

woven cotton coverlet. The indigo plant was

grown in South Carolina and became an im-

portant cash crop and export article for the

state in the eighteenth century. Hand-crafted

textiles over a hundred years old are rare be-

cause they are fragile and disintegrate easi-

ly with extensive use and frequent clean-

ings. Also, the unpaid work of women was

rarely cherished even if it was intricate and

beautiful. Often subsequent generations pre-

ferred more modern designs and discarded

the family heirlooms.

The work of craftsmen using wood or

metal is more enduring and survives longer.

Still, few of South Carolina's back-country

creations survived the ravages of the

Revolutionary and Civil Wars. Among the

treasured items of the Lexington County

Museum are a pie safe made about 1820 in

the upper Dutch Fork and a pine blanket

chest dating to around 1815, both showing a

variation of the hex-sign decorations popu-

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lar among the Pennsylvania Dutch. The

museum's oak reed "parlor organ" with

carved embellishments was made about

1910 and belonged to Anna Schneider

Harmon, whose grandfather came to Lex-

ington from Germany in 1833. In all, the

museum's holdings document the creativity

of German settlers in the rural areas of

South Carolina from the earliest times. Two

such examples are a rocking chair made in

1820 by John Yost Mütze, and a tall case

clock made around 1800 in Lexington

County that belonged to the Leaphart fami-

ly. Mütze

came to America as a Hessian

soldier, deserted the British army during the

siege of Charleston, and settled in the Lex-

ington area, where he served as pastor of

several churches between 1809 and 1828.

The Leaphart clock has a tall pine case and

wooden works, which keep surprisingly ac-

curate time in a humid environment. Today,

such clocks are prized antiques, one of

which graces the vestibule of the famous

monastery at Melk, Austria.

The nineteenth century saw a numeri-

cally much greater influx of German-speak-

ing settlers into South Carolina. The indus-

trial age had replaced many German factory

workers with machines, the labor market

had changed, and many who had worked in

labor-intensive professions could no longer

compete with mass production. At the same

time, the new steamships also made travel

to America very much faster and safer.

Great numbers of Germans were trying their

luck in the United States

One of the newcomers was the artist

Christian Friedrich Mayr (1803-1851),

about whom very little was known until

recently.

Mayr was born to an artist's fam-

ily in Nuremberg. He was only seven years

old when his father died. He and his

younger brother Heinrich became the wards

of Christian Friedrich Fuels, their father's

friend and business partner. Fues was a

well-known painter and professor at

Nuremberg's Royal Art Academy. Mayr

studied there and at the Academy of Art in

Munich. Christian came to America while

his brother Heinrich, who was also an artist,

stayed in Europe,. Mayr received his citi-

zenship in Charleston in 1838, and it is due

to his success as a sought-after portraitist

that we have a pictorial record of several of

Charleston's German families.

Perhaps Mayr's most famous painting

is that of Charleston's firemen which is on

display in city hall. Among the firemasters

and officers of the city's fire departments it

depicts are many of German descent: John

Schnierle, chief, and later mayor of

Charleston; John A. Wagener, later mayor of

Charleston

and president of the German

Fire Company; Jacob F. Mintzing; J.M. Os-

tendorff, vice president of the German Fire

Company; John Siegling, firemaster; and

the artist himself in a cameo appearance.

Mayr also painted personal portraits of

several of the individuals who appeared in

the group painting of the firemen. The like-

ness of Jacob F. Mintzing, Charleston's first

German-born mayor, is displayed at the

meeting hall of the German Friendly So-

ciety, where he was president in 1818, 1819,

and then again from 1833 to 1841. In the

background of Mintzing's portrait, Mayr

painted the Society's magnificent old meet-

ing place, which burned on 17 September

1864.

The edifice was built on Archdale

Street by the master builders John and

Henry Horlbeck, sons of John Adam

Horlbeck from Germany. Mayr's view of

the Society Hall is the only extant picture

which corresponds closely to descriptive

written records.

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INDUSTRIOUS IMMIGRANT__________

Figure 3: Kitchen Ball at White Sulpher Springs by Christian Friedrich Mayr

Christian Friedrich Mayr spent the

winter months of the year in Charleston and

arranged exhibits of his work. With the

assistance of those Charleston newspapers

that provided critical assessments of his

paintings, raffles were organized which

afforded Mayr some income. Some of the

wealthier German families had their fami-

lies painted by him. The portraits of Johann

Michael Schnierle, carpenter from Kup-

pingen in Germany, and an oil of the wife

and children of his son, John Schnierle, are

typical of Mayr's portraits. John Schnierle,

whom Mayr also included in his firemen's

painting, was another of Charleston's

German mayors. The elder Schnierle's

daughter Mary married John Zacharias

Siegling, instrument-maker from Erfurt,

Germany, who founded the Siegling music

house in Charleston (see Figure 4). Mayr

painted his portrait in dress uniform as

brigadier commander with the famous

Citadel in the background. In every picture

the artist's intent was to include some of his

sitters' personal history, some specific fea-

ture important to the individuals and the

society in which they lived. Only recently

discovered was the portrait of Mary

Elizabeth Gladden, wife of Colonel Adley

Hogan Gladden, commander of the

Palmetto Regiment and mayor of Columbia.

It is a beautifully executed painting of Mrs.

Gladden in her finery and one of only a few

Mayr seems to have painted of women.

In 1849, when he became a full mem-

ber of New York's National Academy of

Design, Mayr had to provide a self-portrait.

The portrait shows a confident man in his

forties who had acquired good skills in por-

traiture. The medium provided a living for

him and his family, but his paintings in

today's art museums are so-called genre

paintings. A progression in his skills is evi-

dent from Fire Engine No. 1

to the

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Kitchen Ball at White Sulphur Springs,

owned by the North Carolina Museum of

Art (see Figure 3). The Kitchen Ball earned

him the reputation of having been the first to

depict African-Americans in their own envi-

ronment and in a non-patronizing manner.

His First Step in Life, currently at the

Greenville County Museum of Art, shows

one of Mayr's many genre paintings that

feature scenes from the home life. This one,

showing a baby's walk carefully guided by

watchful parents and grandfather, has been

interpreted as symbolizing the new state of

Texas being shown its first steps among the

family members of the United States.

Figure 4: Ad in the Charleston paper by John

Siegling, maker of musical

instruments

Reading the News, presently at the National

Academy in New York, is the second paint-

ing which Mayr had to submit for full mem-

bership in that society. The working-class

men huddled over the paper on the steps of

a cobbler's shop are typical subjects of his

genre paintings, depicting American life at

home and in the streets, snapshots of our

culture as seen from the immigrant's per-

spective.

Any excursion through the variety of

creative folk art, woodcrafts, textiles, and

rural and cosmopolitan arts and crafts by

German-speaking settlers in South Carolina

is necessarily a reminder that much more

has been destroyed than has been saved.

Paper and paint, wood and fabric require a

level of care for survival that was hardly

available under eighteenth-century condi-

tions in the sub-tropical climate of South

Carolina's back country. Even many of the

most durable of creations, those by workers

in stone and iron, by architects and wrought

iron artisans, have failed to endure. For

example, nothing is left of the work by

Christian Senf (ca. 1754-1806), who

arrived as a Hessian soldier and became

chief engineer to the state of South Caro-

lina. Among other structures, he designed

the clubhouse of St. John's Hunting Club,

forts, and the old Santee Canal. There is no

grave marker on his grave at Rocky Mount,

South Carolina.

Charles F. Reichardt was not much

luckier. He came to Charleston in 1836 and

designed a number of imposing structures,

including the new theater in 1837, the mag-

nificent Charleston Hotel at 200 Meeting

Street in 1838, a Mariner's Church, the

grandstand at the Washington Race Course,

and the Guard House. Of the latter, its spec-

tacular wrought-iron "Sword Gates" by C.

Carl Werner were saved (see Figure 5). The

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INDUSTRIOUS IMMIGRANT_________

columns of a new

bank building re-

placing the old

Charleston Hotel are

but a small reminder

of the former's

grandeur.

Destroyed and

forgotten is also the

work of Charles

Theodore Pachelbel

(1690-1750), who

arrived in Charleston

in 1736 and gave his

first concert at the

Dock Street Theater

on 22 November

1737. Pachelbel was

organist at St.

Philip's church until

his death in 1750. Of

his compositions

there remains only a

"Magnificat," most

likely created while

he was still in

Germany.

Still, despite the ravages of time and

the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, some

memorials to the past creativity of South

Carolina's German-speaking settlers have

survived. Frederick Wesner (1788-1848),

son of one of the original members of the

German Fusiliers who fought in the

Revolutionary War, was the architect for the

present St. John's Lutheran Church con-

structed in 1815-1817, and also held the

contract for the woodwork. Among other

structures, Wesner designed the portico

added to the South Carolina Society hall in

1825. He was a member of that Society and

of the German Friendly Society. In 1827

Wesner designed the Medical College

which stood at Queen and Back Streets.

Charleston's Mili-

tary Academy, the

old Citadel— now

remodeled as a ho-

tel—was also de-

signed by him and

still stands on Ma-

rion Square. How-

ever, the comme-

morative brass tablet

honoring Wesner as

the architect has dis-

appeared from the

former entrance of

the Citadel and is

lost. Frederick Wes-

ner held a number of

civic positions in

Charleston and was

instrumental in the

capture of "Den-

mark" Vesey, leader

of the ill-fated insur-

rection of black

slaves which led to

the erection of the

Citadel.

Among South Carolina's German

builders and architects the Horlbeck family

is very well-known. Brothers Peter and John

Adam Horlbeck came to Charleston from

Saxony in 1764. They were stone masons

who occasionally also drew their own plans.

Perhaps their most famous building is

Charleston's Exchange

on East Bay

Street, which still stands, although with

alterations. Some of the material, such as

the slate and Perbeck stone, was personally

procured in England by the Horlbecks, but

the heart pine and cypress came from the

headwaters of the Ashley river on which

Charleston is situated. On 23 November

1769 the South Carolina Gazette noted, "In

the Snow Chatty, arrived this week from

Figure 5: Sword gates

by Christopher Carl Werner

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Poole, are come about 60 Tons of Stone for

our new Exchange: which is raising with

great Dispatch." The brothers received

£44,016 5s 7d for their work, which was

somewhat more than their contract provid-

ed. John also built a synagogue on Hasell

Street (1792), which was destroyed in the

fire of 1838. Among the Charleston houses

built by the brothers were the Laurens home

on East Bay and the house on 54 Broad

Street.

John Horlbeck, Jr. and his brother

Henry, the sons of John Adam Horlbeck,

formed a partnership much as their father

and uncle had done. They worked together

for thirty-five years, from about 1801 to

1836. They received the contract for the

masonry work of the new St. John's

Lutheran Church and also built the German

Friendly Society Hall on Archdale Street,

depicted in the Mintzing portrait by Mayr.

Both John and Henry Horlbeck were the

presidents of the Society several times and

served in other charitable and civic func-

tions. The Horlbecks established one of the

first (and the largest) commercial pecan

groves at their Boone Hall plantation and

also built a large brick and tile factory there.

An area of 513 acres with extraordinary clay

soil became the production center for colo-

nial Charleston's building needs. At its peak

in the 1840s, the brickyard produced

4,000,000 bricks annually. Parts of the plan-

tation house as well as the still-existing

original slave cabins of Boone Hall are con-

structed with Horlbeck brick, and the mas-

sive smokestack of the brickyard's steam

boiler is the focal point of the new

"Brickyard Plantation" subdivision near

Boone Hall Plantation.

Spectacular work was done by some

German craftsmen in wrought iron. Carl

Werner, born in Münster, Westphalia,

opened a large foundry in Charleston in

1839.

The "sword gates" that originally

were on Reichardt's Guard House are his

work. They are now incorporated into the

enclosure of a private property at 32 Legare

Street and are one of Charleston's main

tourist attractions. Werner also crafted the

railing of the College of Charleston with its

beautiful entry gate as well as numerous

other ornamental enclosures in the city. His

most impressive creation is the monument

to the Palmetto Regiment on the Columbia

State House grounds. The life-sized

Palmetto tree is missing a few of its original

fronds, but it survived Sherman's attack.

Not much is known about J.A.W. Iusti,

who arrived in Charleston in 1820 from

Germany. His most famous work, the gates

to the church yard of St. Michael's Epis-

copal Church, consists of scroll work of

such thin and delicate filigree that he has

been called the greatest of the artists in

enduring iron. Justifiably proud of the gates,

lusti signed them in cast letters on the over-

throw. Also signed by him are the ornamen-

tal gates to the Hayne burial lot in the

churchyard of St. Michael's.

As mentioned earlier, St. John's Lu-

theran Church in Charleston gave most of

its contracts for the new building on

Archdale and Clifford Streets to ethnic

Germans. The architect was Frederick

Wesner, the builders were John and Henry

Horlbeck, and the gates were completed by

Jacob F. Roh in 1822. Their intricate scroll

work rivals that of Iusti's at St. Michael's,

and the church has preserved its German

heritage in other ways as well. The orna-

mental pipes and organ case were installed

in 1823 by Henry Erben; the donor of the

mahogany for the original pulpit was Jacob

Sass, well-known cabinet maker and one of

the early presidents of the German Friendly

—77—

INDUSTRIOUS IMMIGRANT__________

Society; the balcony pews were made with

wood from the original wooden church; and

the stained glass window in the recessed

chancel was designed by the Reverend E.T.

Horn.

The significant influence exerted on

South Carolina's culture by German-speak-

ing immigrants in the eighteenth and nine-

teenth centuries is one of our country's best-

kept secrets. The engagement with a Ger-

man enemy in two world wars resulted both

in the destruction of historic German-lan-

guage books, journals, and newspapers in

America, and in the reluctance of German-

American families to acknowledge their

heritage. Senator Fritz Hollings severed all

ties with his German family members; many

others anglicized their German names; and

the historic German Friendly Society of

Charleston (founded in 1766) dropped the

word "German" from its name and restored

it only in 1965. Yet South Carolina's

German-speaking immigrants provided

political and economic leadership as sena-

tors and representatives, mayors and cabinet

members, inventors and businessmen. They

founded cities and built their edifices. They

fought on the Union and Confederate sides,

built churches and canals, wrote South

Carolina's history and taught her young.

Here we have explored a small but colorful

part of their cultural contributions to this

Southern state.

— Helene Kastlinger Riley

Clemson University

—78—

All figures reprinted with permission from the exhibit "Cultural Contributions of German-speaking

Settlers in South Carolina," conceived and designed by Helene M. Riley.

In his otherwise excellent book Hopeful

Journeys. German Immigration, Settlement,

and Political Culture in Colonial America,

1717-1775 (Philadelphia: U. of Pennsylvania

Press, 1996), Aaron Spencer Fogleman makes

scant reference to South Carolina's German

immigration through the port of Charleston

since the 1660s. He also fails to note the exten-

sive political engagement by South Carolina's

German-speaking settlers.

Among these townships, the "Saltketchers" on

the upper Salkehatchie (1730-40), the Sa-

vannah River settlements of Purrysburg

(1732), Ebenezer (1734), and New Windsor

(1737), the central townships of Orangeburg

and Amelia (1735), Saxe-Gotha (1737), the

Dutch Fork area (1760), and Londonderry on

Hard Labor Creek (1764) were chiefly settled

by German-speaking immigrants professional-

ly recruited in Switzerland, Austria, and Ger-

many.

The name "Dutch Fork" is a mispronunciation

of "Deutsch[es] Volk." By 1760 around 2,000

Germans had settled in the large fork between

the Broad and Saluda Rivers as they converge

near Columbia to form the Congaree. Some of

the settlers spilled over from Saxe-Gotha, oth-

ers came overland from Pennsylvania down

the great valley road.

In July 2001, an Ehre-Vater-Fraktur sold for

$46,000 at auction in Winston-Salem, NC.

The family name is spelled variously Aal (for

the original immigrants from Unterauerbach,

now part of Mindelheim), also All and Aull.

The given name Herrmann or Hermann is also

written Harmon. A chronicle in the city archive

of Mindelheim provides graphic examples of

the tortured lives which the 140-150 citizens

of Unterauerbach endured in the seventeenth

and eighteenth century before emigrating. Cf.

Ortschronik oder Beschreibung der Merkwir-

thigkeiten und Ereignisse der Pfarrgemeinde

Unteraurbach, 1855.

John A. Chapman, The Annals of Newberry

(Newberry, SC: Aull & Houseal, 1892; reprint

1949), 660.

Although the vote to move the capitol to

Columbia was in 1786, actual removal did not

occur until 1790.

In South Carolina. The WPA Guide to the Pal-

metto State (U. of SC Press, 1988), 188-189.

Helene M. Kastinger Riley, "Charleston's

Drawing Master Bernard Albrecht Moll and

the South Carolina Expedition of Emperor Jo-

seph n of Austria," Journal of Early Southern

Decorative Arts, 21, 1 (Summer 1995): 5-88.

The article is illustrated with dozens of Moll's

silhouettes. The originals are in the Royal

Ontario Museum in Toronto.

10.

Habersham came to the colony in 1738 and

collaborated with the Rev. Whitefield in the

founding of Bethesda orphanage, which was

inspired by the Salzburgers' orphanage at

Ebenezer.

11.

Margaret Simons Middleton, Jeremiah Theus.

Colonial Artist of Charles Town (U. of SC

Press, 1991), 5-6.

12.

Francis C. Hill's oil painting of the first wood-

en church of St. John's Lutheran is located in

the church offices on Clifford Street. Several of

his sketches of architectural subjects are kept

at the Museum of Early Southern Decorative

Arts in Winston-Salem, NC (MESDA), and

two now lost paintings are referred to under the

titles "The Cottage" and "Love Scene" in the

Charleston Courier of 13 September 1843.

Anna Wells Rutledge, Artists in the Life of

Charleston (Philadelphia: American Philoso-

phical Society, 1949) is a good source book for

Hill and other forgotten artists.

13.

E. Milby Burton, South Carolina Silversmiths

1690-1860 (Charleston, SC: The Charleston

Museum, 1991), 101-103.

14.

MESDA owns these and other examples of

Wittich's work.

15.

City-Gazette and Daily Advertiser, 18, 4143

(27 November 1800): p. 7, col. 2. The same ad

also asks for information on John Nix, former-

ly in the service of the Prince of Uffenburgh,

who shipped to America with the Hessian

Hanover Yeagers and evidently also defected.

16.

Records on Wittich are sparse thereafter, but he

was still alive in April 1816, when he resigned

NOTES

INDUSTRIOUS IMMIGRANT,

NOTES____

his membership in the German Friendly

Society, today perhaps the oldest still function-

ing historic and charitable organization in the

United States.

17.

Details about this family of silversmiths in

South Carolina Silversmiths 1690-1860,

68-72.

18.

Some insight into this important family, which

includes physicians and civil servants, is

offered by C.C. Cody, The Life and Labors of

Francis Asbury Mood, D.D., Founder and first

Regent of Southwestern University (Chicago:

F.H.Revell, 1886).

19.

Jacob Eckkard's Choirmaster's Book of 1809.

A facsimile with introduction and notes by

George W. Williams (Columbia, SC: U. of S.C.

Press, 1971).

20.

The name appears most often in the anglicized

version of "Meetze." The family is still promi-

nent in the Lexington and Dutch Fork area.

21.

Details about this interesting personality are

found in: A History of the Lutheran Church in

South Carolina (Columbia, SC: R.L. Bryan

Co., 1971), 880 (biography), and throughout.

22.

Helene M. Riley: "Christian Friedrich Mayr,"

The Magazine Antiques (November 1998):

688-695 (richly illustrated).

23.

Wagener was the founder of numerous organi-

zations in Charleston as well as the town of

Walhalla, SC. He was also the state's Com-

missioner of Immigration..

24.

The report of Society's historian: "During the

devastation of the city from shell fire during

the war the hall of the German Friendly

Society in Archdale Street was seriously dam-

aged, and during the great fire in Charleston it

was almost entirely destroyed." George J.

Gongaware, Adolph C. Lesemann, Jr.,

Kellinger R. Cotton, Jr., The History of The

German Friendly Society of Charleston, South

Carolina (Spartanburg: The Reprint Company,

1999), 189.

25.

The painting was once owned by the Brooklyn

Historical Society and is now missing.

26.

Beatrice St. Julien Ravenel, Architects of

Charleston (Columbia, SC: U. of S.C. Press,

1992), 87-89. South Carolina. The WPA Guide

to the Palmetto State, 355-356.

27.

Furman University in Greenville, SC, has an

old LP recording of this work.

28.

Ravenel, Architects of Charleston, 137-146.

Vesey, a free African, "organized the most ela-

borate and well-planned slave insurrection in

the history of the United States" in the summer

of 1822. Thousands of armed slaves were to

arise at midnight in Charleston and kill their

white masters on command. The rebellion was

betrayed by black informers and on 2 July

1822, Vesey was hanged with five of his co-

conspirators. See David M. Robertson, Den-

mark Vesey (New York: Knopf, 1999).

29.

Ravenel. Architects of Charleston, 41-48.

William Rigby Naylor signed the architectural

plans, but the question remains whether he was

the architect or just the draftsman. Elizabeth A.

Poyas published a biography of the Horlbeck

brothers as: Our Forefathers: Their Homes and

their Churches (Charleston: Walker, Evans &

Co., 1860).

30,

John Andreas Wagener provides the most com-

prehensive information on his contemporary

Werner in his article "Carl Werner, der

deutsche Tubal-Kain," Der deutsche Pionier, 4

(1872-73): 291-293. Wagener, who was well

acquainted with Werner and his work, refers to

him by the given name "Carl." Current studies

substitute the name "Christopher." Mention of

Werner is also made by Ravenel, Architects of

Charleston, and by Charles N. Bayless,

Charleston Ironwork. A Photographic Study

(Orangeburg, SC: Sandlapper Publishing Co.,

1987).

31.

"Art and the Artisan. South Carolina German-

American Artists of the 18th and 19th Centuries,"

a pictorial survey of South Carolina's arts and

craftson videotape funded by the South

Carolina Humanities Commission, was pro-

duced by Helene M. Riley in 1997.

—80—