One of the men on the ill-fated ship Oliver was John Frederick Miller (Johann Frederick Müller). More has been published about his ancestry than about his descendants. He was born on August 2 in the year 1711, the son of Harmann and Anna Margaretha (Häner) Müller. In 1733, he was accepted as an apprentice in the Guild of Steelsmiths and Toolmakers, of which his father was a Master. He may have dropped out of this program, for he married Anna Maria Arnd on 4 July 1737 when he was 26 and she was 20. On 2 January 1738, the first child, Matthias, was born at Freudenberg. Within months the family set out on a new course in life in “Georgia”. He was accompanied by his brother, Hermann Müller, who was a bachelor.
It was nine years after landing before John Frederick Miller created any record in Virginia. He entered for 400 acres on the North Fork of the Mayo River extending to the Piney Mt. Lands in the Patrick-Henry County area (now Lunenburg). The very next entry in the record book for the same area is for Haman Crites, who is undoubtedly the Hymenäus Creutz of the 1738 Freudenberg emigration list. Haman Crites has not generally been recognized as a Germanna citizen, and, in fact, we have no proof that he ever lived in the Germanna area.
John Frederick appeared in the court so many times that it is mystery as to where he was in nine years prior to his settlement in southern Virginia. He may have been married more than once. His will names a Mary as his wife, but considering the high mortality rate among the Oliver’s passengers, the odds are that his original wife did not survive the trip. There is no record of the son that was born in Germany. Eight more children were born in America, and for the five for which there are records, they scattered widely. The five died in North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, Tennessee, and in Virginia.
The history of the family has been published in the work entitled, “ The Family and Descendants of John Frederick Miller, 1711-1787 ”, which was produced by Clovis E. Miller in a limited edition. Copies were filed in significant libraries and distributed privately.
One person from Freudenberg who survived the trip on the Oliver, and who did settle in the Germanna area, was George Wayman, a bachelor when he came with his cousin Harman Bach in 1738/9. He married Catharine, last name unknown. Shortly after coming he leased land from Robert Beverly in the Little Fork area in 1739/40. Four children in this family are known, three of which lived in the Robinson River Valley while the fourth lived in the Little Fork area.
(22 Oct 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.