Second Germanna Colony, Apr 1717

This emigrants left their villages in southern Germany (Baden and Württemberg) about 12 Jul 1717 enroute for Pennsylvania by way of London. Starvation took the lives of several of the passengers (probably 50 people perished, most of them children) who had been swindled by their captain who was retained in London. The ship held about 138 passengers and did not land in Pennsylvania but to Virginia where the passengers were sold as indentured servants to Governor Spotswood.

The base for this reconstructed list comes from:

• Before Germanna by Gary J. Zimmerman and Johni Cerny
• ÄThe Second Germanna Colony of 1717, Other Germanna Pioneers, the So-called Third Germanna Colony of 1719, and Late Comers to the Hebron Church Community" by B.C. Holtzclaw in The Germanna Record (1965) 6: 51-74. 

Research by Zimmerman & Cerny has shown that several who were thought to have come to Virginia in 1719-1720 were actually more likely part of the 1717 group. The strongest evidence for this is the absence of any references to each of these families in Germany after 1716 and the fact that they would have left from others from the same town at that time. These families include the following:

• Matthias Gessler (Castler) Family
• Friederich Kappler (Cabler) Family. Although he stated in Apr 1724 that he came to this country with his wife in Jan 1718. It is likely that he was off by a year and came with others from Sulzfeld, Baden in 1717.
• Thomas Wieland (Wayland) Family
• Johann Michael Willheit (Wilhoit) Family
• Christopher & Nicholas Uhl (Yowell) Families