Andreas Mielke found another letter which tells who the deputies were who went to London in search of a pastor. It, too, was found in the archives in Berlin. I believe that Andreas was surprised to have this letter, because he, too, thought that the evidence showed that Fleshman and Cook were the deputies.
When I say that Andreas found these letters, I do not mean that he personally rummaged among the papers. What he did was to get the Archivist in Berlin interested in the problem, and he, the Archivist, searched around for documents pertaining to Stoever, Ziegenhagen, Francke, etc. Still, the important thing was they came into the hands of Andreas and he translated them.
This particular letter was written by Johann Caspar Stoever, Michael Hold, and Michael Smith, to the London pastors when the three men arrived in London on their fund-raising trip. The letter recounted the history of the Second Colony from the time they were in London in 1717 on the way to America, up the time of the fund-raising trip. As such it is one of the earliest documents that explains some of the history of the group. And it was signed by two men who participated in the history throughout.
The letter tells of the trip in 1724 by the two deputies. They were Cyriax Fleischman and Johann Muetz . There is no problem in identifying Cyriacus Fleshman. We had to think a bit about Muetz, but we settled on John Motz. The original intention had been Michael Cook instead of Motz as we read in the last note. Why the last minute substitution is not explained at all.
This trip sheds some light on when the Second Colony might have moved to the Robinson River Valley. Apparently Fleshman and Motz were free to leave in 1724.
While John Motz was not sued by Spotswood, probably because his transportation had been paid by a partner of Spotswood, Fleshman was sued by Spotswood, and his lawsuit was still pending when he went to England. But it would appear that he was free to go in 1724. He may have sneaked out of town, but the first suggestion is that the Germans were free to go in 1724. However, they may not have left in 1724, as they may have preferred to stay and harvest the 1724 crops, and then leave. They might have moved in the fall of 1724, or in the winter of 1725 (New Style dates).
Notice that Spotswood, Fleshman, and Motz all went to London about the same time. There is a strong implication that Fleshman and Motz had an audience with King George (I). There is no evidence that Spotswood ever did. But then, Fleshman and Motz spoke the King's language, and it was all German to Spotswood.
(06 Nov 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.