John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 556

We might try a generalization as to what goes wrong with history.  In the beginning, when events are fresh in everyone's mind, there seems to be no need to write anything down.  We all know it.  Before long, we do not all know it.  More and more, the remembrance is not first hand, and lore is created to fill the need for information.  As the lore is made up, there is a tendency to embellish the facts; especially, where one's own family and friends are concerned, the story may become very embellished.

In the last note, after the origins of the organ at Hebron Lutheran Church had been lost due to the death of the original participants, later generations mixed some facts with fancy.  There was the vague remembrance of the money which had been raised in Europe and somehow the King of Sweden was added to the story.

When Lewis Fisher of the Germanna group died, he said that his estate in Germany, should it ever be recovered, was to be divided among all of his children.  Over the course of the next century, he became a Baron who owned Hanover.  When you start making up your "facts," you may as well do a good job of it.

The second major Germanna genealogy was " Genealogy of the Kemper Family in the United States ", written by Willis Kemper and Harry Wright, and published in 1899.  There are many examples of how history is reported incorrectly in this book.  Kemper did try to locate some original documents and he succeeded in finding some.  He misinterpreted a lot of what he found and he made up a lot of his facts.  Following notes will look at this early history.

The immigrant ancestor of the Virginia Kempers was Johannes, who was born in 1692.  No marriage record is known for him in Germany and he is believed to have been a bachelor when he came to Virginia.  To my knowledge, no record in Germany states his occupation.  His father was identified as a church elder, and his grandfather Kemper was said to have been a smith (blacksmith).  For these statements, I am using the genealogy reported by B. C. Holtzclaw, who had the assistance of people in Germany.

Here is what Willis Kemper says about these individuals:

The father is a skilled mechanic and employed about the (iron) mine in some way.  He was a worker in iron, a blacksmith by trade, and perhaps had charge of the tools about the mine.  His sons, John (the immigrant) and Henry, followed in their father's trade and were employed about the mine.  John, especially, was evidently a skilled miner, and it was this that brought about his emigration to America.

These claims are the only "evidence" that Willis Kemper offers (see page 9 of the book), and they are not confirmed by Holtzclaw's statements.  On the whole, it seems that Kemper has made up a lot of history which is not supported by documented facts.  If anyone knows of documentation on the subject, please speak up.  I can only report what I find, or don't find, in Kemper's book.