By James C. Massey and Shirley Maxwell

	Schifferstadt is a fine Maryland Germanic house in Frederick, built in 1740 in dressed and coursed limestone with the characteristic segmental arches over the 6/6 light windows.Photo Courtesy of James C. Massey

Almost a century before the American Revolution, William Penn, the English Quaker gentleman for whom Pennsylvania is named, had what turned out to be a brilliant idea. In payment of a royal debt owed to his late father, Admiral Sir William Penn, he had received a handsome piece of land in the coloniesÑa parcel stretching roughly from the 40th parallel to the 43rd parallel, or about the area of present day Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. The younger Penn and his fellow Quakers were not popular in Anglican England. Nor were many other religious nonconformists, such as Mennonites and Huguenots, who were not well tolerated in continental Europe. So, Penn reasoned, why not give all of these black sheep a guarantee of religious freedom, along with self-rule and a shot at personal prosperity, in the New World?

Penn advertised widely for potential colonists, and German-speaking settlers responded in droves from areas along the Rhine River, which now make up parts of modern Germany, France (Alsace), and Switzerland. That's a short history of how GermansÑand German buildingsÑfirst came to America, but it was only the beginning of a major cultural current that flowed into the residential architectural scene over the next 200 years.

Continental Features in New World Forms
By the end of 1683, Penn found himself at the helm of a benevolent proprietorship inhabited by more than 3,000 Welsh, Scotch-Irish, Germans, Mennonites, Jews, and Baptists. Generally, the German-speaking settlers came with family members and neighbors from their Old World villages. Native Americans were welcome too, and Penn's scrupulously fair treaties and contracts with the local Indians made Pennsylvania the safest, most prosperous colony. Penn's people were only the first wave of German immigrants; they were followed throughout much of the 18th century by others who traveled to and through Pennsylvania to reach frontier settlements in western Virginia and North Carolina.

In the mid-19th century, a second wave of German immigrants crossed the ocean, driven by political unrest at home and inspired by visions of a New Germany in the New World. They carried their German heritage intact to new homes in the Midwest and in Wisconsin, Missouri, and Texas. Once again, most of the newcomers were displaced villagers, but others were middle class, educated, and determined to hang onto their ethnic identity.

For the most part, the transplanted Germans were peasants, recruited and led by a few more affluent neighbors from back home. When it came to designing their houses, they followed the medieval ideas that had prevailed in their provinces in Europe. Yet, these eminently practical people readily adapted to new ideas. Horizontal-log structures, for instance, were not familiar to most newly settled Germans. But they quickly caught the logic of building with timber in a timber-rich land, and horizontal-log construction was a fast and efficient way to put a house together. Done the German way, with dovetailed joints, straight-hewn logs, and careful chinking and caulking, it was also very tidy and reasonably weathertight.

Many of the houses these folks built are still with us today. Some are museum pieces, meticulously restored. Others are hidden under renovations and alterations from later times. You won't have any trouble knowing the restored or reconstructed gemsÑthey're prominently featured in the guidebooks of Ephrata and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; the Moravian buildings in Old Salem, North Carolina; the Frontier Culture Museum near Staunton, Virginia (which features reassembled buildings imported from Europe); Old World Wisconsin; and the Deutscheim State Historical Site in Herman, Missouri. There is also a smattering of restored individual German-house museums here and there.

House-Detecting Clues
If you want to be able to pick out other German-built housesÑthose intriguing early blends of Anglo and German characteristics, as well as survivors of 19th- and 20th-century faceliftsÑhere are some clues to watch for. Bear in mind that German features may appear on only a small part of the house.

Examine the site. German builders liked to be near, even directly over, water sources. Often, their houses were built on top of streams or springs, or the streams were channeled into the basement, a handy way to keep dairy products cool.

Furthermore, Germans preferred to build on sloping land so that the rear of the house was two or three stories high while the front appeared to be only a story-and-a-half high. This arrangement made it easy to bring carts, farm equipment, and goods into the house. These bank houses (so called because they were built into a bank or slope) are similar to the big bank barns that were also popular with German farmers. In Pennsylvania Dutch country, you can't miss those barns, especially if they're wearing their brightly colored hex symbols (although, as you probably know, the Pennsylvania Dutch aren't Dutch at all, but Pennsylvania Germans, or deutsche.)

Check out the roof lines. German builders fancied steep roof slopes, as much as 45 degrees or more. The attics under these precipitous slopes may contain two or even three stories. You'll know by the dormer windows, which are usually small and either shed-roofed or gabled. You'll rarely, if ever, see extant early red-clay tiles, such as those originally used in Pennsylvania German buildings.

Consider the building materials. Germanic settlers were quite versatile in their selection of building materials, opting for log, stone, brick, or a combination of masonry and timber. The most picturesque of these, the timber-framed and stuccoed fachwerk, is the most iconically Germanic and probably the least commonly found. Horizontal-log houses, as noted above, were quickly adopted by German settlers in the 18th century.

Stone was particularly favored because it suggested prosperity and permanence. Erecting a stone building was not a chore to be undertaken lightly, so a stone house was a sure sign of prominence in one's community. In the East, the stone was generally an easily worked but durable limestone, or in Philadelphia, the distinctive mottled-green stone known as serpentine. In the 19th century, German settlers in the Midwest often used a local pro-duct, cotton stone, which was soft and not particularly durable, and the German-settled portions of Texas, of which Fred-ericksburg is a notable example, also abound with stone buildings.

Look past the siding. In the East, log houses have most often been covered with clapboard siding. In fact, that was an almost universal practice from the beginning, because without protective siding, logs and chinking are prone to rot. Very thick walls, which are evident in door and window reveals, may suggest log construction. Timber-framed construction (also called half-timbered because of its stucco-covered infill) may be concealed by siding, and it can be detected, or at least surmised, in the same way.

Look for a single, central chimney. The classic continental-plan German house had three rooms (kuche, stube, and kammer) on the first floor but just one chimney, located near the building's center, an efficient way to heat several rooms from one fire. The fireplace opened into the kuche, or hearth room, an all-purpose kitchen and activity space. The Germans were noted for their beautiful cast-iron heating stoves, and the stube, or stove room, contained such a stove, often with biblical scenes adorning the iron plates. The stove was fed with hot coals from the fireplace in the adjoining kuche. The stube was the most formal of the three roomsÑthe parlor, if you will. The kammer, or chamber, was the least public space, possibly used as a bedroom and for other purposes as well. It wasn't the only sleeping area though. There was at least one more floor overhead that could provide sleeping quarters as well as space for other activities. The attic, which might contain more than one storey, was handy for storing anything from hay to meat. That ever-useful chimney also radiated at least a modicum of heat to the upper floors. Incident-ally, the Germans were not impressed with open fireplaces, which wasted too much heat, but the Midwestern immigrants loved mantelpieces. So, they used themÑbut without an accompanying fireplace.

Make allowances for peer pressure. As they settled into their new homeland, Germans were not immune to fashionable architectural trends. By the late-18th century, center-hall houses in the English mode, with opposing-end chimneys and symmetrical door and window placement, were popular. In vernacular houses, these formal elements sometimes were rather quirky in the application, and their slightly off-beat appearance is a charming giveaway of Ger-manic influence. Most often, Germans favored interior, rather than exterior, chimneys, even when they were placed at the ends of the building. In these houses, fireplaces were used as a matter of course.

Don't count on house barns. While German settlers may have been accustomed in Europe to house barnsÑthose heat-and work-saving structures that allowed humans to live at one end of a single building and animals at the otherÑthe idea doesn't seem to have been persuasive in America. Only a few examples of house barns have survived. However, Germanic settlers definitely did not neglect their animals or their gathered crops. German-American barns were several times the size of their houses and usually dwarfed those of their American neighbors. Animals were fenced all year and housed for the winter instead of being free-ranging. Look for projecting pent eaves on the first floor. They offered some protection from the elements for the walls and also added a decorative touch, particularly when there were carved pendant ornaments at the corners. Sometimes, there was a porchlike, on-grade, sheltered work space.

Pay attention to decorative details. German houses were small and simple, but by no means undecorated. Wood doors, for instance, might be assembled in a striking chevron pattern. They were often Dutch doors, divided horizontally so that the top part opened to admit light and air, while the bottom remained closed to keep small children in and roaming animals out. One-piece paneled doors often have a heavy shelflike lip halfway down the length that suggests Dutch-door construction.

The Germans were skilled stoneworkers, and a few impressive but small Penn-sylvania German stone residences, such as Fort Zeller, illustrate this aptitude in stone-door frames ornamented with elaborate coats of arms or the owner's initials carved into the stone lintels. Similarly, brick houses might be adorned with dates and initials worked into the brick pattern or carved into inset stone panels.

Windows may tell the tale. Probably the earliest German windows in the East, as well as those in the later-settled Mid-west, were all small, multi-paned wood casements that opened outward. Nearly all have been replaced by double-hung wood sash, but occasionally casements turn up on rear walls. In the East, the switch probably took place in the early 18th century, as many Germans followed the practice of their English neighbors who were rapidly changing over to double-hung sash at that time. In masonry buildings, a clue to German construction is a segmental brick or stone arch in the wall above the window. A stone frame that completely wraps around the window perimeter is almost certainly a sign of German provenance.

Finally, have fun house detecting. The great American pastime of gawking at other people's houses takes on a certain respectability when you call it research. So, call it research and gawk!