*[Ich habe einen Schneemann gebaut.]
Of the “mineral men” in the First Colony of 1585, there were many “Germans”. Let us look into the background as to why so many of these people were not English.
These German mineral specialists were an advance party from the Society of the Mines Royal . This was a copper operation conducted by Germans and Austrians in England’s Lake District. Because the Society was the first company in England to produce copper, it would have been the logical operation to carry on operations in Virginia. The Society, by its charter, also had a monopoly on silver and gold production. The hope was that the Society could conduct a branch operation in Virginia as it already had in Wales.
Queen Elizabeth had been behind the effort to boost the English mineral production. She recognized that the continental people were ahead of the English and, therefore, people from Germany were recruited. One of the first tasks in England was to extract the copper from the silver coins which had been debased. On 10 December 1564, Elizabeth granted exclusive rights, to the mining and smelting of ores of gold, silver, copper, and mercury in eight counties of England and in Wales, to the Augsburger Daniel Hoechstetter, Sr., and the Englishman Thomas Thurland. Hoechstetter and Thurland, along with German and English investors, formed the Society of Mines Royal . Hoechstetter represented the Augsburg investors who became the major investors in the company. In 1567, Hoechstetter presented samples of copper to Elizabeth that had been mined and refined. The next year the Society received its formal charter. The enterprise employed about 150 German-speaking individuals, many from the Tyrol in Austria. In a relative few years, about 550 tons of copper were produced.
Daniel Hoechstetter, Jr., led the contingent to Virginia from the Society of Mines Royal . The prestige of his father (now deceased) was helpful, as was the fact that a brother was the current managing direct of the Society. In the roster of colonists, he appears under his first name as the English had trouble with the German surnames and often just omitted them. Daniel, Jr., was relatively young, as he was born in Augsburg in 1562. His mother was Radagunda Stammler of a South German merchant-banker family.
Another German appears to be Hance Walters (Hans Wautter), whose position in Virginia was a "butler" to Hoechstetter; however, the German “mineral men” were generally chosen for their ability and knowledge in minerals.
*[I have built a snowman.]
(05 Jan 07)
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.