When the ship (the Oliver ) bringing a number of Swiss to settle on William Byrd's land sank with a great loss of life (in the crossing of the Atlantic many other lives were lost), Byrd was left with unoccupied land, which by the terms of his grant from the Council was to be populated with a certain number of people. He therefore attempted to recruit people in the Colonies to take up this land. One instance of this was shown in the letters to Bertram. There is another recorded instance of his recruiting which is a bit strange and raises some questions.
About the first of April in 1740, he wrote to Henrick Haeger. Rev. Haeger was already deceased, but apparently in the mind of Byrd, Haeger was the spokesman for the Germans at Germantown. This suggests that there may have been earlier correspondence on the same or other subjects. Since some of the survivors of the Oliver "crossing" were Germans whose destination was probably Germantown, inquiries may have been made by someone at Germantown about the availability of land on Byrd's tract. Byrd may have made a reply to Haeger thinking that he was the spokesman for the group. The letter to Henrick Haeger reads:
“[some missing words] and there is no tyranny no oppression, neither is there any country where the poor have less dependence on the rich than here. Besides all this the people are hospitable to strangers, nor is there that [envy] or aversion to them that I have observed in other places. This Sir [is] the fair and honest truth, without any design to inveigle or deceive any people. To what purpose shoud I endeavour to impose upon them, because they will certainly come and view the land before they purchase it, and will make all the other necessary enquirys. If any person will take the trouble to come with powers to treat about it, I will take [. . . ] to have the land shewd to them from one end to the other, that so they may judge for themselves, and they shall find nothing but fair and upright dealing besides a great deal of kindness from Sir your most &c.”
“There will be one advantage in purchasing so large a quantity of land because then country folks and friends may live together without the inconvenience of bad neighbours.”
"Mr. Henrick Haeger"
[There is the possibility that Mr. Henrick Haeger is not the Rev. Haeger that we know. But because there were Germans on the
Oliver
who were associated with the Germantown folks, I suspect this is a continuation of an effort to place them on Byrd's land. Whether this was initiated by the Germans or by Byrd is not known, but there is a hint that it may have been started by the Germans at Germantown, perhaps even before the
Oliver
had set sail in 1738. Byrd had been working on obtaining and settling the property for a few years before 1738.]
(19 Sep 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.