Rapp sailed in that year for Baltimore, accompanied by his son John and
two other persons. After looking about in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and
Ohio, they concluded to buy five thousand acres of wild land about
twenty-five miles north of Pittsburgh, in the valley of the
Connoquenessing. Frederick (Reichert) Rapp, an adopted son of George
Rapp, evidently a man of uncommon ability and administrative talent, had
been left in charge in Germany; and had so far perfected the necessary
arrangements for emigration that no time was lost in moving, as soon as
Rapp gave notice that he had found a proper locality for settlement. On
the 4th of July, 1804, the ship _Aurora_ from Amsterdam landed three
hundred of Rapp's people in Baltimore; and six weeks later three hundred
more were landed in Philadelphia. The remainder, coming in another ship,
were drawn off by Haller, one of Rapp's traveling companions, to settle
in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania.
The six hundred souls who thus remained to Rapp appear to have been
mainly, and indeed with few exceptions, of the peasant and mechanic
class. There were among them, I have been told, a few of moderately good
education, and presumably of somewhat higher social standing than the
great body; there were a few who had considerable property, for
emigrants in those days.
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