80
●
Chapter 5
settlers to come to Pennsylvania were the
Pennsylvania Dutch
. We will read more
about them in the next lesson.
The
Seventh Day Baptists
, who separated
from the Church of the Brethren, settled
near present-day Lancaster. They built large
houses similar to those in Germany. They
called their townEphrata
Cloister
. Cloister
means a place such as a building for
religious worship.
They lived quiet lives and spent many
hours in prayer. They had separate houses
and worship buildings for the men and
women, also called Brothers and Sisters.
They also did not believe in war. How
would you like to use a hard board as a bed
and a wooden block as a pillow? The
Brothers and Sisters did. Visitorswere given
special treatment. They slept on straw.
Today, you can visit the Cloister in the
town of Ephrata.
The
Scots-Irish
left Scotland (a northern
part of England) to live in Ireland.However,
they were treated badly by the English
landowners. So, many thousand of Scots-
Irish came toour colony in the early 1700s.
They brought with them the
Presbyterian
religion. Many of the Scots-Irish settled the
frontier parts of our colony. They also
startedmany colleges.
Thousands of
Irish
came to Pennsylvania
from southern Ireland in the early 1700s.
Living conditions were hard in Ireland.
They brought with them the
Catholic
religion. During these early times, many
groups of people broke away in protest of
theCatholic religion. These religious groups
were called
Protestants
. However, each
group took a different name. Today there
are many religious groups of Protestants.
However, there is only one Catholic
religion. Later, in the 1840s, thousands of
Irish moved to our colony. The reason for
this was their potato cropwas destroyed by
a plant disease.
Our
African-American
population grew
slowly but steadily. Many African-
Americans were free people in Pennsyl-
vania. Philadelphia had the largest number
of free African-Americans in the colonies.
According to records, African-Americans
werebaptized,married, or becamemembers
The SeventhDay Baptists built the Ephrata Cloister near present-day Lancaster.
