I concluded in the last note by mentioning some German names of people who apparently lived in Fauquier County during the Eighteenth Century. Yet, we don’t list them in among the Germanna Colonists. Almost in the same category are a number of names for which a little bit is known but not a lot. Some of these, for purposes of illustration and not necessarily living in Fauquier Co., are Wolfenberger, Lehman, Leyerle, Gerhardt, Crecelius, Ernest, and Wrede. It would be nice to know what happened to them before and after their stay in the Germanna area.
We need a better inventory of who the people from Germany might be. Hank Z. Jones reports in " More Palatine Families " about a group of people who left Eiserfeld just south of Siegen in 1763. Eiserfeld is adjacent to Eisern and the two villages sent people from 1713 up through the 1740s that we know about. In 1763, there was a mass exodus from Eiserfeld considering the small size of the village. The traveled on the ship Chance to Philadelphia. The names of the "men" were Johann Engel Becker, Tilman Becker, Johannes Daub, Johann Henrich Lück, Johann Wilhelm Lück, Johann Peter Schneider, Johann Jost Schultz’ widow, and Johann Friedrich Still. The chances are that most of these people settled in Pennsylvania at first and perhaps indefinitely.
But why might the history of these people be important to us? Consider the Clore family in the Robinson River Valley (RRV). There were Clore marriages with Stonesifers, Waymans, and Railsbacks who came from the Siegen area and who were of the Reformed faith. There was also a John Becker who married a Clore girl. Now John Becker does not appear in the Lutheran communion lists but does appear for baptisms of his children. This would be what we expect of a Reformed person. Could this John Becker be from the Siegen area? Aaron Spencer Fogleman in " Hopeful Journeys " has found more than 300 people in the records for Schwaigern who left in the Eighteenth Century (unfortunately, he does not give us the names). We are aware of several families such as the Kochs, Willheits, Reiners, Baumgardners, Dieters (Teters), and Lederers who came from Schwaigern but these fall short of the 300. We are aware of the Willheit branch who immigrated to Pennsylvania. It is said that they spell the name here as Wilhide instead of Wilhite but I should imagine there were some crossovers. So it may be that not every Willheit/Wilhite/Wilhoit is descended from Johann Michael Willheit of the RRV.
I leave you now with a question. Suppose a man leaves Germany in 1717 and goes to England, but fails to find a ship for America. The English send him back to Rotterdam. He finds temporary work there and a couple of years later manages to make his way to American, Virginia in particular. Is this man a member of the Second Colony? He left at the same time as the Second Colony members but his travels just took a little longer.
(03 Nov 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.