Before we go on with the history of the German Protestant-Lutheran Church in Essex, Spotsylvania, and Orange Counties in Virginia, it would be good to elaborate about the sources of information that have increased our understanding of this congregation.
Chronologically, we have the departure statement in the Gemmingen Church Books which tells who the group was that left there and when they left. This statement also makes it clear that the Gemmingen people were aware of others from outside Gemmingen who were going also. This statement was translated from the German by Andreas Mielke and Elke Hall, and was published in Beyond Germanna , vol. 15, n.6. This was first brought to the attention of the Germanna community by Gary Zimmerman and Johni Cerny. It was translated again by Mielke and Hall who were born in Germany. It does show that a translation published by Hank Z. Jones contains minor errors.
The record of the 1717 emigrants in London in the St. Mary Church was found by Sandra Yelton on a trip to London and she copied a few pages. (It is also available on microfilm from the LDS library.) Mielke and I worked on the translation. It clearly shows the group used the facilities of the German Lutheran Church St. Mary le Savoy/Strand. Several Germanna people are named and the suggestion is that there may have been some relationships among the people in the different villages in Germany. It helps to fix dates also. This translation was published in Beyond Germanna in the vol. 15, n.1 issue.
A petition of some of the Germans in London in 1717 shows that not all of them were able to go immediately to America. Some of these names are in the three volume book by Hank Z. Jones, Jr., and Lewis B. Rohrbach, entitled Even More Palatine Families (Picton Press, 2002). The information was brought to my attention by Sandra Yelton and Andreas Mielke. The interpretation of the list is uncertain in that the filing in the Public Record Office implies these people were returned to Germany but it is not proven. See the vol. 15, n. 6 issue of Beyond Germanna . The information clearly establishes that some of the 1717 emigrants were delayed in getting to America.
The trip to London made by Fleshman and Motz in an effort to obtain a pastor was told in Beyond Germanna , vol. 14, n.5, by Andreas Mielke. The manuscripts are in Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin-Preussischer Kulturbesitz.Handschriftenabteilung, "Friedrich Michael Ziegenhagen, letters to August Hermann Francke, 24 November 1724; 20 September 1726; 4 November 1726".
Some records from Craven County, NC, pertaining to John Caspar Stoever were found by Sandra Yelton and published in Beyond Germanna , vol. 15, n.4.
The fund raising by the group in the Robinson River Valley to support the hiring of Stoever including the purchase of a farm for him and the building of a residence for him was told in
Beyond Germanna
, vol. 6, n. 4 and 5. The courthouse research for this was done by James E. Brown.
(13 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.