s in their populations.
However strictly these German neighborhoods may have maintained the
customs of their native land, the people thoroughly identified
themselves with the patriot cause and supplied soldiers, leaders,
money, and enthusiasm to the cause of the Revolutionary War.

Benjamin Rush, the distinguished Philadelphia physician and publicist,
one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, wrote in 1789 a
description of the Germans of Pennsylvania which would apply generally
to all German settlements at that time and to many of subsequent date.
The Pennsylvania German farmer, he says, was distinguished above
everything else for his self-denying thrift, housing his horses and
cattle in commodious, warm barns, while he and his family lived in a
log hut until he was well able to afford a more comfortable house;
selling his "most profitable grain, which is wheat" and "eating that
which is less profitable but more nourishing, that is, rye or Indian
corn"; breeding the best of livestock so that "a German horse is known
in every part of the State" for his "extraordinary size or fat";
clearing his land thoroughly, not "as his English or Irish neighbors";
cultivating the most bountiful gardens and orchards; living frugally,
working constantly, fearing God and debt, and rearing large families.
"A German farm may be distinguished," concludes this writer, "from the
farms of other citizens by the superior size of their barns, the plain
but compact form of their houses, the height of their enclosures, the
extent of their orchards, the fertility of their fields, the
luxuriance of their meadows, and a general appearance of plenty and
neatness in everything that belongs to them."[26] Rush's praise of the
German mechanics is not less stinted. They were found in that day
mainly as "weavers, taylors, tanners, shoe-makers, comb-makers, smiths
of all kinds, butchers, paper makers, watchmakers, and sugar bakers."
Their first desire was "to become freeholders," and they almost
invariably succeeded. German merchants and bankers also prospered in
Philadelphia, Germantown, Lancaster, and other Pennsylvania towns.
One-third of the population of Pennsylvania, Rush says, was of German
origin, and for their convenience a German edition of the laws of the
State was printed.

After the Revolution, a number of the Hessian hirelings who had been
brought over by the British settled in America. They usually became
farmers, although some o