Francis Daniel Pastorius was an American author and lawyer.
Background
Francis Daniel Pastorius was born on September 26, 1651 in Sommerhausen, Würzburg, Bavaria, Germany. He was the only child of Melchior Adam Pastorius by his first wife, Magdalena Dietz. The Pastorius family was of Westphalian origin, their surname having been originally Scepers (Low German for Schäfer), and for several generations had been prosperous, cultured, and well connected. Pastorius' father (1624 - 1702) was himself a man of distinction. Educated at the University of Würzburg and the German College at Rome, he embraced the Lutheran faith in 1649, spent ten years as legal counselor to Count Georg Friedrich von Limpurg at Sommerhausen, and later rose to be burgomaster of the Imperial City of Windsheim. He was a prolific writer both in German and Latin, much of his work remaining unpublished. Profound religious feeling elevates some of his verse above the dead level of mere Gelehrtenpoesie. Common tastes and aspirations as well as family affection made the relations of father and son unusually sympathetic.
Education
Frances Daniel Pastorius attended the Windsheim Gymnasium, then under the rectorship of the Hungarian humanist, Tobias Schumberg, and matriculated July 31, 1668, at the University of Altdorf as a student of law and philosophy. He studied also at the universities of Strassburg, Basel, and Jena. He was present at the sessions of the Imperial Diet at Regensburg in 1674 - 1775, and returned to Altdorf to take the degree of Doctor of Jurisprudence under the celebrated jurist, Heinrich Linck, in 1676.
Career
Francis Daniel Pastorius began the practice of law at Windsheim, but at the instigation of his friend, Dr. Johann Heinrich Horbe, a brother-in-law of Philipp Jacob Spener, he removed in 1679 to Frankfurt-am-Main, where he was at once received into Spener's circle and became intimate also with some friends of William Penn. From June 1680 till November 1682 he traveled, as tutor to a young nobleman, in Holland, England, France, Switzerland, and Upper Germany. Religion had, by this time, become his preoccupation; he was dissatisfied with his profession and apprehensive for the future of European society, and was thinking of Pennsylvania as a refuge from the world. In April 1683 a group of Frankfurt Quakers who proposed to buy land in Penn's domain appointed him their agent, and Pastorius set out for America by way of Rotterdam and London. Crossing the Atlantic on the same ship with Thomas Lloyd, he arrived in Philadelphia August 20, 1683, completed negotiation with Penn for some 15, 000 acres, and in October laid out the settlement of Germantown. Until his death thirty-six years later Pastorius was the chief citizen of the town. He was the first mayor (bailiff) and served continuously as mayor, clerk, or keeper of records until 1707, when Germantown lost its charter. He was the agent of the Frankfort Land Company until 1700, being succeeded by Johann Jawert and Daniel Falckner.
Francis Daniel Pastorius was a member of the provincial Assembly in 1687 and 1691. He was in constant demand as a scrivener, taught in the Friends' school at Philadelphia from 1698 to 1700, and was master of a school in Germantown from 1702 till shortly before his death. He allied himself from the beginning with the Quakers, but his Quakerism retained more than a tinge of Lutheranism. In 1688 a protest against the practice of keeping slaves, signed by Pastorius, Garret Hendericks, Dirck Op den Graeff, and Abraham Op den Graeff, was sent to the Monthly Meeting of Friends at Lower Dublin. It was the first protest of the kind ever made in the English colonies, but it had no effect. The Friends at Lower Dublin forwarded it to the Quarterly Meeting at Philadelphia, the Quarterly Meeting at Philadelphia forwarded it to the Yearly Meeting at Burlington, and the Yearly Meeting at Burlington quietly suppressed it.
Despite his many activities he led an almost idyllic life, with abundant leisure for his garden, his bees, and his study. His published writings consist of only six books or pamphlets, but he was a diligent writer and left to his descendants an immense quantity of manuscript works. The largest and most famous is his "Beehive, " a commonplace-book of encyclopedic proportions and scope. Of the published works the most important was the Umständige Geographische Beschreibung Der zu Allerletzt erfundenen Provintz Pensylvaniæ (Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1700). Four Boasting Disputers of This World Briefly Rebuked (New York, William Bradford, 1697) was aimed chiefly at Heinrich Bernhard K"ster and was Pastorius' contribution to the Keithian controversy; A New Primmer or Methodical Directions to Attain the True Spelling, Reading & Writing of English is probably the first schoolbook written in Pennsylvania. Pastorius read and wrote seven languages, owned a considerable library, and was one of the most learned men in the English colonies, his knowledge including not only law and theology but science, medicine, agriculture, and history. He wrote verse in German and Latin, like his father, and also in English. The best of his German verse is direct, sincere, and melodious. He died sometime between December 26, 1719, and January 13, 1720.
Achievements
Francis Daniel Pastorius was best known as the founder of Germantown, Pennsylvania. His books such as a manuscript Bee Hive, Umständige Geographische Beschreibung Der zu Allerletzt erfundenen Provintz Pensylvaniæ, A New Primmer or Methodical Directions to Attain the True Spelling, Reading, and Writing of English brought him fame as an author. Francis Pastorius drafted the first protest against slavery in America.
Interests
Francis Daniel Pastorius spoke several languages, kept an extensive library, and was well-versed in numerous fields of knowledge.
Connections
On November 6, 1688, Francis Daniel Pastorius married Ennecke Klostermanns (1658 - 1723) of Mülheim-am-Ruhr, by whom he had two sons.
