The last note ended in the middle of a letter from Andreas Gar to the pastor of the church he left in Bavaria. It continues:
"I belong to Germantown, six miles from Philadelphia. Am living with a weaver (Andrew Garr was a master weaver), and work this winter for half wages [the minister in Illenschwand added the note, "could have got full wages in Illenschwand"]. A good hired man earns 100 florins; a woman forty. Have not yet seen any pine wood, but cedar wood. The most is oak forests. There came two ships with people, some in six weeks, some in eight weeks, and some in ten weeks, but the last one came in eighteen weeks. They suffered great misery, and those that did not die on the sea are mostly sick. I advise no people who have small children to come, as the voyage is too trying, but I do not regret it."
That we still have the letter of Adam Garr and Andrew Garr (or Gaar) is the result of the minister in Illenschwand copying the letters into the church books. In doing the copying, the pastor added the comment as noted above. He, the pastor, noted that he copied the letters in the month of January 1734 which is three months shy of the two years since the Gars left Illenschwand. The letter written by Andrew was dated 18 Nov 1732 so either the pastor was tardy in copying the letter into the church book or the mail was slow.
Germantown, then outside Philadelphia, was the site of the first major German settlement in the colonies. Mostly Mennonites were in the group. They were not farmers, but were employed in crafts such as weaving and paper making. This group grew but was not large. It was surpassed in 1710 when many Germans came to New York and North Carolina. Even in 1732, Germantown was no doubt one of the best locations for immigrants coming from Germany, and, being very close to the favorite port of entry into Pennsylvania, and perhaps the colonies in their entirety, it was a logical stopping point for a master weaver such as Andrew Garr.
At some point he heard about Virginia and decided to move there. What his motivations were are uncertain. In Virginia he probably devoted major effort to farming. His patent for 250 acres was issued in 1734 so he must have decided after the first winter in Germantown, at half wages, to strike out on his own.
In Europe, the ancestry of Andreas Gar and his wife Eva Seidelmann have been worked out along several lines.
From Rupp's " Collection of Thirty Thousand Names of Emigrants to Pennsylvania ", we have:
Recorded on 12 Sept 1732, from the ship "Loyal Judith" of London,
Robert Turpin, master, from Rotterdam, last from Cowes:
Andreas Gaar (first name)
Johann Adam Gaar (tenth name)
It would have been good to know what period of time it took to earn the 100 florins that Andrew mentioned.
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.