At the same time that Alexander Spotswood was trying to persuade the Colony of Virginia to engage in smelting iron ore from the land owned by William Byrd, one Johann Justus Albrecht was having mining tools made and was trying to recruit miners for a venture in the New World. Albrecht presents many faces to us. First, he seems confused and, second, he seems like a con man.
He had been hired by Franz Ludwig Michel to recruit miners to exploit the silver mines which Michel thought he had found in Virginia, or perhaps Pennsylvania, or even Maryland. No surveys had been made and any given location was hard to locate definitively. Albrecht was to recruit miners, no particular type specified. He happened to pick an iron mining region, Nassau-Siegen, but the emphasis was not on the iron but on the mining capability.
Apparently, the Germans were reluctant to sign up with Albrecht. Therefore, he made a grandiose gesture of offering some of the profits from the mines for gold, silver, and other metals in Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and the remaining provinces, to the three Reformed preachers in the City of Siegen. This was a donation on his part; it was not a contract. He asked nothing in return. Historically, this has been reported as a contract, but it was not a contract, because there were not two parties to the agreement. More exactly, it is best described as a Deed Poll. [This was transcribed by Gerhard Moisel, translated from German by Andreas Mielke, and printed in Beyond Germanna , page 886.]
Back in London in 1712, Albrecht prepared a Shareholder's Book , which pertained to the gold and silver mines in South Carolina. Apparently, he was trying to sell shares in this venture, of which he had been appointed as, he said, the Head Mine Captain, on 5 January of 1709. He proposed in the Shareholder's Book to build and develop the gold and silver mines there. [This Shareholder's Book is in the Spotsylvania Court House and was translated from the German by Elke Hall and printed in Beyond Germanna , page 241.]
Albrecht was the only contact the Nassau-Siegen Germans had with anyone who was connected with the New World. Christopher von Graffenried mentions writing to the Germans, but since he knew none of them by name it is most likely that he wrote to Albrecht, who was in contact with the Germans. Therefore, all news of the New World was filtered through Albrecht, and from his two written documents we can only conclude that he was confused about the intended destination in America. Since Albrecht had been hired by a man who thought he had discovered silver-bearing ores, and since Albrecht mentions gold and silver prominently in his writings, we should conclude that he was telling the Germans they would be mining gold or silver. Just where this mine would be is a mystery to us, as he mentions several different provinces.
The point now is that nothing was said about iron and the location of the mines was in question.
(30 Jul 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.