The owners of the ship Oliver requested one of the passengers to give testimony concerning whether there had been any failure by the owners or the crew in the care of the passengers on the Oliver. The man who did testify, Carlo Toriana, must have been paid well. He described the Oliver as a good and spacious ship (actually it was a coaster freighter, not a transatlantic ship). He notes that they left Holland early in July, without mentioning that the ship had left earlier but the captain turned around and went back, because he thought the ship was overloaded.
He says that after leaving Plymouth they sailed happily for six weeks (the passengers had been on board for more than two months when they left Plymouth and I doubt they were happy). Carlo goes on to say that after four months from Plymouth they sighted Virginia. He claims the wind had died at the arrival so the captain had taken the opportunity to seek supplies, even though there was food still left for everyone. With a little wind they advanced to within two leagues of the coast.
After the anchor was set, several Palatines mutinied against the captain and he was forced to use the longboat again taking him, 2 sailors, and 26 passengers ashore. A storm arose while the party was ashore and the captain tried to go back to the ship but couldn't. It was so cold that some of the shore party, wet from the attempt to reach the ship, died. A fire was lit and the party spent the night in the woods. In the morning they found that the ship had sunk with the stern sticking out of the water. A few people were clinging to it. Some of these people were saved by another ship.
Carlo said that not more than sixty people of those who had embarked remained alive. Over the next two weeks much effort was spent on recovering personal effects and rigging from the ship.
All of the passengers were well fed and well treated and provisions were never lacking was the claim of Carlo. He completely absolved the owners of the ship of negligence or of being responsible for what happened in any way.
Klaus Wust, in preparing his material for the article in Beyond Germanna used his research, which he had reported in the Newsletter of the Swiss American Historical Society, Vol. XX, No. 2. The Toriano statement was found by Klaus as a French document in Rotterdam, in the Notorial Acts, August 4, 1739. The statement of Samuel Suther was from the Reformed Church Messenger of May 10, 1843, as a part of the obituary notice for David Suther, son of Samuel, and was based on an account in a diary.
The Pennsylvania Chapter of Palatines to America will be holding a meeting in New Holland today. I will be going and I hope I will learn something to report here.
(21 Sep 02)
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.