Chapter 4
Johann Conrad's Life in Germany

School and Religion

As I stated earlier, unfortunately, there is no record of Conrad's confirmation in Gensungen; those years when he might have been confirmed are missing from the Gensungen church records. We wonder what his childhood was like. He may have done some work as a child in the Mittelhof Brick Yard along with his father and some of his brothers and cousins. I began to wonder if he had the opportunity to attend school or was educated at home. After all, both he and his son Wilhelm were able to sign their own names on the Queen Elizabeth ship's log, and in the list of Conrad's belongings in his estate inventory after his death, he had owned three Bibles and several sermon books. So, I began reading about childhood education in Germany during and following the Reformation and was very surprised by what I learned. (Somewhat based on an article by Musee Protestant entitled "The Protestant Education in the 16^th century" an article by Dr. Paul T. Criss entitled "How the Reformation Reformed Education," and R. B. Peery's "Luther's Influence in Education").

Before the Reformation and influence by such Reformers as Luther, Calvin, and Melanchthon, only the very wealthy, some of the clergy, aristocrats, and the very influential were educated. Most of the rest of the population lived their lives in a state of illiteracy. Luther himself has been considered "the father of modern education" because he was almost as great a reformer of education as he was of religion and considered the teacher to be of an esteemed profession. Luther wrote, "As for me, if God chose to keep me away from pastoral functions, there is no other occupation I would gladly take up than schoolmaster, for next to the pastor's work, no other is more beautiful or significant than his." Calvin was known best as a reformer of higher education. Melanchthon joined Luther on insisting upon education for the common people, both boys and girls, men and women. This meant that each person must be educated to read the new translation of the Bible in his own vernacular so that he could understand God's revealed Word to all people and in his own way declare the evangelical truth with the Bible as his reference. Luther professed the need for universal education and proficiency in languages, even in Greek and Latin if possible. He considered education to be essential for the maintenance of civil order and the proper regulation of the household.

Philip Melanchthon reinforced the belief that education was a requirement for every person to live in society and to understand the gospel, making school compulsory for every person. He wrote many text books, especially Latin and Greek grammar books, which were used in most Protestant schools in Germany and abroad.

With the existing churches the reformers founded many schools with the insistence that parents shared in the primary responsibility of educating their children. They were to reinforce school and church instruction at home, and church leaders would assess the students' progress throughout the school year. The belief persisted that a city or town would flourish and experience prosperity and stability even more with the civil authorities supporting education for all. The best and most prosperous cities would result from having pure, learned, intelligent, honest, and well-educated citizens.

The reformers also believed that education requires moral and gifted teachers, unbiased leaders who teach facts and avoid politics in their classrooms. They required teachers not only to have expertise and education in their disciplines but also a degree in theology and be of high character. They should teach knowledge of God's Word through the Bible and also should teach a broad range of subjects, not simply one skill that kept the student in servitude to that limited field. Luther, in addition to being a proponent of Latin and Greek, recommended Hebrew, mathematics, nature studies, sciences, rhetoric, gymnastics, history, and music especially for its cultural power and practical value. He advocated teaching ‘the heart as well as the head," being ruled by kindness and love instead of fear so the children would find learning to be a joyful experience.

Luther also began the tradition of "academic freedom" by demanding liberty and self-expression and questions in the classroom. The Reformers all agreed that scriptural reformation and education are the keys to cultural transformation, especially in changing some of the larger cities from the vices of riots, gambling, indecent dancing, drunkenness, adultery, singing indecent songs, and blaspheming God.

Some of the smaller villages and towns, such as Gensungen may have been, were not known for sanitation; epidemics were common. The reformers encouraged the town and city councils to establish regulations for sanitary conditions and inspections of food markets. In Geneva, beggars were prohibited from the streets, but a well- regulated hospital and poorhouse were established.

From this history of results of the Reformation, we can assume that Conrad and later Wilhelm had the new advantage of at least a solid elementary education and improved intellectual, social, and cultural opportunities. Thus, it is not surprising that Conrad and Wilhelm and many others of their time period were both literate and educated. Only about 16 out of 112 male passengers on the ship Queen Elizabeth with Conrad and Wilhelm were unable to sign their own names.

Militarism in Hesse

(In some instances based on Dennis Showalter's on line article, October 2007, published in the Military History Magazine and other online articles concerning Hessian soldiers, especially from Ancestral Findings.com, "How to Research Your Hessian Soldier Ancestors" and the online site The History Junkie, "Recruitment").

However, there was for many a less propitious side to life in Hesse during this time period. Hesse, especially the Hessen-Kassel area of Germany in the 16^th, 17^th, and 18^th centuries, had professional armies which their ruling princes often hired out for service to fight other countries' battles along with their own local troops for payment. Hessen Kassel was a small, impoverished province that kept itself financially afloat through this mercenary policy. Hessian soldiers and their officers were not actually in business for themselves but were regular troops in the service of the Hessian government. The Hessian soldiers provided an immediate supply of very well-trained troops who were prepared to go into battle immediately. They quickly gained notoriety for their discipline, their ferocity in battle, and their steadiness under fire. They fought all over Europe and eventually on the side of the British in the American Revolution.

Keep in mind what I wrote earlier – that numerous European countries had their own mercenary troops such as the Croats, reportedly the most vicious, fighters on the continent, who must have made Hessian life miserable in the 1600's.

All boys in Hesse were required to register for military service when they were seven years old. From that time until they were sixteen, they became regular parts of the Hessian army. Each year at Easter all Hessian men ages sixteen to thirty were required to appear before a military board possibly to be selected for military service. Some were given exemptions if their jobs at home were vital to the needs of Hessen-Kassel.

Although being in the Hessian army was a difficult and dangerous occupation, there were definite benefits to those selected to go on military campaigns. Morale was generally high even though there were harsh punishments for failures in performance or breaking the strict rules. There were plentiful opportunities for promotions based on merit, officers received additional education, soldiers did not have to pay certain taxes, and the pay was higher than regular farming and labor wages. Finally, military campaigns brought the opportunity of shares in plunder including money and items they could appropriate to sell for additional money. Thus, a Hessian soldier could earn a good living for himself and his family by hiring himself out as a mercenary. It could be a prosperous life as long as the soldier was not injured or killed in battle. During the 18th century when Conrad might have served, all adult males not otherwise gainfully employed were pressed into service and rigorously trained for these foreign wars where they typically served for more than twenty years.

Why do I think that Conrad may have been one of these mercenary soldiers? I have been unable to find any records for Conrad from the time he apparently left Gensungen and supposedly married an Anna Maria Martin of Grossweier, Ontenaukreis, Baden-Wurttemburg, Germany. This information put out on the internet has yet to be sourced in any valid way. It seems logical that Conrad's wife's surname may have been Martin because of the confusion in Conrad's will over his daughter Anna Martha's middle name. The puzzling thing here is how would Conrad have met and married this Anna Maria Martin who lived some two hundred and twenty plus miles from the Gensungen or Hesse-Kassel area? Why would he have been there and stayed long enough to get to know and marry her? We do not know for certain that this wife (only or second) was the mother of Wilhelm or Anna Martha as no mother's name is tied directly to either of them in any of the records I have found such as baptismal records. And there is the strange fact that we have found only these two children for Conrad who are approximately fifteen years different in age. If Conrad had been living at home with the same wife during those fifteen years, in all probability there would have been a number of additional children. This does not prove that Conrad was a mercenary as were one out of every fifteen men of military age), off serving the Hessian government in foreign wars, but it does open up that possible explanation for his having only two children and those around fifteen years apart. Thus, the answer to some of these questions may lie buried in this practice of Hessian militarism. If Conrad was in the military, he could have been based in Baden-Wurttemburg and thus met Anna Maria Martin there in Grossweier.

On Ancestry.com and My Heritage family researchers have proposed without documentation that Conrad's wife was Anna Maria Martin. I am including this information concerning her ancestors in case it is true.

MARTIN

Anna Maria Martin born Grossweier, Ontenaukreis, Baden-Wurttemburg, born 1680 Germany, died 1755 Philadelphia County, Philadelphia, PA.

Parents of Anna Maria Martin
Zacharias Martin, born 1655 and died 1681 in Grossweier, Ontenaukreis, Baden-Wurttemburg.
Married Rosina Buhl born 1655 in Safersbach, Leipzig, Saxony; died 1692 in Ortenaukreis, Baden-Wurttemburg.

BUHL

Parents of Rosina Buhl
Martin Buhl, Jr. born in 1605; died in 1677 in Safersbach, Leipzig, Saxony.
Married Justine Hortenbach, born in 1628; died in 1675.

Father of Martin Buhl, Jr.
Martin Buhl, born in 1576; died in 1628.

Another Plausible Explanation of Conrad's Disappearance The Road to Becoming a Craftsman

In pre-industrial Europe and even to a much lesser degree in later days, boys and young men aspired to learn a craft, placing them in the middle class, most frequently the same craft as that of their fathers or other male relatives. For instance, across Germany the Liphard name was most frequently associated with glass- makers. I have no idea why our branch of Liphards became brick makers, out of the norm. There was another family like the Liphards in Hesse, who were also well-known as glassmakers. This was the Kunkle/Gunkel family. As mentioned earlier, on board the "Queen Elizabeth" with Conrad and Wilhelm Liphard in 1738 were three families of Kunkle/Gunkels. In every listing of these passengers associated with their immigration, one of them was listed in between Conrad and Wilhelm, suggesting a familial or strong friendship relationship. If not family, perhaps craft brought elements of their families together.

Usually between the ages of 12 to 16 when children were confirmed, the boys became apprenticed to their fathers or to other masters of the same craft. If not learning the trade from one's father, the father had to pay a fee to the other master craftsman. The apprentices then belonged to that master's shop, lived with the master's family -- learning, sleeping, and eating with his family. Breakfast consisted of bread with weak beer. There was a more substantial mid-day meal and supper at 5 p.m. in winter and 7 p.m. in summer. Supper usually included meat, fruit such as apples, a vegetable in season, and a spiced cake. Everyone ate on wooden platters using fingers rather than eating utensils. They drank beer or mead from pewter tankards. An apprenticeship to learn the craft usually lasted for seven years. The apprentices could make no money by selling anything they made.

After seven years of training, the young men became journeymen, free to work for pay for anyone. Traditionally journeymen engaged in 3 years and a day (or 2 to 4 years) of "Wanderjahre," wandering years. Each was given a little book called a "Gesellenbrief" or "Wanderbuch," essentially a passport for one's craft allowing him temporary residency in the places he traveled and perhaps worked for a while and documenting the places he practiced his craft. When the journeymen began their travels, they took along only a small, fixed amount of money, the point being to neither squander nor store up riches but instead to store up experiences rather than wealth. They were to return home at the end of their wandering years with the same amount of money they left with but with a much greater skill at their crafts by having worked for a number of different masters.

The journeyman who became a craftsman then had the opportunity to set up his own shop if he could afford it, and most aspired to become a master craftsman. His earlier experience as a journeyman helps explain why many married and even had children far from their original homes. Most eventually settled back at home, perhaps taking over one of their older relative's shops or marrying a daughter of a family in the same trade, or they settled in a new place where the village council agreed that they needed and thus gave permission for another of their craft to settle. As the craftsman set up shop, he usually managed to acquire a small house and a similarly small piece of land to garden to help feed his family.

To become a master craftsman, one had to create a masterpiece, a top-level product approved by all the other masters of his trade in the area. Additionally, he had to be of legitimate birth. With these criteria met, the master craftsman could apply to join a guild.

Craftsmen of each craft set up their own guilds (professional organizations) to ensure high standards and to set up rules for that trade such as not starting work before sunrise or continuing after dark, remaining closed on Sundays and feast days, and maintaining fixed prices for fairness. Each guild had a patron saint whose day they celebrated by closing their shops and marching around town. Each guild member had to pay a yearly fee to the guild to support sick members or help support dead members' families.

(Sources—Oisin Moore and Chris Phillips, "A Craftsman in a Medieval Town." Medieval Chronicles.com, "Medieval Craftsmen." Elliot Kember, "The Journeyman.")

If Conrad trained as an apprentice and then as a journeyman, what craft would have been available to him? I do not believe he was apprenticed to his father, who may have become a master Ziegler and Zieglebrenner, but there is no reference to Conrad such as marriage or births of children in the Gensungen church records.

All the Liphards listed in the early Gensungen records are descendants of Johannes Frantz. I have at this point still been unable to determine where he came from, and I have been unable to locate many other Liphard families composed of Zieglers. However, the small Hessian town of Epterode had clay products including bricks as the basis of its economy.

From the records we have of Conrad's life in Pennsylvania, we know that he was well-versed in making potash, translating in German to the profession of Aschener or Aschenbrenner, one skilled to work in an Aschenhaus, an Aschenhutte, or a Potaschhutte, all terms meaning a Potash Works or Factory, a subsidiary operation of a glassworks in Germany. Thus, all indications are that Conrad did not follow in his father's footsteps but reverted to another of the traditional Liphard professions in Germany of making glass or pottery, contributing potash production to the process that was essential to glass and pottery production, typical of the crafts of his Lippard relatives in various nearby villages near Gensungen. Potash was in high demand in that it was also essential to making other products such as pottery and soap. Glass works frequently built potash huts nearby and in heavily forested areas where plenty of wood could be harvested. It seems convincing that Conrad learned his trade in Germany and was able to continue it in Pennsylvania where plenty of wood was available as more and more land was cleared for houses and fields.
(Source "Potash works," Wikipedia)

Relaxation/Entertainment in Our Liphards' Lives in Germany

Although most people had labor intensive jobs during this period of German history, they must have had time for some relaxation and entertainment. I can imagine that our family, friends, and relatives gathered after work hours or in the evenings to tell stories or perhaps even sing songs. Gensungen was not very far from Kassel where two brothers, Jacob Ludig Carl, and Wilhelm Carl Grimm, born in the 1780's, became famous for collecting folk stories that were already well-known and hundreds of years old. Their collection was first published in 1812 to 1815. To me it is interesting to realize that these same stories most certainly known by our Liphard ancestors are basically the same stories many of us were brought up with such as "Rumpelstiltskin, "Sleeping Beauty," "Cinderella," Snow White," "Rapunzel," "Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast," "Hansel and Gretel," "Little Red Riding Hood," "The Fisherman and His Wife," and many others.