Who made up the congregation of St. Mary's? According to some notes that I have for Hamburg Lutheran Church (which should be similar), I have these occupations:
Physician, surgeon, apothecary, merchant, shoemaker, chaplain, physician, coachman (to My Lord Portland), button maker, shoemaker, posement maker, watchman, Swedish resident, soldier, shoelapper, Envoy of Sweden, journeyman, laborer, goldsmith, shipper, silversmith, laceman, showman, bookkeeper, sugar boiler, periwig maker, spinet maker, quack doctor(?), day laborer, artist, jeweler, apothecary.
(I found nothing in the Hamburg Lutheran Church records pertaining to the Germanna Colonies.)
There was a Germanna connection to a resident of London. The resident was Ralph Ladenberg who conducted a wine merchant’s business there. His sister lived in the Palatinate and three of her children emigrated to Virginia. One of these was Johanna Friederika who married John Francis Lucas Jacoby in London in the parish of Saint Martins in the Fields on 16 Jul 1764. Mr. Jacoby had been living in Virginia but returned to London for reasons that are not clear. There he met Johanna Friederika Lotspeich who was probably living with her uncle Ralph Ladenberg. We know quite a bit about the family because they have been found in the Palatinate and Mr. Ladenberg left a will in London in which he left most of his estate to the children of his sister. Three of these were living in America (the poor executor had no small task!).
When I had first encountered this story with its marriage in London, I was suspicious. Germans marry in Germany or in America but not in London. A London Church and a date were cited and it sounded made up to me. But after studying the Germans in England and their Churches I find the story plausible.
Now, back in Saint Mary's, Dr. Johann Gottlieb Burckhardt, who came as pastor in 1781, was very interested in the school and he reformed the rules for conducting the school. He laid out a curriculum which included religion, history, geography, mathematics, and science, in addition to reading and writing, which had been the backbone of the school previously. He even had classes in English (this from a man who complained of a lack of love for the Fatherland).
In 1792, Burckhardt considered that the Church Order was in need of revision. It had existed for a hundred years without change. One thing that Burckhardt wanted changed was the exclusion of the pastor for the meeting of the Council. Even more than that, he wanted the pastor to be the permanent Chairman of the Council. This did not go down too well.
(16 Mar 05)
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.