How Germans Survived in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia
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The Shenandoah Valley region of western Virginia, from Winchester to Roanoke, Virginia, is bordered by the Blue Ridge Mountains to the East and the Allegheny Mountains to the West. The Valley also includes the eastern panhandle of West Virginia and is the Gateway to the Shenandoah Valley.
The parent counties were settled during the early 18th century, and researchers should review them all for research. First, there were two counties, Frederick and Augusta, created in 1738 from Orange County. The later counties are break-out counties from these two original ones. Frederick County had borders, but Augusta County was massive before the Revolutionary War, as it was bordered to the East by the Blue Ridge Mountains, to the West by the Mississippi River, and to the North by the Great Lakes. However, only the settlements between the two mountain ranges, Blue Ridge and Alleghany Mountains, are considered within the Shenandoah Valley.
The dress of the early settlers in the Shenandoah Valley was the plainest mode of living. The German women wore tight calico caps on their heads, and in the summer season, they were mostly seen with no other clothing than a linen shift and dress — the feet, hands, and arms bare. In hay and harvest time, they joined the men in the labor of the meadow and grain fields. This custom of female labor during harvest was not exclusively a German practice; it was familiar to all the northern people. Many females were the most expert mowers and reapers. Within the author’s recollection, he has seen several female reapers equal to the stoutest males in the harvest field. It was not uncommon to see the female part of the family at home or in the plow, and some of our now wealthiest citizens frequently boast of their grandmothers and mothers performing this kind of heavy labor. The natural result of this kind of rural life was producing a strenuous and vigorous race of people. This race of people had to meet and break the various Indian wars and the storms of the revolution. The Dutchman’s barn was usually the best building on his farm. He was sure to erect a fine layer barn before building any dwelling-house besides his rude log cabin. There were none of our primitive in-grants more uniform in the form of their buildings than the Germans. Their dwelling houses were seldom raised more than a single story in height, with a large cellar beneath, the chimney in the middle, a vast fireplace in one end for the kitchen, and a stove room at the other. Their furniture was the simplest and plainest kind: there was always a long pine table with benches fixed in one corner of the stove room, with permanent benches on one side.
Their beds were generally filled with straw or chaff, with a fine featherbed for covering in the winter. Doubtless, the thick covering of feathers produced perspiration, which, when exposed to cold, on rising in the morning, was apt to cause chilliness or an obstinate cough.
Many of the German settlers had what they called a drum, through which the stove pipe passed in their upper rooms. It was made of sheet iron, something like a military drum. The heat from the pipe soon caused the room to become agreeably warm in the coldest winter.
A piazza is a very common appendage to a Dutchman’s dwelling house, in which his saddles, bridles, and frequently his wagon or plow harness are hung up. The Germans erect stables for their domestic animals of every species: even their swine are housed in the winter season. Their barns and stables are well stored with provender and fine straw hay; hence, their quadrupeds are kept throughout the year in the finest possible order. This practice of housing stock in the winter season meant less food was required to sustain them, and the animals came out in the spring in fine health and condition. Thus, the Dutchman rarely lost any part of his stock to poverty. The housing stock in the winter was not exclusively a German custom but was familiar to most of the northern people and those descended from immigrants from the north.
Source: A History of the Valley of Virginia by Samuel Kercheyal. (1833).