VISITING
AUTHOR/EDITOR ARTICLE
JANUARY
2009 AKRON: GERMAN AMERICAN LIFE Forwarded
From Akron Donauschwaben, German Family Society from: www.germanfoods.org Präsident:
Sepp Geiser A
German-American Portrait: From
Founding Family to Micro-Brewery Pioneers
October is a month of great historic significance for
citizens of Germany and for German-Americans in North America alike. Since 1990
the third day of the month has been a national holiday in Germany, known as the
Day of German Unity. This day, when Germans pause to celebrate their
reunification, has since become the most significant national holiday, a German
Independence Day, as it were.
In the US, October 6 is German-American Day, a holiday that celebrates German
heritage and commemorates the date in 1683 when 13 German families from Krefeld,
Westphalia landed in Philadelphia. These families subsequently founded
Germantown, Pennsylvania, the first Ger-man settlement in the original thirteen
American colonies. This year marks the 325th anniver-sary of that settlement.
The story of the Pastorius family of Pennsylvania epitomizes the pioneering
spirit of German-Americans throughout history. In 1683, a group of Mennonites,
Pietists, and Quakers in Frankfurt approached Francis Daniel Pastorius about
acting as their agent to pur-chase land in Pennsylvania for a settlement.
Pastorius traveled to Philadelphia, where he negotiated the pur-chase of 15,000
acres from William Penn, the proprie-tor of the colony. Pastorius laid out the
settlement of Germantown, where he himself would become one of the town’s
leading public servants and where he lived until his death in 1720. In 1688,
Francis Daniel Pastorius once again made history when he and three Germantown
Quakers joined in signing the first written protest of slavery in American
history.
One of the family’s descendants, Tom Pastorius, has made a name for himself as
Pennsylvania’s first craft brewer. In 1986 he founded Penn Brewery and
introduced Penn Pilsner, the first Pennsylvania brewed draft beer. In
anticipation of changes in Pennsylvania micro-brewery laws (passed in 1987), Tom
Pastorius, with technical and financial assistance from the Pittsburgh History
and Landmarks Foundation, began restoring the former Eberhardt and Ober Brewery
in the historic Deutschtown sec-tion of Pittsburgh. Pastorius hired a German
brew-master to oversee con-struction of the 20,000 barrel-a-year capacity
brewing facility, including authentic German micro-brewery equipment. Penn
Brewery has grown into a successful enter-prise where Tom Pastorius proudly
produces beer in the German style, adhering to the strict German quality
standards for beer known as "Reinheitsgebot," first documented in
1516. The restaurant adjacent to the brewery serves a wide array of German
specialties.
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