John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes
Note 1476
A correspondent (on the GERMANNA COLONIES Mailing List at Rootsweb) writes today, "For more than 200 years my family has kept an oral tradition, backed up by no known documentation, of a family member who was shipwrecked off the east coast in 1738." The writer added there were other traditions and stories which he was beginning to doubt. He thought that perhaps they were all made up out of whole cloth.
In this particular case, perhaps at least a part of the oral tradition is correct. How many oral traditions of more than 200 years duration do you know that turn out to be true? There aren't many which are as specific as this one. In this case, the story could be correct.
The writer is Meredith Funderburk and he has just been reading about the ship Oliver. This would very well fit his family traditions. The story of the Oliver was told by Klaus Wust in
Beyond Germanna
a few years ago.
The voyage of the Oliver has its origins in a group of Swiss who had been recruited by William Byrd to occupy a tract of land that he wanted to obtain. The organization in Switzerland which had done the recruiting chartered the Oliver. The Swiss left Canton Basel in March of 1738 for Rotterdam. At about the same time, a group of 53 men, women, and children left Freudenberg from the Siegen area. In Rotterdam, the two groups were joined, and their fate became the same as the fate of the Oliver. Both the Swiss and the Freudenberg people wanted to go to Virginia. To fill up the Oliver, some Palatine redemptioners who wanted to go to Pennsylvania were added to it.
On June 22, five ships operated by the Hope firm, left Rotterdam for ports in England. The captains of the Winter Galley and the Queen Elizabeth headed for Deal. The Thistle, the Glasglow, and the Oliver headed for Cowes (on the Isle of Wight). It took some of these ships three to five weeks to get to the English ports. The captain of the Oliver felt that his ship was overloaded and he returned to Holland, where he resigned. The owners installed a new captain and sent the ship out again in early July. This time the Oliver made it quickly to Cowes, where it spent six weeks in preparing for the crossing. After setting out from Cowes, the Thistle and the Oliver found heavy seas that forced them into the harbor at Plymouth.
The Oliver did not leave Plymouth until the start of September. A ship that met the Oliver on the high seas brought in the report that the ship had lost its Captain, Mate, and 50 or 60 passengers, many of whom were children. They were also said to be short of provisions. By the start of winter, no news had been received in America of the ship and it was feared the Oliver had been lost.
(18 Sep 02)