You have had time to read the short piece of history that Andreas sent yesterday (Tuesday to be exact). I thought I might expand upon this as it merits a much wider audience.
When John Caspar Stoever, Michael Smith, and Michael Holt went to Europe on their fund-raising trip, they emphasized the northern tier of Germany along the Baltic sea as their primary target. We actually know the cities they visited because of the ledger that they kept of the monies raised. This book, minus a few pages pertaining to England, is still maintained by the Lutheran church outside Madison, Virginia. It is available to a wide audience via microfilm.
When the trio visited Kolberg (now a part of Poland), they visited the mayor and probably showed him the letters of recommendation they had from Virginia and from London. The object was to earn the mayor's good will and help. They told him their story from the time they emigrated from Germany in 1717 up to then (1736). The mayor wrote to Prof. Francke and related some of what he had learned.
The Second Colony (which in 1717 hardly merited the nomenclature of Colony) found a ship Captain who said he would take them at the rate of six Pounds Sterling per passenger. He agreed to take them to Pennsylvania. (According to another document, they paid him at the time.) As they were just about to cast the lines off and get underway, the Captain was detained and held in debtors' prison. This lasted more than eight weeks. The Germans, being hungry, ate much of the food that was on board the ship. The Germans were hostages, so to speak. They had spent their transport money for food, and were unable to find another ship. When the Captain was released, he promised the Germans that he would obtain more provisions at another place. Instead they went to sea without replenishing the stock of food. The voyage was slightly longer than average. Usually the trip could be made in about ten weeks, but they took three months to make the trip.
As a consequence of the length of the trip and the shortage of food, many passengers died. They gave the number of thirty for the deaths. The arrivals seem to have been about eighty in number. So perhaps 110 started the trip.
One of the questions that has been asked is, "What was the year when they arrived?" The answer becomes difficult because there were two different calendars in use at that time, called "
Old Style
" and "
New Style
". Later, when reporting their arrival, they failed to state which calendar was being used. We know that the Germans were still in London at least as late as September 8, when Michael Koch had a baby daughter (Dorothea) baptized in London, with Henry Snider and Mary Elisabeth Scheibel as sponsors. They may have been there longer than this, but this is the latest date that we can say for certain.
(to be continued in Note Nr. 1816)
(27 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.