A point that I have not yet made in the discussion of whether the Freudenberg emigrants came to Virginia or Georgia, is the rapidity with which they show up in the Virginia records. As an example, B. C. Holtzclaw tells us that Herman Bach was the appraiser of an estate in the year 1741 in Virginia. One story has it that the Freudenberg emigrants went to Georgia where they found the climate unhealthy. To escape this, they went north and some of them stopped in Virginia. Others were said to have gone on to Bethlehem in Pennsylvania, where the Moravians were the major force. (Incidentally, if some of the people had gone to the Moravians, there would surely have been records of them, since the Moravians are the world’s best record keepers.)
If the Freudenberg emigrants had landed in Georgia in 1738, it seems to me that three years would not be sufficient time for them to test the climate, to decide to move, and to become acquainted with life in Virginia to the extent of one becoming an appraiser.
I believe that the Freudenberg people took ship with the Oliver , which sank off the coast of Virginia. Due to the starvation, disease, drowning, and freezing, about two thirds of the people died. There are serious implications in this. For example, Herman Bach is known to have married in Germany one Anna Margarthe Hausmann of Bottenberg, in the Oberfischbach parish, where Rev. Haeger had been pastor and Jacob Holtzclaw had been a school teacher. In America, Herman Bach married a second time Katherine Unknown. B. C. Holtzclaw states that Herman's children were probably by the first wife, but did he take into the account the probability that Anna Margarethe Hausmann Bach survived the trip? If only one of every three passengers survived the trip, the odds are against Anna Margarethe surviving the trip, unless there is distinct evidence that she did survive.
This is a case where all of the evidence must be considered before a mother is assigned to the Bach children. The best that might be said about who was the mother of the Bach children is "perhaps". In some of the six family units, the men were bachelors, so there is less uncertainty about them.
Because of the uncertainties, there should be more discussion about the Freudenberg group and the ship that they came on. This would help to clarify the probabilities.
[Someone was asking about the lack of traffic on the list. Maybe this topic could spur some comments.]
(24 Jan 06)
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