Most of these Germans went down from Pennsylvania and were generally called "Pennsylvania Dutch," an incorrect rendering of Pennsylvanische Deutsche.

The upper Shenandoah Valley was settled almost entirely by Germans.

They were members of the Lutheran, German Reformed, and Moravian churches.

The cause which sent vast numbers of this sturdy people across the ocean, during the first years of the eighteenth century, was religious persecution.

By statute and by word the Roman Catholic powers of Austria sought to wipe out the Salzburg Lutherans and the Moravian followers of John Huss.