I have written about the emigration of the First Germanna Colony (of about forty-odd people), and of the Second Colony (of about seventy-odd people). Both of these Colonies, being early emigrants from Germany, had to find a way to London, where they were to find a way of going on to their destination. Each Colony had a major disaster in London.
The First Colony had been expecting Christoph von Graffenried to meet them and to have the tickets for the balance of the journey. On the contrary, Graffenried was not there, and, when he did arrive, he was broke. Furthermore, his initial help for the Germans was to advise them to go home to Siegen. Imagine the looks of shock on their faces when they heard this!
The Second Colony signed on with Capt. Tarbett, master of the ship Scott . Barely had they agreed with him for a trip to Pennsylvania, then he was thrown into jail, probably debtors' prison. This put them into a limbo. Perhaps they had already paid him some advance money. Certainly they were left wondering what was going to happen next. And the time schedule became very uncertain.
Apparently each group survived its individual woes, and remained a group with a common purpose. How did they do this? Surely there were many different opinions about what should be done. I suspect that one individual came to be accepted as the spokesperson, or leader, for the group. While not everyone might have agreed fully with this person, they accepted the his decisions.
In the First Colony, I would nominate Jacob Holtzclaw as the natural leader. We have seen, on more than occasion, that he seemed to be a leader. He kept the records when the group worked on developing the mines for Spotswood. He was one of the trustees for the land purchase at Germantown. In recent notes we have seen that he led the 1734 emigration from the Virginian side. The individual that the Moravian missionaries called on during their visits to Germantown was Holtzclaw. The one other individual to whom the group might have listened to was Rev. Häger, but he probably declined an active role, due to his age, and lent his support to Holtzclaw.
In the Second Colony, if I had to name one male individual of the group, it would be Cyriacus Fleshman. He was married to Anna Barbara, who was the head, by blood, of the largest sub-contingent in the Colony. Later, in Virginia, Fleshman signed petitions to the government. (I have certainly wondered about the role of Anna Barbara herself, due to her unique position.)
In both groups, despite severe troubles, they seem to have held together as a group and persisted in their objectives. I would believe that the acceptance of a leadership role by one member provided the focal point and concentration that was needed. The members rallied around the leader's decisions and supported him.
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.