I formulated this question after reading the top comment in this thread. In particular, quote by Cotton Mather about the Salem Witch Trials intrigued me:
It was not long before one of her Sisters, an two of her Brothers, were seized, in.Order one after another with Affects' like those that molested her. Within a fe weeks, they were all four tortured every where in a manners very grievous, that it would have broke an heart of stone t have seen their Agonies. Skilful Physicians were consulted for their Help, and particularly our worthy and prudent Friend Dr. Thomas Oakes,' who found himself so affronted by the Dist'empers of the children, that he concluded nothing but an hellish Witchcraft could be the Original of these Maladies.
It prompted me to ask the question: This is off topic, but did the grammar conventions of German influence the fact that the person in the quote capitalized many of the nouns even if they weren't a proper noun or at the beginning of the sentence?
And now I'm here because its off-topicness warranted a discrete post.
I can't speak to how widely understood German was in the colony at the time but I'm not sure that it's necessary to answer the question because this form of capitalization was the standard convention of English in the time period. This article has a good description of the rise and fall of the practice according to the following rules: "He identifies two core rules: therefore, a noun is capitalized if the author or printer either wishes to make a word more ‘prominent’ (rule no. 1), or if it fits a certain semantic ‘category’ (rule no. 2),. Thus, during the heyday of extended capitalization between 1660 and 1720, a writer was supposed to capitalize the following semantic categories, which are subsets of rule no. 2. 2a) animate nouns (Persons, Mathematicians) 2b) names of area of study or disciplines (Grammar, Science) 2c) names of concrete, physical objects (Book, Leaves) 2d) abstract nouns occur with capital initial the greater their generality (judgement as compared to Ambition) (cf. Osselton 1985: 56) Further prescriptions were possible, e.g. all house-keeping devices were meant to be capitalized, as one contemporary guide recommended (Osselton 1985: 54-57). "