Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 44.djvu/21

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

conduct a colony of German and Dutch Mennonites and quakers to Pennsylvania. He arrived on 20 June 1683, settled upon the company's tract between the Schuylkill and the Delaware rivers, and on 24 Oct. began to lay out Germantown. Soon after his arrival he united himself with the Society of Quakers, and became one of its most able and devoted members, as well as the recognised head and law-giver of the settlement. In 1687 he was elected a member of the assembly. In 1688 he drew up a memorial against slave-holding, which was adopted by the Germantown quakers and sent up to the monthly meeting, and thence to the yearly meeting at Philadelphia. It is noteworthy as the first protest made by a religious body against negro slavery, and is the subject of John Greenleaf Whittier's poem, ‘The Pennsylvania Pilgrim.’ The original document was discovered in 1844 by Nathan Kite, and was published in the ‘Friend’ (vol. xviii. No. 16). Pastorius was elected the first bailiff of the town in 1691, and served the office again in 1692, afterwards acting frequently as clerk. For many years he carried on a school in Germantown, which he temporarily removed to Philadelphia between 1698 and 1700, and wrote deeds and letters required by the more uneducated of his countrymen. He died in Germantown between 26 Dec. 1719 and 13 Jan. 1720, the dates respectively of the making and proving of his will. On 26 Nov. 1686 he married Anneke, daughter of Dr. Johann Klosterman of Mühlheim, by whom he had two sons, John Samuel (b. 1690) and Henry (b. 1692). He was on intimate terms with William Penn, Thomas Lloyd, Chief-justice Logan, Thomas Story, and other leading men in the province belonging to his own religious society, as well as with Kelpius, the learned mystic of the Wissahickon, with the pastor of the Swedes church, and the leaders of the Mennonites.

His ‘Lives of the Saints,’ &c., written in German and dedicated to Professor Schurmberg, his old teacher, was published in 1690. He also published a pamphlet, consisting in part of letters to his father, and containing a description of Pennsylvania and its government, and advice to emigrants, entitled, ‘Umständige geographische Beschreibung der zu allerletzt erfundenen Provintz Pennsylvaniæ,’ 8vo, Frankfort and Leipzig, 1700, a further portion of which was included in the quaker Gabriel Thomas's ‘Continuatio der Beschreibung der Landschafft Pennsylvaniæ,’ 8vo, Frankfort and Leipzig, 1702. Some of his poetry, which is chiefly devoted to the pleasures of gardening, the description of flowers, and the care of bees, appeared in 1710, under the title of ‘Deliciæ hortenses: eine Sammlung deutscher epigrammatischer Gedichte.’

Others of his works are: 1. ‘De Rasura Documentorum,’ Nuremberg, 1676, 4to, being his inaugural dissertation for his degree. 2. A primer, printed in Pennsylvania previously to 1697. 3. ‘Treatise on four Subjects of Ecclesiastical History, viz., the Lives of the Saints, the Statutes of the Pontiffs, the Decisions of the Councils of the Church, the Bishops and Patriarchs of Constantinople,’ written in German and printed in Germany, and dedicated by Pastorius to his old schoolmaster at Windsheim, Tobias Schumberg, 1690.

Pastorius left forty-three volumes of manuscripts. Few of these compilations have escaped destruction; the most curious of all, however, the huge folio entitled ‘Francis Daniel Pastorius, his Hive, Bee-stock, Melliotrophium Alucar or Rusca Apium,’ was in 1872 in the possession of Washington Pastorius of Germantown. It is a medley of knowledge and fancy, history, philosophy, and poetry, written in seven languages. His Latin prologue to the Germantown book of records (1688) has been translated by Whittier as an ode beginning ‘Hail to Posterity,’ which is prefixed to the ‘Pennsylvania Pilgrim.’

[Penn Monthly for 1871 and for January and February 1872; Whittier's Writings (London, 1888–9), i. 316–45, 434–5; Der deutsche Pionier (Cincinnati) for 1871; Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, xxv. 219; Appleton's Cyclop. of Amer. Biogr.]

G. G.

PATCH, RICHARD (1770?–1806), criminal, born about 1770 at Heavitree, near Exeter, Devonshire, was the eldest son of a small farmer who for some daring acts of smuggling was imprisoned in Exeter gaol, where he afterwards became turnkey. Richard Patch was apprenticed to a butcher, and was liberally supplied with money by his father. On his father's death he inherited a small freehold estate of about 50l. a year, which he farmed, renting at the same time a small farm in the neighbourhood of Heavitree. In this occupation he was engaged for some years; but he was compelled to mortgage his estate, and in the spring of 1803 journeyed to London to avoid, according to his own account, an action for the non-payment of tithes. He was taken into the service of Isaac Blight, a ship-breaker living in the parish of St. Mary, Rotherhithe. In the summer of 1803 Blight, in order to protect himself against his creditors, appears to have executed an instrument con-