Hello, my name is Henry Clemmer. I was Henrich (or Heinrich)
until I immigrated to an English-speaking colony in Pennsylvania. My last name
also has many variations in Switzerland from where my family originates;
Klemmer, Klymer, Klimmer, or Kleiner, sometimes spelled with a "C" and sometimes
with a "K"; take your pick.
I arrived in the USA in 1717, that’s 300 years ago, with my
father Valentine, four brothers and a nephew. I was 16 years old at the time. My
father told me, “There were so many emigrating from the Palatinate to
Pennsylvania that we filled three ships.” I’ve been told that for a period of
nearly 100 years, nearly 70,000 people emigrated from the Palatinate in Germany,
although not all were Mennonite.
The Center of the Town of Affotern am Albis, the origin of the Clemmer/Clymer name |
Dad also told me that the Swiss authorities released
prisoners if they agreed to hunt down Anabaptists, paying them a bounty for
each one they turned in. Those turned in were sent to prison where they were
tortured to reveal names of other Anabaptists. Some were sold as galley slaves,
and some were exiled and shipped down the Rhine River to Holland, when Dutch
Mennonites offered to pay their passage. They were warned never to return to
Switzerland. If they returned to Switzerland they were imprisoned for life, or
drowned. This happened to several of my dad’s acquaintances.
My dad tried to explain to me why the Anabaptists were hated
so much that the Swiss government wanted to get rid of them completely. It
began with believer’s baptism. They didn’t allow their infants to be baptized. The
decision to follow Jesus could only be made by an adult. Since their infants
weren’t baptized, the church and the government couldn’t control them. They
also were hated because they refused to swear oaths, and to bear arms. But
there was another driving force. Switzerland was the only territory in the
region that had a conscripted army. Other countries had mercenary armies, and
the Swiss government hired out their conscripted soldiers to the armies of
other countries. With Anabaptists refusing to be conscripted, the authorities
were losing a significant source of income.
In spite of the persecution, the movement continued to grow.
People saw how their Anabaptist neighbors lived holy lives, and followed the hard
teachings of Jesus that were often ignored by larger society. After my dad
began reading the Bible carefully, and began attending clandestine meetings of
the Anabaptists, he became convicted and was converted. Most of his siblings
remained Reformed.
Dad told me about the many superstitions that the peasants in
Switzerland believed in more than freedom in Christ. The supposed presence of mountain
spirits, devils and demons caused much fear and paralyzed their lives. The
Reformed Church authorities allowed these superstitions to be propagated because
it helped them to control the people. Anabaptism released the converted from
these burdens and fears.
When the persecution became overbearing, many Anabaptists
moved from
Switzerland to the Palatinate in Germany. My dad and his family joined
them. They moved to the village of Friedelsheim, near Mannheim, just west of
the Rhine River around 1679. The ruler of the Palatinate invited people to
resettle this region after it was devastated by the 30-years’ war; one of the
most destructive wars in history. My uncle, Hans Jakob Klemmer, had already
moved to Friedelsheim several years earlier. Even though my uncle was not an
Anabaptist, there were many other Mennonites in the region, including the
family of Christian Hershey. His family was one of the many who emigrated with
us from the Palatinate to the USA. I don’t remember when my father became a
bishop with the Mennonite church. I always remember him as a church leader.
The house where the last Klemmer family lived in Friedelsheim, Palatinate, Germany |
Things in the Palatinate were better than Switzerland, but
Mennonites were still considered second-class citizens. They couldn’t own
property, they weren’t allowed to proselytize, and couldn’t meet in groups of
more than 20. So, after my mother died, and after my dad heard about the
invitation by William Penn and George Fox to come to Pennsylvania, and after he
had spoken with many other Mennonites in the region, he decided to emigrate to
Pennsylvania. I imagine he really didn’t know what lay ahead for him, but he
figured that life couldn’t be much worse than it had been in Switzerland or now
in the Palatinate. I was only 16 when we left Friedelsheim bound for
Philadelphia.
The trip to Rotterdam then across the ocean was a real
hardship. We endured a long, arduous journey that began with a 6-week trip down
the Rhine River to Rotterdam, Holland. We were delayed for several months in
Holland waiting for a ship to take us across the ocean. We sailed across the
Atlantic Ocean for 7 weeks until we finally reached Pennsylvania. During the
journey, I was seasick most of the voyage. We had trouble with rats scouring
around the decks and getting into our supplies. We suffered from sour beer,
worms in the drinking water and fighting among fellow passengers. Each
passenger had a sleeping and sitting area of 2’ by 6’. The meat, fish and
butter were so heavily salted and smelled so terrible that I could barely
swallow. I was always thirsty and either too hot or too cold! Someone opened
our chests that we had put in the cargo area of the ship and our valuables were
stolen. I remember my father Valentine and the other Mennonite Bishops sitting
together and studying their German Bibles and the one map they had of William
Penn’s Colony.
When we finally got to Pennsylvania, we spent some time in Germantown
with other Mennonites and some Quakers. Germantown is a little north of
Philadelphia. My father worked as a weaver until we accumulated enough money to
buy some property and begin a homestead. We eventually settled in Bucks county,
where dad started a church. I helped build what became the second Mennonite
church in the USA, working as a mason. It was Skippack Mennonite Church,
founded in 1720.
Clemmer home on Allentown Rd. as it appears today. |
On October 14, 1777, George Washington’s men from the
Revolutionary army passed by my homestead as they retreated from the battle of
Germantown. The soldiers took the Allentown Road with the wounded on their way
to the hospital in Bethlehem. After all that my family had been through in
Switzerland and Germany, you can imagine how we felt about this turn of events.
Most of us had little problem being British subjects. The Revolutionary militia
began soliciting us to fight for them. We suggested donating to destitute
families who lost husbands and sons to the war. Pennsylvania countered with
levying a war tax or paying for a substitute soldier. We couldn’t in good conscience
do either. We could not in any way assist in the destruction of people’s lives.
Some of my fellow Mennonites had their farms confiscated in order to pay the
fines.
Some of my Mennonite friends were considered traitors by the
patriots because they came to the aid of hungry and wounded soldiers on both
sides. Life in what we thought was the promised land turned out to be just as
hard to a true follower of Christ as it had been in Europe. As a result, some
of my friends decided to move to Canada.
Eventually things settled down and we joined Franconia
Mennonite Church. Maria and I had 8 children. We dedicated our lives to being
good farmers and followers of Jesus.
Preserved gravestone of Henrich and Maria Clemmer at Franconia Mennonite Church |
In spite of everything, I lived a long life—91 years. I died
in 1791, and was buried beside my wife Maria in the Franconia Mennonite
graveyard.
Sources: Clemmer
book, Richard
Davis Mennosearch.com, Barkey-us.org/wordpress.com,
Donna
Basinger, Furgge,
historical novel by Katharina Zimmerman, US
Anabaptists during the Revolutionary War