John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 436

(When Sgt. George filed note 435 on the web history page, he added a note about his own experiences in using apples.  I recommend that you read his comments.  It is clear that I erred in saying one used a cast iron kettle to make apple butter.  George makes the point that copper was necessary to keep the apple butter from sticking to the side.  The demonstrator at the Hans Herr House was using a copper kettle about the size of the old-fashioned wash tub.  He said that it took about four to five hours to cook the mixture down.  He started with sliced apples to which he added cider and cinnamon.  Toward the end, one had to work hard as the mixture got thicker and the danger of burning the apple butter increased.

I asked the people making the dried apples about their technique and they did not favor doing it in the sun.  They used the bake oven and turned the apples frequently.  They said it is faster and more reliable than depending on the sun.)

( I didn't mention the size of the kettle used to make Apple Butter, but it probably held about 20-25 gallons, which would have been just a little bit bigger than the common #10 wash tub, which held about 15 gallons.  As to making dried apples, John is speaking of the people who now demonstrate the old crafts and techniques of such endeavors.  I can assure you that the average family in those early days, and even in my early days in East Tennessee, didn't have bake ovens in which to dry and preserve fruit.  It was much simpler to lay the cut-up fruit on some surface, such as a tin roof, a rock surface, etc., and let the sun do its work.  Yes, a bake oven would have made it much easier and faster, but, from experience, I can say that the difference in the flavor and texture of fruit dried in the sun vs. fruit dried in some kind of oven, is such that one might just as well buy "store boughten" dried apples as to dry them with artificial heat.  I have watched my grandmother, and then my mother, dry fruit on a tin roof; I have done it myself.  I have dried the fruit in "dehydrators" and in ovens and can say that there is no way that one can get the same results as letting the sun do its work.  Besides, how can the children have any fun using "shoo fans" to keep the flies off the apples if they are dried in an over?! )  (Another "add-on" by the keeper of these web pages.)

It is always a pleasure to find new Germanna people, either ones who immigrated to the Germanna settlements, or descendants of these people.  Recently, we were discussing Hymenäus Creutz, who came in 1738 from Freudenberg.  He seemed to be a friend or relative of John Frederick Miller.  In Virginia, the name became something like Haman Critz or Crites.  These are two forms of the name in the Virginia records but they were probably more.

John Frederick Miller made an entry for land in the Patrick-Henry County area (then Lunenberg County) in the spring of 1747/8.  Immediately following Frederick Miller's entry is one for Haman Crites.  Miller's land was on the North Fork of the Mayo River, while Crites entry was on the South Fork of the Mayo River.  Another entry by Sherwood Walton refers to the "Dutch Camp."  So, probably Miller and Crites had been camping or living in temporary quarters while they looked for land.  It would also suggest they were newcomers to the area.

Miller and Crites had arrived in Virginia in 1738/39.   Where they lived for the first nine years is not clear.  One would tend to believe they settled in the area of the earlier arrivals from Nassau-Siegen, either at Germantown, or in the Little Fork area.  John Frederick Miller had a brother, Hermann Miller, who married Elizabeth Holtzclaw.  John lived in the Little Fork area, but since land was filling up around Germantown and the Little Fork area, John Frederick Miller and Haman Crites may have struck out for a more open region.

In the Halifax Co., VA Court Order (Plea) Book 1, p. 62, dated 1752, John Frederick Miller and Haman Critz were ordered to be added to the list of tithables.  In the same book, on page 177, John Frederick Miller and Haman Critz took the Oaths for their naturalization (1753).

The second son of John Frederick Miller was named Haman, which no doubt was after his friend Haman Critz.  (Just to confuse the record, he also had a son named Harman.)

The objective of this note is to establish there was a Germanna family named Crites, Critz, or similar spelling, and to give his early physical presence. More information on the family would be welcome.