In October of 1709, the North Carolina proprietors secured 650 Palatines for the colony of North Carolina; however, there was a delay in sending them along to America and they did not depart until January of 1710. Graffenried and Michel did not go with this group of Palatines to America. Instead, they waited for the Swiss group, which consisted of about 156 individuals, 56 of whom where Anabaptist prisoners. The other 100 were Swiss who had freely chosen to emigrate. Michel went to Switzerland to escort these people to London. Passes were required for the Anabaptists and these had been obtained for the English part of the trip. No passes had been obtained for the transit through Holland and, as soon as the group was in Holland, the Dutch authorities intervened. They would not allow the Anabaptist prisoners to pass through Holland. Most were released and allowed to do as they wished (some had been imprisoned for years). Apparently, a few did choose to go to North Carolina. The Swiss "Colonization Society" intervened with the English Ambassador Townshend, but he wouldn't help because he said the Queen wanted only voluntary colonists in her provinces.
Actually about one-half of the prisoners and some of the free colonists had fallen sick on the trip down the Rhine and they had dropped from the group. The Swiss colony, which Michel had worked on establishing for so many years, had been reduced to a small group. Lists of names of the people departing Switzerland cannot be taken as an accurate guide to the group because so many dropped out before the departure from England.
On 18 May 1710, Graffenried and Michel signed a contract with Georg Ritter and Company by which they legally became stockholders in the company. The foundation of the company was the 17,500 acres of land that had been purchased, the option on 100,000 acres, mining rights in Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, and the land above the falls of the Potomac granted to them by the Queen.
The mining rights in Carolina granted Graffenried and Michel a lease of all royal mines and minerals in Carolina for 30 years and they were to bear all of the expense. The output was to be divided into eight parts. During the first five years of any mine's production, four eighths of the output went to the proprietors and four eighths could be kept by Graffenried and Michel. After five years, the proprietors were to have five eighths and Graffenried and Michel were to have their share reduced to three eighths. The proprietors were to pay the Crown from their share. (Though the contract with the proprietors yielded nothing to anyone, it is ironic that in later years gold was discovered in significant quantities in North Carolina.)
The details of the agreements for mines with the other colonies are not known. The primary emphasis was on the colony of Virginia and this is where the Society was to have land of the Queen. A stumbling block here was that the Queen's share was not defined. As seen in the Carolina agreement, the proprietors could ask for more than half of the output of a mine. This lack of definition of the royal share was to surface again and again in Virginia.
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.