Earliest Settlers.

German-speaking people were among the first people to settle the eastern coast of North America. Even among the first colonists to Virginia in 1607 there were a few Germans. Others settled in New Netherland and were among those speaking the "eighteen different languages" heard in New Amsterdam by the French Jesuit priest Father Jogues. By 1673 New York had as many as 2,400 Germans. Most came because of economic hardship in their homeland made even worse by various European wars, but some came for religious freedom. This earliest trickle of peoples was largely disorganized as families or individuals found their way to America. These included men such as Johannes Kelpius, one of the religious hermits who lived in caves on the banks of the Wissahickon Creek in Pennsylvania and practiced fortune-telling. Later migrations were more organized. Between 1683, when Francis Daniel Pastorius established Germantown outside Philadelphia, and...