I am going to interrupt the mini series on the emigrants from the Siegen area for a special note on Hans Herr and the Hans Herr House. The tourist season starts on April 1, but since the Mennonites go to church on Sunday, there are no tours on Sunday. In accordance with my volunteering schedule, I am usually to be found there on the first Saturday of each month, and that is where I will be found today.
I would not be surprised if a German national visits today. Last year on the first Saturday, a German student came. I invited him home for dinner and an overnight stay with us, which he accepted. Then he volunteered to show us Heidelberg when we were there last May. And we did meet him. We had dinner and walked the philosopher's walk which we could never have done on our own.
Hans Herr was an Anabaptist, though by 1710 he probably distinguished himself as a "Mennonite" (as opposed to the Amish branch). The Anabaptists had originated in Switzerland, but they were not appreciated there. In fact they were severely persecuted in a variety of ways, including death. A very common reaction to them was to export them out of the country. For a while, in the last half of the seventeenth century, they were welcomed in Germany, because the voids in the populations created by the Thirty Years' War. By the time 1700 came, exportation to Germany was not an option because of the growth of population there.
At this time, Franz Michel started looking for places in America to form Swiss colonies to have a place to send the Anabaptists. Christoph von Graffenried, needing a venture to recover from his debts, joined Michel and his associates in this colonization scheme. In addition, Graffenried promoted the idea of developing the silver mines that Michel thought he had found. For this purpose, they sent Johann Justus Albrecht to Siegen to recruit the miners. This was the start of the exodus that took place in 1713. Had it not been for the Anabaptists which Switzerland wanted to expel, there would have been no Germanna Colonies.
Sometime prior to this, Hans Herr appears to have left Switzerland and settled on a farm called Unterbiegelhof, not far from Wagenbach. If you walked across the back of the farms, it would be only about three miles from the farm where George Utz and Johann Michael Volck lived to Unterbiegelhof, where Hans Herr was living. Hans Herr, and other Mennonites, left in 1709, and the news must have circulated around the neighborhood to Wagenbach. So, in a way Hans Herr influenced the Germanna Colonies.
My interest in Hans Herr originates with my sympathy for the reformers. It could not have anything to do with the fact that my daughter married a descendant of Hans Herr, or that the marriage was in the Hans Herr House.
So plan on coming out to the Hans Herr House in Lancaster County (in Pennsylvania). It is southeast of the town of Lancaster, and west of Strasburg. Until next fall, it is open every day, except Sundays.
(07 Apr 01)
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.