After the death of Henry IV, in 1610, many of the Huguenots (members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France during the 16th and 17th centuries) must have known that they were living on borrowed time. France was one of the late participants in the Thirty Year War, which was fought mostly on German soil from 1618 to 1648. What started out as a religious war, finally degenerated into a political power struggle between France and Mapsburgs. Altogether, it is estimated that the German states suffered the loss of one their of their population. The Peace of Westphalia (168) brought to a close the horrible desolation. One of the chief results was the recognition of the formula culus regio, elus religio, i.e. Whatever the king's religion, that is also the religion of the kingdom. Finally, the Reformed, as well as Lutheran and Roman Catholic princes and religions were legally recognized! But France's king was Roman Catholic. Following the end of the Thirty Year War, French Huguenot names started showing up in the towns across the Rhine.
"Finally in 1685 came the revocation of the edict. This was preceded by twenty years of persecution and forced conversion of the Protestants, and the revocation was but the culmination of a policy of suppression and "jesuitical Interpretation of the terms of the edict." Such are the causes for the great migration of French Huguenots which set in toward the close of the 17th century and continued until France had lost a large proportion of her best people. The desire of Louis XIV was not to drive the Huguenots away, but to force their conversion, and for this reason emigration was prohibited. Soldiers were quartered in their houses, but some of them left their homes in the night, "leaving the soldiers in their beds," and abandoning their homes with the furniture. Every wise government in western Europe was eager to offer them a refuge for they brought with them and industrial skill which represented the best Europe had to offer. Thus they introduced manufacturing in the north Germany, a suburb of London was filled with them, while the Price of Orange soon had regiments of soldiers recruited from them. Many went to the Dutch colony in South Africa, while every colony in America, from Massachusetts to South Carolina, extended them a welcome." (William Warren Sweet, The Story of religion in America (New York, 1953), p 24)
Our family (Challi/Chally,Shally) went first to Platinate, the German Rhineland state, just across the Rhine river from France. The Rhineland, der Pfalz in German, had been Calvinist in its leanings ever since he days of Elector Frederick III. In 1563, he commissioned the composition of the Heidelbert Catechism, a doctrinal standard noted for its devotional and personal nature, and held as such by German and Dutch Reformed Churches ever since. After the Thirty Year War, the Rhineland became a refuge for a growing number of Huguenots. In the village of Lambshein, for example, our family name first appears as Chally. Many other Huguenot names are represented in the records of the dependencies of Lambsheim. The names also appears in the towns of Landau, Bad Durkheim and Barbelroth, and is variously spelled Schallen, Schalli, Challet, and Schally. That the name is of French derivation, rather than German is clear when you consider that Schalle, the most common form of the name in the new world, means "peals"-- like the peals or ringing of a church bell. Chalet, as we've noted above is a much more understandable designation for a French family surname.
"For thousands of German peasants in the Palatinate along the River Rhine, life seemed bleak. War and plunder had devastated the countryside. They were caught in a society which allowed them no hope for economic advancement and no freedom to practice their religious beliefs. William Penn the English Quaker, visited the region twice in the 1670's and found a people seething with discontent and ready to go anywhere to better their miserable lot. A few years later in 1681, Penn acquired the vast tract of land which had been named "Pennsylvania" and face the task of peopling it as a British colony. He remember the poor Palatines and advertised the advantages of his new land across the sea. Penn was a good salesman. They came by the thousands. Ships began arriving in Philadelphia regularly, mostly form the port of Rotterdam, loaded with immigrants eager to settle this new country which held the promise of liberties they had never known. They came in such numbers that in 1727 the provincial government fo Pennsylvania was forced to impose a 40-shilling head tax on all aliens. This did not seem to discourage the flow. Many of the first immigrants were not poor. They were able to get to a seaport and pay the cost of the passage across the Atlantic and still have something left to buy a tract of land in the colony" (Heinrich, Renbe, "Emigration Materials from Lambsheim in the Palatinate, " in Rhineland Emigrants Don Yoder ed. (Baltimore Gen Publ Co. Inc, 1985) p 97.)
Karl Shally (Schalle) must have taken a boat trip down the Appel River from Wurzweiler and then to the Rhine below the city of Mainz. From there, he would have taken a boat down to the port of Rotterdam, where he embarked. Records show that he came to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania aboard the ship Robert and Alice with 217 other people. The ship was captained by Hartley Cussack, who took passengers at Rotterdam and then crossed the Atlantic stopping only at Cowes, a town on the Isle of Wight just to the south of Southampton and Portsmouth in England. The date of his arrival in Philadelphia was September 3, 1739. He immediately took the Oath of Allegiance to the British Crown and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, to which he signed his own name.
Karl had a land warrant, dated May 13, 1741 for a piece of property located in Quittapahilla Creek in North Lebanon Township in what was later become Lebanon County.
"After the land purchase of 1732, the farmers who had "squatted" on tracts in Lebanon County hastened to buy the homesteads from the proprietors in Philadelphia. The standard price in those years was 15 pounds, 10 shillings per acres, with a half-penny sterling quit-rent per acre. Records of early warrants show a usual range of between 100 and 500 acres purchased. It was not uncommon for one man to obtain a warrant for several hundred acres and within a few days sell this same land in small tracts to others." (Edna J Carmean, ed., Lebanon Co, PA-- a History (Lebanon, PA, 19676) p 4-5.)
Karl must have been feeling prosperous enough to either start or continue his family, since his son John Peter was born September 29, 1741 and baptized at Hill Lutheran Church by the Rev. John Caspar Stoever, one of the pioneer Lutheran pastors of the area. Sponsor for the baptisms as noted in those church records was Peter Kucher, who built the first mill on the Quittapahilla.
Karl didn't sell his land right away, but I'm told that the land he owned eventually became part of the city of Lebanon-- and that the Stoy Mansion, in which the Lebanon County Historical Society is housed, was built on land that originally belonged to him.
On September 30, 1743 more Shallys arrived in Philadelphia. On this trip, Karl's older brother, Johann Ludwig, came with his family. Like his brother Karl, he would have come down the Appel River to the Rhine and then to Rotterdam. Interestingly enough, he took the same ship, the Robert and Alice, and like his brother four years earlier, he signed the ship's register.
Some of Ludwig's sons were old enough to add their marks to their names on the ship's register. They were Johannes, Christian, Johann [Hans] Adam. They came together to "the new land" with their other siblings, Catharina Elisabetha, Johann Baltzer, Carl, Anna Maria, and Lucas, named after his grandfather.
The names of Ludwig's children and their birth dates from Marienthal Reformed Church's parish register are as follows:
Johann Adam 16 April 1720
Johannes 10 April 1722
Catharina Elizabetha 8 September 1724
Christian March 1727
Johann Baltzer 17 June 1729
Carl 2 July 1732
Anna Maria 2 August 1735
Lucas 26 April 1742
Ludwig was granted 165 acres of land in Lebanon Township, Lancaster County on October 26, 1751. His land adjoined that of Jacob Breneheisen, John Streher, John Snively, Philip Boyer, Jacob Ellenberger and Abraham Kauffman. This would now be located in North Anville Township, Lebanon County, Pennsylvania.
Ludwig was on the 1755 tax list for Lancaster County. On June 11, 1778, Ludwig took the oath of allegiance to the State of Pennsylvania. This is the last record we have of Ludwig apart from various dispositions of his land grand. In a deed dated March 20, 1801 it is stated that "Ludwick Shally lately died Intestate leaving Issue, to with Adam Sahlly, John Shally, Christian Shally, Baltzer Shally, the above names Lucas Shally, Catharina the Wife of Peter Smith and Anna Marira Shally, to and amongst whom the said Tract of Land with Appurtenances descended and Came as Children and Heirs of their said Father deceased." (noted in unpublished gen notes concerning Ludwig Shally by Gwen Boyer Bjorkman)
The deed indicates that Ludwig Shally had died at least sometime before 1783.
http://person.ancestry.com/tree/47386353/person/24429800826/facts
