Pat Smith
Greensburg Daily News
Greensburg —
A reader recently asked about the community in Adams Township called Germantown. I remembered talking with Dick Townsend about it many years ago but couldn't find the column I wrote then.
I plan to write about the St. Paul area soon and John Townsend is helping with that. I tried to convince him that he is the one I talked with about Germantown. He insisted that it wasn't and proved it by bringing the column written after I had visited with his brother Dick. I won't repeat all that was written in that column but if the person who wanted the information will contact me I will send the column.
Dick told me that Germantown was so named because many families from Pennsylvania of German decent settled there. He shared a diagram that showed where the Leffler, Reiger, Anspaugh, Ridlen, Kerr and Townsend families settled and bought land when this area was opened up for settlement.
He said it was an especially desirable area of Decatur County because of several springs that made water available at all times. The springs ran continuously and when I visited Dick one spring house was still standing. Dick and John's Dad had told them that whenever there had been little rain farmers in the area would drive their cattle to Germantown to drink from the springs there.
Dick and John's great grandmother was Lydia Leffler Burchfield who was born in Ohio in 1827 and moved to Decatur County when she was three years old. Her parents were Samuel and Catherine Leffler.
This started me wondering about the immigrants from German-speaking areas that left their native country for America. Even before we became the United States the immigrants from the German speaking countries had begun to settle here. The first German settlement, in what would become the United States, was in 1683. That was Germantown, Pennsylvania where the Battle of Germantown was fought in the Revolutionary War.
There are so many districts, communities or towns named Germantown in this country that I lost count. Surely not all have a post office when there is more than one in a state though.
There is at least one Germantown in California, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina and South Carolina. There are two in Kentucky plus one neighborhood in Louisville named Germantown. There are three towns in New York, four in Maryland, two in Ohio, seven in Pennsylvania, four in Tennessee, two in Virginia; three is Wisconsin and probably two in Indiana.
According to the Internet there are three Germantown communities in Indiana, one in Decatur County, one in Shelby County and one in Rush County. However, it's never good to rely on the Internet. It's amazing how often it doesn't know what it's talking about. Ronald L. Baker's book, "From Needmore to Prosperity," published by Indiana University Press, acknowledges only the one in Decatur County and one in Marion County.
In addition, there was (or is) also an East Germantown in Indiana that was once Germantown and - well here's what I think is the story in a nutshell: There was a dispute in Wayne County over the name. The town started out with the name Georgetown in 1827 and renamed Germantown five years later after many settlers from Pennsylvania moved there. In the 1840s it was renamed East Germantown because there was another Indiana post office named Germantown. During WW I, with much anti German sentiment it was renamed Pershing for General Pershing who was also of German ancestry. But, then there was another town named Pershing in Fulton County and frankly at this point I lost track of how it all turned out.
Those with German ancestry have contributed to this country in a major way. Generals John Pershing, Dwight Eisenhower and Norman Schwarzkopf were all of German ancestry. Two United States Navy ships have been named USS Germantown and both were named for the Pennsylvania town. Think of the words we use that came from the German speaking immigrants: stein, paraffin, rucksack, noodle, pretzel, yodel, streusel and those wonderful dogs introduced by them such as the Dachshund, Schnauzer, Doberman, Weimaraner and German shepherd.
Perhaps the biggest contribution was their interest in farming and their willingness to work hard. They did a lot to form the basis of our country's farmland. And we can't forget that just one of the goods the German-Americans gave us were frankfurters and bratwurst, adapted by American cooks, but still of German origin.
Decatur County's Germantown is a small community that still has about 30 homes and one church.
I love hearing from readers but am seldom at the Daily News office. Please email me at patjsmith@verizon.net or write to 122 W. Sheridan, Greensburg.
