In the first decade of the 1700's, Christoph von Graffenried was in the colonization business. He was attempting to provide people new homes in America. He obtained a contract with the city fathers of Bern to export a number of Anabaptists out of Bern. As such, the Anabaptists were political prisoners since they had no voice in the matter. A number of Swiss also joined the party of their own volition. In London, Graffenried found that the proprietors of North Carolina would provide transportation for the Swiss if he would go to North Carolina and also take a contingent of the Palatines who wanted to go to America. Altogether there were at least two shiploads, probably more than that. Graffenried sailed on the last ship with the Swiss and some Germans. The Dutch had refused to allow Graffenried to bring his Anabaptists through Holland, because they were political prisoners, so the party was intercepted and the individual members interviewed. Those that did not want to go to America were released. A few chose to go on.
Graffenried's ship first stopped at Virginia, because there were no good harbors in North Carolina where a large ship could land. The problem lay in negotiating the coastal waters of North Carolina, which were shallow and dangerous. There was no ship wreck at this stage. (Incidentally, this gave Graffenried an opportunity to meet Gov. Alexander Spotswood and to show him the letter he [Graffenried] had from the Queen, saying the Governor would allocate him land for the proposed silver seeking colony which was in the formation stages in Siegen.)
After the Indian attack on the colony in North Carolina, Graffenried consulted Spotswood to see if he could have land in Virginia, where he judged it was safer. (In these early years, before the First Germanna Colony even existed, Spotswood saw the advantage of having Germans on the frontier as a barrier to the Indians.) Back in North Carolina, Graffenried found a group of the colonists, who were willing to relocate to Virginia. Unfortunately, the ship bringing them ran aground and sank. The survivors returned to North Carolina. This is said to be the last "official" attempt to resettle North Carolina colonists in Virginia.
As a historian of the Germanna Colonists, I have been concerned that some of the Germanna people were originally North Carolina colonists who decided to move to Virginia. As such, I would welcome a list of the North Carolina colonists for comparison against the Germanna colonists. I don't think that the two colonies should be studied separately from each other. I would welcome any contribution on who the North Carolina people might have been. These people could have been Swiss or German (Palatine or other). Nearly all of the Germans in North Carolina would have met the description as High German since they came from southern Germany or Switzerland.
Again, one reason for keeping the notes here rather broad in their outlook is that the history of the Germanna people may not have been as narrow as some people think. It may be that some of our Germanna people, who are being counted as later comers, might actually have come in 1710.
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.