The condition in which the [Palatine] immigrants reached Philadelphia was shocking. The ships were floating hospitals and pest-houses filled with small-pox and all the other diseases of crowding and dirt which gathered frightful intensity from the voyage of two or three months. One ship reached the coast, after a voyage of six months, with the surviving passengers living on rats and vermin. Vessels often lost on the passage one-third of their human freight, and one ship is said to have arrived after having lost two hundred and fifty.
Sauer said that in one year two thousand of the Germans had died in crosssing and this estimate does not seem to be excessive. The Palatine ship that was wrecked on Block Island in 1738, and celebrated in Whittier's verse, is said to have started out with four hundred passengers, who at the time of the wreck were reduced by a malignant fever and flux to one hundred and five, and of this remnant ten died a few days after they were taken ashore.
The delays in the voyage were numerous. Before reaching the ship the people had to pass through thirty or forty custom-houses on the Rhine, at each of which they were delayed often several days, so that this Rhine journey usually consumed five or six weeks, and completely exhausted their slender stock of money and provisions. Other delays of five or six weeks occurred at the seaports, and the poor immigrants, starving and desperate, sold themselves as redemptioners to the captains and shipping agents. Mittelberger, in his "Journey to Pennsylvania in 1750", has described what they suffered on the voyage:
"In Rotterdam and Amsterdam they begin to pack the people in like herring, and since the ships insist on carrying not less than four, five, or six hundred souls, besides enormous cargoes of household utensils, chests, water casks, and provisions, many are obliged to occupy berths scarcely two feet wide by six long. . . .
"It is not, however, till the ship has raised its anchor for the last time and started on its eight, nine, ten, eleven, or twelve weeks' sail for Philadelphia that the greatest misery is experienced. Then there are heart-rending scenes! The filth and stench of the vessels no pen could describe, while the diverse diseases, sea-sickness in every for, headaches, biliousness, constipation, dysentery, scarlet fever, scrofula, cancers, etc., caused by the miserable salt food and the vile drinking water are truly deplorable, not to speak of the deaths which occur on every side.
"In addition to all this, one invariably meets with an actual scarcity of every kind of provisions, with hunger, thirst, frost, severe heat, an ugly wet vessel, murmurings, complaints, anxiety, loathsome contagious diseases, and other innumerable varieties of tribulations, such as lice in such numbers that they can literally be taken in quantities from the bodies of the passengers, especially the sick. Forlorn, though, as the situation is, the climax is not yet reached. That comes when, for the space of two or three days, all on board, the sick and dying as well as those in health, are tossed mercilessly to and fro, and rolled about on top of one another, the storm-tossed vessel seeming each moment as if in the next it would be engulfed by the angry, roaring waves. . . .
"Even those who escape sickness sometimes grow so bitterly impatient and cruel that they curse themselves and the day of their birth, and then in wild despair commence to kill those around them. Want and wickedness go hand and hand, and lead to trickery and deception of every kind. One blames another for having induced him to undertake the voyage. Husbands reproach their wives, wives their husbands, children their parents, parents their children, and friends their friends, while all denounce the cruel Newlanders whose trade it is to steal human beings.
"Many heave deep draw sighs, and exclaim, mournfully, 'O God! O God! if I only had a piece of good bread or one drop of fresh water!' or cry out in the anguish of their souls, 'Oh, if I were only at home and lying in my pig-sty!' The wailings and lamentations continue day and night, and, as one body after another is committed to a watery grave, those who induced their unfortunate companions to leave their old home in search of a new are driven to the verge of despair.
"The sufferings fo the poor women who are pregnant can scarcely be imagined. They rarely live through the voyage, and many a mother with her tiny babe is thrown into the water almost ere life is extinct. During a severe storm on our vessel one poor creature, owing to the trying circumstances, was unable to give birth to her child, was shoved through an opening in the ship and allowed to drop into the water, because it was not convenient to attend to her. . . .
"It is little wonder that so many of the passengers are seized with sickness and disease, for, in addition to all their other hardships and miseries, they have cooked food only three times a week, and this (it is always of a decidedly inferior quality, and served in very small quantities) is so filthy that the very sight of it is loathsome. Moreover, the drinking water is so black, thick, and full of worms that it makes one shudder to look at it, and even those suffering the tortures of thirst frequently find it almost impossible to swallow it."
-The Making of Pennsylvania, Sidney George Fisher, Ira J. Friedman, Inc, Port Washington L.I., N.Y., 1896

The first settlers arrive at Longswamp Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania. They are chiefly Germans, who have come from nearby Goshenhoppen and Oley Townships. The first person to come here is said to have been a man named Berger, who settled in Long's Dale. These early settlers found the land low and swampy, covered with sour grass and thickets, and for this reason gave it the name it still retains.
-The Story of Berks County, A.E. Wagner, F.W. Balthaser, D.K. Hoch, Reading Eagle Co., 1913

The first settlers from Oley, lying to the southwest, and those from Goshenhoppen, east of south, came to this section in 1734-35. A few among the first from Oley arrived in 1710. These early settlers certainly had a hard time of it. We are told that for a time at least, the branches of trees formed the roofs of their kitchens, and the body of their wagons, their sleeping rooms. . . . The name is said to have originated from the fact that along the whole length of Toad Run (Krottecrick) a small stream of water, flowing eastward from Topton along this ridg, until it empties into the Little Lehigh, the land was marshy and so this narrow swamp strip was called Longswamp. Another story goes that a number of people by the name of Long or Lang owned this swampy land and was called therefore Long's Swamp. The name was naturally contacted to "Longswamp". The present name "Longsdale" would seem to justify such a supposition. Settlements were fairly commenced in 1734. They increased year by year. The large majority of them were Reformed - Palatines, Swiss, and Huguenots.
-Reading Daily Times, Rev. J. W. Early, July 2 - November 8, 1907
-Lutherans in Berks County, 1723-1923, H.S. Kidd, Reading Conference of the Evangelical Lutheran Ministerium of Pennsylvania and Adjacent States

The first Longswamp Reformed Church is built and among the contributors are Nicolaus Mertz, David Mertz, and Peter Mertz.
The church is located on the northern slope of a spur of the Lehigh hills, elsewhere known as South Mountain, near the eastern boundary of Longswamp Township. . . . This in the opinion of Dr. [W.A.] Helffrich, who advances excellent reasons for his view, was tho original Little Lehigh church. Some of the sources of that stream are formed here. It is the only church besides the Galzburg or Galisburg Church, then known as the Schmalzgrass, located on this stream. Rev. Father Michael, pioneer of the Reformed Church mentions it as the "Little Lehigh Church" in his records. Schlatter could not possibly have meant the church which still bears the name "Lehigh church" at the present time, as that was exclusively Lutheran then. The name Longswamp, as applied to this church, was introduced as early as 1762. Frederick Hoelwig, cantor of the congregation, gives 1748 as the time of organization. But prior to this, services had been held in private houses, sermons being read. . . As usual in those days, the church was built of logs, the interstices being filled with small blocks or large chips, plastered over with clay. The seats were hewn planks. It is not stated whether the floor was of brick, of flags, or the native earth. This building remained in use about 43 years. The first church stood near where the present toolhouse stands in the cemetery.
The piece of ground which the members had selected was lawfully secured by Jost. H. Sassamanhausen through a warrant. Afterwards the congregation bought ine acres for the purpose of erecting a school-house thereon and for the use of the school-teacher. Both tracts were patented for the perpetual use of the Reformed congregation, which was not a union one originally, but so hard Reformed that the Lutherans who came afterward were pressed farther down into the valley, where they likewise established a congregation on the Little Lehigh.
The Reformed in Germany were not very much given to the doctrines distinctively known as Cavinism, and those of them who came to this country were still less inclined to such principles. They differed from the Lutherans in being, perhaps, more metaphysical or speculative, and more severe in their forms of worship. The Lutherans permitted images, altars, tapers, private confessional, and had a belief which somewhat resembled the doctrine of the real presence. All these were rejected by the Reformed. The Lutherans were closely connected with the State in Germany, while the Reformed were always independent of it.
-History of Berks County Pennsylvania, Montgomery
-Lutherans in Berks County, 1723-1923, H.S. Kidd, Reading Conference of the Evangelical Lutheran Ministerium of Pennsylvania and Adjacent States
-The Making of Pennsylvania, Sidney George Fisher, Ira J. Friedman, Inc, Port Washington L.I., N.Y., 1896
-Church Record of the Longswamp Reformed Church, Longswamp Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania
-Rev. J.W. Early, Reading Daily Times, July 2 - November 8, 1907
(Note: The present site of the church is further up the hill from this original building (see below). -rjm)

Nicholas Mertz receives land warrant no. 12 for 50 acres. In addition, he received warrant no. 18 on 5/29/1753 for 16 acres, and warrant no. 30 dated 12/29/1753 for 34 acres. It is said that Mertztown, Longswamp Township, is located on this land.
-The Martzes of Maryland, Ralph Fraley Martz, 1973 (cites Survey Book A-D-C)

Below: (left) the present Longswamp Church (built in 1852) looking southwest from the grave yard as it appeared on a stormy day in 1988. The two stones in the right foreground are for Peter and Christina Mertz Klein (also shown at the right, looking northwest) the older one for Peter Klein was temporarily covered at the time for preservation. No stones are found for David or Peter Mertz. The location of the original church building was at the lower northern corner of the graveyard behind and to the right of the Klein stones.