What caused Germans from the Palatinates region of Germany to first flee to America in the early 1700s, and why did they flee from New York for Pennsylvania?
In 1897, Rev Sanford Hoadley Cobb (1838-1910) published "The Story of the Palatines: An Episode in Colonial History," answering these questions and more regarding this unique group of early American pioneers.
The German Palatines were early 18th century emigrants from the Middle Rhine region of the Holy Roman Empire, including a minority from the Palatinate which gave its name to the entire group. Towards the end of the 17th century and into the 18th, the wealthy region was repeatedly invaded by French troops, which resulted in continuous military requisitions, widespread devastation and famine. The "Poor Palatines" were some 13,000 Germans who migrated to England between May and November 1709. The English tried to settle them in England, Ireland and the Colonies. The English transported nearly 3,000 German Palatines in ten ships to New York in 1710.
Cobb writes:
"That which by most people, who know anything about the Palatine Immigration, is supposed to be alluded to in any reference to that people, is merely the incoming of the large company which landed in New York in the early summer of 1710. They made the largest body of emigrants coming at one time to this country in the colonial period.
"But they were not all. A small band had preceded them to New York; about the same time as their own coming, a company of seven hundred had gone to North Carolina, and another company to Virginia; and in later years they were followed by many thousands of their countrymen in the Palatinate, the vast majority of whom found settlement in Pennsylvania."
