Lewis Fisher, a later comer to the Second Germanna Colony, created a stir among his descendants when he wrote in his will that, "if my estate should be recovered in Germany, it is to be divided amongst my children." (The exact quotation may be incorrect, but this is the essence of it.) The pursuit of this was an activity that continued up to the start of the present century; however, when one views Fisher's will against the thousands of estate claims that immigrants to America were making, one is inclined to place less emphasis on the importance of any single one claim. Lewis Fisher was merely expressing what many other Germans were trying to do, namely, to recover some part of an estate that they would normally have been their due had they been still living in Germany.
Changing the subject now, some people have interpreted the history of the German immigrants in the following way. After the Thirty Years' War, which had been a setback in social development, there was a rebuilding period from 1648 on. The rulers, or princes, who in some cases were better classified as knights, attempted to rebuild their domains using the labor of the inhabitants. In the century prior to this, the "citizens," who were a mixture of free persons and serfs, had negotiated group agreements with the rulers. They felt that the demands of the rulers after the war violated these agreements. This led them to band together for their mutual protection.
As an outcome of this banding, a better sense of community was developed. They also discovered the power of group action. Acting together, they could do things that they could not do alone. This led to a spirit, or belief, that they could solve problems on their own. They did not need to be dependent on the state or the church to solve problems. They carried this attitude to the New World.
One of the shortages in the New World was pastors in the churches; however, this did not stop the German immigrants from building churches and from holding such services as could be conducted by lay persons. They even showed some imagination in solving the problem of finding a pastor. To use the Second Germanna Colony as an example, they had built a chapel among their homes along the Robinson River. They had one of their number act as a reader. When John Caspar Stöver came through the community, they observed that he had most of the education needed for a pastor. If they just got him ordained, they would have a pastor. This point was solved by taking him to Pennsylvania where they found another Lutheran pastor who would ordain him.
The great Lutheran leader, Rev. Mühlenberg, saw in America a bunch of ragtag preachers and questionable minsters, which horrified him. What he didn't see was that these congregations of Germans were solving problems on their own. In the period before they emigrated, the Germans had already begun developing their ability to act collectively.
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.