Gerhard Koffroth story from The Family History Collection of Arden Gremmert and Eva Doherty

The following is quoted from the website of "The Family History Collection of Arden Gremmert and Eva
Doherty". The original website has many more details about Gerhard Koffroth at this link: Website


"Gerhard grew up around the old thousand-year old oak tree in Kaffroth. This
giant is still standing in the tiny settlement of Kaffroth, lovingly cared for
by the townspeople and others in the area. It is a well known landmark. The
well that supplied the village for many centuries is immediately behind this
huge tree. It is now capped, but it was the source of water in Gerhard's time,
and undoubtedly he and his playmates spent a lot of time climbing in the
branches of this imposing oak tree, truly a vestige of the past. The trunk of
the tree is at least twelve feet in diameter, and its base is encircled by
rustic benches. From this point one can see across two large pastures to the
village of Puscheid, home of Gerhard's grandparents. These lush grasslands are
divided by a stream which is bordered by a thick forest of trees on each of
its banks. Colorful herds of cows graze and rest in this inviting pastureland
that separates the two ancestral villages of the Koffroth family in America.

The village of Kaffroth is reached by taking the road west from the center of
Flammersfeld for about two miles. This road winds through woods and fields,
past the tiny settlement of Aspach, a picturesque little cluster of
vine-covered buildings. The narrow road to Kaffroth is about a mile further,
marked by a large yellow arrow with the name Kaffroth on it. Follow this
narrow road across a wide meadow for 1 Km. to the dairy farm and hamlet of
Kaffroth. There are several large barns with outbuildings plus six dwellings.
It is surrounded on all sides by rolling hills, forests, and verdant, grass
covered pastureland. The tall, lofty thousand-year old oak tree stands guard
over its history. 

The large, half-timbered house in which Gerhard and his family lived is still
standing and occupied. It is a two-storied structure built over a ground floor
that at one time housed the cows and other farm animals. It is said that this
arrangement helped keep the floors above the cattle warm in the cold winters.
The house forms one side of a large, rectangular courtyard, with the large
barns and other buildings forming the other three sides. The arrangement of
buildings resembles a small town square. It is a dairy farm today, so the most
conspicuous sounds are the lowing of cows and other animal noises, and it
takes a while to become accustomed to the strong barnyard smell which can get
quite overwhelming. 

The source of the following information concerning the Koffroth name and its
connection with the village of Kaffroth is a book about the village of Rott
and its surrounding settlements written by Walter Bartels, a local historian
and former Burgermeister of those communities. Rott is a somewhat larger
village near Kaffroth, and is a local seat of government for both places. I
had the privilege of receiving the first copy of this interesting and
informative book when we met Walter during our 1996 visit to Germany. It is
written in German, of course, but with the help of a translator I am able to
present the writer's views on the subject as well as incorporating some of his
historical research. 

According to Erwin Katzwinkel, who wrote a chronicle of the farmstead of
Kaffroth, the village was originally the seat of nobility, being, around the
year 1300, the home of Apelo von Kavenrode. One German authority, W.H. Struck,
analyzes this name as Kaffroth. In German family names, the preposition "von"
(of) is the simplest and most common form of the so-called predicate of
nobility, a nominal indication of titled lineage. The German historian
Gensicke confirms that in the 14th and 15th centuries there was a family of
lesser nobility named Von Kaffroth, but he does not give any Christian names.
Apelo Von Kavenrode was said to have donated the properties surrounding
Kaffroth to the Marienstatt Monastery. In 1475 the Count von Nesselrode, as
Lord of Ehrenstein, owned a farm and fishery, along with the woods near
Kaffroth, and this continued as late as 1619. The ruins of the Ehrenstein
castle, once the seat of power for this area, are just west of the forests
surrounding Kaffroth. Standing nearby are the magnificent, stately old
buildings housing the Church and Monastery, reminders of an imperial past.
They are both still in use. 

The location of the buildings, the community water source, the topography of
the land, and, most of all, the placement of the houses today around the oak
tree that was over eight hundred years old when the Koffroth children were
romping around it, strongly suggests that not much has changed in the village
of Kaffroth. There is also the fact that the building that was home to Gerhard
and his five brothers and four sisters is still standing. Sitting in the
shadow of the gigantic tree, eyes wandering over the community and
countryside, it was not difficult for me to project myself back two or three
centuries. In this setting I found it easy to visualize this family of farmers
going about their chores, hearing the sounds of the children as they worked
and played, smelling the aroma of the cows and the freshness of new mown hay.
Like his grandparents, and parents before him Gerhard and his brothers and
sisters trudged from Kaffroth into the little church in Flammersfeld every
Sunday morning. There are some interesting items about the church members in
"900 Years of Flammersfeld". Many were upset about the competition between the
Protestant and Catholic clergymen. In 1714 they complained that the Catholic
priests from the Ehrenstein cloister belonging to the electorate of Cologne,
and from the village of Oberlahr in the county of Sayn, were coming to the
area and performing baptisms, visiting the sick, and transporting the bodies
of the deceased to Oberlahr. This, they said, violated the agreements of 1652
and 1675. The point of the complaint seems not to be that Catholics were
active in Protestant Flammersfeld, but that the pastor in Flammersfeld was
losing his usual fees. 

The people of Flammersfeld seemed unhappy with the choice of their pastor in
those days. It was less a question of the particular person than of the way in
which he was chosen, they said. Old traditions gave them the right to approve
the choice of one person among three candidates. Now, Gerhard's parents and
neighbors said, the pastor is not properly respected, since he was imposed on
the people without their consent.

The drinking laws were a problem with some of the parishioners, too. A special
complaint was lodged in 1714 because of sale of alcoholic beverages was
prohibited after 8:00 p.m. The complaint stated, "When a normal, common,
tax-paying subject has a drink here, he is forbidden to do so after 8 o'clock
in the evening. It's the same as if we lived in a city. Severin Kaltschmidt in
Flammersfeld was punished for serving the waggoners, who arrived after 8
o"clock. This prohibition never before existed in the parish of Flammersfeld."
Whether the request to repeal the prohibition was successful is not recorded. 

Along with the usual complaints about high taxes and heavy burdens, which were
repeated at every hearing, people were especially unhappy with the ban on
gratuitous celebrations. The ban, which may not have had any effect on
Gerhard's parents, was imposed because of all of the extravagant partying. It
was attacked by some of the people as not conforming to old tradition. At
weddings and baptisms, the ban would not permit hosts to provide their guests,
such as godparents and the midwife, with a meal or to offer them a drink.
Whoever was caught had to pay a "painful monetary fine

There was a great exodus from Germany in 1709 immediately following Gerhard's
birth, many of the emigrants leaving from the Westerwald and its neighboring
Neuweid region. Most of the reasons have already been pointed out: the
impoverished condition and economic exploitation by those who ruled over them,
and the devastation caused by the generations of wars. Another factor was the
open efforts of the British to settle Protestant Germans in their American
colonies as a buffer against the Catholic French in Canada. Writer John M.
Brown tells us in "Brief Sketch of the First Settlement of the County of
Schoharie by the Germans" that English agents were sent throughout the
Palatinate to induce immigration, much as our western railroad companies did
at a later date. These companies, having received large bounties of land from
the government, sent agents throughout Europe to influence emigration so that
their land grants in America might be settled and begin producing revenue.
These early land agents, called "Neulanders", were a great factor in the
settlement of William Penn's colony in the new world. Another incentive for
this first wave of emigration, perhaps, was the especially cold, bitter winter
of 1709. Many of these early settlers were friends and neighbors of the
Koffroth family, and the ensuing correspondence between those Palatine
settlers in America and those remaining behind, must have had an impact on
young Gerhard as he grew toward manhood on the farm at Kaffroth. Tales of a
land flowing with milk and honey were told; a land where the climate was more
temperate than in the Westerwald; where all creeds were tolerated; where
universal feedom prevailed; where strife never came; where ease, comfort and
certain wealth awaited the industrious settlers. There were also reports of an
old German prophecy making the rounds in Flammersfeld to the effect that in
America they would prosper and be happy.

As he grew, Gerhard couldn't help hearing many of these stories, and he
undoubtedly saw many of his fellow Westerwalders suddenly uproot themselves
and, with little or no preparation, take off for a land that held promise for
peace and plenty.

In 1729 Gerhard joined the great exodus, leaving his homeland for the long,
arduous trip to the colonies in America. After showing that he owed no
outstanding debts, or had any military obligation, Gerhard was free to
emigrate. The records show that the fee for his departure was paid by his
father, Wilhelm, at Heckenhahn. Thus prepared, and packed up with his meager
belongings, Gerhard then began his long journey by going a few miles west to
the Rhine river where he would catch a boat or barge northward to Rotterdam,
the embarkation port for the long trek to the new world.

Gerhard and others headed for America now faced a number of obstacles and
problems. An article in the June, 1996 issue of The Palatine Immigrant, "Toll
Stations Along The Rhine", by Richard Remer, describes some of the hardships
peculiar to that time and place. The customs tolls imposed on the Rhine River
travelers were extremely heavy, and within the first few weeks of what was
going to be a long, difficult trip, many had to pay toll for the river trip
out of whatever meager savings they had brought along. In many cases this took
all of their money, and when they arrived in Rotterdam at the end of the Rhine
journey, they would have to sell themselves into indentured servitude to pay
for their voyage and provisions to the New World. 

According to first hand accounts and studies there were forty one active toll
stations along the entire course of the Rhine. Gerhard was fortunate as there
were only eleven of these between Cologne, where he probably entered the
river, and his destination of Rotterdam. Gerhard, and other emigrants, may
have contracted with a local barge operator or the boatmen's guild of Cologne
for passage to Rotterdam at a set fee. There is also the possibility that
young Gerhard may have made the journey to Rotterdam overland by foot. 
Certainly, there were many reasons for Gerhard's departure from his homeland
for America. Obviously, he left with the blessing of his parents. Some writers
believe the basic motives of most of these small farmers and craftsmen were
primarily economic - at home, as we have seen, they were impoverished and had
little chance for success and happiness. Others ascribe this exodus to
religious persecution. Probably no single cause was responsible. 

Since the fall of the Roman Empire there was probably no period of greater
unrest in Europe than when Gerhard was growing up. As we have seen, Germany
had been for many years the battlefield of Europe,and as a boy in Heckenhan
and Kaffroth Gerhard must have endured many frightening experiences as he
watched the soldiers of almost every nation as they fought back and forth,
despoiling the land of his family and neighbors. These conditions in
themselves were probably enough to induce Gerhard, along with thousands just
like him, to forsake the land of their birth.

It is difficult to find very much evidence of direct religious persecution at
the time Gerhard left Germany in 1729. At the time three confessions were
tolerated in Germany: the Catholic, Reformed and Lutheran. Most historians
agree that while the questions of persecution and religious motives are to be
considered, they were by no means the only, nor even the principal ones.
However, there is no denying that one of the long term results of the
Protestant revolts against the Catholic forces was the search for new
homelands. Just as Protestantism was initially a phenomena originating in the
German States, so was the great movement of migrants actross the Atlantic
before 1800 basically a Protestant phenomena.

Gerhard and some fifty or so others left the port of Rotterdam on the ship
"Allen" in the summer of 1729 and arrived in Philadelphia September 11th of
that year. Finding his name on the old passenger lists was as difficult as
locating his home town. He signed his name with an "X" mark, so it was written
down on the list the way it sounded to the ship's captain. The ensuing years
added to the damage until it eventually shows up as "Jorick Hoffart". On
another list by I.D. Rupp it comes out as "Jerrich Hoffart". With such a
corruption in the spelling it is no wonder that it took years to locate the
name of the ship that carried him to America. The names of fellow passengers
who left Flammersfeld at the same time aided in confirming Gerhard's presence
on the ship "Allen". 
In today's modern world the Atlantic is crossed in a matter of hours, but in
1729 it was a tortuous voyage of weeks on a slow, bouncy sailing ship. Gerhard
was almost certainly crowded into cramped, unclean quarters that must have
been overwhelmingly foul, with the stench going from merely nauseating to mind
numbing. The long voyage rendered it difficult to carry sufficient provisions,
and to keep them in good condition. Ship operators cut every possible corner,
and every effort was made to economize in the quality and quantity of the
food, a bland, unappetizing diet of heavily salted and dried fish or meat,
dried beans, perhaps some bread and rancid cheese or butter. Extraordinary
delays meant hunger, if not starvation. Often the drinking water failed. 

Often the captains and sailors were rough, domineering, cruel and one can
visualize Gerhard crowded in with vermin-covered and profane fellow
passengers. All vessels bound for America from Rotterdam were required to sail
first to England where certain formalities were attended to. Most sailing
times westward across the Atlantic averaged around eight to ten week, with
some as long as fifteen to twenty weeks. There is no record of how long it
took Gerhard to reach America, but Casper Wistar wrote in 1732 of a ship that
had been twenty four weeks at sea, that had lost one hundred of its one
hundred fifty passengers by starvation, some surviving on rats and mice.
Another vessel, seventeen weeks on the way, lost sixty of its passengers, and
brought the rest to land in a condition of extreme enfeeblement. 

Wistar wrote that every person over fourteen years old had to pay six
doubloons (about ninety dollars) passage from Rotterdam to Philadelphia, and
those between four and fourteen paid half that amount. Those without money
sold themselves into servitude for a term of three to eight years or more. Of
course, not all emigrants were always impoverished. Some brought with them a
modest capital, and some were sufficiently well off enough to buy large
farming acreage.

We know from the parish records in Flammersfeld that Gerhard departed for
America before1730. The History of Lancaster County by I.D. Rupp states that
the Koffroth family settled in that county before or shortly after its
formation in 1730, so Gerhard was truly a pioneer settler in Lancaster County.
It is unknown just when Gerhard and Maria Barbara married, but since their
oldest child, Henry, was born in 1737 it was could have been around 1735. It
is almost a sure bet that she worked with him side by side in establishing
their home. The old records of the court in Lancaster County are interesting
reading today. In the Quarter Sessions abstracts of 1729-1742 Gerhard appears
in 1732 as the victim of an assault and beating by one Christian and Margaret
Franciscus. The jury found the defendants guilty "in manner and form",
assessing Christian a fine of twenty shillings and ordering him to "find
sureties for his good behavior until his next court appearance". Margaret was
fined one shilling. Some of the other sentences at that court session are
imaginative and novel. Cornelius Walraven for the offence of counterfeiting
silver coins was sentenced to "receive on his bare back at the common whipping
post thirty one lashes, to stand in the pillory one hour, have both of his
ears cut off, and pay the costs". Thomas Russell was fined ten shillings for
"feloniously enticing, decoying and carrying away a certain servant man named
John Scandelan belonging to William Dickie". The petition of John Ross
"praying to be allowed further services of servant John Kenady for runaway
time and the expenses of pursuing and taking him" was allowed with costs of
twelve pounds, seventeen shillings and eight pence. The servant was ordered to
serve twenty five weeks for the runaway and six months for the trouble and
charge

The Governor of the province, George Thomas, declared at this time that there
were about 20,000 Germans in Pennsylvania, about three-fifths of the
population, and said: "This Province has been for some years the asylum of the
distressed protestants of the Palatinate and other parts of Germany." He went
on to say that the flourishing condition of the Province was owed to their
industry.
Gerhard undoubtedly brought little in the way of property or possessions with
him to the New World, perhaps a few pieces of gold or silver coin, a chest
filled with clothes, a bible, and a prayer or hymn book. He did bring
something far more important, however, and that was the know-how of farming.
As stated in Proud's History of Pennsylvania, "The Germans seem more adapted
to agriculture and improvement of a wilderness." 

Gerhard and Barbara settled a tract of land in Cocalico Township in what is
now the northeastern part of Lancaster County. The Bureau of Land Records in
Harrisburg, PA has on file the original document granting Gerhard his land. It
reads as follows: "Warrant #55, dated October 22, 1737, to Gerard Cuffroot for
150 acres on a branch of the Cocalico Creek. Surveyed on October 5, 1747, for
160 acres, and patented to Gerard Cuffroot on September 20, 1753".

Here, on the banks of Cocalico Creek, near what is now Akron, in Lancaster
County, they cleared the land of trees and stumps and readied it for
cultivation. The first order of the day was a suitable accomodation for his
horses and cattle, before much money was laid out in building a house. The
dwelling followed, and it was probably small and built of logs. Typical of
those frontier days, Gerhard and Barbara's first home was no doubt a log cabin
in the wilderness, without foundation, and very plain in construction. Its
sides were of logs; the openings between the logs were filled with clay, often
mixed with grass. Windows were of small dimension. Doors were probably of two
parts, an upper and a lower, hung or fastened separately. The interior was
probably only one room, with hearth and chimney, with a floor of stone or
hardened clay, with steps or a ladder leading to the attic. The source for
much of this depiction of the lives of these early settlers is drawn from the
brilliant essays of Dr. Benjamin Rush, which were written in 1789, close to
the times he describes 

Their furniture must have been very crude. Gerhard was occupied in clearing
the land and securing food, while Barbara had not only her household duties to
perform but farm work as well. A split log with four stout sticks set in for
legs served as a table. Crude stools made in the same manner or rough sections
of log completed the furnishings. Knittle writes in "Early 18th Century
Palatine Emigration" that "These first huts apparently lacked fireplaces;
cooking was done in stone ovens out of doors, built for the use of several
neighboring families". They furnished it with roughly constructed tables and
benches, plainly made bedsteads, shelving on the walls and wooden pegs driven
into the logs. 

Gerhard and Barbara took up what was to soon become rich agricultural land,
though at the time it was covered with trees. Gerhard must have been possessed
of a remarkable intuitive knowledge of good land, knowing that the land with
the heaviest timber would produce the largest crops. He had also learned from
his father to plow deeply, and to keep the soil mellow at all times, and most
importantly, to never overtax the soil, but to replenish it at regular
intervals as carefully and generously as he fed his cattle. Back of their
house there was probably built a bake oven, perhaps a wash house, and a smoke
house. There was a large woodpile, a vegetable garden overflowing in its
abundance of carrots, cabbages and onions, as well as a large potato patch. To
the rear of the house was a spring, which supplied pure, cold water, and over
which was built a milk house where butter and other perishables were kept cool
and fresh. On the floor above was a loft to store apples.

It goes without saying that Gerhard and his family lived frugally with respect
to diet, furniture and wearing apparel. Dr. Rush tells us that they sold their
most profitable grain, wheat, and ate the less profitable, but more
nourishing, such as rye and corn. They ate sparingly of meat, consuming
instead large quantities of vegetables, paricularly turnips, onions and
cabbage, the last of which they also turned into sauerkraut. They used large
quantities of milk and cheese in their diet. Their common drinks were cider,
beer and wine, and very few of them drank stronger alcoholic spirits. Instead
of blankets, they slept in lightweight feather beds filled with goose down
gathered on the farm. Their clothing was made of homespun.

Between the years 1737 and 1759, Gerhard and Barbara had a large family of six
boys and five girls, which was not all that unusual in those times. The
Pennsylvania Dutch farmers seldom hired men to work on their farms with such a
ready made, built-in work force. Also, the wives and daughters frequently put
away their spinning wheels to join their husbands and brothers in the labor of
cutting down, collecting and bringing home the fruits of their fields and
orchards. The work in the vegetable gardens was generally done by the women of
the family. Early Pennsylvania historian, I.D. Rupp, writing about domestic
life in ancestor Gerhard's time, described how the housewife, aided by her
daughters, spun flax in the winter, and wool in the spring, and from this spun
yarn they wove the various cloth with which they made clothing andother items
for the family. Every family had a loom.

After the first generation's houses of logs came the period of stone
construction. With a large family of eleven children Gerhard and Barbara must
have expanded their house within a few short years, and what appears to have
been Gerhard and Barbara's larger old stone house stood on Rothsville Road in
Akron, Pennsylvania. This dwelling probably stood on the same spot as their
original crude dwelling, the imposing, indestructible old house and barn
standing for over two centuries on Gerhard's original 160 acre farm on the
banks of the Cocalico Creek. It was torn down around 1964 to make way for a
golf course. A direct descendant of Gerhard and Barbara, Raymond Koffroth of
Pennsburg, Pennsylvania, was fortunate to obtain a photograph of a painting
rendered prior to its destruction, and It shows a comfortable three story home
next to a huge barn and silo. Their farmhouse and barn is typical of the
Pennsylvania Dutch, with a plain but compact form to the house and a huge barn
that overhadowed all other buildings. These large barns and outbuildings made
sense to the Pennsylvania Dutch farmer. After all, the real life of Gerhard
and his family was in work out of doors, and in a sense their real home was
not in the house, but on the farm. This was evident by the extent of the
orchards; the fertility of the fields; the luxuriance of the meadows, and a
general appearance of plenty along with a neatnes in everything about them. 
The German Reformed Church in eastern Pennsylvania had its start about 1725,
and rapidly expanded due mainly to the influx of the Palatine immigrants.
Gerhard and his family were members of the old Cocalico Reformed Church, which
was founded in 1731 in Ephrata Township, approximately one mile south of the
town of Ephrata. It was in this congregation that Gerhard and Barbara's
children were baptized, and some later were married. After an uninterrupted
history of one hundred and sixty four years at this location it was moved to
Ephrata in 1894, where it is now the Bethany United Church of Christ. On the
site of the abandoned church is an ancient graveyard, approximately 250 by 300
feet, in which lie the remains of some of the leading pioneer families,
including Gerhard, Barbara and some of their children.

On October 11, 1931, a bronze tablet was unveiled at the site of the old
church building, which reads: "To the Glory of God and in sacred memory of the
pioneer men and women who founded this congregation, originally called
Cocalico, about the year 1731, and the faithful pastors who ministered here.
This monument stands on the original cornerstone and site of old Bethany
Church 1817-1920. Erected by the members of Bethany Reformed Church, Ephrata,
Pennsylvania, A.D. 1931."

Only fragments of information appear in the meager records and accounts that
time and indifference has left for the succeeding generations. Births, deaths
and marriages were not a matter of governmental concern in those early days,
and such events were left to the various clergymen. Fortunately some of the
records from Gerhard's old church were preserved, and that source made it
possible to reconstruct the immigrant ancestor's family. 

Gerhart's gravestone inscription is now nearly totally eroded (1998). I did
get the German inscription copied earlier. It reads: "1st geboren 8th Mey 1707
Versch den 18 February 1796. Alt. Die beslemteca resint kommin unich gimi hin
dis wigis den ch necht wieder komma wind". "