Henry Antes (1701 1755) A Palatine Pioneer in Pennsylvania

German immigrants to the British Colonies in North America through the port of
Philadelphia soon became agents of social and cultural change, whether they did so intentionally
or not. The newly settled Pennsylvania family of Philipp Friedrich Anthes late of Freinsheim in
the Pfalz, having arrived on the multi-cultural Pennsylvania landscapein 1720, were participants
in the creation of a German-American culture that helped to shape a new nation about to emerge
from the American Revolution a few decades later. Philipp Friedrich had the courage, the
economic means and the vision to successfully make the hazardous transatlantic crossing and
establish a better life in the New World. In Pennsylvania his son Johann Henrich Antes, born in
Freinsheim in 1701, became a religious and political leader as well as a respected wheelwright
and millwright. Philipp Friedrichs Pennsylvania born grandsons contributed personally and with
practicality to the success of the American Revolution. Between1750 and 1850 they and their
descendants spread with the expanding frontier west into central Pennsylvania, south to Salem,
North Carolina and north to Canandaigua in upper New York.
John Henry Antes made significant architectural, religious and educational
contributions. In addition to his home and his mills, he was involved in the design and/or the
construction of over 30 dwellings and industrial buildings in the newly established Moravian
community at Bethlehem and in its scattered outlying settlements. With the Moravian Bishop
Augustus Spangenberg, he explored vast unsettled areas of central North Carolina in a six
month expedition that appraised and surveyed over one hundred thousand acres of wilderness.
This would become the Wachovia tract with its settlements around Salem, North Carolina, the
Moravian center for their diaspora work in the Middle South.
Living and practicing an inclusive rather than exclusive understanding of community,
Henrys vision extended beyond the restrictive denominationalism of his time. As Justice of the
Peace he sought to bridge denominational and cultural barriers between his neighboring
Anglicans, Quakers, Catholics, Lutherans, Reformed, Dunkers, Moravians, Mennonites,
Schwenkfelders and Sectarians, working to resolve religious and legal disputes in a cultural
landscape composed of English, African American, American Indian, Swedish, Dutch, Welsh,
French, Scots-Irish and German settlers.
Together with his father Philip Friedrich and William Dewees, who was soon to be his
father-in- law, Henry was instrumental in persuading John Philipp Boehm, recognized as the

1
founder of the Reformed Church in America, to undertake the ordained Reformed ministry in
1725. As time went on he became closely associated with Count Louis Zinzendorf in the work
of founding the Moravian movement at Bethlehem, just a short distance from Friedrichstown
where Philipp Friedrich and Henry had settled. Working closely with Zinzendorf and other
Moravian leaders, he advocated for an ecumenical inter-faith perspective from which to find
solutions to issues crossing cultural and religious boundaries. For this purpose he and
Zinzendorf initiated a series of Pennsylvania Synods. Less than successful in the end as
interfaith opportunities, these became the ongoing Moravian Synods.
His responsibilities to Zinzendorf and the Moravian movement led him to move his
family from Friedrichstown to the Moravian community at Bethlehem from 1745 to 1750,
where he led services in German and English, served as a cantor leading Singstunden, and in
1748 became the secular administrator, responsible for management of all construction and
agricultural activities throughout the Gemeine. During this time he contributed his house, mill
and plantation to house and support the Friedrichstown Kinder-Anstalt, part of the Moravian
movements boarding school system that provided education to young children in a context that
was blind to social, racial and denominational barriers.1
Freinsheim Origins
The Anthes family was grounded in the Reformed faith at Freinsheim, a Kleinstadt
located between Bad Drkheim and Frankenthal, just west of modern Ludwigshafen.
Genealogical research on the Anthes family was privately published by Gnther Anthes of
Ludwigshafen in April of 1976.2 In a 1968 letter to an American genealogist Gnther stated
that he possessed a baptismal record dated 1. November, 1675 in which a Philipp Friedrich
Anthes was baptized in Meisenheim.3 Another communication from Anthes and H. Schueler in
the same collection of papers indicates that a Philipp Friedrich Antes was born on 1. September,
1675, son of Johann Georg Anthes, a cooper, possibly at Callbach, a village in the territory of

1
For a thorough treatment of Johann Henrichs role with the Moravian Community, see Levering, Joseph Mortimer,
History of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 1741-1892, Bethlehem, Pa.: Times Publishing Company, [Link] his
relationship to the Rev. J. P. Boehm and the German Reformed Church, see Hinke, William J., Life and letters of
Rev. John philip Boehm, Arno press, 1972.
2
Gnther F. Anthes. 450 Jahre Familie Anthes. Die Familie Anthes: Nachrichten aus unserer Familie.
Gesamtherstellung: Gnter F. Anthes, Ludwigshafen/Rhein. 1976. 16-55. Also from a letter possessed by the writer
dated 24. November, 1968, written by Gnter Anthes to Vashti Seaman, an Antes descendant and genealogist of the
Antes family.
3
Gnther Antes, letter to Vashti Seaman, 24. November, 1968. Collected Papers of the Antes Family Association, 3.
36. and a copy in possession of the author.

2
Meisenheim am Glan. Gnther mentioned that Philipp Friedrich married Anna Katherina
(possibly Linter) in 1700 and lived in Freinsheim from 1700 until 1720. Johann Henrichs
baptismal record in the Reformed Church in Freinsheim establishes the familys residence there
in 1701.4
Documentation bearing on Philipp Friedrichs life in Freinsheim was recently located by
Dr. Hans-Helmut Grtz of Freinsheim. These findings indicate that the Anthes family was a
Brger family with a respectable number of land tracts, among them the house and wine-

producing vineyards. A later mortgage document in the Freinsheimer Briefsprotokollen dated

24.12.1716 describes Philipp Friedrich as the local Brger Friedrich Anthes. Seeking to
borrow 200 Gulden from the Heppenheim magistrate Lorenz Fauth he pledged his homestead,
house and all buildings
laying by the church, bordered above by the community lane and below by the
church yard, adjoining above to Gabriel Erhardt and below to Albert Ehrwein.
4
Reformiertes Kirchenbuch, Freinsheim, Archiv der Verbandsgemeinde Freinsheim: On the 1 st of July Philipps
Friderichs Antes and his wife Anna Catherina baptized their little son, who the 11 th of this month was born into this
world at six in the evening: Godparents were Johann Henrich Linter and his wife Ursula from Lambsheim, and he
was named Johann Henrich .

3
 Item; one Morgen of vineyard by the Nagel, bordered above by H. Christian
Hertzog and below by Herr Joh. Melcher Pirman. Item; one Morgen of pasture in
the Ungstein area, laying in two half-Morgens, the one bordered above by
Matheus Grauss of Ungstein, and below by Hans Jacob Scheffer the Older of
Freinsheim, the other half Morgen bordered above by Simmon Grauss of
Ungstein, and below by the Schelmische Estate at Durckh(eim).5

This documentation of the neighborhood specifying the community lane, the church yard and
Gabriel Ehrhardt and Albert Eherenwein make it relatively simple to identify the house in the
Freinsheimer Lagerbuch of 1721. In the Lagerbuch it is the house of Johann Jacob Werner, of
which it is written thus about his borders: Johann Jacob Werners property has one door,

fig. 2. View today: far left, the Cafe Rathaus, fig. 3. North side of the Cafe Rathaus, following
behind it new construction on the site of the the demolition of the Antes house showing the
Antes house, to the right foreground, the roof line.
church-yard wall. (photo by Hartmut Frien)

adjacent on the south to Albertus Ehrenwein and Johann Philipp Horneff, to the North by
Gabriel Ehrhardt,, to the east by the church-wall and in part by Albertus Ehrenwein on the other
side of the lane. Antes sold his house to Johann Jacob Werner. The Anthes Hof was prominently
located at the center of Freinsheim near the Hauptstrasse and adjacent to the Rathaus (town
council building) the Marktplatz (market square) and the Reformed Church.
In another document Friedrich pledged one half Morgen of vineyard laying in Dimpel.6
An entry in the Freinsheimer Briefprotokolle archived at Speyer and dated 31 Oktober, 1714 lists
3 quarters of field on the Grosskarlbach Hollow, Morgen of field by the Weidt Valley, 1
quarters at the Eisenthor, three quarters on the Leiman Kaut and 2 quarters in Hanen. From the
Freinsheimer Contracts Protocoll Angefangen Den 6ten Juli, 1720 bis 1725, Dr. Grtz noted

5
Private communication from Hans Helmut Grtz. Landesarchiv Speyer, F5_104, pp. 29-30.
6
Grtz. Landesarchiv Speyer, F5_104, p. 34.

4
from a land sale by Johann Nikolaus Retzer on 18.6.1721 that Retzer had bought Morgen of
Wingert (vineyard) by the Gottesacker (cemetery) from Adam Reibold , that the latter had
bought from Philipp Friedrich on 5. April, 1720.7 Including the acreage of the Hof at the town
center, these tracts totaled over 6 Morgan of land. The Anthes dwelling house and other Hof
buildings in Freinsheim no longer stand. Evidence surviving as a scar left on the adjacent
building was photographed when the house was demolished. It suggests a two story dwelling
with full attic. This two story house appears in an aerial photograph taken in the mid-twentieth
century. It seems clear that a dwelling of that size located by the Hauptstrasse adjacent to the
Reformed Church, the Rathaus, the Marktplatz and the 1708 Wirtshaus (public inn) Zum
Grnen Baum suggests a Brger family of good social standing possessed of the financial
means to undertake a successful transatlantic journey and establish themselves in the New
World.
Departure to the New World
After Friedrich Antes son Johann Jakob was confirmed8 the last record of Philipp
Friedrich in the Freinsheimer Briefsprotocollen is dated dated 5. April, 1720 indicating the
family left Freinseim shortly in April of 1720 or shortly thereafter. If the family departed from
Freinsheim around April, then an arrival in Philadelphia in fall of 1720 fits well with
transatlantic travel time of that period. The time required for travel from Freinsheim to
Philadelphia must include travel time down the Rhine to Rotterdam through innumerable
customs stations and required stops under Stapelrecht. Franz Schatzung described the
requirement in Cologne thus for the year 1260.
The staple right developed into a solid pillar of Colognes economy.... For
something over a year no merchant was allowed from Hungary, Bohemia, Poland,
Bavaria, Swabia, Thuringia, Hesse, Brabant or other areas on that side of the
(river) Maus and from the Netherlands above Radenkirchen, none from the Upper
Rhine further than Riehl without for a period of three days offering their wares for
sale in the Cologne market. These regulations likewise included similar goods that
came through by land routes. All goods were off-loaded respectively in Cologne
and stored up, from which those of irregular quality were removed. . . . Since the
Middle Rhine shipping channel that began at Cologne was relatively shallow, the

7
Hans-Helmut Grtz. Das Haus Verkauft, die Brcken abgebrochen. Mitteilungen zur Wanderungsgeschichte der
Pflzer. Institut fr Pflzische Geschichte und Volkskunde. 119
8
Reformirten Kirchenbuch

5
 upstream Rhine ships there had no other choice than to transfer their cargo to a
smaller vessel.9

Then time was needed to find a ship and negotiate with the captain for passage. Letters of
introduction were carried to assist in finding guidance and help along the way.
Today I sought out Mr. von M. . . . He sought out Capt. Kurz, a well-known and
honest American seafarer. He was to take on his cargo in fourteen days, and he
was willing to take us along. Mr. M. said that even if we had to wait three or four
weeks, we should wait for this chance. He would find us inexpensive lodging
until that time.10

Non-perishable family food supplies for the journey had to be purchased and possessions loaded
and safely stored on board.
July 1-4 (1820) - After much scurrying around I negotiated a contract with an
American, Captain Lord. We are to pay 250 Dutch florins (the Dutch florin or
gulden is the same as the Rhenish) for transportation for the three of us, supplying
our own food. We could pay 400 florins and receive the ships meals. We chose to
feed ourselves. . . . We provided ourselves with staples for the sea journey; bacon,
rice, peas, zweiback, potatoes, a little cheese, and a couple of crocks of beer we
bought here. Our tireless friends Mr. and Mrs. von Mandach provided us with
butter, coffee, tea and brandy. A pound of bacon here costs 9 Stber, a pound of
rice 2, a hundredweight of zweiback 18 florins.11

The channel crossing to an English port and clearance through English customs required of all
ship captains sailing for the English Colonies all took time, as did stops along the way for
additional provisioning and cargo, and finally the trans-Atlantic crossing itself. J.H. Elliott in
Empires of the Atlantic World, says, Sailing times were shorter on the London-Jamestown
routeThe average was in fact, 55 days, although the return journey could be done in 40.12 He
goes on to say
Two main routes existed for trade and communication between the British Isles
and the principle colonies of British settlement, running from New England to the
Caribbean. The more northerly of the two, cold and foggy, involved a five-week
westward crossing and a three week return crossing by way of the Newfoundland

9
Franz Schatzung. Tod und Teufel, Kln, 1998, 223. Translated as Death and the Devil, by Mike Mitchell, New
York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2007. 230.
10
Johannes Jakob Rtlinger, Tagebuch auf eine Reise nach Nordamerika im Jahr 1823. Translated and published in
Robert H. Billigmeier and Fred Altschuler Picard, ed. The Old land and the New, Minneapolis: The University of
Minnesota Press, 1965, 189
11
Johannes Schweizer, Reisebeschreibung nach Nordamerika und durch die bedeutendsten Teile desselben. (1820).
Translated and published in Robert H. Billigmeier and Fred Altschuler Picard, ed. The Old land and the New,
Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press, 1965, 70 and 72.
12
J.H. [Link] of the Atlantic World. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. 108.

6
 Banks. The more southerly route, hot and humid, went by way of Madiera, the
Azores and Barbados, eight weeks sailing time to and from England; but more
direct passages, avoiding the need for a West Indies landfall, were sought and
found as the tobacco trade with the Chesapeake developed.13

Factors that could double these sailing times and increase the danger of any individual journey
include the wisdom with which the captain set a course, the weather, especially violent storms
and the damage they caused, sufficiency of provisions on board for both crew and passengers
and the consequent need to re-provision, and the prevailing winds during the season of travel.
Rev. William J. Hinke reported that a survey of the newspaper American Weekly Mercury
for 1720 shows that only one ship bearing Palatine immigrants arrived that year at Philadelphia.
On August 30th there arrived from Liverpool and Cork the ship Laurel, John Coppel, Captain,
with some 240 Palatines. Hinke suggested that this ship probably carried the Lambsheim family
of Johann Philipp Bhm, founder in Pennsylvania of the German Reformed Church movement.14
John Henry Antes stated in a 15.3.1743 letter to John Adam Gruber that he was in Pennsylvania
for twenty-two years.15 August eight, 1720 is 22 years and 6 months prior to the date of Henrys
letter to Gruber. That the Anthes family was connected socially with the Bhm family is securely
indicated by the fact that the god-parents of John Henry were Johann Henry and Ursula Linter of
the Lambsheim Reformed community. It is very likely that the Antes family traveled with the
Bhm family. Aaron Fogelman writing about emigrants to this area from the Kraichgau, noted
that
The northern Kraichgauers tended to emigrate with other family members and
villagers on the same ship and in the same year...In fact, the villagers rarely
traveled alone or as single families when they emigrated. Eighty-five percent of
emigrants from the six sample parishes traveled with family members. Ninety-six
percent traveled with other persons from the same parish on the same ship either
from the same or a different family and ninety-seven percent traveled in the same
year as other persons from the same parish16

And so given Hinkes survey of newspapers and Fogelmans study of the Kraichgauers it seems
probable that the Antes family traveled in a group on the same ship as the Bhm family.

13
Elliott. 111.
14
Rev. William J. Hinke. Life and Letters of Rev. John Philip Boehm, New York: Amo Press, 1972 (reprint).
Original published in 1916 in Philadelphia by The Publication and Sunday School Board of the Reformed Church in
the United States. 15.
15
See Fresenius Nachrichten, Vol. III, p. 745. Dotterer, Perkiomen Region, Vol, II, p. 160.
16
Aaron Fogelman. Hopeful Journeys. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996. 62-63.

7
 Philipp Friedrich probably settled his Freinsheim holdings prior to April 1720 and
following a five month travel period arrived in Philadelphia in the fall of 1720. Philadelphia was
established by William Penn in June of 1682 between the Delaware and the Schuylkill Rivers
right where the Schuylkill flows into the Delaware River. A number of Freinsheimers settled
northwest of Philadelphia in an area of
modern Montgomery County still known as
Goschenhoppen. Philipp settled in an area of
Goschenhoppen known as Falkner
Schwalme, (Falkners meadow) located about
forty miles northwest of Philadelphia. The
place name Goschenhoppen has never been
given a definitive derivation, but its area can
be loosely defined as the watershed of the
Perkiomen Creek. It is characterized by
abundantly flowing year round surface water
sufficient to power mills and irrigate
meadows, by rich bottomland and low hills
of limestone covered with hardwood trees. A
part of the Piedmont lowlands, it is an area of
predominantly red shale soil that ranges in
agricultural productivity from 50 to 85
percent of the most highly productive soils.17
It was at that time covered by oak-chestnut
forest, though this association of oak and Fig. 4. The Goschenhoppen area in Montgomery
County, Pennsylvania. Sketched by the author from a
chestnut was greatly modified by the death map of the Goschenhoppen Historians, Green Lane, Pa.
all mature chestnut trees in the early twentieth century due to the chestnut blight.18 This forested
area was still inhabited by a few Native Americans, the Lene Lenape, part of the larger Delaware
group of Native Americans.

17
For a detailed description of the environment of Southeastern Pennsylvania in the period of settlement, see James
T. Lemon, The best Poor mans Country. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins ress, 1972. 27-41.
18
E. Lucy Braun. . Dciduous Forests of Eastern North [Link] York: Hafner Publishing Company, 1967.
Facsimile Edition of the 1950 edition. 192.

8
 In 1728 tension was at a peak between settler and Indian, and on April 29th of that year
Philipp Friederich and Henrich along with a number of area neighbors signed a petition to the
government in Philadelphia for protection from the Indians, based on rumors of rising trouble
between Shawnees and Delawares. Whereas Your Petitioners are at present so Alarmd by a
Noise of ye Indians, that several Families have Left their Plantations with what Effects they
could possibly carry away Women in Child bed being forced to Expose Them to ye Coldness of
ye air...19 On May 10 of that year at the home of John Roberts on Skippack Creek in
Goschenhoppen, Walter Winter, his brother John, accompanied by Walters father-in-law
Morgan Herbert shot and killed Tacocolie, a Delaware, Quilee his wife, a third woman and
seriously wounded two young Indian girls. Walter and John were eventually tried for murder in
Chester, Pennsylvania and hung. Morgan Herbert was found to be not an accomplice and was
released.20
Goschenhoppen and Germantown
In 1720 Philadelphia had been settled for 38 years. Lying out beyond Philadelphia on the
way to the Goschenhoppen area were two small communities composed primarily of German
settlers. Germantown was about five miles from Philadelphia, and Skippack (Schibbach) some
15 miles further. 21 In 1722 when Philipp bought his tract, there were two principle routes from
Philadelphia to Goschenhoppen. Both of these routes were continuing extensions of the road
leading from Philadelphia to Germantown. One route was the 1713 Skippack Road that was
further extended to the Falkner Swamp area in 1726. Philips tract was located near to the other
main road that began as the Germantown Road in 1706 and was extended in 1718 to the area
known then and now as Limerick. From here in 1723 a road to the Colebrookdale iron furnace
was established that passed within a mile of Philipp Friedrichs land tract. 22 By 1723 increased
settlement was leading to petitions to have many existing informal travel routes formally
surveyed and established as roads. Between 1720 and 1740 this area was the Pennsylvania
frontier northwest of Philadelphia, now open to settlement through the purchase of farm-sized
tracts from land speculators.
19
Henry S. Dotterer, The Dotterer Family. Philadelphia, 1903., 49-50.
20
James H. Merrill. Into the American Wood, New York: W.W. Nrton and Company, 1999. 158-163.
21
For a detailed study of the development of Germantown, see Stephanie Grauman Wolf, Urban
Village:Population, Community and Family Structure in Germantown, Pennsylvania, 1683-1800. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1976.
22
H.W. Kriebel. A Brief history of Montgomery County. Norristown: Norristown Herald Printing and Publishing
Company, 1923. 202-209 and map insert in back cover based on the 1882 United States Geological Survey map.

9
 Immigrants often settled together near neighbors of similar ethnic or religious
background, interspersed in clusters across the landscape. Henry S. Dotterer writing in The
Perkiomen Region, Past and Present, identified Joseph Wiand, Adam Hellwig, Jacob Fischer,
Herman Bitting, Jakob Wigant, Jost Wigant and Philipp Friedrich Antes as Freinsheimers that
settled in the Goschenhoppen area.23 Hans-Helmut Grtz gives the following eleven names from
the Freinsheimer Contract-Protocoll as immigrating into Pennsylvania from Freinsheim, though
not all of them settled in the Goschenhoppen area; Friedrich Antes settled in Goschenhoppen ca.
April, 1720, Jakob Fischer in Goschenhoppen after May of 1721, and Henrich Bitting in
Gochenhoppen after April of 1723. Settled in the wider area of southeastern Pennsylvania were
Arnold Bamberger after May of 1721, Rudolf Maurer after May of 1721, Peter Mllemann after
April of 1723, Georg Clauer after April of 1723, Jakob Utri,after April of 1723, Regina Fischer
after April of 1723, Albertus Ehrenwein after April of 1726 and Rudolf Walter after May of
1729.24 These may have settled in the area or moved on to other places. It was noted earlier from
the 1721 Freinsheimer Lagerbuch that in Freinsheim Albertus Ehrenwein was the next door
neighbor to the Antes family on the south side. Since the Freinsheim Contract-Protocoll was
only begun in July of 1720 there is no earlier record providing documentation regarding
Freinsheimer immigration to Pennsylvania.
Many German families knew other families within reasonable distance from where they
were settled, families they knew in their homeland or with whom they became acquainted on the
long journey to Pennsylvania. There was a substantial system of communication networks that
passed through the commercial houses on both sides of the Atlantic and served to eventually
guide family members and acquaintances in settling for a while at least somewhere not too
distant.25 Letters transmitted by way of these networks were frequently positive and sometimes
negative in their content. Durs Thommen who immigrated to Pennsylvania in 1736 wrote the
following.
I took a place with 350 Juchert (about 435 acres), two houses and barns, and
have, believe it or not, 6 horses, 2 colts, 15 cattle and about 35 sacks of oats, 4
sacks of wheat, 25 sacks of rye, and about 23 sacks of corn. For all of this I pay

23
Henry S. Dotterer. ed. The Perkiomen Region, Past and Present. Bedminster, Pa: Adams Apple Press
(republished, 1994).
24
Hans-Helmut Grtz. Das Haus Verkauft, Die Brcken Abgebrochen. Herausgegeben vom institut fr
Pflzisches Geschichte und Volkskunde. 118-128. (No publication date on the PDF file).
25
For a detailed examination of some of these networks, see A.G. Roeber, Palatines, Liberty and Property: German
Lutherans in Colonial British America, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993. 113-132.

10
 no more than 7 shilling, or about 7 times 5 Swiss Batzen, for tithes, quitrents and
other dues.26

An important element of the sense of social responsibility was extending assistance to the
newly arrived by making loans to pay for passage and providing temporary food and
shelter.
Marriage, Land purchase and Mill Building
Goschenhoppen land was originally purchased from the Penn family in the first two
decades of the eighteenth century, usually as tracts of thousands of acres. It was then resold to
speculators, often as tracts ranging from 200
to 500 acres. By 1720 these tracts were being
subdivided for sale to settlers in tracts of 25 to
200 acres and by 1740 most of the good
agricultural land was in the hands of settled
families. In 1722 Philipp Friedrich purchased
154 acres in Limerick Township for [Link]
This relatively low price was possible early in
the settlement process when good agricultural
land was available in plenty. He built a log inn
Fig. 5. Whitemarsh home of William Dewees, where
Henry Antes met his wife to be, Catherina Dewees. described by Henrys daughter Anna
(From Hinke, Life and letters of the Rev. John Philip
Catherina in her Lebenslauf as where her
Boehm, 1916, facing p. 58.)
family lived in the early years of the 1730s
when she was a young girl. It was a well-built two story log house, with two chimneys placed
toward the middle. There was a fireplace in the public room and a larger fireplace in the kitchen,
with two fireplaces also on the second floor.28
Little is known in detail about Henrys activities in Pennsylvania prior to 1735. Henry
remained in Germantown certainly through most of the decade of the 1720s, during which time
he was a business associate of William Dewees and eventually became his son-in-law. He

26
Fogelman. 33.
27
Philadelphia County Deed Book, F-10-110
28
Adelaide L. Fries. The Road to Salem. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1944. 4. See also
Anna Catherinas Lebenslauf , preserved in the Moravian Archives, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

11
married William Dewees daughter Christina Elisabetha Dewees on February second, 1726.29
William was an Elder in Bhms Reformed congregation that met in Deweess Whitemarsh
home and he was, from 1710 to 1713 and again from 1729 to 1730, the owner of a paper mill.
During this time Henry remained true to his traditional upbringing in the Evangelischen
Kirche der Pfalz as a member of the Reformed congregation in Whitemarsh, certainly during his
years on Germantown, remaining active in this congregation near Germantown. Records show
that William was selling paper to the Dutch Reformed pastor Paulus Van Vlecq in Germantown
in 1710.30 Mrs. Philip La Munyan noted that the second paper mill in the American Colonies was
erected by William Dewees, a brother-in-law of Nicholas Rittenhouse. (son of William
Rittenhouse, builder of the first paper mill).This second mill was built she said, in 1710 on the
west side of the Wissahickon Creek, in that part of Germantown known in early times as Crefeld,
near the present Montgomery County line, a place known then as the Manor of Springfield. In
1713 William Dewees sold this mill and a tract of 100 acres situate...betwixt the respective
lands of said William Streeper and of Thomas Tress, formerly of Thomas Williams to Nicholas
Rittenhouse, son of William Rittenhouse, builder of the first paper mill, along with three other
people (Phila. Deed Book E-7, Vol. 9, 168-170).31
La Munyan said further that On the 26th of March, 1729, William Dewees purchased a
place in Crefeld and entered into making paper, while Henry Antes attended to part of the mill
which was used for making flour. She determined this based on the deed by which Henry Antes
purchased Williams half interest some eleven months later on February 2nd, 1730. This deed
refers back to the March, 1729 transaction and shows Leonard Streeper and William Dewees as
owners of tracts adjacent to this one, suggesting that this may be same mill tract that he sold in
1713, since a William Streeper is named as owning an adjacent tract in the 1710 deed. The 1730
transaction states that William Dewees et al. sold 93 acres, 3 roods and 20 perches, containing
a certain messuage or tenement, a grist mill with two pair of stones, a paper mill
and a certain tract of land situate in Crefelt (a section of Germantown). 32

29
Henry S. Dotterer. Henry Antes, A man of Mark in the Provincial Times. Schwenksville Item, Schwenksville:
Friday, May 19, 1882.
30
The Perkiomen Region, Past and Present. Ed. by Henry S. Dotterer. Vol. II, No. 12, March, 1900. Republished as
a single volume by Adams Apple Press, Bedminster, Pa.: 1994. 291.
31
Mrs. Philip E. La Munyan, The Dewees Family: Genealogical Data, Biographical Facts and Historical
Information. edit. Elwood Roberts, Norristown: William H. Roberts, 1905, 26-27. Accessed online at
[Link] 6/17/2013
32
Philadelphia County Deed Book, F-5-197.

12
La Munyan noted that the Grist Mill, two pairs of stones and two bolting mills and mill house
(were) provided at the joint and equal cost of William Dewees and Henry Antes. Digging and
making dams and Mill-Races and providing and putting gears of the paper mill were at charge of
William Dewees, and that Williams half-interest was conveyed to Henry for the money and
labor he had expended plus 25. Henry thus came into full ownership of the grist and paper
mill. The paper mill was to be served only with the overplus of water after the grist Mills were
fully supplied.33 Many, if not most of the mills built for the Moravians during Henrys tenure in
Bethlehem combined more than one kind of milling operation.
Based on the adjacent Streeper plot that appears in both deeds, it is plausible that William
Dewees built the Crefeld paper mill in 1710, sold it to Nicholas Rittenhouse in 1713, bought it
back in 1729, and with the help of Henry Antes, added the grist mill with a double set of stones
and two bolting mills to the paper mill, all housed in a single mill building.
Then in 1730, William sold his half interest to his son-in-law Henry Antes. At this time
Antes was already living in Hanover Township. Edwin McMinn, the only major biographer of
Henry Antes, stated in his 1886 biography that Henry worked with William Dewees for three
years after marrying Christina, that is, from 1726 to 1729 or possibly into 1730. McMinn said
that Indians carried grain on their shoulders to the mill on the Wissahicken Creek.34 Dotterer
reported as tradition that Indians carried flour from the Goschenhoppen area, leaving in the
evening and returning the next day in return for payment of a small amount of tobacco.35 A
petition for the extension of the road from Philadelphia to Skippack submitted in March of
1724/5 indicates another mill in the Goschenhoppen area at that time, asking that the road may
be extended to the northern end of Sprogells tract where George Warners mill stands on the
Swamp Creek, issuing from Oley. The Lebenslauf of Henrys daughter Anna Catherina says that
at that time her family was living at Philipps inn in Hanover Township.
The mortgage release regarding the satisfaction of Henrys obligation to William is dated
June third, 1738 and states that the tract had two messuages and contained 93 acres, 3 roods
(rods) and 21 perches, including mill house, toll profits, mill geers and utensils. The term
messuage indicates a dwelling though one dwelling may well have been in the mill building as
was the case in the log mill Henry built on the Swamp Creek near his home. The reference to a

33
La Munyan. 28.
34
Edwin McMinn. A German Hero of the Colonial Times of Pennsylvania. Moorestown: 1886. 75.
35
Dotterer, A Man of Mark.

13
single mill house suggests the grist and paper mills shared the same structure as noted earlier, a
form found frequently in the later industrial buildings with which Henry was involved. The
mortgage was satisfied for [Link]
Nothing is known of the skills that the nineteen year old Henry brought with him from
Freinsheim. That the grist mill, two pairs of stones, two bolting mills and house were provided
equally at the cost of William and Henry, and that making dams, mill races and providing gears
for the paper mill to the charge of William, and finally that Williams half interest was conveyed
to Henry for the money and labor expended by Henry plus 25 suggests that Henry was directly
involved in the construction of the grist mill operation. I am not aware that Henry in his later
years ever constructed a paper mill, but he did supervise the construction of grist, saw, oil, hemp
and fulling mills for his own use and for the Moravian settlements.
Nineteen year of age when he arrived in Pennsylvania, he was of an age to have
apprentice and possibly journeyman experience under his belt. However, he was from a Winzer
(wine cultivating) tradition and a family known to have had vineyards and other agricultural
land. There were many grist and saw mills in the communities surrounding Freinsheim, to the
north on the Eckbach from Kirchheim through Grosskarlbach and on to Laumersheim and to the
south a mill at Erpolzheim on the Isenach in which Stadt Freinsheim had one-half interest.
However, there was only one mill in Freinsheim, and it never had a sufficient flow of water to
make it an effective mill. It may be that during his years working with William Dewees he added
to his Freinsheim work experience the additional understanding of the necessary gearing and
machinery, the requirements for dam, raceway and head of water for milling operations.
On October 9, 1735 Henry purchased 175 acres in Frederick Township just a mile from
his fathers inn for which he paid 200. Land prices were rising rapidly. In 1720 two hundred
acres of undeveloped land in Germantown sold for 2 shillings per acre and by 1753 on the
Wissahickon Creek near Germantown it sold for 7 or 140 shillings per acre.37 Henrys purchase
of 175 acres for 200 comes to just under 23 shillings per acre. Both Philipp Friedrich and John
Henry purchased and settled in the Goschenhoppen area early enough that land near a
watercourse was still available and reasonably priced.

36
Philadelphia County Deed Book F-5-110. Simultaneous use of the terms rood and perch is puzzling. If rood
means rod, both it and the perch equal 16 feet.
37
Lemon, p. 90-91.

14
 The pattern of land ownership in Pennsylvania developed differences from that of the
Rheinpfalz. Lemon discusses the possible reasons for this, suggesting in the end that Apparently
the fundamental force leading to dispersion (as opposed to villages) was the rise of individualism
over peasant values in Western Europe.38 Goschenhoppen land holdings tended to be a single
square or rectangular tract. Unless necessary to conform to geographical features such as a
watercourse or to the irregular lines of adjacent tract, boundaries were determined, by straight
lines that were plotted off of long survey lines dating back to the original survey lines for tracts
of thousands of acres. Henrys tract of 175 acres was 160 by 167 perches (one perch equals 16
English feet) and was among those plotted off an old survey line referred to yet today as the
German Tract Line. henrys tract included a section of Swamp Creek in order to serve the mill
he built there in 1735, with the house suitably situated along a small continuously flowing
tributary of Swamp Creek. Most of the original buildings on John Henrys tract have not been
located or identified. There still exists a large spring house foundation and on an excavated
foundation behind the house, a bee-hive bake oven was reconstructed. There was certainly a barn
of the bottom-barn type and most probably a workshop, as the records of the Friedrichstown
Moravian Boys School note that on occasion a shoemaker came to work for a numbers of weeks
or months making shoes for the school community and for the community at large.
A potential settler seeking to purchase unoccupied land applied to the Land Office of the
Proprietaries of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia (these were members of the Penn family, the
primary owners of the land) indicating the general location and amount of land desired. The land
Office then issued a warrant to have the tract surveyed. If the land was purchased directly from
the Proprietaries the document of ownership is called a patent. If purchased from an already
patented tract of land, the ownership document is called a deed. The surveyor-general or a
deputy made the survey and returned a draft of the tract boundary lines to the Land Office,
frequently noting along the way some or all of adjacent tract owners, geographical features and
marked boundary trees. Title to the land began with the date of the warrant, but the title was not
conveyed to the purchaser until all the purchase requirements were fulfilled. Unfulfilled purchase
requirements often continued for fifty or more years. The Proprietaries sold the land at a price

38
Lemon, p. 98 -109.

15
and required a yearly quit-rent.39 If the purchases of Phillip Friedrich and Henry Antes were
made for land that had already been patented, they would not necessarily appear in the records of
the land office. However, a tract of 96 acres and 66 perches in Limerick Township purchased by
Henry appears as follows in the Journal of the Land Office.
April 4, 1741 Reced of Henry Antes for 96 as 66ps of
land in Limrick @ 40 p. Ct, in full (Ct = 100) 38 11 0
This tract was adjacent to that of his father Philipp Friedrich. The land where Henry built his
house and mill was less than a mile away from his fathers inn, and was part of a 200 acre tract
for which the warrant was taken out February 5, 1717 by John Henry Hagerman and sold to him
by David Powell from a 3000 acre tract, the purchase requirements for which were finally
fulfilled and the patent dated in 1728.40 From this Henry purchased one hundred and seventy five
acres from this tract on September 2, 1735. Here Henry built a log grist mill along the
Swamp Creek with dwelling rooms, in which the family lived while the house was being built in
1736.41 Immediate neighbors were Adam Ochse to the southwest who settled in 1722, also to the
southwest Jost Bitting whose father emigrated with the family from Freinsheim and who
purchased in 1741, Wilhelm Frey and Heinrich Stadtler to the northeast in 1729, Ludwick
Englehardt to the southeast in 1729 and Georg Hbner to the northwest in 1736. Jost Bittings
tract of 141 acres was located directly between Henrys and his fathers tracts.
The Henry Antes Plantation in Friedrichstown
Henrys landholdings grew quite rapidly. On January 28 1736, in a joint venture with
Georg Hbner, Henry purchased an adjacent tract of 28 acres directly between his and Hbners
tracts for the better accommodation of a certain grist mill.42 As mentioned previously, by 1738
he had satisfied the mortgage on the Crefelt Mill and its 93 acres. Three years later on September
2, 1741 he purchased the 96 acre tract adjacent to his fathers tract out of a much larger tract that
was divided between Henry Antes, Henry Derringer and as mentioned above, Jost Bitting, the
son of Freinsheimer Hermann Bitting.43 Of the forty taxable residents of Upper Fredrick
Township in 1734, 23 (57.5%) owned land and of these 23 landowners, 9 (22.5%) owned more

39
No author given. Land Records in the Perkiomen Valley. Bedminster, Pa.: Adams Apple Press, revised 1994. 30-
31.
40
Patent book A-6-553. See also for these land transactions, Elizabeth H. Dewey, Land Title Survey in
Goschenhoppen , The Goschenhoppen Region, Green Lane, Pa.: Vol. II, no. 3&4, 1970. 10-21.
41
Adelaide Fries. The Road to Salem. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1944. 7
42
Henry S. Dotterer. Schwenksville Item, May 18, 1882.
43
Philadelphia County Deed Book A-9-367.

16
than 100 acres.44 Henrys 175 acre and 28 acre purchases totaling 203 acres in 1736 made him a
larger landholder than any in the tax list of just two years earlier, By 1741 Henry at the age of 40
owned 397 acres and together with his father had
between them 544 acres of land with two grist
mills, both of which had a dwelling for the
miller, one paper mill, three houses and a large
log inn.
Henrys 1736 house is a two story stone
dwelling with double attic recognized by the
National Register of Historic Places in both
Fig. 6. The Antes house, circa 1910. Photo by architectural and historical categories. Its floor
Winslow Fagley
plan conforms to the central fireplace three room
plan described by Richard Weiss in Hauser und Landschaften der Schwez,45 and by Bruno
Schier as a Zweifeuerhaus (two-fire house) with a smoke-free Stube. (parlor)46 Its liegende
Dachstuhl (leaning roof truss) supports a roof
now restored with red oak shingles. Between
Kche (kitchen) and Stube is a thick stone
Feuerwand. Through it passes a Feuerloch
on both floors by which a Heizofen (heating
oven) is fed. On the Stube/Kammer side there
is a fully excavated cellar. The Heizofen is
presently being restored. Evidence on the Fig. 6. The Antes house in 2013, under restoration
by the Goschenhoppen Historians, Green lane, Pa.
wall and research on traditional German
Photo by Arthur Lawton
Heizofen forms of the early eighteenth
century suggest it should be an eisenguss Kastenofen mit kachel Aufsatz (cast iron late stove with
tile Aufsatz). A paint line on the wood panels of the Stube/Kammer partition shows the outline
of a tall-clock, identifying this corner of the Stube as the Uhrwinkel (clock corner). A descendant

44
Henry S. Dotterer in Beans History of Montgomery County, 837.
45
Richard Weiss. Hauser und landchaften der Schweitz. Erlenbach and Zurich: Eugen Rentch Verlag, 1959. 135
46
Bruno Schier. Hauslandschaften und Kulturbewegungen im stlichen Mitteleuropa. Gttingen: Verlag Otto
Schwartz & Co. 1966. See his chapter on Die Feuersttten, 164-216.

17
 Fig. 7. The Henry Antes house: Parlor (Left) and Kitchen (Right)
Photos by Arthur Lawton

of Henrys son William, living in Canandaigua, New York in the 1980s , had at that time a tall
clock said to be that of the Henry Antes family.
Certain architectural characteristics of the house can be considered as markers of
transition, whether this transition is viewed as a matter of cultural change or of chronological
period. Presence or absence of symmetry can be a marker of both status and chronological
period. The traditional asymmetrical three room central fireplace plan described by Weiss is
evident the front facade in the asymmetrical position of window, door and chimney elements.
The interior partitioning of the house is an exact expression of Weisss asymmetrical three room
plan. However, this asymmetrical plan an facade are sandwiched between completely
symmetrical gables and the plan itself masks a center line that also implies symmetry. When
analyzed by plan-net analysis47 the development of the Kche portion of the plan follows the
expected pattern of sequential developmental steps for the three room central fireplace plan. In
this case however, rather than following the expected sequential development to complete
Weisss three room central fireplace plan, the front and rear perimeter lines of the Kche section
that have been laid out up to this point by geometrical expansion of quadrilaterals are simply
copied to one side, enclosing the other half to complete the exterior perimeter of the house. This
results in a transverse center line. The symmetry implied by the resulting center line is masked
by the asymmetry imparted by interior partitions that follows the traditional three room plan.
Taken together with the gable symmetry, this seems to intentionally bring into play both
symmetry and asymmetry. The symmetry of Henry Antes house anticipates in some aspects the

47
Plan-net analysis is a procedure of geometrical analysis applied to vernacular floor plans that identifies
sequentially proportional geometrical design steps that generate the floor plan. Such geometrical steps enable the
scaling up of a floor plan from drawing stage to that of ground lines on the construction site without need for
arithmetic calculations. Plan-net analysis constitutes the thesis of the authors doctoral dissertation in the department
of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, Indiana, University, Bloomington, Indiana.

18
highly symmetrical style of the mid-eighteenth century known as Pennsylvania Georgian while
the house interior remaining rooted in the tradition of Weisss three room plan and Schiers
Zweifeuerhaus. Through its asymmetrical elements Henrys architectural statement to the
community spoke of participation in a traditional community that conformed to received life
patterns and through its symmetrical aspects it spoke of a degree of personal individuation and
social authority by which Henry was able to cross traditional boundaries, of thought and
activity, an ability reflected in Henrys cross cultural relationships as a religious leader and
justice of the peace.
Henry Antes and John Philipp Bhm
Whether or not he understood himself as an intentional agent of change, the course of
Henrys relationship to the Johann Philipp Bhm, the founder of the Reformed Church in
Pennsylvania, put him in that role. The cultural environment of Pennsylvania throughout the
eighteenth century was one in which movement toward transition and change was in constant
tension with the status quo. At this same time, Henry was meeting interesting new people
through his connection with Christopher Wiegner. Wiegners Skippack farm was distant from
Henry by a ride of only a very few hours. It became the meeting point for a multi-faith
discussion group in which Antes took a leading role around 1736.48. Eventually known as the
Associated Brethren of the Skippack (Verienigte Schippachbruder), the group sought
cooperatively to advance education and pastoral care for the great number of local Germans who
lacked pastors, teachers and church buildings.
In the last half of the 1730s as Henry came to know and respect Moravian leaders such as
Augutus Spangenberg through the Verienigte Schippachbruder and became acquainted with the
needs expressed by other denominational leaders in the area, there developed a controversy
between Bhm and Antes. It brought into sharp focus differences of character and goals in these
two leaders that paralleled the tensions of the time throughout the Goschenhoppen area. Antes
inclusive outlook sought to solve broad educational, pastoral and social problems by focusing on
similarities rather than differences, and he brought to problems an entrepreneurial spirit that

48
Atwood, Craig D. Community of the Cross. University park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press,
2004. 36.
48
Howard Wiegner Kriebel. The Schwenkfelders in Pennsylvania. Lancaster: The Pennsylvania German
Society, 1904. 109.

19
focused on finding and implementing solutions. He was open to new approaches in an admittedly
new world. Bhms denominational firmness was exclusionary and sought to maintain the
power of the institutional church and clergy and to solve such problems within an established
church structure inherited from the old world.
A. G. Roeber identified two goals of German American immigrants to the British
Colonies through Philadelphia, property to pass on as inheritance to descendants and liberty in
which to live a fulfilled life. Building on Leonard Kriegers work in The German Idea of
Freedom, he described two characteristic German views on what constitutes liberty.
A positive and internal view of liberty held authority and state to be above
politics and and defined liberty as the working out of the good life in a
rationally ordered, prosperous society to whose authority the individual owed
allegiance and obedience. (A) healthier, more libertarian tradition that defined
freedom as the absence of constraints (a negative definition) flourished in the
Swiss cantons and the German states bordering the Helvetic Confederation. There
townsfolk and peasants used political organization and conscious cultivation of
collective memory to protect privileges against the pretensions of ambitious
lords.49

By his cooperation with Moravian founder Count Louis Zinzendorf, Bishop Augustus
Spangenberg and other leaders in a Moravian Brotherhood that Bhm did not understand, Antes
was able, when the occasion required it, to step beyond the limits set by Bhms positive and
internal sense of liberty. In Bhms eyes Henry became an opponent and no longer a friend and
supporter.
Before emigrating in 1720 Johann Philipp Bhm was the Reformed schoolmaster in
Lambsheim, just a few kilometers to the east of Freinsheim. He was well acquainted with the
Reformed Church background of the young Henry Antes in Freinsheim, having said later in his
controversy with Antes that
. . . Under the clear light of the Gospel was he born, holy baptism did he receive,
through which he entered the covenant which He has made for the faithful; this
covenant, I doubt not, was explained according to the word of God (for I knew his
zealous and faithful instructor well) at his first participation in the Holy
Communion.)50

49
A.G. Roeber, Palatines, Liberty and Property, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993, 2. For the
Krieger essay, see Leonard Krieger, The German Idea of Freedom: The History of a Political Tradition from the
Reformation to 1871, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957..
50
Henry S. Dotterer. Schwenksville Item, May 18, 1882.

20
Henrys father Phillip Friedrich and his father-in-law William Dewees were both elders in the
Reformed congregations under Bhms charge, the former at Falkner Swamp and the latter at
Whitemarsh. Accompanied by other Reformed elders Philipp petitioned the Amsterdam Classis
of the Dutch Reformed Church in New York in 1728 to accept Bhm for ordination. Both
Philipp and Henry accompanied Bhm to New York in November of 1729 to be present at his
ordination and both, along with Gabriel Schuler representing Bhms Skippack congregation,
signed the recapitulation of the ordination proceedings on November 18, 1729.51
At some point prior to the birth of Henry and Christinas eighth child John in March of
1740 Henry and Reverend Bhm were traveling on diverging paths. Henrys son John reported
in his Moravian Lebenslauf that Boehm refused to baptize him.
Shortly before my birth, my father, who was of the Reformed or Calvinist Church
... had reproved the stated minister of the church he attended, on account of some
misconduct; which the latter resented so much that he refused to baptize me.52

Hinke reported that John Adam Gruber said that Henry Antes
...who from the time of Spangenberg had been awakened, saw the decay of the
Reformed party, and testified regarding it, for which reason he had to suffer sore
trials from his brethren in the church and his teacher.53

Bhm takes Henry Antes to task at length in his 1742 Faithful letter of Warning...against the
People who are known as Herrn Huters....
I cannot sufficiently express my surprise regarding Henry Antes, who several
years ago severed his connection with the Reformed Congregation at Falkner
Schwam, for altogether reprehensible reasons...I always entertained strong hope
that...he would come back to the right path...although such well known and
altogether objectionable things have taken and still take place...for several years
he has gone about, through the spirit of error, among all kinds of heretical people
and erroneous opinions.54

In his letter to the Classis of Amsterdam dated July 25th, 1741, Bhm made his positive and
internal understanding of the meaning of liberty clear.
To me it seems inadvisable to allow the control of these things to come into the
hands of these poor and inexperienced people...Therefore I think that when any
donation has been voted or will be voted to the church here, it should be

51
Hinke. Life and Letters. 109-110 and 177-179.
52
Extract of the narrative of the Life of John Antes Written by Himself (from the Lebenslauf). Printed in the
Schwenksville Item, May 27, 1880.
53
Hinke. Life and Letters. 111.
54
Hinke. Life and Letters. 355-356.

21
 transferred by deed to our devout Church Fathers as their property.... Secondly,
ministers would not have so much vexation from the people if they had no voice
in the matter. For if the people rule, every vagabond may cause factions and all
kinds of mischief and we can never expect peace.

In these statements Bhm makes it clear that he holds authority and governance to be above the
lives and understanding of day to day people. It remains now to examine the direction taken by
Henry Antes as these issues of doctrine and personal faith swirled through the rural environs of
Philadelphia.
Henry Antes and the Moravian Brethren
The importance of the Skippack Brethren lay in the manner in which it brought Henry
together with leading Moravian figures, together with whom in less than a decade he would be
instrumental in the start at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania of the Moravian movement in North
America. In September of 1734 Wiegner led a group of Schwenkfelders across the Atlantic to
Pennsylvania. They had been living under the protection of Count Louis Zinzendorf on his estate
at Berthelsdorf in Saxony. The Moravian Augustus Spangenberg, who traveled widely in the
New World as an administrator for Zinzendorf, left his work with the Moravians in the Georgia
colony at Savannah on March 15, 1736 and arrived at Wiegners home on April 4 where he lived
and assisted in the farming until he was recalled to Europe in 1739. Spangenberg participated in
the Skippack Brethren along with Henry Antes. John Adam Gruber, an Inspirationist and leader
of the Community of the True Inspired in the Wetterau in the 1720s and the Moravian Georg
Neisser who also lived with Wiegner both were leading participants. Writing in his volume The
Schwenkfelders in Pennsylvania, Howard Wiegner Kriebel says the group held religious services
at the Wiegner home.
Among those who most likely constituted the active members of the Vereinigte
Schibbachbrder were; from Skippack, Heinrich Frey, Johannes Kooken, Georg Merkel,
Christian Weber, Jost Schmidt, Wilhelm Bossens, Jost Becker; from Friedrichstown, Heinrich
Antes, Wilhelm Frey, Georg Stiefel, Heinrich Holstein, Andreas Frey; from Methacton, Matthias
Gmelen, and Abraham Wagner; from Oley, John Bertolet, Franz Ritter and Wilhelm Pott; from
Germantown, Johannes Bechtel, Johann Adam Gruber, Blasius Mackinet and Georg Benzel.55
These interfaith discussion included Moravians, Schwenkfelders, Reformed, Inspirationists,

55
Howard Wiegner Kriebel. The Schwenkfelders in Pennsylvania. Lancaster: The Pennsylvania German Society,
1904, 109.

22
Dunkers, Huguenots and others. A close relationship developed between Antes and
Spangenberg, who as a Moravian bishop was to become for many years Zinzendorfs principle
administrator in the settlement at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in 1742.
Bhms view of the intent of such an interfaith group is concisely stated in his Second
Faithful Warning and Admonition of May 19, 1743. He writes that

Jacob Lischey, John Bechtel and Henry Antes, together with their helpers, are so
zealously exerting themselves in order to put our Reformed religion entirely in the
shade here in Pennsylvania and to bring all under control of the Herrnhuters and
that by cunning tricks and false appearances they pretend to be Reformed
ministers.

It is not surprising that Bhm suspected the Herrnhuters, or Moravians, of using cunning tricks
and false appearances. That these two good-hearted men were speaking right past one another is
related to the advance of the the Pietist movement in Germany in the decades before either of
them was born. Pietism fostered development of ecclesiolae in ecclesia which was in fact a
reaction to the positive, internal understanding of liberty advocated by the German
denominational churches of that time.
By the late 17th century in Germany the Reformation churches had become rigid and
doctrinaire. Those who wished for reform were either separatists or pietists. The separatists
removed and isolated themselves for protection from the denominational church and the pietists
sought reform without separation from the church. The Pietist position was a positive internal
liberty in which responsibility for interpretation of Gods authoritative will was removed from
clergy and politician and passed to the individual believer. Considered with that in mind, it
seems to constitute a compromise position in which negative liberty, defined as the absence of
constraint, played its role in relation to the human sphere while concurrently, positive liberty was
in effect in relation to the divine sphere.
Philipp Jakob Spener (1635-1705) taught and inspired students in small groups that met
in private locations and out of this developed the idea of ecclesiolae in ecclesia, little churches
within the church. This expresses Kriegers negative liberty as the absence of constraint at the
group level. Reform within through small groups became a marking characteristic of Pietism in
contrast to the reform by separation taught by the Anabaptists. Among Speners arguments
against separatism was loss of the ability to affect for good those within the church, separation

23
being a wounding breach of love that provided Papists with opportunity for criticism and that led
toward subsequent further separations.56
It was in the decades of the 1720s and the 1730s that out of such Pietist beliefs two
movements for reform of the denominational churches were taking shape. The first to occur was
the Moravian movement developing in the 1720s under Count Louis Zinzendorf and the other
was Methodism developing under John Wesley in the 1730s. Denominational churches in
Pennsylvania at this time lacked cohesive organizational structure and for the most part, severely
lacked ordained pastoral leadership. In this environment and with the model of the Pietist
ecclesiola well developed in German thinking, the Skippack Brethren came together as a
spiritual group, not within a specific denomination but within the community around
Goschenhoppen. It sought to encourage spirituality in frontier daily life and to bring pastoral care
and educational resources to isolated communities around Goschenhoppen.
Zinzendorfs structure for his religious movement accepted diversity. Members were
registered according to their tropus, (Latin, meaning a figure of speech), the term referring to
their prior denominational connection. His use of trope implies that denominations were figures
of speech only, each referring to the same thing, the larger congregation in the Spirit. Zinzendorf
established three tropes, Lutheran, Reformed and Moravian.
John Wesley associated with and admired the Moravian movement and though he turned
in the 1740s in a somewhat different direction, he built likewise on acceptance of diversity. He
wrote regarding his developing movement, There is no other religious society under heaven
which requires of men in order to their admission into it but a desire to save their own souls.57
Upon being admitted to one of Wesleys small groups, one did not cease to attend his own
church on Sunday.
In this context then when one took part in the Moravian movement in Pennsylvania in the
1740s, in the mind of Henry Antes one did not cease to be a Lutheran, Reformed, Episcopalian,
Catholic or whatever. To a greater or lesser extent, ones identity was inward and spiritual rather

56
D. M. Jones, Ecclesiolae in Ecclesia, lecture given at t he Puritan and Westminster Conference, 1965. Text
available at [Link] Accessed 1/18/14

57
John Wesley, The Journal of the Rev. john Wesley, A.M. Sometime Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford. 7:389.
For a thorough and enlightening study of both Moravian and Methodist origins, see Frederick Dreyer, The Genesis
of Methodism, Bethlehem: Lehigh University Press, 1999.

24
than outwardly determined by ones denominational affiliation. Henrys writings have not yet
been sufficiently studied to precisely determine what he believed. He maintained his own mind
regarding what he accepted and what he did not. This is evident from his 1750 departure from
the Moravians at Bethlehem to return to his home in Friedrichstown over what were ostensibly
matters of liturgical practice, but there were in fact deeper issues over organization, management
and problematic developments at this time in the larger Moravian movement. Henry was
agreeable to Zinzendorfs unique approach to evangelizing in the Pennsylvania community in so
much as it represented solution to the problems of pastoring and teaching among the scattered
and isolated German communities that had been discussed in the Skippack Brotherhood for so
long.
Henry was apparently attracted to Zinzendorfs organizational theory of tropes. This
theory held that for individuals of Moravian identity to serve denominational communities as
their respective denominational representatives was not in fact misrepresentation, but rather an
expression of true brotherhood in Christ. Boehm confronted Antes on this very issue and Antes
response was preserved from Boehms perspective in his Second Faithful Warning of May 19,
1743.
Concerning the third, Henry Antes. Only a few weeks ago, when someone asked
him: How can you call yourself Reformed? You go to the Herrnhuters and take
part in their Love-feasts. He answered: Why how strange you speak. Is that a
reason that I should not be Reformed; I am also a Lutheran; I am also a
Mennonite. A Christian is everything.58

Frederick Dreyer, writing in The Genesis of Methodism, drew an interesting comparison between
Methodism and the Moravians that provides a basis for understanding both Bhms view and
Antes response. Both movements started with a double system of classification of membership,
one part of the system spiritual and the other non-spiritual. He noted that for the Moravians the
spiritual classification of membership disappeared and the non-spiritual classification remained
in two forms, congregational and diaspora membership. Congregational members formed a
regular congregation, a Gemeine, while Diaspora Brethren did not gather together as a
congregation for public worship, but sought to worship wherever and with whomever they
happened to be in their service to Christ. They could belong to any denomination and found their

58
William J. Hinke, The Life and Letters of the Reverend John Philip Boehm, New York: Publication and Sunday
School Board of the Reformed Church in the United States, 1916, 378. Republished by Arno Press, New York,
1972

25
unity in the Invisible Body of Christ. Dreyer observed that The object of the diaspora mission
was to arouse people to the realities of Christian faith, not to disturb them in their allegiance to
their own denomination or to convert them to the Moravian Church.59
Henry perhaps saw in the theory of tropes and the Diaspora movement a means by which
the evangelical enthusiasm of the Moravians could serve to alleviate the desperate shortage of
trained pastors and teachers among the scattered German communities without engaging in
denominational rivalry. Rev. Bhm on the other hand clearly saw an undercover effort to draw
people away from his pastorate with the implication of eventual conversion to the Moravian
faith.
Henry worked with Zinzendorf and the Moravian leadership to organize a series of
interdenominational meetings known as the Pennsylvania Synods. On December 15/26 1741 he
published an invitation to the first synod which met January 1, 1742 at the home of Theobald
Endt in Germantown. There were seven interfaith synods over the following six months. Because
Henry Antes was well respected by all in the scattered communities, the first synod was well
attended by Lutherans, Reformed, Mennonites, Dunkers, Sabbatarians, Schwenkfelders,
Separatists, Mystics and Moravians. However at the succeeding synods attendance by all but the
Moravian rapidly fell away. After the seventh gathering, the synods continued on as Moravian
synods.
At the fifteenth synod, held in Falkner Swamp March 10 and 11, 1745, at this point now a
Moravian synod, Henry offered his house, mill, and plantation together with all its proceeds to
the Moravians to be used as a Kinder-Anstalt, a childrens school. The Moravians brought
together under one roof as many as thirty two young White, Indian and African-American boys
to live and learn, cared for and taught by a staff of some twenty Moravian adults. This was but
one of a great number of such schools set up by the Moravians in southeastern Pennsylvania in
the decades of the 1740s through the 1760s.
Henrys concern for educating children is evident as early as 1733. His oldest daughter
Anna Catherina writes in her Lebenslauf
When I was about seven years old my father engaged a tutor to teach me and
several of the neighbor childrenThe tutor lived at the inn, and there was no

59
Frederick Dreyer. The Genesis of Methodism. Bethlehem: Lehigh University Press, 1999. 56-65.

26
 difficulty about attending classes I easily learned to read, and memorized the
Shorter Catechism during the first winter60

The Antes Family and Music

She says that she learned to sing and to play by note on her fathers clavier.61 It must be
noted that this was a very musical family. In 1747 Henry purchased a violin for his son John.62
John grew up to become a highly talented composer. Donald McCorkle
quotes Rufus Grider to say that John made a trio of stringed
instruments of which two are extant; one signed Johann Antes in
Bethlehem, 1759. The cello has disappeared. He noted that Grider,
writing in 1870, said that the cello was in the Central Moravian
Church in Bethlehem. This instrument, he informs us, was marked
Johann Antes me fecit in Bethlehem, 1764, John Antes made me in
Bethlehem, 1764. 63
Late in his life John summarized experiments he had made
toward improvements in piano hammers, violin tuning and violin bows
in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, in which he also mentions his
friend, the impresario Johann Salomon as Mein Freund, Herr Salomon
in London. 64
Sometime between February 1770 and December 1781, he
Fig. 8. Violin made
by John Antes. composed three trios for two violins and cello, one in E-Flat major, one
(Fromthe collection
in D minor and one in C major. They were probably composed in
of the Moravian
Historical Society, Cairo, Egypt while recuperating from torture received as a Moravian
Nazareth, Pa.)
missionary. They were published as opus 3, indicating possibly two
prior published collections. At the time of McCorkles writing, there were 38 known works by
him, twenty-five concerted vocal compositions and thirteen chorale melodies.65

60
Anna Catherina Antes. Lebenslauf, The Archives of the Moravian Church, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
61
Anna Catherina Antes. Lebenslauf.
62
On September 3, 1747, Samuel Powell sold a violin to Henry Antes, probably for his son John., then 7 years old.
Diaconate ledger B (folio 153.v) at the Moravian Archives, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, debited the account of Henry
Antes thus: Samuel Powell for a Violin (by his order) for his son 1.1.-.
63
Donald M. McCorkle. John Antes, American Dilettante The Musical Quarterly. Vol. 42, No. 4, (October,
1956). 488.
64
McCorkle. 491.
65
McCorkle. 495.

27
On board a Moravian ship in London leaving for Philadelphia, daughter Anna Margaretha...
delighted the gathering with her beautiful playing on the cittern.66 On Feb. 11/21, 1741,
Heinrich sang Ach Gott! segne was sie thun after the trustees were chosen at the third
Pennsylvania Synod,67 and on April 18/29, 1746, the Moravian Bethlehem Diary tells us It was
also resolved that every week in place of the German Singstunde, twice, namely Tuesdays and
Fridays, an English one shall be held upon the Losung, and Henry Antes immediately
commenced to do so today. 68 On July 16, 1748, the Diary states In the evening Brother Henry
Antes held the Singstunde, and we can infer that he had in memory the greater part of the
Moravian hymn texts and their melodies, that he had a voice of sufficient quality to serve as
cantor, that he could match these to the chosen religious text that formed the conceptual basis for
the Singstunde service, and that he could bridge smoothly from one text and melody to another
in a manner described by Zinzendorf.
we do not sing entire hymns as is usually the caseThe cantor takes the
material of the sermonand puts together, while singingverses from
twenty or thirty hymns which presents the material in an orderly and
articulate fashion. In this the cantor, organist, preacher and listeners are so
practiced that nobody hesitates or needs to open a bookWhen my ten year
old son plays for our family Singstunden, he is able to connect one melody
to another so seamlessly that no one knows the entire Singstunde was not
expressly composed that way 69

The musical abilities of the Antes family are marked by a degree of skill and knowledge
that speaks for high standards of performance in a family well-educated and broadly
knowledgeable for that time and their location on the Pennsylvania frontier.

Henry Antes as Secular Manager for the Moravian Brethren in Bethlehem

In 1745 Henry moved his family to the Moravian community in Bethlehem where he
undertook the position of Senior Civilis, secular administrator at the same administrative level as
Bishop Augustus Spangenberg, the ecclesiastical administrator. In this position until 1750, he
was responsible for all agriculture and building projects. Joseph Levering, in his book on

66
Beverly P. Smaby, trans. Travel Journal of Anna Johanna Piesch, in The Distinctiveness of Moravian Culture,
ed. Craig D. Atwood and Peter Vogt, Nazareth, Pa.: The Moravian Historical Society, 2003. 93.
67
Authentische Relation, p. 49.
68
Bethlehem Diary, 4.18/4.29, 1746.
69
Alice Caldwell, Singing From the Heart. In Pleasing for our Use. Ed. By Carol Trautman-Carr. Bethlehem:
Lehigh University Press, 2000. 118

28
Bethlehems Moravian history, specifically connected Henry with the design, supervision or
actual construction of 18 projects. These include drawing plans for and supervising construction
of countless buildings, planning three outlying communities, constructing a linseed oil mill, 2
gristmills and a sawmill, a bleach house, a Gasthaus and Indian houses, a bridge and a bell
tower.70 All told, 33 construction projects have been identified that took place during Henrys
five years in Bethlehem. One floor plan drawn and signed by Henry Antes on March 4, 1750, for
a Moravian building in Quittophila, Pennsylvania, has been found to date.

Fig. 9. Plan for a Moravian building at Quittopahile, Pennsylvania, drawn with suggestions and signed by
Henry Antes, 1750. Courtesy of the Moravian Archives, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

His devotion to his work is best described in a letter by Mary Spangenberg to Zinzendorf
in 1746.
But what do you think of my little son Henry Antes, no, you should see the litle
fool, he has come out of the rain and under the eves (out of the frying pan in to the
fire); if he had a lot of work on the plantation, then here in Bethlehem it really
piles up. And sometimes he doesnt know where his head is. Just when he has
arranged his builders, tile-makers, log splitters and drivers the best way, then

70
Joeph Levering. A History of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Bethlehem: Times Publishing Company, 1903.

29
 Joseph (Augustus Spangenberg) comes and sends one out as a preacher, another
to be a fisher (evangelist) and the third to make a necessary visit. Then the poor
heart sits and scratches behind his ears. If it comes to it, he has to do it himself.71

Henry frequently served as an agent or as the owner of record to conduct the business of
the Moravian organization in Pennsylvania because he was a citizen of the Crown, naturalized in
Pennsylvania and a justice of the peace in the British colonial legal system. In this capacity he
was the purchaser of record for the initial 500 acre tract from William Allan on April second,
1741 that was to become the Bethlehem community established in 1742.72 On November
eleventh, 1753, he transferred this tract, greatly enlarged, containing the messuages, grist
mills, saw mills, fulling mills, oil mills and tenements called or known by the name of
Bethlehem to representatives of the Moravian organization.73 On February 28, 1748 and acting
on behalf of the Bethlehem community, he was granted
...rights for building, operating and receiving fees for a ferry to carry people,
cattle and goods over the west branch of the Delaware (now called the Lehigh
River) at a plantation now belonging to the said Henry Antes...in Saucon
township (the site of Bethlehem), a high road leading from Philadelphia to the
Minisinks and from thence to the northwest part of the Province of New York.74

In the name of the Moravians Henry

was the owner of record of the ship Irene,
registered in his name in July of 1748 and
one of four ships used by the Moravians to
transport colonists and good back and forth
across the Atlantic and on one occasion to
Greenland. The Irene made fourteen trips
before it was captured and wrecked by
Fig. 10. The Moravian ship Irene, whose owner of
French privateers in November of 1757. An
record was Henry Antes, acting as a Pennsylvania
citizen on behalf of the Moravian Brotherhood. (From earlier ship, the Catherine, was sold in
This Month in Moravian History, No. 43, May 2009.
[Link] church [Link]/thismonth/09 may
Philadelphia following such a trip. The
[Link]) lawyer George Stonehouse wrote a letter

71
Hellmuth Erbe. Bethlehem, Pa. Eine Kommunistische Herrnhuter Kolonie des 18 Jahrhunderts. Stuttgart: Ausland
und Heimat Verlagsaktiengesellschaft, 1929.
72
Philadelphia Deed Book, G-1-329.
73
Philadelphia Deed Book, H-20-1.
74
Philadelphia Deed Book, A-15-96.

30
directing that all wages and other charges were to be paid, 200 were to be set aside for the
Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel, and
you are to pay the money remaining of the price of said ship, into the hands of
Mr. Henry Antes, who is with it to buy such living cattle, as are wanted to stock
and manure the 5000 acres, the lands purchased of me in Pennsylvania. (Signed)
GEORGE STONEHOUSE.75

These 5000 acres were the total of acreage bought around the original 500 acre plot to
form the Moravian community of Bethlehem, Pensylvania.
Henry undertook many responsibilities as Justice of the Peace, and did so in a number of
localities. On June 22, 1746 he was sworn in as justice of the peace in Bucks County.76 In that
same month he was ordered to appear in court in Lancaster, Pennsylvania to defend the
Moravians against unfounded accusations of enlisting French allied Indians to attack settlers in
Pennsylvania and in August of that year he was involved in a controversy over his jurisdiction as
Justice of the peace with the constable of a nearby Irish settlement over Moravians cutting grain
on the Sabbath.
(The) Constable arrived with 22 Irishmen to arrest 44 Brethren, whose name they
had as working in harvest on last Sunday, and take them to Newtown to prison.
Had before that been in Nazareth creating a big disturbance arresting two Brn.,
one of whom sent to their Justice, brought one other along. Constable arrested
everyone he had seen in Gnadenthal. But our Br. Heinrich Antes, as justice, took
charge of things, went as bond with Br. Joseph (Augustus Spangenberg) for all 40
Brn. until next court session. The Irishmen acted as if they were crazy, especially
William Creek, son of the Justice because they could...(missing at page bottom) 77

In September 1747 the township of Bethlehem was erected with Henry as the local justice of the
peace. In May of 1752, having left Bethlehem to return to his home in Friedrichtown in the
summer of 1750, he was appointed justice of the peace in Philadelphia County.
Earlier, in February of 1752 and acting in the interest of many of his neighbors in the
Goschenhoppen area, Henry responded to the demand of the Proprietary land office for the
payment of years of back quitrent with a series of local conferences to collect these back

75
John W. Jordan. Moravian Immigration to Pennsylvania, 1734-1767. The Transactions of the Moravian
Historical Society, Vol. 5, No. 2, 1896. 56-57.
76
Joseph Mortimer levering. History of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 1741-1892. Bethlehem: Times Publishing
Company, 1903. 211.
77
Single Brethrens Diary entry, August 6, 1746. , Bethlehem. Typescript copy of Select Translations in Hist Beth.
files, compiled by Charles Le Count, December 1992. Property of the Moravian Archives in Bethlehem,
Pennsylvania,

31
quitrents. David Schultze noted in his journal that on the 2nd. We went to Phila. [Link] the
quitrent. [Link] home. Paid 72 for 21131 acres for 51 years. Noted likewise in the cash
book of the Proprietarys agent in Phila: 3 March 1752. Received of Henry Antis & Company
Quitrent on 21,132 acres in upper and Lower Hanover Township, Philadelphia County, granted
by pat. 25th October 1701 To the German Company or Frankfort Company (51 years in full to
the 1st Just:) 53, 17s,9d. Currency 71, 17s.78
Writing in The Perkiomen Region, Past and Present Dotterer notes that in August of
1752, at a time that Henry was sick and of doubtful recovery, the Moravians sent a messenger to
Friedrichstown to request that Henry accompany an expedition led by bishop Augustus
Spangenberg to North Carolina to locate and survey out an extensive tract of land for future
Moravian settlement. The messenger, hearing of Henrys condition, turned back to Bethlehem
but Henry, aware of the messengers arrival and wanting to know his business, sent his son
Frederick to bring him back. 79 Henry did leave with the Moravians on that trip on August 15,
1752. Dotterer refers to the hardships encountered on this journey as contributing to his decline
and death on July 20, 1755. A really clear picture of the precise circumstances that led to his
death two years after returning from North Carolina cannot be drawn at this time.
He accompanied Spangenberg to the wilderness of North Carolina to locate and survey
the great tract known as the Wachovia Tract for the Moravian settlements centered at Salem,
North Carolina. Dotterer tells us that in January of that year
the expedition stumbled across nearly seventy five thousand unclaimed acres at
the forks of the Muddy Creek, in central North Carolina. They immediately
surveyed the tract plus two others lying next to it and containing another twenty
five thousand acres between them. With these three plats and those of another ten
pieces they had laid out earlier, the explorers returned to Bethlehem in February
1753.80
William Reichel, the early Moravian historian writing in 1829 has this succinct description.
They departed in August, 1752, from Bethlehem for Edenton, and from
thence with Mr. Churton, the general surveyor, to the headwaters of the
rivers Catawba, New river and Yadkin, where they spent several months
before they could obtain their aim; during which time they suffered much
by sickness, cold and hunger, till the end of the month of December. After
78
Andrew S. Berky. trans. and ed. The Journals and Papers of David Schultze. Volume I, 1726-1760. Pennsburg:
The Schwenkfelder Library, 1952. 124.
79
Henry S. Dotterer, The perkiomen Region, past and Present, Vol. II, no. 9 (December, 1899).
80
Daniel P. Thorp. The Moravian Community in Colonial North Carolina. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee
Press, 1986. 29

32
 having surveyed several small pieces of land on Catawba and New rivers,
and at the Mulberry fields, on the Yadkin, they were led by the good hand
of the Lord to a large tract of land on the east side of the Yadkin, full of
springs, rivulets and creeks, well timbered, and, for the greatest part, good
for agriculture and raising cattle.81
Bishop Augustus Spangenberg who led the expedition made this entry in his journal of
the journey.
(At) Jno. Salis, Granville County, 153 miles from Edenton. The Lord has arrested
our progress for a time & four of our company are suffering from remittant fever
of a bad type. N.C. about here is low... and much malaria exists and causes
many deaths. The brethren Henry Antes, Jno, Merk, Herman Lash, & Timothy
Horsefield are all down, & going through a severe sweating process induced by
a certain medicinal herb. We probably contracted the fever in Edenton as it is a
regular fever nest & lies very low....
Later on December 14th, Spangenberg has this entry, indicating that Henrys condition was
considerably worse.
But here my dear brother henry Antes became very sick. Several days ago he had
cut himself very seriously in the hand and then traveling with us he had caught
cold in the wound, wh. caused such intense pain in the arm as to be almost beyond
endurance.
On December 20th is the following entry.
...we have all arrived safely except that H. Antes suffers very much from his arm.
He has Wound Fever. & yet we are glad he can stay in Mr. Owens house, &
recruit himself somewhat.
There can be little doubt, considering also that he was sick before he left with Spangenberg, that
these events had a serious effect on Henrys overall health, he now being nearly fifty two years
of age.
The following entries in the Spangenberg Journal show clearly the regard that
Spangenberg had for Henry advice and judgement. From camp at Little River, Anson
County...Brother Antes thinks mill stones may be found within the limit of the tract we have
taken up..., Nov. 7th, 1752, second fork in the Little River 2 miles from the first fork...a very
excellent mill could be built wh. would be exempt from the high water that prevails here...,

81
Charles Gotthold Reichel, History of the Moravians in North Carolina. 1829, Volume 5, Page 1146. Accessed
online at Documenting the American South, Colonial and State Records of North Carolina
([Link] accessed 6/16/2013.

33
From a camp at the head of the New River on December 3, Spangenberg indicates that Antes is
again traveling with the group for he notes, first,
There is not a trace of reed here, but so much grass land, that Brother H. Antes
thinks a man could make several hundred loads of hay of the wild grass, which
would answer very well if only it could be cut & cured at the proper
time...Whetstones and mill stones wh. Brother Antes regards the best he has seen
in N. C. are plenty...One of the creeks presents a number of admirable seats for
milling purposes. 82
The journal containing these references to Henrys role in the expedition was signed at the end
with the names of Augustus Spangenberg and Heinrich Antes. One can hardly avoid the
impression from Bishop Spangenbergs comments that he, as ecclesiastical leader, and Antes, as
senior civilis the secular leader, shared in common a sense of responsibility for the general
welfare of the Moravian community. This shared responsibility conforms well to Dreyers
double system of membership classification mentioned earlier. Spangenberg was undertaking the
expedition in the interest of responsibility to the diaspora goals of the Moravian movement and
Henry was looking to the interests of the Gemeine. The expedition returned to Pennsylvania on
February 13th, 1753.
On June 13, 1755,
a message came to
Bethlehem that Antes is
very ill, and his daughter
Benigna, living at that
time in the Moravian
community in Bethlehem,
was taken to
Friedrichstown to see
him.83 Henry had written
his will and dated it July
20th, 1754, to which he
Fig. 11. The grave of Henry Antes in Friedrichstown, Pa, between the
house and the mill site on Swamp Creek.
82
August Gottlieb Spangenberg. Journal of August Gottlieb Spangenbergs Voyage to North Carolina to Establish a
Moravian Settlement. 3, 11, 12, 13. Accessed online at Documenting the American South, Colonial and State
Records of North Carolina. [Link] accessed 6/15/2013.
83
Levering, 295.

34
added a codicil on July 8th, 1755. He died on July 20th, 1755. He was buried on his plantation in
Friedreichstown a short walk away between the house and his mill. The inscription on his
tombstone reads: Hier ruhet Heinrich Antes: ein kleinod dieses Landes; Ein redlich khner
Handheber der Gerechtigkeit und treuer Diener Vor Welt- und Gottes-Leut. Here rests Henry
Antes, an ornament in this land: an upright brave administrator of justice and a trustworthy
servant for the people of the World and of God.

35