Category Archives: Freinsheim and Palatinate history

The Haardt Gebirge in Germany, the Haardt mountains near Bad Duerkheim, feature a Celtic megalith up in the hills. It’s called the Teufelsstein — the Devil’s stone — and it’s situated near the Limburg Abbey monastery. According to The Megalithic Portal , the stone was once a sacrificial altar. When I visited Germany last October, I did not have a chance to visit the Teufelsstein, but in the early 1800s, James Fenimore Cooper visited it, and wrote about it, in his “Legends of the Rhine”.

The Devil’s Stone was described as a natural rock … on which the Pagans had offered sacrifices. … [The legend goes] that when the pious monks were planning their monastery, a compact was made with the Devil to quarry the stones necessary for so extensive a work, and to transport them up the steep acclivity. The inducement held forth to the evil spirit for undertaking a work of this nature, was the pretence of erecting a tavern, in which, doubtless, undue quantities of Rhenish wine were to be quaffed, cheating human reason, and leaving the undefended soul more exposed than usual to assaults of temptation. … Completely deceived by the artifices of the men of God, the father of sin lent himself to the project with so much zeal, that the Abbey and its appendages were completed in a time incredibly short; a circumstance that his employers took good care to turn to account, after their own fashion, by ascribing it to a miracle of purer emanation. By all accounts the deception was so well managed, that notwithstanding his proverbial cunning, the Devil never knew the true destination of the edifice until the Abbey-bell actually rang for prayers. Then, indeed, his indignation knew no bounds, and he proceeded forthwith to the rock in question, with the fell intent of bringing it into the air above the chapel, and, by its fall, of immolating the monks and their altar together, to his vengeance. But the stone was too firmly rooted to be displaced even by the Devil; and he was finally compelled, by the prayers of the devotees, who were now, after their own fashion of fighting, fairly in the field, to abandon this portion of the country in shame and disgrace. The curious are shown certain marks on the rock, which go to prove the violent efforts of Satan, on this occasion, and among others the prints of his form, left by seating himself on the stone, fatigued by useless exertions. The more ingenious even trace, in a sort of groove, evidence of the position of his tail, during the time the baffled spirit was chewing the cud of chagrin on his hard stool.

James Fenimore Cooper, from The Heidenmauer; or, The Benedictines, Philadelphia: Carey & Lea–Chestnut Street, 1832.

I have been warned against researching at this late date in my thesis-writing. It is wise advice.

Sometimes I can’t seem to help myself. I found this latest gem by guess and by gosh.

In a letter from 1869 written by my great-great-grandfather, I have gone over this passage dozens of times without any idea what he’s talking about:

My business partner Ernst Butler asks you through me if you might, very soon after receiving these few lines, pick 1/2 of a large scoop (Schoppenglas) of unripe nuts (maple?), dry these but not in the sun but in the air, and occasionally send them into this country.

My cousin and translator Angela inserted the (maple?) comment, neither of us sure what he was talking about. This morning, on an impulse, I searched “maple nuts Germany” and found my way to beech nuts. Based on the information at this website called “On the Table” I think I’ve solved the mystery.

Or maybe someone has another idea?

When I started writing my thesis, I had no idea how many “heavyweights” lived in the early nineteenth century.

When I first looked for thinkers, writers, artists, and musicians of the times, Goethe and Schiller emerged from the get-go. But the big names just kept piling up.

The Cleveland German Cultural Garden honors only a few of these 19th century German VIPs: Father Jahn, Humboldt (Alexander, and there was also his brother, Prussian education system brainiac Wilhelm), Goethe, Schiller, Heine, Lessing, Beethoven, Bach … “Oh wow!” I thought, standing there among the statues.

Before long, I had also added Mendelssohn, Schubert, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Engels, and Nietzsche to the list. (“How do you keep it from becoming … ponderous?” a friend asked. Ha! My concern is whether great-great-grandfather, rural farm boy turned Cleveland blacksmith, even knew these scholars and artists shared space with him on the planet.)

I can’t help but explore this stuff, like a pilot flying over the Nazca Lines and trying to make out vague shapes in the desert tundra.

What a treat it was to come across Peter Watson’s book The German Genius. Published in 2010, the early chapters are a compendium of the kind of thing that keeps drawing me to the nineteenth century mindset. The stuff about Pietism in particular was a real forehead smacker.

The idea of doubt, that humans are self-directed, not God directed, emerged as a movement in the late 18th century. The “Third Renaissance, between Doubt and Darwin,” Watson claims, occurred around the years 1697 (Essay Concerning Human Understanding – Locke) and 1859 (Origin of Species – Darwin), when all of the above Germans, and many more, greatly influenced the progress of civilization.

“Oh wow!” I’m thinking (again). Watson examines scientific and social discoveries, advances in education and exploration, the Prussian-dominated world and “separatist” position of Germany in Europe in those years, yet it feels to me like he left something out. Nowhere (so far) have I come across mention of the great “Auswanderung,” the emigration of millions upon millions of Germans from the fatherland in the nineteenth century. A disconnect that has me wondering …

Genealogical data is a good leaping off point, but as I work on a novel-length account of my ancestor Michael Harm, I often get caught in a realm between fact and fiction, where the line between them blurs, and where the real can seem the most unreal of all.

Facts about my great-great grandfather Michael Harm exist in city, county and church records, in ship’s registers and in primary source letters he wrote in the 19th century. Birth, marriage, travel, and death, plus a few stories thrown in to give me clues. But the true substance of Michael Harm’s life exists within the “human context”*, the web of relationships of the people around him, who defined who he was and whose lives he influenced in turn. (FYI, I picked up this concept of “the human context” from Stevick’s Theory of the Novel.)

How do I reconstruct this web? If there ever were maps to the treasure, they have long since disappeared. I do count myself extremely lucky to have some letters from the mid-nineteenth century, letters that mention names such as the Reibolds who have a Weinbergsgarten in Freinsheim to this day. The name Pihrmann also appears in the letters — as I bought apples from a street vendor under the Pihrmann sign, I wondered about the man before me. Were his ancestor and my greatgreatgrandfather friends over 150 years ago? It seems unreal, but also quite plausible.

In an article by Freinsheim historian Otto Klamm: “Freinsheimers wanderten nach Uebersee aus: Zumeist gingen sie ohne die Genehmigung der Obrigkeit,” (“Freinsheimers emigrated overseas: Mostly they went without permission of the authorities”) I came across a familiar name: the family of Michael Hoehn, who departed Freinsheim for the U.S. in 1858. Herr Hoehn was “accompanied by his wife and five children. A son of 21 years, another of 17, daughters ages 23 and 15 years, and … a little daughter of three years.”

Michael Hoehn is a familiar name because in my research I’ve learned a Michael Hoehn and my greatgreatgrandfather traveled to Freinsheim together in 1893. Michael Hoehn wrote an account of their journey, in a letter he sent to the family when the two of them had arrived back in Cleveland. Because Michael Harm and Michael Hoehn appeared to be the same age, both with young children, I assume the Michael Hoehn who wrote the letter must be one of the two sons mentioned above. I further imagine these two sons, who as Klamm writes, left “without permission of the authorities,” were avoiding conscription in the military. In those days many young men of the Rhineland-Palatinate emigrated rather than face conscription in the armed forces of the Bavarians.

Otto Klamm closes his article about these emigrants as follows: “Their fates are long gone, only mentioned in our list as numbers. And yet these were once caring, troubled and hopeful people. I wonder if the descendants of today remember the plight of their forefathers?” If Otto Klamm were alive today, I would be glad to tell him: the answer is YES.