Adam Zehner by Marji Hazen Am
Zehner Family history 1746-1821
In the Black Forest there lived a lad.
His name was Adam Zehner.
Listen now to how he came
To Schuykill, Pennsylvania.
CHORUS: Blow ye winds of morning.
Blow ye winds aye O.
Blow he winds of morning,
Blow, blow blow.
His family needing sustenance,
Adam and his friend did go
To stalk the fine Black Forest deer.
It grieved his mother so.
"At the shooting of a royal deer
The lord grows red and angry.
And if thou'rt caught a-poaching, son,
The earl may right well hang thee."
They disguised themselves. They took their guns.
They crept through the manor hedges
A-searching for the fine fat deer
Among the trees and sedges. CHORUS
The forester saw someone shoot.
He found the king's deer fallen.
Adam and his friend, Hartung
Left suddenly for Holland.
(Hartung was not the man
with Adam when he went hunting
that day. The other hunter was shot
and Adam was not sure he wouldn't
name his companion if he were caught.)
In Amsterdam did Captain Ham
Secure young Adam's passage
With a contract for his servitude
In exchange for bunk and sausage.
(The good ship John Elizabeth
leaving today for England, Ireland,
the Atlantic Islands, and America.
All aboard! Bonder servants assigned
to steerage. Step lively now!)
In seventeen and fifty-four
Adam was delivered
To Marts to farm and barrels make
For the term of his indenture.
(Martz was a wealthy man who
often hired men in this way. When
he first laid eyes on Adam, he said,
"Ach, ja! Dat's a nice big vun. Ve
get a lotta verk outta him, I betcha.)
Adam was a good farmer
And an even better cooper
And when his three years time was done
He married Martz's daughter.
(Maria, vill you marry vit me denn?
Ach, vell, Adam, I could do verse.)
Adam built his barrels while
He kept watch out for Indians.
He worked at home so't fell to him
To protect the town and children.
(Dat Adam, he's something! Indians
can't hurt him. He's invisible to 'em.
Their bullets yust fly right around him,
see there, and plunk into the tree he's
standin' in front of. But he can sure
shoot them Indians...must use silver
bullets, it's like magic! Dat Adam's
worth three men in a fight.)
The day the cooper shop caught fire,
Adam ran into the house,
Grabbed up a kettle of his wife's bean soup
The fire for to douse.
(And for years afterwards, the story
was told of how poor Mary, after having
worked on that soup all day to get it just
right. cried, when she saw what he was
going to do, "Ach, Adam, mein zoup! Mein
zoup!" From then on, for several generations,
those ridiculous words would set whole
housefuls of Zehners to laughing. O yes,
that soup did save the cooper shop.)
Adam and Mary and family
By now did number seven.
Old Martz said, "I think, my son, it's time
You did your own homesteadin'."
They homesteaded in Schuykill,
Then it was called Northampton.
Martz moved them there and left them all
Beneath an oak a-campin'.
They built a house and built a shop
And settled down to farming,
And how the Indians plagued them there
Was just downright alarming.
The Zehners drove to church Sundays
Fifteen miles across the mountains
(to Mount Zion Lutheran Church).
Said Adam, "With horses to pull us there
What's the need for counting?"
(them miles, that is).
The Indians stole the horses once.
Four days Adam hunted.
He finally found and brought them back
Having the thieves confronted.
(Ach ya, vell dey von't shteal no more
horses around here, dat's for sure.)
They said Adam was bulletproof.
No Indian could hurt him.
He got a bullet through his hatbrim once
And another through his shirt sleeve.
Three Swiss friends of Adam's came
To farm and help with hunting;
Fine marksmen all, these pioneers
Were brave and wild and cunning.
(Actually they were some more poachers.
Adam had learned for himself just how valuable
a little previous poaching experience could be
on the wild frontier of Pennsylvania.)
(Those fellas were Swiss like Adam. Sure, he
came here from the Black Forest, but he always
claimed his people were Swiss. His friends' names were:)
Kleefelder and Adzoney and
Someone called Buschnickel.
Could deftly use the rifle gun,
The pitchfork and the sickle.
Once the Colonel came out to see
These sturdy immigrants.
"Allegiance you must swear and serve
Your country, my good men."
"We will come. But there is time."
And Adam kept on working;
But no one tried to bring him in
Or accused the man of shirking.
(Did you see the size on that guy?
And those muscles? And I didn't much
care to tangle with his hired men either.
If Zehner says he'll come, he'll come.
Besides, they're accomplishing more
than a whole regiment out there.")
Seven years did Adam serve
The American Revolution.
Peter, John, and David, too
Fought for the Constitution.
In seventeen and ninety-three
Adam lost his vision.
'Twas then he gave his property
To his sons in this division.
To John who took his place in war
At the Battle of Brandywine
He gave most of the land to keep
And to pass down in his line.
To Peter, firstborn, he gave less.
Peter said good-bye-O
To the Blue Mountains and went out west
To Petersburg, Ohio.
(Today that's the little village of
Mifflin in Ashland County, about
halfway between Cleveland and Columbus.)
The flour mill and the sawmill
Did Adam keep 'til later.
And at his death, these did he will
Unto his third son, David.
At seventy-seven Mary died,
Adam at eighty-three.
They sleep 'neath Schuykill County earth
In Zion Cemetery.
CHORUS: Blow ye winds of morning,
Blow you winds, aye O.
Blow ye winds of morning,
Blow, blow blow.
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