As the weather chills and the days get shorter, we inch ever closer to the Christmas holiday season. Before Thanksgiving is even over, Christmas decorations are being displayed at the store. Christmas music is playing on the radio. Boxes are coming down from the attic to fill the house with holiday cheer. Sitting on the couch watching a cheesy Christmas movie can make you long for a traditional Christmas of yester-year. A real Christmas tree decorated in the corner. Flickering candles in each window. Carolers shuffling from house to house in their long wool coats, high top hats, and large flowing dresses spreading Christmas cheer as the snow flurries down in soft candlelight. A real Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol is what comes to mind. Now, take a step back in time before that. Back to a time when the pioneer families of our region like the Cherrys, McDonalds, and Nobles settled here in the 1770s. While visions of roast turkey and “stockings hung by the chimney with care” in snug little log cabins on the frontier may come to mind, you may find it surprising that many of these early settlers likely didn’t celebrate Christmas at all.
“Shall we have holidays?”
An 18th century Christmas in America was a very different celebration to what we see today. In fact, across much of the state, Christmas wasn't really celebrated. The traditional Christmas that comes to mind from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol wasn’t mainstream until the mid-late 19th-century. Before that, whether or not you celebrated Christmas depended on what religious denomination you belonged to.
A December 18, 1810 piece in the Democratic Press in Philadelphia even asked the question, “Shall we have holidays? For the greater part of the citizens of Pennsylvania pay no regard to such days as Christmas, Easter, Whitsuntide, Hallow-eve, etc…”
On one side, the Quakers, Presbyterians, and Baptists were staunchly opposed to the holiday. Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, and Episcopalians, on the other hand, celebrated with joy. They decorated their churches and sang joyful songs in celebration of Christ’s birth. While Pennsylvania as a whole was made up of a variety of religious denominations, there are some that made up a large part of the region in the late 1700s: the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, the English Anglicans, and to a much smaller extent, the Germans.
The Scotch-Irish Presbyterians
The Scotch-Irish Presbyterians immigrated across the sea to the American colonies. Once they arrived, they made their way to the mountains and rugged lands in the west, a landscape familiar to their hills and valleys back home. The Presbyterians at this time were very conservative. They didn’t celebrate or follow anything the scriptures did not ordain. That included Christmas and other popular holidays.
The American Republican in West Chester stated that “neither the Methodist, Baptist, or Presbyterian congregations held religious services in their churches [on/for Christmas]. Some of these, if not all, we believe, hold that the observance of any day other than the Sabbath, is not enjoined by the Scriptures.”
Although written in 1867 long after western Pennsylvania was considered the frontier, it is safe to say Presbyterians in the 1770s shared a similar view. The thirteen families that squatted on George Washington’s land in Mount Pleasant Township, Washington County were of this sect. It was noted how seriously they took their religion when George Washington wrote that he delayed his visit by a day knowing they wouldn’t meet with him on the Sabbath.
The English Anglicans
Those who emigrated to Western Pennsylvania from Maryland and Virginia tended to lean more towards the English Anglican Church. These settlers likely brought some of their holiday customs with them. The English Anglicans (and those from the southern colonies as a whole) tended to have a more relaxed view on celebrating Christmas. They hosted feasts, gatherings, and church services to celebrate the day. They often decorated their homes and churches with greenery. They drank and fired their guns in celebration. Christmas Day also kicked off the celebration of the Twelve Days of Christmas. This nearly two week long celebration concluded with a celebration of Twelfth Day, or Epiphany, on January 6.
J.A. Caldwell, in his History of Belmont and Jefferson Counties, Ohio, described a Twelfth Day celebration that took place at a fort on the Ohio River near Wheeling, West Virginia in 1783:
"...in January, 1783, on the 12th day, or old Christmas, which was always punctually kept at the fort, we had two large turkeys roasted, and a lot of twelfth-day cake baked. Twelfthday cake is made of unleavened dough, slightly sweetened with spice, cloves and cinnamon bark worked in it, and then baked in a Dutch oven like a loaf of light bread. And a nice bread it was, too. It was baked a day or two before, and eat cold."
The Gay Dutch
Germans in Pennsylvania tended to fall under two religious categories. One, the Gay Dutch, included the Lutherans, Reformed, and Moravians. The others were the Plain Dutch, which included the Mennonites, Brethren, and the Amish. Although Germans were a small fraction of our population in the 1770s, those that were here likely came from the Gay Dutch group. Even so, Presbyterian churches were dominant and Germans like the Beelers and Burgetts attended Presbyterian services. This group of Germans were well known for their celebration of the Christmas holiday both at church and at home. They were famous for their beautiful Christmas carols. They celebrated Second Christmas, a relaxing holiday on December 26th, and brought the tradition of Belsnickle from the Rhineland to the frontier.
Did our pioneer families celebrate?
There is little to no documentation on how our pioneer ancestors actually celebrated Christmas, but by looking at their religious beliefs you can take a good guess. It’s very unlikely that the Presbyterians celebrated much at all. Even though there were families like the Cherry's and the McDonalds that came from eastern Maryland and Virginia and may have brought some of the Anglican influence of that area to their new homes, they still attended Presbyterian churches, the only ones available in the area. Being so close to Fort Pitt and the Ohio River brought people of all beliefs and backgrounds to the region, and likely contributed to a mixing of cultures and celebrations.
Although kids weren't waiting for Santa Claus to come down the chimney, and Christmas trees weren't trimmed in the glow of a cozy fireplace of a snug log cabin in the wilderness of western Pennsylvania, we can look back this time of the year and reflect on the simple lifestyle and togetherness the pioneer settlers had towards each other, and appreciate their hard work and sacrifice that paved the way to what we have today.
To learn more about the history of Christmas in Pennsylvania, check out the book “Christmas in Pennsylvania: A Folk-Cultural Study” (1959) by Alfred L. Shoemaker.