John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 2226

The requirement in Pennsylvania that records be made of the foreign immigrants to Pennsylvania has created a general misconception that such records were made for all ports in the colonies.  This is far from the actuality.

How did the ships' captains regard the passengers?  As just so much freight.  In fact, I believe that they used the word "freights" to describe the general category of passengers.  A captain might say that he had a hundred freights meaning he had a hundred passengers.  The manifest of his load might read as one gross of knitted stockings, twelve chairs, one hundred freights, etc.  He would expect to arrive with all of non-passenger freight but, if he lost no more than 15% of his passenger freights, he might feel that it had been a successful voyage.

Now, the descendants of the Second Colony described the voyage on the ship Scott with Capt. Tarbett as hard.  They said there was a great loss of life due to the food being consumed while they were in London waiting for Tarbett to be released from Debtors’ Prison.  So I thought we might take a look at how the emigrants from one German village, Neuenbuerg, fared.  In this particular village we have a good record of the emigrants:
( * =Head of Family)

* Cyriacus Fleischmann,
Anna Barbara Fleischmann.

* Hans Nicholas Blankenbuehler,
Apollonia Blankenbuehler,
Maria Barbara Blankenbuehler,
Zacharias Blankenbuehler.

* Hans Matthias Blankenbuehler,
Anna Maria Blankenbuehler,
Hans Jerg Blankenbuehler.

* Hans Balthasar Blankenbuehler.

* Johannes Thomas,
Anna Maria Blankenbuehler,
Hans Wendel Thomas,
Anna Magdalena Thomas.

* Johann Georg Scheible,
Maria Eleonora Scheible,
Anna Martha Scheible,
Anna Elisabetha Scheible,
Anna Maria Scheible.

Of these nineteen names, which are a sizeable sample of the Second Colony immigrants, only one has no record in Virginia.  That is Maria Barbara Blankenbuehler, the daughter of Hans Nicholas and Apollonia Blankenbuehler.  I am assuming that the appearance of a name on the head right list of Alexander Spotswood means that they arrived in Virginia.  Technically, by the law this should be the case.

Incidentally, we have no proof that John Thomas and this family arrived in 1717.  It is logical that they would come with the rest of Mrs. Thomas family, namely the Blankenbakers, but we just do not have positive proof.  We do know all of the members above did arrive at some time.
(04 Jan 06)

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.