Here's where I'm going with this:
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Note 10: German and Alsatian immigrants had little experience with firearms in their home countries, and the absence of universal militia service in Pennsylvania until 1778 plus pleas for weapons after the 1755 and 1763 Indian attacks demonstrate they were slow to acquire them. By 1775, while fowlers, muskets and trade guns were fairly common, rifles probably weren’t owned by frugal Pennsylvania German farmers unless a return on investment could be realized in winter hunting and trapping.
(Note 4) In pre-war 1775 a plain rifle with accoutrements cost roughly 6-8 English pounds in Pennsylvania, while a hundred acres of vacant frontier land sold for 5 pounds, trade guns 2-3 pounds, military muskets 3-4 pounds, a horse 10-12 pounds, and a 60’ by 230’ building lot in downtown Allentown 45 pounds . Some sources report significantly different prices and those can be accurate reports, but there were also later wartime runaway inflation, a plethora of currency types and different currency exchange rates between the various colonies to consider. What something “cost” then requires context of place, time and examples as well as comparable currencies (Fogleman 145; Kenneth Roberts; Valuska Thompson’s Rifle Bn1; Whisker 158).
The transition from hand-to-mouth subsistence farming to an economy we’d recognize today took almost two generations. The evolution of local economic life beginning with two adults with small children building a log-cabin farmstead in the wilderness in 1738 to large, prosperous farms and mills worth several thousand pounds (probably Pennsylvania Pounds) was slow, especially in the first generation before the family’s sons were grown. While the local markets: a trading post at Bethlehem 6 miles distant, a foundry (Durham Furnace) 21 miles distant, and major markets in Reading and Philadelphia 37 and 65 miles distant, all over unimproved roads and trails, were certainly part of that evolution, they weren’t the drivers. The ability to convert forest to productive farmland was the driver, and that largely didn’t reach fruition in the Lehigh Valley until the second generation approached adulthood around the time of the Revolutionary War.
For example, Rifleman Christopher’s father Frederick Neuhart (1699-1765), according to various Lehigh County and church histories, was the owner of one of the most prosperous farms in the area at the time of his death. The location was on the lower Jordan Creek; land that is now at or within the city limits of Allentown. A provincial tax was assessed Jan. 2, 1765. He was taxed for 305 acres (of which 85 acres was under cultivation), eight horses, seven cattle and eight sheep, indicating a sizeable farming operation for that period. His will as Frederich Neuhart of Whitehall Township, cordwainer, was executed on Jan. 1, 1764, was signed “Fridrich Neihart”, and made the following provisions:
(1) To two sons, Frederick & Lawrence the sum of 30 Pounds each.
(2) To eldest son, Christopher, five shillings, as his full share of my estate because of advancements in my life time.
(3) To wife Maria Margaretha all real and personal estate during her natural life, afterward to my children: Frederick. Lawrence, Daniel, Peter, Juliana wife of Stephen Schneider, Salome, Sophia, and Elizabeth Barbara, share alike. (Note this excluded Christopher, whose farm purchased in Mt Bethel Township with his father’s assistance in 1762 had failed by 1764, perhaps due to some natural disaster).
(4) Executors to be friends, George Knauss and George Jacob Kern (1737 fellow immigrant and nephew of the owner of “Trucker’s Mill” in Heidelberg Township
Note 14), with power to see that minor children are educated and to bind them out to learn trades or husbandry. Witnesses were Thomas Hunsicker, Johannes Roth, and J. Okely. Probated May 14, 1766. (Kastens Vol IV 14-16; Klees 191-96; Register's file #428 at Easton)
Frederick’s farm was acquired by purchase from the original homesteader, John Eastburn, in November, 1746. Twenty years later, only 85 of 305 acres were cleared and in tillage with five grown males working the land. And at four to five acres per horse, three to four per cow and two per sheep, over 70 of the tilled 85 acres were required just to support the farm’s livestock, leaving only 10-15 acres to feed and provide income for the nine residents of the farm, which alone would have been marginal. Plus they didn’t need eight horses just to till 85 acres, as later generations would own half that many to farm similar tracts. They owned extra teams because land clearing remained a major part of their efforts. When he wrote his will in 1764, Frederick’s cash legacies to his sons (including Christopher) show he had accumulated over 60 Pounds in the 27 years since his largely penniless arrival on the frontier. How much cash was derived from the farm and how much from Frederick’s and his older sons’ seasonal trade as cordwainers? Probably most was derived from their trade, as all the local farmers needed substantial shoes to do heavy work, and as of 1764 the farm acreage arithmetic indicates the farm was still a capital asset under development, with most of the farming effort being reinvested in the cycle of land-clearing and tillage to increase productive farmland acreage as opposed to producing short-term income. Thus by 1764 there was some cash income, but most of it probably came from shoemaking.
In turn, Frederick’s third son Lorentz’s (1740-1817) will of 1814 demonstrates a largely complete transition from the hand-to-mouth subsistence farming of 1740 to a more cash-based economy of 1815, with an attendant rise in cash on hand and cash values. Lorentz’s assets included 183 acres along the Jordan Creek (his share of his father’s farm) plus additional acreage in “Northampton County” (in 1812 Allentown and the original family farm became part of Lehigh County), plus a grist mill he built in 1790 that continued operation into the 20th Century. Note that in his lifetime Lorentz doubled the number of acres he originally inherited.
(1) Fifty pounds to Zion Reformed Church.
(2) Fifty pounds to the poor of Northampton County.
(3) To son Jacob my plantation of 100 acres with water rights, valued at 2100 pounds.
(4) To sons Johannes and Daniel the mill and its nine acres, plus adjacent woodlands, together valued at 3100 pounds.
(5) To son Friedrich 17 acres plus the land I gave him in my lifetime.
(6) To son Daniel all the land and buildings he now farms plus the adjacent woodlands.
(7) To son Friedrich and daughter Elizabeth, wife of Johann Moll, my 24 acres in Heidelberg Township.
(
To daughters Elizabeth, wife of Johann Moll, Anna Maria, wife of David Jundt, and Salome, wife of George Jundt, the 142-acre tract I own in Northampton County.
(9)
Executors will be my son Friedrich and my son-in-law Johann Moll (today known as gunmaker John Moll II). (Kastens Vol IV 36-37; Register’s File #218 at Allentown)
Two sons aren’t mentioned in the will: Christian who in 1798 married and moved west to establish a farm on the Susquehanna River in Columbia County, and Peter who in 1800 established a blacksmith shop on Sumner Avenue in Allentown. As there appears to be no enmity involved (both sons named boys after their father in the years following his death), it is likely their father helped them establish new farms and businesses and didn’t mention that in his will. Hence his actual wealth was probably two parts greater than his will reflects.
Note 4: The two companies of Thompson’s Rifle Battalion selected for the Quebec Campaign were not chosen because they were uniquely skilled, but because they were behaving badly in camp at Cambridge. These were Captain William Hendricks’s company from Cumberland County and Captain Matthew Smith’s company from Lancaster County. There had been several incidents of fighting between the back country riflemen and the coastal New England regiments composed largely of fishermen, with one later melee reportedly broken up by George Washington personally (Fischer Washington’s 25; McCullough 38, 51; Stroh Thompson’s 22).
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Today most infantrymen are “riflemen”, and we use the term casually, with occasional sources extending it to the writing of history in error. There were never many organized rifle units serving in the war; most soldiers were armed with smooth-bore muskets, fusils (a lighter, shorter musket), or fowlers (shotguns) shooting ball, buckshot, or a combination called “buck and ball”. In 1775, Pennsylvania raised nine companies of true frontier riflemen; Maryland two, and Virginia two, with strengths ranging from 60 to 90 men each. New England had few rifles anywhere in 1775. Then in early 1776, Pennsylvania raised an additional 12 companies of 72 or more riflemen each under Colonel Samuel Miles, and Virginia and Maryland six more under Colonel Hugh Stevenson. There were certainly rifles here and there in the militia regiments south of New England where men often owned their own firelocks, with the southern militias and units raised from frontiersmen probably having a higher percentage of rifles. The ratio of 350 rifles to 1500 muskets confiscated from 2000 Scottish settler households after the 1776 Battle of Moore’s Creek, North Carolina was probably representative. (Although probably a greater density of firearms than were present in German households - unlike many Scots, Palatines and Alsatians brought little experience with firearms with them to America, and wouldn’t acquire them until necessity demanded it.) Colonel Peter Kachlein’s Northampton County Militia (Kachlein was from Easton) is also an example. Battle histories refer to them as “Kachlein’s Riflemen”, although likely under half were armed with rifles. The “overmountain men” from Appalachian frontier settlements at the 1780 Battle of King’s Mountain are another example; they certainly had a high percentage of riflemen. But the major rifle units available to Washington in 1775-6 were only the units I list – approximately 2300 riflemen in a force larger than 20,000 (PA Archives Series 2 Vol X; Russell 83; Stroh Thompson’s 13-15).
Note 14: Several references on Peter’s father Michael Newhard (1713-1793) list his (and other family members’) origin as the town of Zweibruecken, Germany. In fact like most Neuharts, he was from the village of Rumbach which is 32 miles to the southeast, but administratively part of the (then) Duchy of Zweibruecken. Period references to Zweibruecken refer to the province of origin, not the town. Today both towns are in the German state of Rhineland Palatinate
The Neuharts sailed to Philadelphia on the St Andrew Galley, John Stedman, Master, arriving Philadelphia on September 26, 1737. Passengers included Michael Newhard’s maternal uncle Johannes George Stoehr (1687-1753), Stoehr’s wife Margaretha Dock (1688-1753) and their four children ages 15-22. The Stoehrs settled in Lancaster County. Also Frederick Neuhart’s brother-in-law Johann George Kern (1696-1763), Kern’s wife Catherine Elizabeth Fraudhueger (1703-1781) and three children ages 12-14. There was also a Johann George Kuntz listed as a passenger who was probably a relative of George Neuhart’s mother Susanna Maria Kuntz (1678-1723). The Kerns, whose paternal uncle had immigrated in 1732 and owned nearby “Trucker’s Mill” (Figure 13), settled by 1738 on the 200 acres adjacent to Frederick on Coplay Creek in Whitehall Township and the two men filed together for a survey of the 400-acre tract on February 1, 1743.
Benjamin Franklin, in 1755 the Pennsylvania official tasked to establish frontier forts during the French and Indian War, would buy the lumber to build Fort Allen at Trucker’s Mill. The mill was known as “Kern’s Mill” until immigrant Nicholas’ son William took over in the early 1750’s. William was a good-natured, jovial man and a “Trockener” is German slang for a jokester, hence the English corruption, “Trucker’s Mill” (Busch 162, 184-224).
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