The greater part of what we know of Orangeburg, is MAINLY from two sources, Giessendanner and Salley. Giessendanner was the spiritual leader for people from all different backgrounds in the district and surrounding areas. I was reading a forum post somewhere, a fellow was wondering if the Yon surname was French Huguenot in origin. Since, he finds that name in relation with other French Huguenot ancestors. Now, there was a fellow, can't remember the name off the top of my head - He petitioned the King for 7 years to allow the Protestant dissenters (including Fr Huguenots) to migrate to SC. According to the SC Gazette account, the party that landed were all "Switzers", and at the time Switzerland did not allow emigration,so we need to look at the climate, religious and political, from where the Yawns came from, their spiritual leaders and what he has written and what has been written about him. Here is a quote from the theswisscenter.org
START"18th Century
Throughout most of the 18th century the official view was that emigration was a crime against the fatherland equivalent to desertion. It deprived the home country of its labor force and soldiers for its defense.
The first important group to emigrate to America were members of the Anabaptist sect, a strict Protestant movement, which found its followers in the rural regions and which among other things called for the separation of church and state as well as an end to tithes and rents. They were thus seen as a threat to the established order, and severely persecuted by the authorities." END http://www.theswisscenter.org/swissroots/culture/emigration/ (look near the bottom of the page under 18th Century) SEE ALSO http://www.theswisscenter.org/swissroots/culture/emigration/?Id=175 END
In 1720 Switzerland enacted the death penalty for Anabaptists and a few years prior had outlawed inheritance to children of Anabaptists. Also a heavy tax was levied when people emmigrated, which could leave people rather poor, explaining why so many indentured themselves. Most people tend to lump Anabaptists as Hutterite, Amish or Mennonite, forgetting the other groups, Moravians for instance. (I have a great Book called "The Moravians in Georgia" in pdf, if anybody wants it e-mail me agoodking@gmail.com and I'll send it to you, has some very good history in it i.e. Oglethorpe, John Wesley etc. (or you can get it here http://archive.org/details/themoraviansinge00570gut ) So those Swiss were Protestants, but most likely not Lutherans. Most of the Lutherans would have been Salzburgers from Austria. Switzerland was about 60+% Protestant around the early 18th century, Calvinists (Presbyterians, Puritans, Reformed, Congregationalists, etc) Zwinglians, Lutherans and Anglicans. It would have been the Catholics, Lutherans and Zwinglians and quite possibly the Anglicans that were the persecutors. Lutheranism was not very strong at this time, as the Swiss reformation followed Calvin (who created a theocracy in the cantons) and Zwingli. Furthermore from what I can gather Giessendanner had no ordination and never claimed any. QUOTE There were still others. John Ulrich Giessendanner had a long and checkered career as an Inspirationist in Switzerland before he immigrated to Orangeburg, South Carolina, just below the Congarees, in 1738. Giessendanner was subject to ecstatic fits, after which he would prophesy
while two associates wrote down his utterances. He remained an unreformed Pietist agitator into
old age and continued a somewhat more subdued ministry in South Carolina until his death shortly after immigrating.H. George Anderson, “The European Phase of John Ulrich Giessendanner’s Life,” South Carolina Historical Magazine, 67, 3 (1966), 129-37; and Alexander S. Salley, The History of Orangeburg County, South Carolina (Orangeburg, SC, 1898), 35-48. ( http://archive.org/details/historyorangebu00giesgoog )END STARTseventy-seven-year-old Pietist John Ulrich Giessendanner ran afoul of both religious and secular authorities on several occasions before he landed in Charleston. On one occasion he was banished from Zurich after the town council heard testimony concerning his activities on the estate of a wealthy patron. According to one eyewitness, Giessendanner's followers "fell into ecstasy, threw their arms back and forth, distorted their eyes, and spoke in the Spirit, without any notion of what they were saying." Their leader "himself often received inspirations," stirring prophecies that ultimately provoked the town councilors to drive Giessendanner away.The origins of southern evangelicalism: revivalism in South Carolina, 1700-1740. Methinks Giessedanner was no Lutheran. In fact over in Saxe Gotha the German Lutherans there could not get a Lutheran minister and settled on Reformed preacher Christian Theus, 9 Ibid., XIV, 56 [petition to Bolzius]; South Carolina Synod, Lutheran Church in South Carolina, 63
[Bolzius quotation]; Salley, History of Orangeburg County, 83 [tombstone inscription]. John Ulrich Giessendanner
II, a minister from neighboring Orangeburg township, also made occasional visits to the Dutch Fork. Originally
Swiss Reformed, Giessendanner took orders in the Anglican church and by 1750 was serving more English than
German settlers.(probably because SC was an English colony. I gather this from looking at different petitions Fitz :-)). See Lutheran Church in South Carolina, 48-55, esp. p. 54. Now I am trying not to mix up the two Giessandanners!
So it seems that our Swiss folks were Reformed and possibly Pietists and Anabaptists. At least it looks that way to me. So, what do you think?
Another little tidbit on Geissendanner, quite complimentary too...
A counter-petition was prepared (March 6, 1743) by
the friends of John Giessendanner in the Orangeburg
district. This testified that Giessendanner had visited
Charleston to get orders, and had received advice to go
to an Assembly of the Presbytery, who, after some time,
presented him with orders to preach, —
which he has since done in German constantly for the space
of five years, to the inexpressible satisfaction of the congregation
at Orangebui'g ; and about two years ago your said English pe-
titioners being fully sixty miles from any other place of divine
worship, some of whom had not been favored with the oppor-
tunity of hearing a sermon in the space of seven years, observ-
ing the said Mr. John Giessendanner to be a man of learning,
piety, and knowledge in the Holy Scriptures, prevailed with him
to officiate in preaching once every fortnight in English, which
he hath since performed very articulate and intelligible, to the
entire satisfaction of the said English petitioners, and always
behaves himself with sobriety, honesty and justice, encouraging virtue and reproving vice. And the said Mr. Jolin Giessendanner, lately observing great irregularities and disorders being committed almost every Sabbath Day by some wicked persons in one part of the township, publicly reprimanded them for the same, which reproof so exasperated them, that they threatened to kick the said John Giessendanner out of the church if he offered to preach there any more and have lately sent for one
Bartholomew Zauberbiihler, a man who not long ago pretended to preach at Savannah town ; but, as your said petitioners are informed was soon obliged to leave that place and a very indecent character behind him, etc., etc.
This was addressed to the governor, who was asked to
interpose with authority, and signed by John Harn and
above fourscore more subscribers, i. e., in all ninety
names, some few being English names.
THE GERMAN ELEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO ITS POLITICAL, MORAL, SOCIAL, AND EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCE
BY ALBERT BERNHARDT FAUST
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I Pp 219-220 ( http://archive.org/stream/germanelementin01fausgoog/germanelementin... )
For further reading if you're interested, try : "History of the German settlements and of the Lutheran church in North and South Carolina, from the earliest period of the colonization of the Dutch, German and Swiss settlers to the close of the first half of the present century" (1872) http://archive.org/details/historyofgermans00bern Also you can access The Book of Record on Joop Giessendanner's site here: http://sail.home.xs4all.nl/orange/b-index.html , he has scans of the pages, some are very poor in quality, but he has taken the time to transcribe everything and then translate it from German to English in a side by side format. I think the scans are B/W photocopies and not actual camera scans.
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