In 1709, Christopher de Graffenried (using the French version of his name) had a contract with the city fathers of Bern to find homes outside of Switzerland for a group of Anabaptists whom the fathers wished to expel. The Anabaptists were political prisoners of the state who had no vote in the expulsion decision. Their feelings on the matter may not have been all that negative, but in the beginning there was no specified location for them to go to. They could not have been too happy about the decisions concerning them on which they had no input.
Graffenried went to London to see if he could find a home for them in the English colonies. The year 1709 was not the best year for quick decisions as London was inundated with about 13,000 Germans ("Palatines"). While waiting, Graffenried met Franz Michel, another Swiss citizen, who was just back from the colonies, especially Virginia. Michel, too, was in the business of colonization, or finding land and people to settle on the land. Therefore, Graffenried and Michel had some common interests. But Michel had a report which interested Graffenried even more than the discussion of land. And that was that Michel thought he found silver in the back country of Virginia. Michel had spent a lot of time in exploring Virginia and other colonies. His most notable exploration, complete with a map that still exists today, was of the Shenandoah Valley.
Graffenried, usually on the outlook for a scheme to enrich his pockets, decided that he wanted to be a part of Michel's operation and so they joined forces for the purposes of finding and developing silver mines, apparently in Virginia. Silver mines needed miners and so Graffenried and Michel hired Johann Justus Albrecht to recruit miners from the area around Siegen.
Graffenried found a home for his Swiss contingent in North Carolina. But the offer from the proprietors of North Carolina required him to lead also a few hundred of the Palatines who were in London. The proprietors provided the transportation which involved more than one ship. One other thing attracted Graffenried and that was a purchaser of five thousand acres in North Carolina could take the title of Baron. He bought the required land and became Baron Graffenried.
In 1710, Graffenried and Michel left London for North Carolina while Albrecht went to Siegen to begin his recruiting campaign. The area around Siegen had sent a very large contingent of people to London in 1709. Thus, when Albrecht reached Siegen, there would have been a lot of talk about these emigrants. Now, Albrecht arrived in Siegen recruiting miners.
The recruiting was on behalf of the George Ritter Company of Switzerland, of which Graffenried was now the managing field director. It is not clear that the stockholders back in Switzerland had been appraised of the change of direction from simple colonization to silver mining. But the memoirs of Graffenried do make it clear, that from his standpoint, silver was the major objective. (Graffenried had a contract with the George Ritter Company in which silver is clearly stated as an objective.)
Willis Kemper's remark in the Kemper and Fishback genealogies, that "the Siegen people came at the request of the rulers of Virginia", is shown by Graffenried's memoirs to be false. The Siegen people were recruited to mine silver for George Ritter and Company, for which Graffenried was directing operations. This was the reason they (later known as the First Germanna Colony) emigrated.
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.