John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 1611

The Henckel family members, with the aid of researchers in Germany and here in America, found a document in the Karlsruhe archives which basically gives the reason the Henckel family left Germany.

“Whereas the bearer of this, the honorable and learned Herr Anthon Jacob Henckel, pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran congregation in the little town of Necker-Gemünd and the neighboring places in the County of Heidelberg, now in his third year as pastor there, provided the Evangelical Lutheran Consistory of the Palatinate appropriate notice, that he would cordially like to wish to remain longer with this greatly deprived Evangelical congregation and to provide for them with comfort, help and support from God's word according to his office; however since the highly troubled condition of the Evangelical Lutheran congregations in the Electoral Palatinate so determine that due to the lack of official financial support for so many years, the aforesaid congregations have monumental debts and therefore cannot any longer support their pastor in necessity, and whereas this said congregation with the small villages which belong to it, will remain similarly unable to do, and the above named pastor thus found himself having to depart from there and to seek his fortune with his wife and many small children in Pennsylvania, with the request that a trustworthy attestation of this conduct be given into his hand; and we must then truly attest that the above stipulations are true . . . .”
This document was signed 1 July 1717.  (Other documents indicate that the Henckels left before the end of June.)  Whether the Henckels had the benefit of this document is unknown.

It was, for the Henckels, a matter of poverty and the inability to support a family on the meager wages that the congregation could pay his family.  The educational system was also poor.

We do not know how he learned about Pennsylvania.  There was, in 1717, a minor mania to immigrate.  After the exodus of so many thousands in 1709, the British had sent word that they wanted no more 'poor Palatines', i.e., Germans.  From 1710 to 1716 there was hardly any immigration to America.  Some came at the invitation of Germans who were already in America, but the numbers were small.  Then in 1717, about one thousand Germans decided to go to America.  Three ship loads, including the Henckels, went to Philadelphia.  One ship load, late in the season, took about eighty Germans to Virginia.

Cathi Frost's ancestors (the Clores from Gemmingen) came in 1717.  So did her husband's ancestor, Anthony Henckel, but on a different ship.  Probably they both had the same reason, the desire for a better life than they were experiencing in Germany.
(06 Mar 03)

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.