Up to and including 1717, the number of Germans who emigrated that year was the second largest. The largest by far was the number who came in 1709/1710. Klaus Wust estimated the number who emigrated in 1717 was about one thousand which far exceeded anything since 1709. The number who came into Philadelphia so worried the officials in Pennsylvania that they decreed that all such people must register; however, the decree came after the fact so there is no record of the immigrants that year to Pennsylvania. For a few years after that, everyone forgot the law and no records were kept until 1727, when the Colonial officials in Pennsylvania started enforcing the registration law.
A party of Mennonites managed to make their way to London in 1709 and on to Pennsylvania. In this mass migration, these were the only Germans to make their way directly to Pennsylvania. Once that they saw how it could be done and the advantages of Pennsylvania, which included cheap land widely available and the free exercise of religion, these Mennonites started seeking more of their brethren to come. This recruitment was by two means, letters and the sending of a man back to Germany to talk to the Mennonites in Germany. Many of these Mennonites were living among our people, for example, Hans Herr of 1709 fame lived only a few miles from Hueffenhardt.
What I suspect was the case is that our Second Colony people saw the Mennonites were leaving for America in 1717. For a few years, they had probably been hearing from the Mennonites living among them of how wonderful Pennsylvania was. Klaus Wust told me once that "war" was the reason so many left in 1717. So with the pressure to escape poverty and war in 1717, to establish a new beginning for themselves, and to see the Mennonites leaving for Pennsylvania, the Second Colony people decided, somewhat late in the year, to go also. This was why they did not depart until July when typically the German emigrants would already be on the sea.
These conjectures would hold together better if we knew that the decision to leave was mutual among all or most of the Germans who left in July. There are hints that this was the case. When the Sexton in Gemmingen wrote his note in the death register of who was leaving in 1717, he mentioned that not only were these people (from Gemmingen) leaving but that many others were leaving from other villages. Their departure was a planned activity among many people. Why had the emigrants from the different villages coordinated their decisions? I suspect there were more relationships among the people than we are now aware. We know that, intra-village, there were relationships but I suspect there were more inter-village relationships than we know.
Please do not take these remarks as fact when they are conjectures on my part. Still, the thoughts are something to think about.
(07 Mar 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.