There is a point on which I believe that Willis Kemper has been given a bum rap. If my memory is correct, he wrote that Rev. Häger of the First Germanna Colony did not move north to Germantown with the rest of the First Colony members. He came later according to Kemper.
This thought seems strange to observers but there are two good reasons that it very well may have been true. Consider the age and health of Rev. Häger in 1719, the year that I believe the group moved. He was 75 years old. Six years earlier, when he was still in the Siegen area, he was retired because of ill health. The need in 1719 at Germantown was for labor to clear land, build temporary shelters, and then more permanent homes. He could contribute nothing to this activity. In fact, had he been present, he would have been a net drain on the resources of the colony. He could help most by staying away. It was perhaps several months or even a few years before a home was built for Häger and a church was built.
Second, he may have had a job at Germanna as an employee of Alexander Spotswood. The area around Germanna constituted the old St. George's parish, which was set up as a German parish. It extended for five miles around Germanna. If the Germans living in this area had a minister, they were exempt from the payment of tithes since they were supporting their own minister.
When there were indentured servants, it was normally the master who paid the tithe. Since Spotswood had paid something on the transportation of the First Colony members, it could have been argued that he would have been responsible for the tithes. One way of skirting around this question was to have legislation passed which exempted the Germans. The question might have arisen again with the Second Colony members. To avoid the tithes, it was necessary to have a minister for them. Spotswood might have seen it would be cheaper to hire a minister than to pay the tithes.
So it seems to me that Kemper may have been correct when he said that Rev. Häger did not move with the rest of the colony. I think it is very probable that he did not.
Kemper implies that the establishment of the old St. George's parish (for the Germans) was an act of favoritism on the part of Spotswood toward the First Colony folk. I think a better interpretation is that it was an act of favoritism on the part of Spotswood toward Rev. Häger. He was biased in that direction.
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.