Mechanical Inventiveness Improves the Covered Wagon — The German Settlers in the Conestoga Valley

When twenty-first century readers come across the phrase, “German Engineering,” they often think of Porsche, Mercedes, Audi, or BMW. But more than a century before the automobile was invented, Germans were already known for precision craftsmanship and inventive designs.

Even those who gather their impressions of American History only from Hollywood films will have some mental image of a “covered wagon” or “Conestoga wagon” — often associated with the westward migration of the 1800s.

The Conestoga was not the first covered wagon design, nor was it the last. The term ‘Conestoga wagon’ is used too loosely in narratives about those early crossings of the Great Plains. A more specific, yet not absolutely precise, understanding of what constitutes a true Conestoga can be attempted.

A “covered wagon” in the simple sense of some type of horse-drawn wheeled vehicle with an overhead cloth had been around for centuries in various global cultures by the time Germans settled in the Conestoga Valley, an area in Pennsylvania approximately fifty miles west of Philadelphia. In the late 1600s and early 1700s they were using the then-current version of a covered wagon: a rectangular body with four wheels, some kind of cloth cover on vertical sticks to keep out at least some of the sun and rain, and drawn by horses.

The Germans in Conestoga Valley differed from other immigrant groups in that they were not all farmers. In the late 1600s and early 1700s, the vast majority of people, in all societies around the globe, were farmers. The same was true of the Germans in central Europe. But among the Germans who immigrated to North America, there was a disproportionate number of tradesmen and skilled craftsmen. This overrepresentation was driven by the economics of immigration. Few farmers in central Europe could contemplate emigrating: it was expensive.

The carpenters and blacksmiths among the German settlers were inventive. There were no colleges or universities granting “engineering” degrees in those days, but these craftsmen had worked out for themselves systems of geometry and physics, as historian Thomas Sowell writes:

About half of all the Germans in colonial America lived in Pennsylvania. Not all of these were farmers. Skilled workers were almost as numerous as farmers. They not only performed a variety of tasks; they developed new products as well.

Looking with a technical eye at the basic covered wagon, the Germans decided to design an upgraded model. The wheels would have a larger diameter to overcome the roughness of the roads; the wheels would be wider for the same reason; the entire structure would be made of thicker boards, to withstand the weight of the cargo as well as the jostling and rattling; The iron band which formed a sort of tire where the wheel contacted the road would also be thicker; the body of the wagon itself would be curved: the bottom curved downward, so that cargo settled near the center of gravity, and the sides were likewise curved; the covering was supported by a series of curved wood hoops. The new design for the covering allowed for a higher covering, one which was more effective at excluding rain, sun, and snow — and was less likely to be blown away in a strong wind.

All in all, it was a massive upgrade in wagon design, and it is to this model that the name ‘Conestoga’ is most accurately applied. It was rugged and durable, and able to haul up to 7.3 tons (14,600 pounds). The initial demand for this redesign arose from the need to bring farm produce to Lancaster and Philadelphia.

It was impressive in size, as historian Thomas Sowell explains:

Germans in the Pennsylvania Dutch country near Conestoga Creek produced a wagon for hauling farm produce, a wagon that was destined to play a major role in the later settlement of the western United States. The Conestoga wagon was a large and rugged vehicle, covered by canvas draped over high, arching hoops. It was eleven feet high, twenty-six feet long (counting the wagon tongue), weighed about 3,000 pounds, and required six strong horses to pull it.

Back in central Europe, the Germans had a reputation as expert wagon-makers, whether building refined luxury vehicles for Sunday afternoon drives, or building heavy-duty hauling vehicles for construction and agriculture. Beyond wagon-building, they were generally adroit in various manners of engineering, with iron, wood, stone, and brick. The Germans were the technicians of the era. The settlers brought this skilled expertise with them to Pennsylvania.

The new wagon design was built over the decades by the thousands. Although it was somewhat of a standardized design, there were many small differences among the many individual examples constructed.

Their application spread beyond farming, as Thomas Sowell reports:

In the eighteenth century there were “great files of these enormous wagons lumbering into Philadelphia along the Lancaster Road, sometimes as many as a hundred or more a day.” Although originally designed by German farmers to carry their produce to market, the covered wagons proved useful for many other purposes. In 1755, they were used by the British to carry military supplies during the French and Indian War. Later, the American army used the covered wagons during the Revolutionary War. The most famous role of the covered wagons came still later — transporting American pioneers across the great plains of the West toward the Pacific Ocean. These were the wagon trains that braved the elements, forded the rivers, and pulled into circles to fight off Indians.

By the time of the westward expansion, although the name ‘Conestoga’ was still used, some of the vehicles in the wagon trains were no longer true Conestogas. As construction of the vehicles spread beyond Pennsylvania, local builders took liberties with the design. Sometimes the sides and bottom were flat and straight instead of curved. Sometimes thinner wood was used. This made the vehicles less expensive, and made them lighter so that they could be drawn by fewer horses. But they were also less rugged and reliable. They were more prone to breakdown.

The true Conestogas were more likely to endure the long westward journey, and so the name has been preserved in History.

Immigrant Groups Bring Their Characteristic Skills to the Frontier: The Germans and the Scotch-Irish

Starting with the Spanish presence in Florida (1513) and the English settlement at Jamestown (1607), the cultures of the various waves of immigrants have shaped the societies in the areas that would become the United States. Each ethnicity brought with it talents and abilities, techniques refined in the previous centuries in its home territory, as well as new applications of those old artisan trades in a new land.

Each culture was, or became, inventive in its own way. Life on the frontier demanded creativity. Settlements which lacked resourcefulness often disappeared.

Some of these groups were quite different from one another, which led at times to frictions, and at other times to a fruitful complementarity. The groups cooperated and collaborated when necessary, but often ridiculed each other when times were easier. Many of the stereotypes and cliches which still circulate in American society about these ethnicities come from this era — from the mid-1600s onward.

The Germans and the Scotch-Irish were two contrasting groups who moved into the frontier regions, as historian Thomas Sowell writes:

As the German farming communities spread down through the Appalachian valley near the frontier, they found themselves often near the Scotch-Irish, who were frontiersmen par excellence. The Scotch-Irish often led the way into the untamed wilderness, hunting, fishing, clearing land, and fighting Indians, with the Germans and others following after the area became more settled.

The Scotch-Irish were rugged people who cared little for form and propriety. They were “pioneers” in the etymological sense: they were foot soldiers, if not literally, then at least in their attitudes.

The Germans were methodical, precise, and process-oriented. German families operated on mottos like “a place for everything, and everything in its place.” The value they placed on organization meant that not only were there correct things to do, but correct ways to do them. Thomas Sowell contrasts the two:

The Germans and the Scotch-Irish were very different in temperament and behavior and generally kept quite separate from each other, even in adjacent settlements. The Germans were noted for their order, quietness, friendliness, steady work, frugality, and their ability to get along with the Indians. The Scotch-Irish were just the opposite — quick-tempered, hard drinking, working intermittently, saving little, washing little, and constantly involved in feuds among themselves or with the Indians.

As recently as the first decade of the twentieth century, small German villages in Missouri retained the language, customs, and social patterns of Germany. They preserved the Germany they’d left in the early 1800s. To walk into the village of Frohna, Missouri in 1914 was like walking into a German village of a century earlier. The residents spoke German, and the children were exposed to the English language only when they were old enough to go to school. They brewed their own beer, and made their own wine, in accord with the methods which had been used in Germany for centuries. Once every few weeks, a family might venture to a neighboring village to “trade with the English” — meaning to buy from the marchants in the English-speaking villages.

The Scotch-Irish, meanwhile, made their own whiskey, were crude and vulgar by the standards of any of America’s ethnic immigrant groups, and fiercely independent. It is no coincidence that the most radical of the leaders in the American Revolution were not Germans. The Germans contributed more to the moderate aspects of the Revolution, like sorting out the details of representative government and refining the manufacture of weapons.

Religion, too, was a metric by which the differences between these groups could be measured, as Thomas Sowell reports:

Religious differences also divided them. The early German settlers were usually pious Lutherans, Calvinists, and other strict Protestant sects that avoided strong language or strong drink, while the Scotch-Irish were Presbyterians and were given to hard liquor and language that pious people considered blasphemous. After a century of sharing hundreds of miles of the great valleys of the Appalachian range, there was still little racial intermixture between the Germans and the Scotch-Irish.

Examples of the Scotch-Irish social patterns include the McCoy-Hatfield feud, which included both violence and whiskey (1863 - 1891); and the Whiskey Rebellion (1791 - 1794). Both these examples are predominately, but not purely, Scotch-Irish. Individuals of English ancestry were also involved.

Examples of the German influence include Concordia Publishing House, whose roots and antecedents reach back to 1844, making it one of the earliest publishers, if not the earliest publisher, in the state of Missouri and on the western frontier in general. The Germans also led the way in founding commercial beer breweries, e.g., Pabst (in the 1840s) and Yuengling (in the 1820s). Yuengling was originally spelled Jüngling. Germans planted vineyards and made wine on a commercial scale throughout the United States, especially in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. Apart from large-scale operations, individual German farmers around America routinely made their own wine and brewed their own beer.

The cultural contrasts between the two groups are clear. Yet in the course of the American Revolution, and in the process of creating an American civilization and an American society, they both contributed, without surrendering their cultures and ethnicities.