The church account starts with January 1, 1733. The Germans were used to the new style calendar so this date represents the beginning of the year for them. (The English would have been still calling the year 1732.) During the year of 1733, a total of 56 pounds, 7 shillings, 2 ½ pence was received. Most of the money was obtained by the collectors who were members of the church and who were paid for this at the rate of 20%. That is, they were allowed to keep one pound for every five they collected. Two of the collectors were the respected members, Ziriachus Fleischmann and Michael Smith. Some of the money was collected at the church services. The first service mentioned is the Second Sunday after Trinity at the first Communion. Presumably by this time, Stöver had been ordained.
Other offerings were collected at church during the year including one at the Christmas day service. Christmas services were typical regardless of the day of the week that Christmas fell on. Not all of the money came in the form of gifts of cash. Some people donated wares which were sold to the Minister, to Shibley, to Fleischmann and to Kercher.
To better understand the monetary sums to be mentioned, during 1734 the church paid John Hoffman one pound, two shillings, and six pence for nine days of carpentry in building the minister's house. Since a pound contains 20 shillings and a shilling contains 12 pence, John Hoffman was being paid two and one-half shillings per day for skilled work.
Expenditures during 1733 included six shillings to inquiries for a Minister in Pennsylvania (it is not clear how they advertized). After they found a minister who would ordain Stöver, George Sheible and Stöver went to Pennsylvania. Sheible was paid 17 shillings for his expenses. Sheible was also reimbursed one pound and three shillings which he had paid to the Rev. Shultz in Pennsylvania to ordain Stöver. Stöver's expenses on this trip were one pound and nine shillings.
Urban (Robert) Tanner was paid 12 shillings for going to Williamsburg on church business. (Tanner traveled more economically than John Fontaine who went from Williamsburg to Germanna.) On the second Sunday after Trinity, when the first communion was held, they used two quarts of wine which cost 12 shillings (therefore one quart was six shillings or more than two days labor for a skilled workman). Communion was held three more times in 1733, including at Christmas, and the wine for these communions cost 1 & 8, 3 shillings, and 1 & 9 which probably represents one quart, two quarts and one quart.
William Carpenter sold land to the church for the minister's farm. Apparently when the deal was closed, Mrs. Carpenter provided drinks all around and she was reimbursed 18 shillings and 6 pence for this. During 1733, they built a kitchen and a hen house on the minister's plantation for which they paid 2 pounds and 15 shillings. An item reads, "By paid freight for our Minister moveables". Logically these were Stöver's personal effects which were being moved from North Carolina to the community. Legal fees or court costs took 1 pound, 1 shilling and 3 pence to have the deed to the farm recorded. Twice Cook and Smith went to court, perhaps for the deed recording, and they were reimbursed a total of one pound.
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.