The letters from Ziegenhagen to Francke are in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin-Preussischer Kulturbesitz . Andrew Mielke obtained copies of these with the assistance of the staff there and translated them. I have been using his translation from Beyond Germanna , pages 823-4, where he published his work. I have been using a lot of his language. He comments on the letters:
"We don’t know what happened after that letter, except that the deputies left England without a minister, but perhaps not empty-handed. William J. Huddle writes, ' in 1725 they sent two of their number to Germany ' and also mentions speculatively ' German Lutheran Ministers in London. ' No evidence that they went to Germany is known. Ziegenhagen's letter implies that they waited in London, poor but full of hope. No help came from Halle, however, perhaps because old Francke had other problems. He died the following year [as did King George]. Huddle likes to think that they 'secured' the pewter communion pieces inscribed as ' A gift from Thomas Giffin, London May 13, 1727 ' [still with the Lutheran Church in Madison County, Virginia] before they somehow returned to Spotsylvania. They may have brought this gift along personally, but another gift is surely dated too late for that: ' A gift from Thomas Giffin, London Hall Street, London, October 21, 1729. ' Maybe by finding information on or by Giffin, we might find answers to some of the questions presented above."
Nowhere in this last series of letters are the two deputies named, but one document identifies the two. Earlier it had been thought they were Fleshman and Cook, but the history presented in a letter by Stoever, Hold, and Smith to the London pastors clearly says they were Fleshman and Motz.
One thing that remains unidentified is the animal that the two men fed on board the ship which was a present from Governor Drysdale to King George. It was probably an animal that was not common in England. One wonders if the two men obtained their transportation in exchange for caring for this animal. The animal seems to have caused King George to ask if there were man-eaters in Germany.
I must admire the two men who were obviously very hard pressed but persisted in the endeavor even though their means was very limited. They must have made a shilling go a long way.
(11 Apr 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.