Chambers's pocket miscellany - 1852 Author:Chambers W. and R. ltd Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: A GERMAN SETTLEMENT. Near Cape Girardeau, in the state of Missouri, and at no great distance from the western banks of the Mississippi, Mr Flint, in the cours... more »e of his travels as a preacher, lighted upon what he terms a ' curiosity' in such a district—namely, an isolated but pure German settlement. We beg to transcribe his account for the entertainment of our readers :—' These people have here preserved their nationality and their language more unmixed than even in Pennsylvania. At a meeting in the woods, where it was supposed 400 German people were present, there were not half a dozen of people of English descent. The women are not able to express themselves well in English. The men, though they understand the colloquial arid familiar language, yet express themselves with the peculiar German accent, pronunciation, and phrase, so as to be very amusing, if not sometimes ludicrous. They are principally Lutherans, and came some of them directly from Germany, but the greater portion from North Carolina and Pennsylvania. They have fixed themselves on a clear and beautiful stream called the White Water, which runs twenty-five miles, and loses itself in the great swamp. Located here in the forest— a narrow settlement of Germans unmixed with other people, having little communication except with their own people, and little intercourse with the world, having, besides, all the coarse trades and manufactures among themselves, they have preserved their peculiarities in an uncommon degree. 'They are anxious for religious instruction,and love the German honesty and industry; but almost every farmer has his distillery, and the pernicious poison, whisky, dribbles from the corn; and in their curious dialect, they told me, that while they wanted religion, and their children Baptised, and a min...« less