Kutztown University is the new home of an American Revolution military archive collection that the school made public online, drawing heavy interest from historians and those researching their family roots.
One hundred reels of microfilm containing thousands of pages of original documents from the United States, Great Britain and Germany were digitized by KU after being provided by the nonprofit Johannes Schwalm Historical Association, which retains the hard copies.
The all-volunteer Schwalm group is dedicated to researching the German auxiliary troops often referred to as Hessians who remained in America after the Revolutionary War.
Some had been taken prisoner and a number were held at POW camps in Reading and Lancaster. Others had deserted or simply remained when the conflict ended.
Many of those former troops became loyal citizens, made cultural contributions and were the ancestors of thousands of Americans living today, said Dr. Michael Gabriel, KU history department chair and Schwalm association board member and editorial committee member.
A number of those former German auxiliaries settled in the Pennsylvania Dutch area of Pennsylvania, Gabriel said.
The nonprofit is named after Schwalm, who was among the Hessians captured at the battle of Trenton and who settled in Schuylkill County.
The records were digitized by the university’s library over the last several years, and in August the collection was launched on a website managed by KU.
Researchers from across the world can access those digital archives through KU’s Rohrbach Library at
research.library.kutztown.edu/schwalm/.
