Two men arrived in the Robinson River Valley around the middle of the eighteenth century. Their German surname was Hirsch, which means Deer. They adopted the latter name for use in America, with most of the descendants spelling the name as Deer and some as Dear. Down at the German Lutheran Church, it was spelled as Hirsch until the time of the Revolution. The two men were Martin and John.
Cerny and Zimmerman found the origins of the two men in Germany and give a short report in volume 11 of Before Germanna . Martin was older and his baptismal name was simply the name Martin. He was born 16 Aug 1715. It was a bit unusual to have only the one given name, but none of his six brothers had two given names. He had two brothers named Johannes, one of whom went by the name Hanns, and the other who went by the name Johannes. The latter Johannes, born 2 Nov 1718, is the John that we know in Virginia. There was one girl in the family, Anna Maria, born 2 Mar 1705, who is noted in a parish record as "moved to England."
Geography was not a strong point of the Germans and "England" might mean two things. It might mean England as we know England. It might also mean any of the English colonies or possessions, and, so, could include the New World.
Why Martin and John emigrated to the New World, and why they chose Virginia is not known. I believe that the village of their birth, Dautmergen, is not associated with any other emigrants to the New World and, in particular, Virginia.
The arrival times of the brothers in Virginia must be judged by the earliest records, which are land transactions. George Long deeded Martin Deer 300 acres in 1751, and Cerny and Zimmerman say that the wording of the deed suggests Martin was George Long's son-in-law. B.C. Holtzclaw simply notes that Long sold 300 acres to Martin Deer. Descendants generally make no claim of relationship to the Long/Lang family.
John Deer married the widow of Frederick Baumgartner. Frederick wrote his will in 1746 and it was probated in 1747. Very probably, Martin and John had traveled together to Virginia, and they would have arrived before 1747. At that time they would have been 32 and 29 respectively. Whether they were married when they came is unknown; no marriages have been found in Germany. Considering that widows often married without a short time of their widowhood, the Deers probably arrived in the late 1740's, and John was probably married soon after his arrival. The marriage of John and Catherine is the only marriage for John that we know.
Attempts to connect these families to the more famous John Deere family were misguided.
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.