Over the course of several notes, I have recited one family that came to America. The common element is Anna Barbara Schöne, a last name that is otherwise unknown in Virginia. When the family came in 1717, she was 53 years old. Her husband of the time was Cyriacus Fleischmann, who was probably younger than she was. The party, or the family, was made up of Anna Barbara, 53; Cyriacus, c.47; her son, John Nicholas, 35; and his wife Appollonia, ?; and their son, Zacharias, 2.
Then there was Anna Barbara's second son, Balthasar, 34, who may have acquired a wife in transient, Anne Margaret. The third son of Anna Barbara, Matthias, was just turning 33, and he was married to Anna Maria, 24, and they had a son, George, almost 3. Anna Barbara's daughter, Anna Maria, 30, was married to John Thomas, age unknown, and they had two children: John, almost 6, and Anna Magdalena, 2. (That the Thomas family came at this time is an assumption but it seems likely.)
In Anna Barbara Schöne's second family, Henry Schlucter was 20 years old. No marriage is known for him in Germany.
In Anna Barbara Schöne's third family, Mary Catharine Fleshman was 13 and Peter Fleshman was 9.
The age makeup of the party was: 53, 47, 35, 35, 2, 34, 34, 33, 24, 3, 30, 30, 6, 2, 20, 13, and 9, if the spouses of an unknown age are assigned the same age as the known partner. If I have done my counting correctly, there were 17 people in the party (counting Anne Margaret, the wife of Balthasar). The amazing thing is that all seventeen of these people arrived in Virginia. The general history which the Second Colony members gave would imply there was a serious loss of life. And in some other families, there were losses. But, based on this one extended family, there were no losses. (I can't tell about possible births en route who did not live.) To the group above, Michael Kaifer could be added. He was single and attached only to the rest of the Second Colony by the fact that his sister, Appollonia was married to John Nicholas Blankenbaker.
One wonders about the leaders of the group. I am inclined to believe the leader was Cyriacus Fleshman. He exhibited leadership roles in Virginia whereas the Blankenbaker men assumed a more retiring role in Virginia. But what role did Anna Barbara play? How long did she live? We have no proof that she ever lived in the Robinson River area. As the common link among these individuals, I would like to think that she lived to see all of her family settled in their new homes.
And who was the leader in Germany in promoting the emigration to Pennsylvania? They certainly had their bad days, even bad weeks or months. Who were the healers? Who were the complainers? We will never know the answers to these questions, but the ingredients are there for a good story, albeit fiction.
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.