Discover Top Posts Tagged with #pennsylvanians

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1929 fred waring's pennsylvanians by Al Q

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What Pennsylvania Workers Have to Celebrate This Labor Day | The Times Of Update

As the Keystone Research Center reports in The State of Pennsylvania’s Workers 2024and highlighted by the Economist According to the magazine, wages for a typical Pennsylvania worker now exceed those of a typical U.S. worker by about $1 an hour, the same as in 1979. Pennsylvania has recently made good progress in rebuilding its once-robust middle class. Other economic indicators also clearly show…

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From Penn Yan, NY to Penn Yan, MI

By Jonathan Monfiletto

Many people in Yates County and around the area might know that Penn Yan was settled by – and named after – the Pennsylvanians and Yankees who came to Yates County when this part of New York State and the United States was essentially the American frontier. Perhaps not many people know, however, that Bainbridge Township, Michigan – in Berrien County – was originally named Penn Yan for similar reasons and was settled by the same group of people as its New York counterpart.

According to information we have in our files of the Spencer Research Center at the Yates County History Center, the southwest part of what is now Bainbridge Township was first called Penn Yan in 1836. It was given this name by Isaac Youngs, of Penn Yan, New York, around the time this Michigan township received its first settlers – the Siman Brant family, who came from Yates County. Soon after the Brants came Crawford Hazzard, who worked for for Smith and Merrick and bought land in Penn Yan, Michigan. Hazzard's daughter later married Brant's son, Nathaniel.

Following the Brants and Hazzard, the third settler in Penn Yan, Michigan from Penn Yan, New York was David Sutherland and his family. The women apparently traveled by boat to Detroit, while the men made the trip over land with the oxen and family possessions.

The name of Penn Yan, Michigan eventually changed to Bainbridge; information in our files states the name came after a Mr. Bainbridge of Syracuse, though an internet search indicates the name came after Bainbridge, New York in Chenango County. In fact, at least 74 municipalities in Michigan were named after locations in New York. However, a cemetery in Bainbridge Township retains the name Penn Yan Cemetery and serves as the final resting place for many settlers from Yates County.

Our files do include burial listings for this cemetery as well as a list of more than 850 names – extracted from Stafford C. Cleveland's “History and Directory of Yates County” – of people who settled in Michigan from Yates County. This list was prepared by Eldon Olson, who was tracing ancestors – William and Sarah Briggs – from Yates County to Michigan.

An article by Gregory S. Rose that appeared in the March/April 1986 edition of Michigan History, titled “South Central Michigan Yankees,” sheds more light on the Pennsylvanians and Yankees who settled in the American Midwest and offers some background on the reasons for this phenomenon. “During the first half of the nineteenth century, settlers from New England and New York came to Michigan in droves,” reads the first paragraph of Rose's article. “Michigan offered relatively flat, inexpensive land with deep, fertile soil on which Yankee farmers could establish themselves. It contained apparently unlimited economic possibilities and seemed destined to grow in population and commerce. It was also a promising field for the westward expansion of Yankee institutions and culture. In Michigan one could start a new life individually or with a group of like-minded pioneers from one's home village.”

That seems to describe many of the reasons the Pennsylvanians and Yankees came to Yates County and western New York State – the American frontier of the late 18th century – in the first place half a century before. As the Pennsylvanians and Yankees moved on to a new frontier, guidebooks, travelers' diaries and journals, newspapers, letters, and word of mouth led them to Michigan. A popular song of the period, “Michigania,” also enticed settlers into Michigan from its first line: “Come all ye Yankee farmers who wish to change your lot.”

According to Rose, the 1850 U.S. Census was the first to contain information on one's state or country of birth and Michigan far and away led the pack in residents originally from New York and New England by that point. In 1850, Michigan had more New York- and New England-born inhabitants than any other Midwestern state by both number (164,679) and percentage (41.3 percent). Yankees made up 64 percent of the settlers not born in Michigan; 81.6 percent of the Yankee settlers came from New York while the remainder came from New England.

Michigan land records, according to Rose, list not the property purchaser's birthplace but his previous residence, including the county; those registers indicate a higher percentage – 90.6 percent – of Yankees who settled in Michigan after previously residing in New York. That sounds familiar, as many settlers of Yates County came to the area from New England and Pennsylvania before moving on to Michigan and the Midwest. In fact, according to Rose, five counties surrounding Rochester – Yates County likely being one of those five – accounted for one-third of the Michigan Yankees' previous residences.

Settlement in 15 counties in south central Michigan, which contain the highest concentration of Yankee heritage and include Bainbridge Township and Berrien County, began in the 1820s – right at the time Yates County was formally established – and took off in the 1830s. By 1850, these 15 counties made up more than 50 percent of Michigan's total population, with many of these people coming to the Midwest from New York and New England, including Yates County. As Rose stated, these people “formed the core of Michigan's pioneer agricultural area, featuring a climate similar to central New York and southern New England,” so these early settlers certainly found themselves feeling at home.

But, these Yankees also made a home for themselves in Michigan. As Rose described it, these people were “typically the earliest immigrants and the town builders,” “the economic and business leaders of south central Michigan,” “social, religious and educational leaders in south central Michigan,” and they “dominated Michigan's political life.” Not unlike the Pennsylvanians and Yankees who settled and founded Yates County, the Yankees who located to Michigan carved a community out of a frontier.