The Danville German Society is committed to promoting and preserving PA Dutch culture.  To accomplish this goal, we will be compiling essays from our members.  These essays could be historical accounts or personal narratives.  To submit an essay, email us.

        Recently disclosed reports indicate that there are errors in the famous historical poem describing Colombus’s discovery of America.  An earlier version of this poem has been found, and it distinctly says that the beginning line “In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” is actually “In 1482, the German, Guten Steigmeier sailed the ocean blue.”  This shocked historians as they came to realize that our America was really discovered by a German, a full ten years before Colombus’s so called “discovery”.
        As researchers did their research they came to find the fascinating story of Guten Steigmeier and how he ultimately fathered a nation.  As it turns out, in 1479 young Guten was a wandering ale man.  He was notorious for moving from village to village getting the owners of local pubs that he could name the place in which the hops were grown and harvested by just two sips of ale. He continually profounded people with his uncanny ability.  He was never wrong until that one fateful day when.....he was wrong.  Distraught Guten traveled the countryside in search of the mystery hops.  He ran naked o'er hill and dell, but still no luck.  Soon he found himself swimming a channel to consult with the crazy Celts of Scotland.  He knew they were wise, so he took their advice when they said “Arr, go to where the sun rises.”
        So Guten spent the next two years building a fine water craft out of the only materials he had accessible, walnut shells and old shoes. Ordinarily the craft would not have been sea worthy (Since it is a well known fact that walnuts tend to give under the combined stresses of the incompressibility of salt water and the gravitational pull during the lunar solace.) but Guten ingeniously used hardened bat guano to form a solid mortar.  Needless to say, in 1492 Guten Steigmeier set sail from a small port in northern
Wales.  The Welsh, as always, encouraged him and gave their best wishes.  Since they had been secretly traveling to America since the early 1300’s they gave him a few pointers on navigation as well as some familiar sights that he should try to find.
        As the story has it it was a rough trip, but eight days later he arrived on the shore of America (the winds were good).  He was shocked to find the fertile green fields, and was so pleased with himself for his discovery that he immediately wrote home to tell his friends and family to come on over.  And so started the first German-Americans.

    This factual history has faithfully been complied by one,
                                Gunter Canterbury