Craig Kilby asked some questions a few days ago on the list, which I had not answered, either directly to him or to the list. Speaking of the Second Germanna Colony,
For reasons that are not entirely clear to me, about one thousand Germans left their homeland in 1717 to go to Pennsylvania. All but about eighty did make it to Pennsylvania. In fact, so many came in through Philadelphia that the authorities there set up a set of rules about registration, so they would have a better grasp about how many Germans were coming. These rules or laws were not enforced until ten years later in 1727 (to our regret).
William Penn himself had appeared about 1680 along the Rhine River to recruit people for his new colony. After his personal visit, he depended on his agents and his publications to advertise his colony. Remember that the best classification of him by today's occupations would be that he was a real estate promoter.
The Germans that went to New York in 1710 had not sent home the best letters about their experiences. Starting in 1710, a few Anabaptists went to Pennsylvania. They were enthusiastic about that colony, and recruited fellow Anabaptists by letter and by visits back to Germany to come. Some of these Anabaptists lived among, and were neighbors of, the future Second Colony people. (Hans Herr lived on a farm about three miles from George Utz.)
So, in a variety of ways the Second Colony members had heard about Pennsylvania. They decided this is where they wanted to go. We know this because of the note written by the pastor of the church in Gemmingen, who told us of six families who he said were leaving for Pennsylvania. Basically these families do appear later in Virginia, so that we know they were diverted from their intentions.
One of the families in the Gemmingen register was Hans Michael Mihlekher, with his wife, two daughters, and his wife's sister. We know that Hans Michel Milcher, Sophia Catharina Milcher, and Maria Parvara (Barbara) Milcher made it to Virginia, because Alexander Spotswood used their names as head rights to pay for land. The first two of these three names are the father and mother. The two daughters in Germany do not appear. Maria Parvara Milcher would not seem to be Michael's sister-in-law, so she might have been a daughter born en route.
This is the last time that this family appears in the Virginia records. To disappear from the records, it would take only the death of the father. The women, if they survived, would be hard to detect since they would have re-married. A real possibility is that the parents simply said that none of this had been their desire. They had been forced to go to Virginia, by Tarbett, where Spotswood tried to hold them in captivity. Their remedy was perhaps to leave at night and try walking to Pennsylvania.
(28 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.