tely to possess a home and a family, to master some minute
mechanical or technical detail, and to take his leisure and his
amusements in his own customary way.

The reports of the Immigration Commissioner disclose the fact that
well over five and a third millions of Germans migrated to America
between 1823 and 1910. If to this enormous number were added those of
German blood who came from Austria and the German cantons of
Switzerland, from Luxemburg and the German settlements of Russia, it
would reach a grand total of well over seven million Germans who have
sought an ampler life in America. The Census of 1910 reports "that
there were 8,282,618 white persons in the United States having Germany
as their country of origin, comprising 2,501,181 who were born in
Germany, 3,911,847 born in the United States both of whose parents
were born in Germany, and 1,869,590 born in the United States and
having one parent born in the United States and the other in
Germany."[25]

The coming of the Germans may be divided into three quite distinct
migrations: the early, the middle, and the recent. The first period
includes all who came before the radical ferment which began to
agitate Europe after the Napoleonic wars. The Federal census of 1790
discloses 176,407 Germans living in America. But German writers
usually maintain that there were from 225,000 to 250,000 Germans in
the colonies at the time of the Declaration of Independence. They had
been driven from the fatherland by religious persecution and economic
want. Every German state contributed to their number, but the bulk of
this migration came from the Palatinate, Wuerttemberg, Baden, and
Alsace, and the German cantons of Switzerland. The majority were of
the peasant and artisan class who usually came over as redemptioners.
Yet there were not wanting among them many persons of means and of
learning.

Pennsylvania was the favorite distributing point for these German
hosts. Thence they pushed southward through the beautiful Shenandoah
Valley into Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, and northward into
New Jersey. Large numbers entered at Charleston and thence went to the
frontiers of South Carolina. The Mohawk Valley in New York and the
Berkshires of Massachusetts harbored many. But not all of them moved
inland. They were to be found scattered on the coast from Maine to
Georgia. Boston, New York City, Baltimore, New Bern, Wilmington,
Charleston, and Savannah, all counted German