report42Wust8189

JOHANN THOMAS SCHLEY (1712-1790)

SCHOOLMASTER, MUSICIAN AND FRAKTUR

ARTIST OF FREDERICK, MARYLAND

n trying to piece together the life story and

achievement of German colonial immi-

grants most researchers are confronted with

two problems. One is the dearth of contem-

porary material in German. Older records in

German were often discarded by a posterity

that could no longer read German or as was

the case in World War I did not want to be

identified with an enemy people. The other

difficulty is the ready availability of fabricated

"source" material. The true importance of the

lives of certain German immigrants of the

eighteenth century has been obscured by the

exaggerated accounts of proud, but overly

zealous descendants. One of the most com-

mon ambitions of the chronicler of a family

history was (and is) to establish the ancestor

as the very first settler in a given area. Next

comes the desire to trace him to a prominent

family in Europe and make him the leader

and organizer of a group of persecuted emi-

grants. Schley family historians felt obliged to

add such unnecessary glitter to their common

ancestor's life story because several of his

descendants had become prominent during

the nineteenth century. Two of his grandsons

who moved south did quite well in Georgia.

William Schley was elected to Congress and

for a brief time (1835-37) served as governor of

Georgia. One of the smallest counties was

given his name. His brother was a justice on

the supreme bench of the state. A great-

grandson, Winfield Scott Schley (1839-1909),

was a successful naval officer. He achieved

fame because of his participation in a very

dangerous rescue operation in the arctic in

1884 and his victory in the battle of Santiago

during the Spanish-American War.¹

The resulting story of Johann Thomas

Schley always begins as follows: "Thomas

Schley landed in America in 1735 with about

one hundred Palatine families."² In several

accounts it is asserted that these people all

came from the Landau area, preferably from

Appenhofen. This led to the claim that Schley

was the business agent of the Appenhofer

colonies. Since no interesting fact about

Schley's parents could be located, there was at

least the often-repeated story that his wife was

a daughter of General Wintz who died during

the battle of Parma in Italy in 1714.³

Unfortunately there are letters extant

which Thomas Schley wrote to his father-in-

law, Georg Wintz. Sr., in 1752 and 1761. An

entry in the Billigheim Reformed Church reg-

ister in 1743 clearly shows that Schley was

then still Schuldiener (the common word in

the Palatinate for parochial school teachers)

in the small village of Appenhofen. The first

documented record of Schley in Maryland

concerns the baptism of one of his daughters

in October, 1746, in the Lutheran Church

record of the Frederick congregation. Furth-

ermore, in his letter of March, 1761, Thomas

Schley complains to his brother-in-law that he

had not received a letter from him in all the 16

years that he has been in Maryland. From

these scattered sources it may be safely

assumed that the emigration took place in

1744/45. In the absence of ship arrival

records for Annapolis, a lengthy search

through contemporary sources was necessary

in order to locate the ship on which immi-

grants came directly to Maryland.

Among the papers of Charles Calvert II,

Fifth Lord Baltimore, in the Maryland

Archives are two letters translated from the

"Dutch Language" which were transmitted to

him by Daniel Dulany, a prominent merchant

and lawyer in Annapolis. Both were obviously

written by Germans upon Dulany's urging.

They were designed to entice other Germans

to come to Maryland. The first letter was com-

posed by settlers who had come "some Years

since" from Pennsylvania. It is full of praise

for the fertile land and the "full Liberty of

Conscience." The second letter is of particu-

lar interest because it informs us of the unex-

pected arrival of Germans in Annapolis,

where those who could not pay for their pas-

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sage were redeemed by Daniel Dulany. They

were settled by him on his lands along the

Monocacy which he had acquired from Ben-

jamin Tasker in 1744. When he inspected the

considerable acreage known as "Tasker's

Chance" in the same year, he was impressed

by the progress German farmers in the

neighborhood had made in an area that had

been a wilderness fifteen years before.

Dulany, by the way, had had earlier dealings

with the Germans on the Monocacy when he

sold them supplies in 1739. Now that he

owned land in the back parts and was con-

vinced of the usefulness of German settlers,

the unanticipated arrival of a shipload of

emigrants from the Rhinelands found him

willing to pay out £245 sterling to obtain the

service and good will of more than 40 "full

freights" among them.4

These new arrivals provided Dulany with

the second letter meant to be circulated in the

home villages of the emigrants. It began by

telling how they had not arrived at their origi-

nal destination, Philadelphia:

We take this Opportunity to Acquaint you that

the Ship in wch we agreed to go Pennsylvania

is not Arrived but in the province of Maryland,

where we found many of our Countrymen

that have Estates & Live very Comfortably,

they received us wth great Kindness....

Citing Dulany's payment "to free us from

the Captain's power," they added: "we are

perswaded that this Gentleman will be Serv-

iceable to Aid and Assist all Germans that

will settle in this Province."5

The story told here by some of the

passengers can be verified from other sour-

ces. A court case in 1766 in Augusta County,

Virginia, concerning a dispute over an inher-

itance, reveals the experience of several emi-

grants from Hallau in Canto Schaffhausen.

According to the testimony of Hans Fotsch, a

group left their home village in the spring of

1744. They boarded a Philadelphia-bound

vessel in Holland together with other pas-

sengers, mainly from the Palatinate. During

and after the required customs stopover in

Plymouth, the Hallau people suffered some

loss of lives. The voyage was lengthy and peri-

lous. Instead of landing in Philadelphia, the

ship carried them to Maryland. Fotsch and

several others who still had sufficient means

to pay the captain, continued the trip on their

own to their original destination, the Tulpe-

hocken settlement in Pennsylvania.6

Christopher Sauer's newspaper in German-

town reported in the February 16, 1744/45

issue that a ship with Germans, chartered by

Captain Stedman for Philadelphia, had

already entered the Delaware but went back

to sea and "entered the Susquehanna and so

reached Maryland."7 John Stedman, the Rot-

terdam shipper, had indeed chartered an

additional ship for the Philadelphia run in

May 1744. It was the Rupert under Captain

Richard Parker to which Stedman assigned

150 "Palatine" passengers in Rotterdam.8 The

voyage of the Rupert was unduly long because

she did not arrive at Annapolis until early

January 1744/45. A look at the entire Palatine

fleet of 1744 helps to explain her erratic

course. Of the nine vessels loaded with Ger-

man and Swiss emigrants in Rotterdam, only

one reached Philadelphia in early October

after a relatively uneventful passage. The very

successful operations of Spanish and French

warships and privateers threw the routine

North Atlantic run into complete disarray.

Two vessels with Germans were captured.

Others were chased by privateers and, in try-

ing to outsail enemy ships, were forced off-

course even after reaching the mouth of the

Delaware. Only four more emigrant ships

made it to Philadelphia after ten, even thir-

teen weeks at sea.

Joh. Thomas Schley-School Teacher at

Appenhofen

Due to the loss of many records in the

Landau area during repeated warfare in the

early part of the eighteenth century, virtually

nothing is known about Schley's family. In

recent years a rather substantial house in

Mörzheim (now incorporated into Landau)

has been identified as the Schley home and a

black marble tablet was put up in his memory

in 1962. The name Schley appears rather fre-

quently in the council protocols of Landau

during the seventeenth century.

Johannes Thomas Schley was born on

August 31,1712, in Mörzheim, the son of Nico-

laus and Eva Brigitta Schley. He must have

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The stone house which was the first home of the Schley family

in 1746. Above a scene from the old country, evoking the

skyline ofSpeyer. (Photo by Allen Smith, Jr. for the Historical

Society of Frederick County)

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The schoolhouse of the Reformed congregation — one of the watercolor minatures in Thomas Schley's hymnal.

(Photo by Allen Smith, Jr. for the Historical Society of Frederick County)

received a solid education to judge from his

later activities. During his young adult life,

according to a letter of 1761, he accumulated

some savings "which I earned the hard way

long ago." The meager salary of a village

school teacher in the Palatinate at that time

barely provided enough for the upkeep of a

family. But all we know of Schley prior to his

coming to America is the fact that he served as

Schuldiener in the small village of Appen-

hofen. There he married Maria Margaretha

in 1735. She was the daughter of Georg Wintz

of Appenhofen. They had five children

before they emigrated in 1744.9

Schoolmaster in the New Town of Frederick

When the redeemed passengers of the

Rupert arrived on Daniel Dulany's land on the

Monocacy, they found numerous settlers

there who had come from the Palatinate and

Switzerland by way of Pennsylvania. Luther-

ans and Reformed had already organized a

union church and in 1743 built a large log

cabin just south of Jimtown, about four miles

from the Monocacy, which served as their

common meeting place. The coming of an

experienced school teacher was a boon to the

frontier community. In September, 1745,

Dulany had a town laid out in the southern

part of Tasker's Chance. The new place was

given the name Fredericktown. He set aside

lots for the Anglican, Reformed and Lutheran

congregations. Since both the German

Reformed and the Lutherans had now suffi-

cient numbers to begin separate organiza-

tions, they also held their worship in the new

town as soon as buildings were erected.

Under Schley's leadership, the Reformed

congregation built a schoolhouse which also

served as a meeting place for Sunday serv-

ices.10 By 1746, the Schleys had their sixth child,

a daughter born in Frederick. She was the first

child in the new settlement of which there is

any record. When the Swedish Lutheran

clergyman Gabriel Naesman visited the area

on October 31, 1746, he baptized her.11

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From the outset Thomas Schley did not

limit his work to teaching school. The full

scope of his activities was best described by

the leader of the German Reformed Church,

the Rev. Michael Schlatter, who visited the

new town of Frederick twice, in May 1747 and

again a year later: "It is a great advantage to

this congregation that they have the best

schoolmaster that I have met in America. He

spares neither labor nor pains in instructing

the young and edifying the congregation

according to his ability, by means of singing,

and reading the word of God and printed

sermons on every Lord's day." On May 7th,

1747, Schlatter had held a service in the

schoolhouse. He was full of praise for the

congregation."... it appears to me to be one of

the purest in the whole country,... one that is

free from the sects, of which, in other places,

the country is filled."12 The last remark was

somewhat premature because on March 1,

1748, Thomas Schley wrote a letter to Schlat-

ter in Philadelphia, informing him that the

Dunker sect in the vicinity had diverted two of

the Reformed members from the church and

was very active in trying to convert others. The

letter was also signed by the five elders of the

congregation. They asked not only for advice

but also urged Schlatter to return for another

visit to Frederick.13 The Reformed leader

came back in May. Work on the new church

had proceeded well enough that the com-

munion service could be held in the yet unfin-

ished building. It was a highly emotional

occasion on which Schlatter wrote in his

diary: "After the sermon, I administered the

Holy Supper to ninety-seven members, bap-

tized several adult persons and children, mar-

ried three betrothed couples, and installed

new elders and deacons." Thomas Schley was

one of the latter, an office that he held until

his death.14

For four years more, Schley conducted the

Sunday services and read the scriptures and

printed sermons until Schlatter found a

young minister to assume the Frederick

charge. The Rev. Theodor Frankenfeld was

installed by Schlatter in May 1753 after having

served in Frederick and at the rural Monocacy

congregation for several months on trial.

When he attended the Reformed Coetus in

Lancaster in the autumn of 1752, the minutes

recorded that Frankenfeld "praises his school

teacher" and asked that he may not be forgot-

ten when new funds were received from the

churches in Holland. Indeed, Thomas Schley

received £6 in 1753.15

Although the church had regular pastors

most of the time, there were still frequent

occasions when Schley conducted the serv-

ices because most of the Frederick pastors

also tended to other Reformed churches in

Maryland and nearby Virginia. The congre-

gation and with it the number of pupils grew

steadily. In 1756, when a church ordinance

was introduced, eighty-nine heads of families

put their signature under it. There were quite

a few members from Schley's home area in

the Palatinate apart from his own relatives,

e.g. Valentin Schwartz from Mörzheim, Peter

Hauck from Klingen, Andreas Eberhardt

from Rohrbach and Johannes Lingenfelder

from Steinweiler.16

In November 1763 Thomas Schley was

heading the building committee for a new

church. By the end of 1764 the new house of

worship was used for the first time. The old

church building was dismantled and some of

the materials were sold to the schoolmaster

for a consideration of £10.17

Master of Calligraphy and Song

For a long time it was only the Rev.

Schlatter's remark about Schley leading the

congregation in hymn singing that pointed to

another gift of the schoolmaster. Only after

German folk art of the eighteenth and early

nineteenth century became popular in recent

decades, did some of the remarkable crea-

tions of Thomas Schley come to light. Beauti-

fully decorated sheets and entire books of

hand-written church music were preserved by

some of his descendants and a few collectors

of local lore.

The Historical Society of Frederick County

has in its collections the most striking of

Schley's works that has come down to us. It is a

leather-bound volume of 282 pages, measur-

ing 11 by 20 cm. It contains the tunes and texts

of 154 church hymns. While the staff lines and

the lettering alone are testimony to masterful

work, there are numerous illustrations and

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Vorschrift of various fraktur styles by Thomas Schley. This example of his work was featured in the New York exhibition "American

Fraktur: Graphic Folk Art 1745-1855" at Pratt Graphics Center in 1976/77.

(Photo: Manuscript Division, Maryland Historical Society)

colorful decorations in the tradition of Pala-

tine folk art. Most of the hymns, as Schley

indicates, are from the Lutheran Hallesche

Gesangbuch (Halle Hymnal) and the Pfälzische

Gesangbuch (the Palatine Hymnal) of the

Reformed Church. But a closer look also

reveals that Schley himself wrote hymns as his

added words indicate: "Musicalische Melodey

— meine Eigene" (Musical melody — my

own). Besides the flowers, cherubs and other

folk motifs, we find buildings on some pages

that resemble the first stone church of the

Reformed congregation or the family home

in Frederick. Above the latter is a skyline that

looks like the spires and towers of the Imper-

ial City of Speyer on the Rhine. The title page

in beautiful, decorative calligraphy reads:

"Singet dem Herrn in euren Herzen" (sing

praise to the Lord in your hearts). It may be

assumed that Thomas Schley later gave this

music book to his grandson, Johannes Schley.

A special page of dedication was glued into

the front cover of the volume. Later on, the

obituary note that appeared in a Baltimore

newspaper after Schley's death was copied by

hand onto the back cover.

Thomas Schley also produced other Frak-

tur pieces such as certificates of merit for his

pupils. Outstanding is the Vorschrift, a sam-

ple of various types of Gothic writing and

regular German and Latin script, which has

been preserved by the Maryland Historical

Society in Baltimore. He signed it: "Johannes

Thomas Schley Reformed Schoolmaster in

Frederick Town, the 30th of September anno

1773, 61 years and 26 days old."

At about the same time as the Vorschrift,

one of Schley's dreams came true. His church

ordered a pipe organ from David Tannen-

berger in Lititz, Pennsylvania after a success-

ful fund-raising collection to purchase an

organ and install two bells in the new church

- 8 6 -

spire. Now Thomas Schley also became the

organist of the Frederick Reformed Church.18

Some Personal Notes of Schley's Life in

Frederick

In the absence of any personal diaries or

notes it is very difficult to describe in any

fashion the life of the Schley family during

the 45 years in which Thomas Schley was, as

J. Thomas Scharf, the historian of Western

Maryland, characterizes him, "the mainstay

of the church," as the historian of western

Maryland characterized Thomas Schley. In

view of the extremely modest remuneration

parochial schoolmasters received in most

congregations in the Palatinate as well as in

America, it is surprising that Schley could buy

four lots in the new town on May 10th, 1746.

Later we also find a "Thomas Sligh" as owner

of a strip of land in the heart of present-day

Baltimore. It is known that he carried on "a

great variety of business" during his life in

Frederick.19

A chance discovery in the Speyer archives

of two letters written by him to the relatives

back home proves that he had remained in

touch with those he and his wife had left

behind. Both letters found their way into the

official files only because they dealt with fam-

ily finances and were most likely submitted by

the Wintz family in connection with legacy

problems.20 The only relatives living in Fred-

erick County were his wife's sister Sibilla and

her husband, Georg Stoeckle. In his letter of

October 14,1752, which was addressed to both

his brother-in-law Jacob Baltzel and his father-

in-law Georg Wintz, Sr., Schley expressed his

sorrow that the latter "in his old age,...has

such a hard time making ends meet, while he

has been fairly well off in my time." Thomas

Schley does not want him to suffer and

encourages him "to take what he needs from

my wife's inheritance, not lightly, though."

There must have been a substantial legacy

from his mother-in-law because he also writes

that he will settle with Georg Stoeckle "matters

with respect to his wife's maternal inherit-

ance, which I bought from her, as you proba-

bly know."

In the other letter, written on March 5, 1761,

partly to Georg Wintz, Sr. and partly to his son

by the same name, Schley advises them to

come over, if possible bringing his own "poor

old father" along. In such case, Thomas

Schley writes, "sell my property as well as

yours and give my father as much as he needs

for the trip." Turning to his brother-in-law,

Georg Wintz, Jr., he tells him not to come to

Maryland if his own father does "not wish to

move away with you." But in the next para-

graph he assures him that "here you would be

much better off than over there."

As to a home visit, he says how much he

would like to do it "but my situation will hardly

allow me to undertake such a costly trip, and it

would be difficult to leave my large family."

Only his brother-in-law Jacob Baltzel heeded

the appeal to come over as the membership

lists of the Frederick church reveal.21

Thomas and Margaretha Schley had nine

children during the first twelve years of their

marriage. Five were born in Germany:

Georg Jacob (1735) Maria Anna (1741)

Johann Georg (1737) Maria Margaretha

Georg Thomas (1738) (1743)

The next four children were born in

Frederick:

Maria Barbara (1746) Johann Jacob (1751)

Eva Catharina (1749) Sibilla (1754)

It is well known that the German popula-

tion of Frederick was very much in favor of

the separation from British rule. It was also

fortunate for Thomas Schley that his church

had a pastor from 1770 until 1784 with whom

he could work together in full harmony. The

preceding five years had placed a heavy

burden on Schley's shoulders. There were

long intervals without a pastor. The young

minister, Friedrich Ludwig Henop, came

from Kaiserslautern in the Palatinate. When

he assumed his pastorate in 1770 there were

192 families listed as communicants in Fred-

erick and two nearby rural congregations. By

1776 this number had increased to 231. The

parochial school had 160 pupils in 1776. Many

members of the Reformed church were

involved in political activities when the Amer-

ican Revolution began. As early as January,

1775, a Committee of Observation was formed

for which Thomas Schley served as collector.22

After the war, the congregation had

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Dedication to Schley's grandson Johannes which was glued inside the front cover of the hand-written and decorated hymnal.

(Photo by Allen Smith, Jr. for the Historical Society of Frederick County)

another pastor who was the first one to have

been trained in America, John William Run-

kel. There is a record of a congregational

meeting one day after the new minister had

assumed his duties. On November 29, 1784,

the members voted to elect a new schoolmas-

ter. Thomas Schley, who was seventy-two

years old, was evidently determined to hold

on to his position. It is not known who the

other candidate was but he was defeated and

"such a scene of confusion followed" that

Reverend Runkel "wept for sorrow over the

weaknesses of the people."23 In 1785 a large

German-English dictionary was acquired

which bears the inscription: "Johann Thom-

as Schley, Reform. Schulmeister in Fried-

richstadt, 1785," a sure indication that he

prevailed during the voting.24

Pastor Runkel made the following entry in

the death of his church on November 1790:

THOMAS SCHLEY, first teacher in this con-

gregation, born August 31, 1712 at Mörzheim

in Germany, was married to Margaret Wintz

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(an. 1735), which latter died in June last. They

lived in wedlock nearly 55 years, had nine

children, of whom 8 are still living. He had

been suffering for some time with asthma, but

was confined to bed for one day only. He died

yesterday morning, 10 o'clock, aged 78 years, 2

months and 23 days.

The prominence of this parochial school-

master is also attested by a notice in the Mary-

land Journal and Baltimore Advertiser on

December 7th, 1790. More than seven years

later Schley was remembered in the local

newspaper The Key in a "Sketch of Frederick

County," which appeared in the issue of Jan-

uary 27,1798:

The first house was built by Mr. Thomas

Schley, in 1746. This gentleman died in 1790,

aged 78, after having had the satisfaction of

seeing a dreary wood, late the habitation of

bears, wolves, deer, and c. and the occasional

hunting ground of the gloomy savage, con-

verted into a flourishing town, surrounded by

fertile country, smiling with yellow harvests,

and comfortable farm-houses, interspersed

with handsome seats, the happy reward of

enterprising, persevering industry.

—Klaus Wust

New York City

NOTES

For Thomas Schley's prominent descendants see

Albert Bernhardt Faust, The German Element in the United

States (Boston, 1909) II, 175, 570-1.

Dieter Cunz, The Maryland Germans (Princeton, NJ,

1948), 68-9.

Several papers contributed by Schley family historians

were consulted in the collections of the Institut für Pfal-

zische Geschichte und Volkskunde in Kaiserslautern. An

updated file on Thomas Schley is in the Auswanderer-

Kartei of the institute. See also Landauer Monatshefte, July-

August 1976, 160-1.

Calvert Papers, No. 295½ pp. 115-6. Maryland

Archives, Annapolis. Printed version in Maryland

Archives, Vol. 44, 697. For Daniel Dulany, see Aubrey C.

Land, The Dulanys of Maryland (Baltimore, 1968).

Maryland Archives, Vol. 44, 697. The complete text of

the letter appears also in the Report, 37 (1978), 21.

Case of Carpenter (Zimmermann) et al. vs. Fotch,

November 1766, Augusta County Judgements, Book A.

Abstracted in Lyman Chalkley, Records of Augusta County,

1745-1800 (Rosslyn, VA, 1912) I, 342, 495-6.

Hoch-Deutsch Pennsylvanische Bericht, Feb. 16, 1744/5.

ONA, B. van Pause 2740, 154-8, Rotterdam City

Archives. The Rupert had to be prepared for the pas-

sengers and ready for loading by June 9, 1744. The con-

tract also called for "breaking down the Bulk heads of the

Cabin in order to make it clear and even with between

decks to Lodge the said Pallentines." Captain Parker also

agreed to "Build as many bedplaces throughout the ship"

as needed for 150 people, "and two necessary houses, on

each side of the Ship one."

Auswanderer-Kartei, IPGV, Kaiserslautern. Entries

about Thomas Schley in Appenhofen appear in the regis-

ter of the Reformed Church in Billigheim, 1737-43.

James B. Ranck, Dorothy S. Ranck et al., A History of the

Evangelican Reformed Church, Frederick, Maryland (Freder-

ick, MD, 1964) 7-11.

The baptism of Maria Barbara Schley is the earliest

one recorded in the register of the Evangelical Lutheran

Church as having taken place in the new town of

Frederick.

Michael Schlatter's Wahrhafte Erzehlung von dem

wahren Zustand der meist Hirtenlosen Gemeinden... (Frank-

furt, 1752) was translated and appended to Henry Har-

baugh, The Life of the Rev. Michael Schlatter (Philadelphia,

1857), 87-234. The remarks by Schlatter cited here are on

pages 177 and 154.

Schley to Schlatter, March 1st, 1748. A copy of the

original in the Archives of the Netherland Reformed

Church in The Hague is in Historical Society of the

Evangelical and Reformed Church in Lancaster, PA.

Harbaugh, Schlatter, 176-7.

William J. Hinke (ed), Minutes and Letters of the Coetus

of the German Reformed Congregations in Pennsylvania, 174 7-

1792 (Philadelphia, 1903), 74.

Ranck, Reformed Church Frederick, 29, 190.

Ranck, 39.

Ranck, 51.

J. Thomas Scharf, History of Western Maryland (Phila-

delphia, 1882) I, 485, 509.

The two Thomas Schley letters were found in the

Landesarchiv Speyer in 1957 by Dr. Fritz Braun. Photo-

stats and transcripts of both are in the collection of the

Frederick County Historical Society. Excerpts were pub-

lished in the Report, 30 (1959), 112-4. In the Landesarchiv

Speyer (Bestand F 11: Ausfautei Billigheim) is further

material concerning the emigrated members of the Wintz

family. File No. 65 contains listings of the debts of Mar-

garetha Wintz Schley and Sibylla Wintz Stoeckle in 1759.

Other financial data about the two emigrated sisters for

1752-58 are in File No. 66 (Appenhofen Ausfauteiakten).

Ranck, 192.

See Karl Scherer, "Friedrich Ludwig Henop and

Johann Thomas Schley — Two Patriots from the Palati-

nate in Frederick, Maryland," in Roland Paul (ed.), 300

Years Palatines in America (Landau, 1983), 144-54.

Ranck, 54.

This dictionary is in the Historical Society of Freder-

ick County.

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