Manuscript letter of attorney transferring agency of the Frankfurt Land Company from Francis Daniel Pastorius to Daniel Falkner, Johannes Kelpius and Johannes Jawert. Frankfurt-am-Main: 24 January 1700.
PASTORIUS RELIEVED OF HIS DUTIES AT GERMANTOWN
[Frankfurter Landgesellschaft.] Manuscript letter of attorney transferring agency of the Frankfurt Land Company from Francis Daniel Pastorius to Daniel Falkner, Johannes Kelpius and Johannes Jawert. Frankfurt-am-Main: 24 January 1700.
Pot bifolium (13 5/16” x 16 9/16”, 338mm x 421mm; ): ink manuscript German and Latin, written on three pages, with docketing on the fourth. Nine signatures and red wax seals on the third page.
Folded irregularly (to avoid cracking the seals) into 20 compartments. Tanned generally, concentrated along the folded edges. Left edge of the recto (pp. [2] and [3]) reinforced. Center and left-hand holds of the verso (p. [4]) reinforced. Matted and framed, glassed verso.
Franz Daniel Pastorius (1651–ca. 1720) was born in Sommerhausen in the duchy of Franconia, within modern Bavaria in Germany. He received his doctorate in law in 1675 and practiced and taught for a few years before going abroad in 1680, including to England. He and William Penn (1644–1718) crossed paths; Penn, an English Quaker who in 1681 obtained from Charles I and the Duke of York the world’s largest personal land-grant (some 45,000 square miles west of New Jersey and north of Maryland, named after his father: Pennsylvania, “Penn’s Woods”), traveled through Germany, looking for other dissenting Christians to join him in the “Holy Experiment,” a land of religious tolerance in the New World.
Penn struck an agreement with the Teutsche Landcompagnie, which would eventually re-organize as the Frankfurter Landgesellschaft (Frankfurt Land Company): they bought 15,000 and eventually 25,000 acres in Pennsylvania — including Germantown, the cradle of German immigration in America. Pastorius acted as their agent from 1683, when he sailed to America and finally met Penn in August. The initial representation of the Landgesellschaft was that their members would emigrate, but they did not. Pastorius, through letters sent regularly back to Frankfurt from about 1685, complained bitterly that the Landgesellschaft was not keeping up its end of their agreement. They restructured in 1685 and purchased more land in 1686 (a signed example of that agreement from this assemblage was sold by us in 2023).
Throughout the 1680’s and 1690’s, Pastorius almost single-handedly managed the settlement at Germantown, occupying most of its magistracies. As original members of the Landgesellschaft died, their widows and heirs took over, doubtless shirking some of their duties. To wit, the present letter is signed by: Catharina Elizabetha Schütz[in] (widow), the widow of Jacob van de Walle, the heirs of Daniel Behaghel (Behagel), Johannes Kemmler, Balthasar Jawert, Johan Wilhelm Petersen, Gerh[ard] von Mastrich, Johan La brun (Le Brun) and Maria van de Wall (widow of Tho von Wÿlich (Wilich)) with her partners.
Pastorius’s objections and complaints continued, and, nearly two decades after his original agreement, he was, with this letter, finally relieved of his responsibilities to the Landgesellschaft, which were transferred to Daniel Falkner and Johannes Kelpius, who were then resident in America, and to Johann Jawert, who intended to emigrate. Pastorius had already begun teaching in Philadelphia and beginning a distinguished career as an author and poet. This letter marks the official beginning of his life as a private citizen.
In a separate hand, following the signatures, is “Gevollmächtigte. Johann Jawert./ Daniel Falckner/ M. Johannes Kelpi[us]” (meaning “authorized representative” or “given power of attorney”). The document, therefore, is properly a letter of attorney granting agency to Jawert (son of Balthasar Jawert), Falckner and Kelpius. The provenance of the letter is unclear; was this Pastorius’s copy? Pastorius’s own translation of the letter (reproduced below) has a slightly different text, indicating that it was a copy examined by Richard Heath and entered into the Rolls Office at Philadelphia. The docketing does not provide clarity. Pennypacker owned the document by 1880 (per his article in that year’s issue of the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography (PMHB), p. 5, note 2: “Both the original [1686] agreement and the [1700] letter of attorney, with their autographs and seals, are in my possession.”). Pennypacker’s acquisitions came largely from the Penn family papers in the 1870’s; presumably the present item did as well.
Pastorius’s translation of the document (reproduced in Sachse)
We subscribed do manifest & confess herewith, Whereas we joiningly have bought five & twenty thousand acres of unseparated land in Pennsilvania, according to the documents & indentures thereof, with peculiar Privileges & Rights, And therefore in virtue thereof the 12th of November, 1686, by a peculiar writing having formed a Society, & for the cultivation & administration of the sd land have Impowred Mr. Francis Daniel Pastorius, J. U. L. according to the letter of attorney bearing date the 1 2th of April 1683. And yet because of the death of some heads of the sd Company, & the between Irruption of the French War, as also chiefly because of the absence of the Governor, & the unableness of the sd our Factor, these our affairs in the sd Province are come to a Stop, the more mentioned Mr. Pastorius having also desired by & in several of his Letters to be discharged of his administration. That we for such end do Conferr full Power & special Authority on Mr. Daniel Falkner & Johanes Kelpius as Inhabitants for the present in Pensilvania, And also on Mr. Johanes Jawert the Son of one of our Principals, nominally Mr. Balthasar Jawert of Lubeck, who hath resolved to transport himself thither, thus and in such wise that these our three Plenipotentiaries Joiningly or in case of death of one or the Other, they or he who remains shall have in the best form the Administration of all our goods we have there of the lands in the former where they are joiningly or separately assigned unto us, or shall be assigned, surveyed & set out, and of the City-Lots by reason of the five & twenty thousand acres being Competent to us, viz., the 4 or 6 Places in the City of Philadelphia, and of the 300 acres situated in the Right & Liberty of the City before & about Philadelphia, And of the land bought by the Scullkill for a Brick-kiln, And of all & every erected Building & other meliorations, and of what hath been sent thither or bought there or otherwise got of Victuals, Comodities, Cattels, houshold-stuff, tools, Servants, Tenants & of other Persons, &c., and therefore to call to an account in Our name the sd Mr. Pastorius, who hitherto hath been our Plenipotentiary, and to take of him herewith all such Our Estates & effects, and in Case any of them should be alienated without our knowledge, above all things to vindicate them. So then in general or Special, as it can be done best, to dispose, exchange, sell & receive the money for them, and hereupon to quit, transact, make indentures & documents, assurances, & in sum to do & leave everything what we Ourselves could or might do or leave if we were then & there personally present. Cum potestate, Substituendi, et Substitutionem toties quoties revocandi cumq clausulis rati grati, omnibusq, alijs illius loci & fori necessarijs et consuetis.[1] And in Case our aforementioned Plenipotentiaries should want any larger Power then [sic] herein is contained, the same we advisedly do grant herewith unto them, & do decently Implore the Governour in Chief and Magistrates of the sd Province to regard them as such, and to grant them upon their request their magisterial aid, in case they should want the same. On the other hand our Plenipotentiaries Joinedly & Separately are directed to the two Principals in Francfort on the river of Main, viz., the heirs of Jacob van de Walle & Daniel Behagel both deceased, to acquaint & give an account unto them timely of every one of their transactions, and to address unto them moneys or Comodities, to Correspond within and to expect, if need, further Orders & Instructions of them in the name of the whole Company, wherewith they shall further in this Case Communicate and get their Consent. Lastly we grant unto them herewith special Power to appropriate fifty acres of Our land in Germantown for the benefit of a Schoolmaster, that the Youth in reading, writing & in good manners & education, without partial admonition to God & Christ may be brought up and Instructed. All faithfully and without Fraud, In true witness whereof we have with our own hands Subscribed & Sealed this Letter of Attorney, and caused the same to be made under & by publick Authority. Done in Frankfort on the River of Mayn, the 24th day of January 1700.
[l.s.] Catharina Elizabetha Schutzin, Widow.
[l.s.] the Widow of Jacob van de Wallen, deceased.
[l.s.] the heirs of Daniel Behagel, deceased.
[l.s.] Johannes Kemler.
[l.s.] Bathasar Jawerl
[l.s.] Johan Wilhelm Petersen, d.
[l.s.] Gerhard van Mastricht.
[l.s.] Johanes Le Brun.
[l.s.] Maria van de Walle, widow of Doctor Thomas van Willigh
with her Copartners.
[1] With power, substitution and recall of substitution as often as necessary, and with the clauses of consideration, favor and of everything else necessary and customary of that place and elswhwere. [My translation.]
Item #JLR0395
Price: $85,000