Johann Friedrich Häger, the son of Rev. Häger of the First Colony, wrote several letters from New York to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in London (and to his parents). Many of these have been published in “ Ecclesiastical Records of the State of New York ”. His early attempts along the Hudson River to convert the Germans to the Anglican faith were thwarted in part by the already present Justus Falckner, a Lutheran minister.
One of the letters of Friedrich Häger was written in June 1712. He told Mr. Chamberlayne of the SPG that he had received a letter from Chamberlayne with an enclosure from Häger’s father. He told Chamberlayne,
“My parents press me hard from hence. I am not able to assist them [...]. I recommend to you my parents in case they should come to England, that some provision may be made for them.”
Considering the very slow mails which were done in stages, this is a very early document relating to Rev. Heinrich Häger’s emigration plans. Surely, by the end of 1711, and probably even earlier, he and his wife had reached the decision to emigrate to America.
(Friedrich Häger gave instructions for the routing of a letter to his parents which he was enclosing in the letter to Chamberlayne.
“Of the enclosed letter to my father [...] direct it first to Mr. John Behagel, near the Bank, at Amsterdam, and then to his brother Isaak Behagel, at Frankfort, who were formerly my father’s disciples; or to Mr. Langhen at Saxenhausen near Frankfort, who is to send it further to Mr. Nesser at Siegen, who will deliver it without fail to my father.”
This merely shows the difficulty and the delays to be encountered in sending mail. The Behagel brothers had been involved in the Frankfurt-Pennsylvania land company, which had played a role in the founding of Germantown in Philadelphia, showing that the Hägers had more than one connection to America.)
By 1711, Heinrich Häger had already made solid plans to go to America. Certainly, the son was a major factor in this decision, but there was another. Franz Ludwig Michel had met Justus Albrecht in Holland and hired him to find miners in Germany. As a part of his recruitment efforts, Albrecht executed a Deed Poll by which he promised to give money to the Siegen ministers. This was in 1711 on 15 August.
Rev. Heinrich Häger did leave Oberfischbach in 1713, but apparently he was unaccompanied by any of the other members of what became the First Germanna Colony. It is recorded that Jacob Holtzklau had no known schedule for leaving when the Häger family left.
There were many influences leading to the decision of the Henrich Häger family to emigrate, but certainly the earlier emigrations to American played an important part. More information on the material in this Note is to be found in
Beyond Germanna
on page 798.
(16 Jun 04)
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.