Egg Harbor City, New Jersey
Although never close to fulfilling the objectives of its founders in the 1850s that it become a German metropolis with a
Nautical chart of Little Egg Harbor, New Jersey (1822).
Egg Harbor City has the distinction of long being reputed the most German town in America. As late as 1900 virtually everyone in Egg Harbor spoke German. (New York Public Library)world-class harbor, Egg Harbor City has the distinction of long being reputed the most German town in the United States. As late as 1900, virtually everyone in Egg Harbor spoke German.
The proposals for this haven of Ger- mandom were formulated in the wake of Know-Nothing Party nativist agitation, which included violence against German and other immigrants in mid-nineteenthcentury America. But altruistic concerns were intermingled with material objectives. A group of prominent Germans in Philadelphia, a center of nativist activity, served as architects of a grandiose plan for a large commercial and industrial center with a seaport and an agricultural hinterland in southern New Jersey. Crucial to these plans was the newly opened Camden and Atlantic Railroad between Philadelphia and the new resort of Atlantic City. Egg Harbor is about 30 miles southeast of Philadelphia and would be a rail stop enroute to Atlantic City. Egg Harbor was designed to benefit the Camden and Atlantic by increasing its freight and passenger business. Some Philadelphia businesspeople of German descent were actively involved in both the rail line and the new “city.”
Serious planning for what became Egg Harbor began in late 1854 with the founding in Philadelphia of a corporation, the Gloucester Farm and Town Association, which purchased some 38,000 acres of pine woods. The first settlers arrived within a year or so.
The association issued stock, initially at $300 and later at $400 per share. Each share entitled the purchaser to a 20- acre farm, as well as a town building lot. A town lot alone cost $78. The construction of public buildings, schools, parks, streets, and much more was promised.The association’s aggressive publicity campaign included extensive advertising in newspapers in many U.S. cities. A promotional pamphlet printed in German in
1859 by the association offers insights into a mentality shared by many nineteenthcentury German emigrants and prospective emigrants. The brochure enunciated the goals of the project: “A new German home in America. A refuge for all German countrymen who want to combine and enjoy American freedom with German Gemutlichkeit.... A place to develop German folk life, German arts and sciences, especially music” (Cunz 1956, 11).
The actual development diverged greatly from the association’s promises. Egg Harbor succeeded as little as another product of Philadelphia Germans—Hermann, Missouri—founded two decades earlier. In
1860 the population of Egg Harbor stood at 789; by 1890 it had scarcely doubled. The planners had expected the town to spread northeastward to the Mullica River, which, it was assumed, would somehow be made navigable for large ships. But the “city” never grew to the river, and no port was constructed.
The settlers’ dismay at the wilderness they encountered upon arrival led to the formation of an organization demanding that the board of directors in Philadelphia make good on the association’s promises. Unlike Hermann, Missouri, where an analogous struggle ended with the severance of all links between settlers and the sponsoring organization, the Philadelphia masters of Egg Harbor yielded some power by revising the constitution of the Gloucester Farm and Town Association to provide for representation of the actual settlers on the board.
The town survived largely by cultivating grapes and making wine, for which it became widely known.
Another major source of employment was tailoring. Big city shops sent garments for finishing work. As in other German settlements, a myriad of musical groups, choirs, gymnastic societies, dramatic clubs, literary societies, and fraternal orders flourished.Like Hermann, Missouri, and Fredericksburg and New Braunfels, Texas, Egg Harbor provides an example of unfulfilled nineteenth-century German aspirations to create a new, better Germany in the United States. Although Egg Harbor never fulfilled its designers’ ambitious plans, it remained overwhelmingly German speaking until the twentieth century. A small influx of Italians, many of whom were attracted by the wine industry, provided some diversity without altering the basic character of the town. But as the twentieth century advanced, the town became Americanized in speech and culture. Beginning in 1916, the proceedings of the city council were recorded only in English, no longer in both English and German. The German Lutheran Church in Egg Harbor did not shift to keeping its records in English as well as German until 1932. By then, most of the several other churches in town had gone over to record keeping in English only.
The loss in language was accompanied by modest growth in the number of residents. From 1,808 in 1900, the population stood at 4,546 in 2000. But the town has retained part of its heritage. Where else in the United States could one find street after street named for German composers, as well as many a street with an ancient Greek or Latin name?
Walter Struve
See also Fredericksburg, Texas; Hermann, Missouri; New Braunfels, Texas
References and Further Reading
Bosse, Georg von. Ein Kampf um Glauben und Volkstum: Das Streben wahrend meines 25 jahrigen Amtslebens als deutsch- lutherischer Geistlicher in Amerika.
Stuttgart: Chr. Belsersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1920.
Breder, George F Egg Harbor City: 1855-1905, Goldenes Jubilaum, Sept. 16-19. Egg Harbor City: Deutscher Herold, 1905.
Cunz, Dieter. “Egg Harbor City: New Germany in New Jersey.” Society for the History of Germans in Maryland. Annual Report 29 (1956): 9-30.