Johannes Lohnes was born April 8, 1719, the second-born son of parents Leonhard Lohnes (1680-1733) and Anna Catharina Barth (1689-1751), who lived in the small farming village of Pfirschbach ("Cherry Brook") bei Höchst, in the Odenwald, a region of low mountains and beautiful forests. Pfirschbach was at that time in the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt, in the Upper Rhenish Circle (Hochrheinischer Kreis) of the Holy Roman Empire.
Two days later, on April 10, 1719, the child was taken one and a half miles to the Convent Church in Hoechst, where he was baptised "Johannes."[1] The baptismal record was marked "evangelisch," which translates to "protestant"—surely the Lutheran Church. The name Johannes Lohnes was later Americanized to John Lohnes after emigration.
Johannes's Siblings
Leonhard and Catharina Lohnes had the following children, all born in Pfirschbach bei Höchst, and baptized in Höchst im Odenwald:
Anna Elisabetha (b. 1712; d. 1712)
Johann Georg (b. 24 Aug 1714 ; d. c1763)
Anna Catharina (b. 2 Oct 1716; d. unknown)
Johannes (b. 8 Apr 1719; d. 4 May 1794) (THIS memorial)
Johann Leonhard (b. 15 Sep 1722; d. 29 Sep 1722)
Johann Nicklaus (b. 4 Oct 1724; d. unknown)
Anna Margrethe (b. 27 Sep 1726; d. 4 Oct 1726)
Johannes's Wife and Children
On November 13, 1736, at the age of 17, Johannes married Anna Barbara Kahl (1714 - 1778), age 22, in a double ceremony in Höchst with his brother Georg Lohnes (1714 - 1762-80), age 22, and Barbara's older sister Catharina Elisabetha Kahl (1711 - 1754), age 24. Such double weddings, with two siblings in one family marrying two siblings in another, were quite common hundreds of years ago, due to the difficulty of finding suitable spouses.
The newly-wedded couple set up housekeeping in the village of Mümling-Grumbach in Odenwald (which, I learned, was where his wife had been born and raised), where they lived until sometime between 8 Sep 1740 and 24 Jul 1743. Judging by the children's birth places, Johannes and Barbara removed to Stockheim between 1740 and 1743, where Johannes was a farmer, according to emigration data from the Darmstadt State Archives.
Johannes and Barbara had the following children, with dates of birth also provided by the emigration record (data from the Darmstadt State Archives, as above):
Johann Michael Lohnes (b. 1 May 1738 in Mümling-Grumbach, Odenwald; d. 1804)
Johannes Lohnes (b. 8 Sep 1740 in Mümling-Grumbach, Odenwald; d. 1821)
Johann Georg (b. 24 Jul 1743 in Stockheim, Odenwald; d. ca. 1755-6)
Johann Christoph Lohnes (b. 12 Nov 1745 in Stockheim, Odenwald; d. 1808)
Anna Margaretha Lohnes (b. 8 Apr 1748 in Stockheim, Odenwald; d. 1752)
Maria Dorothea Lohnes (b. after 13 Sep 1750 in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia; bur. 23 Dec 1750 in St. John's Anglican Church Crypt, Lunenburg, Nova Scotia).
Johann Heinrich Lohnes (b. 22 May 1755 in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia; d. 1813)
A child named Anna Barbara was reported as having been born in 1758 with the same date of death as her mother in 1778, but no other information, which was suspicious. I believe this "child" arose from data about the mother, incorrectly reported. I decided to remove the daughter.
Emigration to Nova Scotia
The above information (with exception of the births after the family's arrival in Nova Scotia) comes from the book Auswanderungen aus dem Odenwaldkreis, Vol. 1, by Ella Gieg (pub. 1988), which on p. 167 lists Johannes Lohnes, Anna Barbara Kahl and five of their children as having emigrated to Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, in 1750. [Contributor Rod Corkum states that this should have been Halifax, as he says Mahone Bay did not exist until after 1753.] The children who emigrated with them, with dates and places of birth given in the book, were: Johann Michael, Johannes, Johann Georg, Johann Christoph and Anna Margretha. I later found that the ship on which they sailed, from Rotterdam, the Netherlands, was called the "Anne,"[2] with John Spurrier, Master, which landed on 13 Sep 1750.
Why did they come to America? Why would they pack up their belongings and their children, and leave the country in which they were born, in order to face an uncertain future in a faraway land? The main reason was the destruction caused to (what is now) the Rheinland-Palatinate area of Germany as a result of repeated invasions by French troops, which caused widespread economic devastation, famine and disease. As well, they were tired of being conscripted into the armed forces to fight said French troops. They were eager to leave the war-torn area, and start afresh.
At the same time, it was said that the British were worried about losing territory to France in the area that is now Canada. They wanted British people to settle the area, but couldn't find enough interested takers (too cold for most English people!). So, they recruited Germans instead, offering them "free" land. But passage to America cost money, which most poor Germans couldn't afford---especially with their typically-large families, as passage was normally by the head.
Some enterprising Englishmen took advantage of those who were down on their luck, offering to pay for passage in exchange for a number of years of labor in the New World. The following German legalese is a copy of the contract that Johannes signed, in which men would borrow the money for passage to America for themselves and their families from the "businessman" Mr. John Dick, promising to repay the debt with indentured servitude in the New World:
Wir, die untergeschriebenen Passagiere an Bord des Schiffes genannt die Anne, geführt von hier aus Rotterdam über die See nach Halifax, gelegen in der Provinz Nova Scotia oder Neu-Schottland in Nordamerika, bezeugen und bekennen hiermit: dass wir an den Herrn John Dick, Seiner Britannischen Majestats Agent von der Provinz Nova Scotia in der Hafen von Rotterdam, [...] für unsere und unserer Familien Transportation von hier nach [...] Nova Scotia [...] in holländischer Währung und Summen auf eine ehrliche, treuliche und rechtmäßige Weise schuldig sind [...] treulichst zu bezahlen und abzuführen, durch unserer Hände Arbeit in allem demjenigen, was der all dasige Herr Gouverneur von uns zu begehren oder befinden wird und zwar Arbeitslohn 18 Pence Sterling täglich abzuverdienen so lange, bis unsere Schulden [...] bezahlt sein [werden]. Eigenhändig Unterschriebene und Unterzeichnete, Actum Rotterdam, den 26. Juni 1750.
We, the undersigned passengers aboard the ship called the "Anne," ferried from Rotterdam oversea to Halifax, situated in the province of Nova Scotia or New-Scotland in North America, attest and avow herewith: that we are obligated, in an honest, faithful and lawful way, to pay in Dutch currency and sums to Mr. John Dick, His British Majesty's agent from the province of Nova Scotia in the port of Rotterdam, for our family's transportation from here to Nova Scotia, and to work off the debt at the rate of 18 Pence Sterling per diem, by carrying out all those things that the Governor desires of us or deems necessary, until the debt has been paid. Signed / marked, recorded at Rotterdam the 26th of June 1750. [3]
We have a word for this today: it is called human trafficking, where foreigners are brought to the U.S. and told they will be able to "work off" the debt. But, once they arrive (and are stuck here), their "overseers" keep adding to their debts, while paying less than was promised, such that they can never get out from under the debt. It is often a criminal enterprise. I'd be willing to bet that this aptly-titled Mr. Dick was just such an unscrupulous person---especially after reading that he was making money on each German brought to Nova Scotia. It just doesn't pass the "smell test."
If they didn't like the conditions, couldn't they simply return to Germany? Before you answer this question, read the account of a Mr. Gottlieb Mittelberger's passage from Rotterdam to the New World:
This trip lasted ... a whole half a year, under such difficulties that nobody is able to adequately describe their misery. The reason being that the Rhine ships have to pass 36 customs stations between Heilbronn and Holland, at which the ships are all visited. Meanwhile, the ships with the people are held up for such a long time that one must consume a lot, and therefore one spends four, five, or six weeks on only the Rhine trip. When the ships arrive in Holland with the people, they are also stopped there for several weeks. Because everything there is so expensive, the poor people must consume almost everything at this time.
The people are loaded onto the big ships, partly in Rotterdam and partly in Amsterdam, so close to each other that they are soon, so to speak, packed like Herrings [or, as we would say today, like sardines]. A person has barely two feet by six feet of room in his berth, because such a ship carries four, five or 600 souls, not including countless equipment, boxes, provisions, water barrels and other things that also take up a lot of space.
During the voyage, however, arises a pitiful misery, stench, fumes, horrors, vomiting, various seasicknesses, fevers, mouth rot and the like, which all stem from the old and heavily salted food and meat, as well as from the foul, vile water, from which many sicken and die. This misery then reaches its climax when one must endure storms of two or three days and nights, such that everyone believes the ship full of people will perish. In such need, the people pray and cry pathetically together. Some groan and moan: "Oh! If only I could be back home and lie in my pig stall!" or wail: "Oh, dear God, if only I might have a good little piece of bread or a nice drop of fresh water again!" [4]
The Germans who were forced to endure such conditions during their passage to America were surely so glad to be alive that they would put up with quite a bit, rather than risk their lives again making a return voyage!
Cost of Passage
I was curious to know how long it would take to pay off the debt. Here is my estimate for the "regular" cost of passage (no unscrupulous slave labor involved—just working off ordinary debt. The cost of passage for an adult (age 21 and up) was £10, ten pounds sterling, up to £13.33, if a few extras were tacked on. In Colonial days, one pound was worth 20 shillings (s), and one shilling was worth 12 pence (d), so £1 = 240d. The cost of passage was then somewhere between 2,400d (ten x 240d) and 3,200d (13.33 x 240d).
How long would this take to work off at 18d (18 pence) per diem? A debt of 2,400d equated to from 133.33 days of work up to 177.77 days of work. If a person began working on September 15, 1750 (a typical arrival date in mid-September), s/he would need to work from then until February 18, 1751, or possibly up to as long as April 11, 1751—assuming a 6-day work week. The cost was the same for children aged 10 through 15 (yes, children had to work!), and for young adults aged 16 through 20.
While children from birth through age four sailed for free, children aged 5 through 9 were charged half price, £5, which at 240d per pound sterling equated to a debt of 1,200d (pence), and a need to work 66.66 days (yes! even five-year-old children were forced into servitude to pay off the debt, unless an adult was willing to have the debt added onto his burden. (Some parents sold their children into lifetime servitude to free themselves of all of the debt!) This meant that even a five-year-old might work from September 15, 1750, to December 2, 1750—again assuming no work on the Sabbath.
Life in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia
The book Auswanderungen aus dem Odenwaldkreis (Emigrations from the Odenwald Region), p. 167, added, at the bottom of Johannes Sr.'s emigration record, the wording "War Hofbauer auf dem Stockheimer Hof" ("Was a farmer on the Stockheim Farm"), which has one of two possible, but opposite, meanings. One definition of Hofbauer was a farmer ("Bauer," rhymes with power) who owned his own farm (Hof). Or, it said, one who farmed in the service of a court, here I think meaning almost a feudal system, which I thought was too medieval... until I read that 80 percent of farmers in 18th century (what is now) Germany did not own their own land. Hmmm. Now that makes sense, because if he had, then why would he have left it behind? If he had been one of the privileged 20 percent, that wouldn't have made sense at all! But then again... I reconsidered ... the famine and poverty after the constant wars with France was what prompted people to emigrate. And supposedly, people were always being conscripted into the wars. The only way to find out for sure is to contact the Federal Archives or hire a (tremendously expensive) private researcher.[5]
The second note was following the destination of Nova Scotia in 1750, where Gieg had added, "Dort als Köhler tätig." ("Employed there as a charcoal burner.") A charcoal burner was a person who created charcoal by burning wood in a kiln. Interesting.
The children grew to maturity, and married. From all appearances, life was better for them in Nova Scotia than the life they left behind in Odenwald.
Johannes died on 4 May 1794, at the advanced age of 75, in Lunenburg, Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia. He was interred in the Saint John's Anglican Church Crypt in Lunenburg. His wife preceded him in death on 22 June 1778, also died in Lunenburg, and was interred in the same crypt. She was 64.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* FOOTNOTES*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
[1] Most Germans, at baptism, were given a biblical/spiritual name (usually derived from the name of a saint) and a secular name or "Rufname"—the name the child would be called in everyday life. The most popular spiritual name was "Johann," from St. John. However this name NEVER translates to "John," because a boy baptised Johann Georg was called Georg/George (not John), and all of his records will be found under Georg/George. In other words, by German baptismal conventions, both males and females went by their second name. There was one exception to this: IF a child was baptised with a single name, "Johannes," then he was called "Johannes" at home. This is the only name that actually does translate as "John."
[2] I have seen two spellings of the name of the ship: "Anne" and "Ann." Although the "Ann" spellings far outnumber the "Anne" spellings, the sources are primarily user-generated, user-typed web pages, as well as modern-day publications. I am currently looking for contemporary, original source material. It seems to me that, the ship being British, it would most likely have been named the "Anne," which is the British spelling of the name. Where was the Anne/Ann built? One source, purported to be retyped from an original document, said that the ship was a galley. But Wikipedia describes a galley ship as, "... a type of ship propelled mainly by oars... [having] ... a long, slender hull, shallow draft, and low freeboard. Virtually all types of galleys had sails that could be used in favorable winds, but human effort was always the primary method of propulsion." The page then showed that galleys were primarily used as warships on the Mediterranean. I contend that an oared ship with shallow draft (and probably NO keel!) would not have been used for a crossing of the notoriously stormy north Atlantic ocean! This calls into question the accuracy of the entire document. I am still searching for a scan of an original document.
[3] Translation from the original German by Broo. Thanks also to Broo's friend, Tom Wolber, Professor of German at Ohio Wesleyan University, for proofreading the translation, and suggesting a few tweaks.
[4] Translation from the original German by Broo. The original German for this story has been omitted for brevity.
[5] "Life in Rural Germany, 1600-1800" at familysearch[DOT]org/en/blog/life-in-rural-germany-1600-1800 Visited 17 Feb 2023.
---Broo, # 48601467
Two days later, on April 10, 1719, the child was taken one and a half miles to the Convent Church in Hoechst, where he was baptised "Johannes."[1] The baptismal record was marked "evangelisch," which translates to "protestant"—surely the Lutheran Church. The name Johannes Lohnes was later Americanized to John Lohnes after emigration.
Johannes's Siblings
Leonhard and Catharina Lohnes had the following children, all born in Pfirschbach bei Höchst, and baptized in Höchst im Odenwald:
Anna Elisabetha (b. 1712; d. 1712)
Johann Georg (b. 24 Aug 1714 ; d. c1763)
Anna Catharina (b. 2 Oct 1716; d. unknown)
Johannes (b. 8 Apr 1719; d. 4 May 1794) (THIS memorial)
Johann Leonhard (b. 15 Sep 1722; d. 29 Sep 1722)
Johann Nicklaus (b. 4 Oct 1724; d. unknown)
Anna Margrethe (b. 27 Sep 1726; d. 4 Oct 1726)
Johannes's Wife and Children
On November 13, 1736, at the age of 17, Johannes married Anna Barbara Kahl (1714 - 1778), age 22, in a double ceremony in Höchst with his brother Georg Lohnes (1714 - 1762-80), age 22, and Barbara's older sister Catharina Elisabetha Kahl (1711 - 1754), age 24. Such double weddings, with two siblings in one family marrying two siblings in another, were quite common hundreds of years ago, due to the difficulty of finding suitable spouses.
The newly-wedded couple set up housekeeping in the village of Mümling-Grumbach in Odenwald (which, I learned, was where his wife had been born and raised), where they lived until sometime between 8 Sep 1740 and 24 Jul 1743. Judging by the children's birth places, Johannes and Barbara removed to Stockheim between 1740 and 1743, where Johannes was a farmer, according to emigration data from the Darmstadt State Archives.
Johannes and Barbara had the following children, with dates of birth also provided by the emigration record (data from the Darmstadt State Archives, as above):
Johann Michael Lohnes (b. 1 May 1738 in Mümling-Grumbach, Odenwald; d. 1804)
Johannes Lohnes (b. 8 Sep 1740 in Mümling-Grumbach, Odenwald; d. 1821)
Johann Georg (b. 24 Jul 1743 in Stockheim, Odenwald; d. ca. 1755-6)
Johann Christoph Lohnes (b. 12 Nov 1745 in Stockheim, Odenwald; d. 1808)
Anna Margaretha Lohnes (b. 8 Apr 1748 in Stockheim, Odenwald; d. 1752)
Maria Dorothea Lohnes (b. after 13 Sep 1750 in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia; bur. 23 Dec 1750 in St. John's Anglican Church Crypt, Lunenburg, Nova Scotia).
Johann Heinrich Lohnes (b. 22 May 1755 in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia; d. 1813)
A child named Anna Barbara was reported as having been born in 1758 with the same date of death as her mother in 1778, but no other information, which was suspicious. I believe this "child" arose from data about the mother, incorrectly reported. I decided to remove the daughter.
Emigration to Nova Scotia
The above information (with exception of the births after the family's arrival in Nova Scotia) comes from the book Auswanderungen aus dem Odenwaldkreis, Vol. 1, by Ella Gieg (pub. 1988), which on p. 167 lists Johannes Lohnes, Anna Barbara Kahl and five of their children as having emigrated to Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, in 1750. [Contributor Rod Corkum states that this should have been Halifax, as he says Mahone Bay did not exist until after 1753.] The children who emigrated with them, with dates and places of birth given in the book, were: Johann Michael, Johannes, Johann Georg, Johann Christoph and Anna Margretha. I later found that the ship on which they sailed, from Rotterdam, the Netherlands, was called the "Anne,"[2] with John Spurrier, Master, which landed on 13 Sep 1750.
Why did they come to America? Why would they pack up their belongings and their children, and leave the country in which they were born, in order to face an uncertain future in a faraway land? The main reason was the destruction caused to (what is now) the Rheinland-Palatinate area of Germany as a result of repeated invasions by French troops, which caused widespread economic devastation, famine and disease. As well, they were tired of being conscripted into the armed forces to fight said French troops. They were eager to leave the war-torn area, and start afresh.
At the same time, it was said that the British were worried about losing territory to France in the area that is now Canada. They wanted British people to settle the area, but couldn't find enough interested takers (too cold for most English people!). So, they recruited Germans instead, offering them "free" land. But passage to America cost money, which most poor Germans couldn't afford---especially with their typically-large families, as passage was normally by the head.
Some enterprising Englishmen took advantage of those who were down on their luck, offering to pay for passage in exchange for a number of years of labor in the New World. The following German legalese is a copy of the contract that Johannes signed, in which men would borrow the money for passage to America for themselves and their families from the "businessman" Mr. John Dick, promising to repay the debt with indentured servitude in the New World:
Wir, die untergeschriebenen Passagiere an Bord des Schiffes genannt die Anne, geführt von hier aus Rotterdam über die See nach Halifax, gelegen in der Provinz Nova Scotia oder Neu-Schottland in Nordamerika, bezeugen und bekennen hiermit: dass wir an den Herrn John Dick, Seiner Britannischen Majestats Agent von der Provinz Nova Scotia in der Hafen von Rotterdam, [...] für unsere und unserer Familien Transportation von hier nach [...] Nova Scotia [...] in holländischer Währung und Summen auf eine ehrliche, treuliche und rechtmäßige Weise schuldig sind [...] treulichst zu bezahlen und abzuführen, durch unserer Hände Arbeit in allem demjenigen, was der all dasige Herr Gouverneur von uns zu begehren oder befinden wird und zwar Arbeitslohn 18 Pence Sterling täglich abzuverdienen so lange, bis unsere Schulden [...] bezahlt sein [werden]. Eigenhändig Unterschriebene und Unterzeichnete, Actum Rotterdam, den 26. Juni 1750.
We, the undersigned passengers aboard the ship called the "Anne," ferried from Rotterdam oversea to Halifax, situated in the province of Nova Scotia or New-Scotland in North America, attest and avow herewith: that we are obligated, in an honest, faithful and lawful way, to pay in Dutch currency and sums to Mr. John Dick, His British Majesty's agent from the province of Nova Scotia in the port of Rotterdam, for our family's transportation from here to Nova Scotia, and to work off the debt at the rate of 18 Pence Sterling per diem, by carrying out all those things that the Governor desires of us or deems necessary, until the debt has been paid. Signed / marked, recorded at Rotterdam the 26th of June 1750. [3]
We have a word for this today: it is called human trafficking, where foreigners are brought to the U.S. and told they will be able to "work off" the debt. But, once they arrive (and are stuck here), their "overseers" keep adding to their debts, while paying less than was promised, such that they can never get out from under the debt. It is often a criminal enterprise. I'd be willing to bet that this aptly-titled Mr. Dick was just such an unscrupulous person---especially after reading that he was making money on each German brought to Nova Scotia. It just doesn't pass the "smell test."
If they didn't like the conditions, couldn't they simply return to Germany? Before you answer this question, read the account of a Mr. Gottlieb Mittelberger's passage from Rotterdam to the New World:
This trip lasted ... a whole half a year, under such difficulties that nobody is able to adequately describe their misery. The reason being that the Rhine ships have to pass 36 customs stations between Heilbronn and Holland, at which the ships are all visited. Meanwhile, the ships with the people are held up for such a long time that one must consume a lot, and therefore one spends four, five, or six weeks on only the Rhine trip. When the ships arrive in Holland with the people, they are also stopped there for several weeks. Because everything there is so expensive, the poor people must consume almost everything at this time.
The people are loaded onto the big ships, partly in Rotterdam and partly in Amsterdam, so close to each other that they are soon, so to speak, packed like Herrings [or, as we would say today, like sardines]. A person has barely two feet by six feet of room in his berth, because such a ship carries four, five or 600 souls, not including countless equipment, boxes, provisions, water barrels and other things that also take up a lot of space.
During the voyage, however, arises a pitiful misery, stench, fumes, horrors, vomiting, various seasicknesses, fevers, mouth rot and the like, which all stem from the old and heavily salted food and meat, as well as from the foul, vile water, from which many sicken and die. This misery then reaches its climax when one must endure storms of two or three days and nights, such that everyone believes the ship full of people will perish. In such need, the people pray and cry pathetically together. Some groan and moan: "Oh! If only I could be back home and lie in my pig stall!" or wail: "Oh, dear God, if only I might have a good little piece of bread or a nice drop of fresh water again!" [4]
The Germans who were forced to endure such conditions during their passage to America were surely so glad to be alive that they would put up with quite a bit, rather than risk their lives again making a return voyage!
Cost of Passage
I was curious to know how long it would take to pay off the debt. Here is my estimate for the "regular" cost of passage (no unscrupulous slave labor involved—just working off ordinary debt. The cost of passage for an adult (age 21 and up) was £10, ten pounds sterling, up to £13.33, if a few extras were tacked on. In Colonial days, one pound was worth 20 shillings (s), and one shilling was worth 12 pence (d), so £1 = 240d. The cost of passage was then somewhere between 2,400d (ten x 240d) and 3,200d (13.33 x 240d).
How long would this take to work off at 18d (18 pence) per diem? A debt of 2,400d equated to from 133.33 days of work up to 177.77 days of work. If a person began working on September 15, 1750 (a typical arrival date in mid-September), s/he would need to work from then until February 18, 1751, or possibly up to as long as April 11, 1751—assuming a 6-day work week. The cost was the same for children aged 10 through 15 (yes, children had to work!), and for young adults aged 16 through 20.
While children from birth through age four sailed for free, children aged 5 through 9 were charged half price, £5, which at 240d per pound sterling equated to a debt of 1,200d (pence), and a need to work 66.66 days (yes! even five-year-old children were forced into servitude to pay off the debt, unless an adult was willing to have the debt added onto his burden. (Some parents sold their children into lifetime servitude to free themselves of all of the debt!) This meant that even a five-year-old might work from September 15, 1750, to December 2, 1750—again assuming no work on the Sabbath.
Life in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia
The book Auswanderungen aus dem Odenwaldkreis (Emigrations from the Odenwald Region), p. 167, added, at the bottom of Johannes Sr.'s emigration record, the wording "War Hofbauer auf dem Stockheimer Hof" ("Was a farmer on the Stockheim Farm"), which has one of two possible, but opposite, meanings. One definition of Hofbauer was a farmer ("Bauer," rhymes with power) who owned his own farm (Hof). Or, it said, one who farmed in the service of a court, here I think meaning almost a feudal system, which I thought was too medieval... until I read that 80 percent of farmers in 18th century (what is now) Germany did not own their own land. Hmmm. Now that makes sense, because if he had, then why would he have left it behind? If he had been one of the privileged 20 percent, that wouldn't have made sense at all! But then again... I reconsidered ... the famine and poverty after the constant wars with France was what prompted people to emigrate. And supposedly, people were always being conscripted into the wars. The only way to find out for sure is to contact the Federal Archives or hire a (tremendously expensive) private researcher.[5]
The second note was following the destination of Nova Scotia in 1750, where Gieg had added, "Dort als Köhler tätig." ("Employed there as a charcoal burner.") A charcoal burner was a person who created charcoal by burning wood in a kiln. Interesting.
The children grew to maturity, and married. From all appearances, life was better for them in Nova Scotia than the life they left behind in Odenwald.
Johannes died on 4 May 1794, at the advanced age of 75, in Lunenburg, Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia. He was interred in the Saint John's Anglican Church Crypt in Lunenburg. His wife preceded him in death on 22 June 1778, also died in Lunenburg, and was interred in the same crypt. She was 64.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* FOOTNOTES*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
[1] Most Germans, at baptism, were given a biblical/spiritual name (usually derived from the name of a saint) and a secular name or "Rufname"—the name the child would be called in everyday life. The most popular spiritual name was "Johann," from St. John. However this name NEVER translates to "John," because a boy baptised Johann Georg was called Georg/George (not John), and all of his records will be found under Georg/George. In other words, by German baptismal conventions, both males and females went by their second name. There was one exception to this: IF a child was baptised with a single name, "Johannes," then he was called "Johannes" at home. This is the only name that actually does translate as "John."
[2] I have seen two spellings of the name of the ship: "Anne" and "Ann." Although the "Ann" spellings far outnumber the "Anne" spellings, the sources are primarily user-generated, user-typed web pages, as well as modern-day publications. I am currently looking for contemporary, original source material. It seems to me that, the ship being British, it would most likely have been named the "Anne," which is the British spelling of the name. Where was the Anne/Ann built? One source, purported to be retyped from an original document, said that the ship was a galley. But Wikipedia describes a galley ship as, "... a type of ship propelled mainly by oars... [having] ... a long, slender hull, shallow draft, and low freeboard. Virtually all types of galleys had sails that could be used in favorable winds, but human effort was always the primary method of propulsion." The page then showed that galleys were primarily used as warships on the Mediterranean. I contend that an oared ship with shallow draft (and probably NO keel!) would not have been used for a crossing of the notoriously stormy north Atlantic ocean! This calls into question the accuracy of the entire document. I am still searching for a scan of an original document.
[3] Translation from the original German by Broo. Thanks also to Broo's friend, Tom Wolber, Professor of German at Ohio Wesleyan University, for proofreading the translation, and suggesting a few tweaks.
[4] Translation from the original German by Broo. The original German for this story has been omitted for brevity.
[5] "Life in Rural Germany, 1600-1800" at familysearch[DOT]org/en/blog/life-in-rural-germany-1600-1800 Visited 17 Feb 2023.
---Broo, # 48601467
Johannes Lohnes was born April 8, 1719, the second-born son of parents Leonhard Lohnes (1680-1733) and Anna Catharina Barth (1689-1751), who lived in the small farming village of Pfirschbach ("Cherry Brook") bei Höchst, in the Odenwald, a region of low mountains and beautiful forests. Pfirschbach was at that time in the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt, in the Upper Rhenish Circle (Hochrheinischer Kreis) of the Holy Roman Empire.
Two days later, on April 10, 1719, the child was taken one and a half miles to the Convent Church in Hoechst, where he was baptised "Johannes."[1] The baptismal record was marked "evangelisch," which translates to "protestant"—surely the Lutheran Church. The name Johannes Lohnes was later Americanized to John Lohnes after emigration.
Johannes's Siblings
Leonhard and Catharina Lohnes had the following children, all born in Pfirschbach bei Höchst, and baptized in Höchst im Odenwald:
Anna Elisabetha (b. 1712; d. 1712)
Johann Georg (b. 24 Aug 1714 ; d. c1763)
Anna Catharina (b. 2 Oct 1716; d. unknown)
Johannes (b. 8 Apr 1719; d. 4 May 1794) (THIS memorial)
Johann Leonhard (b. 15 Sep 1722; d. 29 Sep 1722)
Johann Nicklaus (b. 4 Oct 1724; d. unknown)
Anna Margrethe (b. 27 Sep 1726; d. 4 Oct 1726)
Johannes's Wife and Children
On November 13, 1736, at the age of 17, Johannes married Anna Barbara Kahl (1714 - 1778), age 22, in a double ceremony in Höchst with his brother Georg Lohnes (1714 - 1762-80), age 22, and Barbara's older sister Catharina Elisabetha Kahl (1711 - 1754), age 24. Such double weddings, with two siblings in one family marrying two siblings in another, were quite common hundreds of years ago, due to the difficulty of finding suitable spouses.
The newly-wedded couple set up housekeeping in the village of Mümling-Grumbach in Odenwald (which, I learned, was where his wife had been born and raised), where they lived until sometime between 8 Sep 1740 and 24 Jul 1743. Judging by the children's birth places, Johannes and Barbara removed to Stockheim between 1740 and 1743, where Johannes was a farmer, according to emigration data from the Darmstadt State Archives.
Johannes and Barbara had the following children, with dates of birth also provided by the emigration record (data from the Darmstadt State Archives, as above):
Johann Michael Lohnes (b. 1 May 1738 in Mümling-Grumbach, Odenwald; d. 1804)
Johannes Lohnes (b. 8 Sep 1740 in Mümling-Grumbach, Odenwald; d. 1821)
Johann Georg (b. 24 Jul 1743 in Stockheim, Odenwald; d. ca. 1755-6)
Johann Christoph Lohnes (b. 12 Nov 1745 in Stockheim, Odenwald; d. 1808)
Anna Margaretha Lohnes (b. 8 Apr 1748 in Stockheim, Odenwald; d. 1752)
Maria Dorothea Lohnes (b. after 13 Sep 1750 in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia; bur. 23 Dec 1750 in St. John's Anglican Church Crypt, Lunenburg, Nova Scotia).
Johann Heinrich Lohnes (b. 22 May 1755 in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia; d. 1813)
A child named Anna Barbara was reported as having been born in 1758 with the same date of death as her mother in 1778, but no other information, which was suspicious. I believe this "child" arose from data about the mother, incorrectly reported. I decided to remove the daughter.
Emigration to Nova Scotia
The above information (with exception of the births after the family's arrival in Nova Scotia) comes from the book Auswanderungen aus dem Odenwaldkreis, Vol. 1, by Ella Gieg (pub. 1988), which on p. 167 lists Johannes Lohnes, Anna Barbara Kahl and five of their children as having emigrated to Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, in 1750. [Contributor Rod Corkum states that this should have been Halifax, as he says Mahone Bay did not exist until after 1753.] The children who emigrated with them, with dates and places of birth given in the book, were: Johann Michael, Johannes, Johann Georg, Johann Christoph and Anna Margretha. I later found that the ship on which they sailed, from Rotterdam, the Netherlands, was called the "Anne,"[2] with John Spurrier, Master, which landed on 13 Sep 1750.
Why did they come to America? Why would they pack up their belongings and their children, and leave the country in which they were born, in order to face an uncertain future in a faraway land? The main reason was the destruction caused to (what is now) the Rheinland-Palatinate area of Germany as a result of repeated invasions by French troops, which caused widespread economic devastation, famine and disease. As well, they were tired of being conscripted into the armed forces to fight said French troops. They were eager to leave the war-torn area, and start afresh.
At the same time, it was said that the British were worried about losing territory to France in the area that is now Canada. They wanted British people to settle the area, but couldn't find enough interested takers (too cold for most English people!). So, they recruited Germans instead, offering them "free" land. But passage to America cost money, which most poor Germans couldn't afford---especially with their typically-large families, as passage was normally by the head.
Some enterprising Englishmen took advantage of those who were down on their luck, offering to pay for passage in exchange for a number of years of labor in the New World. The following German legalese is a copy of the contract that Johannes signed, in which men would borrow the money for passage to America for themselves and their families from the "businessman" Mr. John Dick, promising to repay the debt with indentured servitude in the New World:
Wir, die untergeschriebenen Passagiere an Bord des Schiffes genannt die Anne, geführt von hier aus Rotterdam über die See nach Halifax, gelegen in der Provinz Nova Scotia oder Neu-Schottland in Nordamerika, bezeugen und bekennen hiermit: dass wir an den Herrn John Dick, Seiner Britannischen Majestats Agent von der Provinz Nova Scotia in der Hafen von Rotterdam, [...] für unsere und unserer Familien Transportation von hier nach [...] Nova Scotia [...] in holländischer Währung und Summen auf eine ehrliche, treuliche und rechtmäßige Weise schuldig sind [...] treulichst zu bezahlen und abzuführen, durch unserer Hände Arbeit in allem demjenigen, was der all dasige Herr Gouverneur von uns zu begehren oder befinden wird und zwar Arbeitslohn 18 Pence Sterling täglich abzuverdienen so lange, bis unsere Schulden [...] bezahlt sein [werden]. Eigenhändig Unterschriebene und Unterzeichnete, Actum Rotterdam, den 26. Juni 1750.
We, the undersigned passengers aboard the ship called the "Anne," ferried from Rotterdam oversea to Halifax, situated in the province of Nova Scotia or New-Scotland in North America, attest and avow herewith: that we are obligated, in an honest, faithful and lawful way, to pay in Dutch currency and sums to Mr. John Dick, His British Majesty's agent from the province of Nova Scotia in the port of Rotterdam, for our family's transportation from here to Nova Scotia, and to work off the debt at the rate of 18 Pence Sterling per diem, by carrying out all those things that the Governor desires of us or deems necessary, until the debt has been paid. Signed / marked, recorded at Rotterdam the 26th of June 1750. [3]
We have a word for this today: it is called human trafficking, where foreigners are brought to the U.S. and told they will be able to "work off" the debt. But, once they arrive (and are stuck here), their "overseers" keep adding to their debts, while paying less than was promised, such that they can never get out from under the debt. It is often a criminal enterprise. I'd be willing to bet that this aptly-titled Mr. Dick was just such an unscrupulous person---especially after reading that he was making money on each German brought to Nova Scotia. It just doesn't pass the "smell test."
If they didn't like the conditions, couldn't they simply return to Germany? Before you answer this question, read the account of a Mr. Gottlieb Mittelberger's passage from Rotterdam to the New World:
This trip lasted ... a whole half a year, under such difficulties that nobody is able to adequately describe their misery. The reason being that the Rhine ships have to pass 36 customs stations between Heilbronn and Holland, at which the ships are all visited. Meanwhile, the ships with the people are held up for such a long time that one must consume a lot, and therefore one spends four, five, or six weeks on only the Rhine trip. When the ships arrive in Holland with the people, they are also stopped there for several weeks. Because everything there is so expensive, the poor people must consume almost everything at this time.
The people are loaded onto the big ships, partly in Rotterdam and partly in Amsterdam, so close to each other that they are soon, so to speak, packed like Herrings [or, as we would say today, like sardines]. A person has barely two feet by six feet of room in his berth, because such a ship carries four, five or 600 souls, not including countless equipment, boxes, provisions, water barrels and other things that also take up a lot of space.
During the voyage, however, arises a pitiful misery, stench, fumes, horrors, vomiting, various seasicknesses, fevers, mouth rot and the like, which all stem from the old and heavily salted food and meat, as well as from the foul, vile water, from which many sicken and die. This misery then reaches its climax when one must endure storms of two or three days and nights, such that everyone believes the ship full of people will perish. In such need, the people pray and cry pathetically together. Some groan and moan: "Oh! If only I could be back home and lie in my pig stall!" or wail: "Oh, dear God, if only I might have a good little piece of bread or a nice drop of fresh water again!" [4]
The Germans who were forced to endure such conditions during their passage to America were surely so glad to be alive that they would put up with quite a bit, rather than risk their lives again making a return voyage!
Cost of Passage
I was curious to know how long it would take to pay off the debt. Here is my estimate for the "regular" cost of passage (no unscrupulous slave labor involved—just working off ordinary debt. The cost of passage for an adult (age 21 and up) was £10, ten pounds sterling, up to £13.33, if a few extras were tacked on. In Colonial days, one pound was worth 20 shillings (s), and one shilling was worth 12 pence (d), so £1 = 240d. The cost of passage was then somewhere between 2,400d (ten x 240d) and 3,200d (13.33 x 240d).
How long would this take to work off at 18d (18 pence) per diem? A debt of 2,400d equated to from 133.33 days of work up to 177.77 days of work. If a person began working on September 15, 1750 (a typical arrival date in mid-September), s/he would need to work from then until February 18, 1751, or possibly up to as long as April 11, 1751—assuming a 6-day work week. The cost was the same for children aged 10 through 15 (yes, children had to work!), and for young adults aged 16 through 20.
While children from birth through age four sailed for free, children aged 5 through 9 were charged half price, £5, which at 240d per pound sterling equated to a debt of 1,200d (pence), and a need to work 66.66 days (yes! even five-year-old children were forced into servitude to pay off the debt, unless an adult was willing to have the debt added onto his burden. (Some parents sold their children into lifetime servitude to free themselves of all of the debt!) This meant that even a five-year-old might work from September 15, 1750, to December 2, 1750—again assuming no work on the Sabbath.
Life in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia
The book Auswanderungen aus dem Odenwaldkreis (Emigrations from the Odenwald Region), p. 167, added, at the bottom of Johannes Sr.'s emigration record, the wording "War Hofbauer auf dem Stockheimer Hof" ("Was a farmer on the Stockheim Farm"), which has one of two possible, but opposite, meanings. One definition of Hofbauer was a farmer ("Bauer," rhymes with power) who owned his own farm (Hof). Or, it said, one who farmed in the service of a court, here I think meaning almost a feudal system, which I thought was too medieval... until I read that 80 percent of farmers in 18th century (what is now) Germany did not own their own land. Hmmm. Now that makes sense, because if he had, then why would he have left it behind? If he had been one of the privileged 20 percent, that wouldn't have made sense at all! But then again... I reconsidered ... the famine and poverty after the constant wars with France was what prompted people to emigrate. And supposedly, people were always being conscripted into the wars. The only way to find out for sure is to contact the Federal Archives or hire a (tremendously expensive) private researcher.[5]
The second note was following the destination of Nova Scotia in 1750, where Gieg had added, "Dort als Köhler tätig." ("Employed there as a charcoal burner.") A charcoal burner was a person who created charcoal by burning wood in a kiln. Interesting.
The children grew to maturity, and married. From all appearances, life was better for them in Nova Scotia than the life they left behind in Odenwald.
Johannes died on 4 May 1794, at the advanced age of 75, in Lunenburg, Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia. He was interred in the Saint John's Anglican Church Crypt in Lunenburg. His wife preceded him in death on 22 June 1778, also died in Lunenburg, and was interred in the same crypt. She was 64.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* FOOTNOTES*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
[1] Most Germans, at baptism, were given a biblical/spiritual name (usually derived from the name of a saint) and a secular name or "Rufname"—the name the child would be called in everyday life. The most popular spiritual name was "Johann," from St. John. However this name NEVER translates to "John," because a boy baptised Johann Georg was called Georg/George (not John), and all of his records will be found under Georg/George. In other words, by German baptismal conventions, both males and females went by their second name. There was one exception to this: IF a child was baptised with a single name, "Johannes," then he was called "Johannes" at home. This is the only name that actually does translate as "John."
[2] I have seen two spellings of the name of the ship: "Anne" and "Ann." Although the "Ann" spellings far outnumber the "Anne" spellings, the sources are primarily user-generated, user-typed web pages, as well as modern-day publications. I am currently looking for contemporary, original source material. It seems to me that, the ship being British, it would most likely have been named the "Anne," which is the British spelling of the name. Where was the Anne/Ann built? One source, purported to be retyped from an original document, said that the ship was a galley. But Wikipedia describes a galley ship as, "... a type of ship propelled mainly by oars... [having] ... a long, slender hull, shallow draft, and low freeboard. Virtually all types of galleys had sails that could be used in favorable winds, but human effort was always the primary method of propulsion." The page then showed that galleys were primarily used as warships on the Mediterranean. I contend that an oared ship with shallow draft (and probably NO keel!) would not have been used for a crossing of the notoriously stormy north Atlantic ocean! This calls into question the accuracy of the entire document. I am still searching for a scan of an original document.
[3] Translation from the original German by Broo. Thanks also to Broo's friend, Tom Wolber, Professor of German at Ohio Wesleyan University, for proofreading the translation, and suggesting a few tweaks.
[4] Translation from the original German by Broo. The original German for this story has been omitted for brevity.
[5] "Life in Rural Germany, 1600-1800" at familysearch[DOT]org/en/blog/life-in-rural-germany-1600-1800 Visited 17 Feb 2023.
---Broo, # 48601467
Two days later, on April 10, 1719, the child was taken one and a half miles to the Convent Church in Hoechst, where he was baptised "Johannes."[1] The baptismal record was marked "evangelisch," which translates to "protestant"—surely the Lutheran Church. The name Johannes Lohnes was later Americanized to John Lohnes after emigration.
Johannes's Siblings
Leonhard and Catharina Lohnes had the following children, all born in Pfirschbach bei Höchst, and baptized in Höchst im Odenwald:
Anna Elisabetha (b. 1712; d. 1712)
Johann Georg (b. 24 Aug 1714 ; d. c1763)
Anna Catharina (b. 2 Oct 1716; d. unknown)
Johannes (b. 8 Apr 1719; d. 4 May 1794) (THIS memorial)
Johann Leonhard (b. 15 Sep 1722; d. 29 Sep 1722)
Johann Nicklaus (b. 4 Oct 1724; d. unknown)
Anna Margrethe (b. 27 Sep 1726; d. 4 Oct 1726)
Johannes's Wife and Children
On November 13, 1736, at the age of 17, Johannes married Anna Barbara Kahl (1714 - 1778), age 22, in a double ceremony in Höchst with his brother Georg Lohnes (1714 - 1762-80), age 22, and Barbara's older sister Catharina Elisabetha Kahl (1711 - 1754), age 24. Such double weddings, with two siblings in one family marrying two siblings in another, were quite common hundreds of years ago, due to the difficulty of finding suitable spouses.
The newly-wedded couple set up housekeeping in the village of Mümling-Grumbach in Odenwald (which, I learned, was where his wife had been born and raised), where they lived until sometime between 8 Sep 1740 and 24 Jul 1743. Judging by the children's birth places, Johannes and Barbara removed to Stockheim between 1740 and 1743, where Johannes was a farmer, according to emigration data from the Darmstadt State Archives.
Johannes and Barbara had the following children, with dates of birth also provided by the emigration record (data from the Darmstadt State Archives, as above):
Johann Michael Lohnes (b. 1 May 1738 in Mümling-Grumbach, Odenwald; d. 1804)
Johannes Lohnes (b. 8 Sep 1740 in Mümling-Grumbach, Odenwald; d. 1821)
Johann Georg (b. 24 Jul 1743 in Stockheim, Odenwald; d. ca. 1755-6)
Johann Christoph Lohnes (b. 12 Nov 1745 in Stockheim, Odenwald; d. 1808)
Anna Margaretha Lohnes (b. 8 Apr 1748 in Stockheim, Odenwald; d. 1752)
Maria Dorothea Lohnes (b. after 13 Sep 1750 in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia; bur. 23 Dec 1750 in St. John's Anglican Church Crypt, Lunenburg, Nova Scotia).
Johann Heinrich Lohnes (b. 22 May 1755 in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia; d. 1813)
A child named Anna Barbara was reported as having been born in 1758 with the same date of death as her mother in 1778, but no other information, which was suspicious. I believe this "child" arose from data about the mother, incorrectly reported. I decided to remove the daughter.
Emigration to Nova Scotia
The above information (with exception of the births after the family's arrival in Nova Scotia) comes from the book Auswanderungen aus dem Odenwaldkreis, Vol. 1, by Ella Gieg (pub. 1988), which on p. 167 lists Johannes Lohnes, Anna Barbara Kahl and five of their children as having emigrated to Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, in 1750. [Contributor Rod Corkum states that this should have been Halifax, as he says Mahone Bay did not exist until after 1753.] The children who emigrated with them, with dates and places of birth given in the book, were: Johann Michael, Johannes, Johann Georg, Johann Christoph and Anna Margretha. I later found that the ship on which they sailed, from Rotterdam, the Netherlands, was called the "Anne,"[2] with John Spurrier, Master, which landed on 13 Sep 1750.
Why did they come to America? Why would they pack up their belongings and their children, and leave the country in which they were born, in order to face an uncertain future in a faraway land? The main reason was the destruction caused to (what is now) the Rheinland-Palatinate area of Germany as a result of repeated invasions by French troops, which caused widespread economic devastation, famine and disease. As well, they were tired of being conscripted into the armed forces to fight said French troops. They were eager to leave the war-torn area, and start afresh.
At the same time, it was said that the British were worried about losing territory to France in the area that is now Canada. They wanted British people to settle the area, but couldn't find enough interested takers (too cold for most English people!). So, they recruited Germans instead, offering them "free" land. But passage to America cost money, which most poor Germans couldn't afford---especially with their typically-large families, as passage was normally by the head.
Some enterprising Englishmen took advantage of those who were down on their luck, offering to pay for passage in exchange for a number of years of labor in the New World. The following German legalese is a copy of the contract that Johannes signed, in which men would borrow the money for passage to America for themselves and their families from the "businessman" Mr. John Dick, promising to repay the debt with indentured servitude in the New World:
Wir, die untergeschriebenen Passagiere an Bord des Schiffes genannt die Anne, geführt von hier aus Rotterdam über die See nach Halifax, gelegen in der Provinz Nova Scotia oder Neu-Schottland in Nordamerika, bezeugen und bekennen hiermit: dass wir an den Herrn John Dick, Seiner Britannischen Majestats Agent von der Provinz Nova Scotia in der Hafen von Rotterdam, [...] für unsere und unserer Familien Transportation von hier nach [...] Nova Scotia [...] in holländischer Währung und Summen auf eine ehrliche, treuliche und rechtmäßige Weise schuldig sind [...] treulichst zu bezahlen und abzuführen, durch unserer Hände Arbeit in allem demjenigen, was der all dasige Herr Gouverneur von uns zu begehren oder befinden wird und zwar Arbeitslohn 18 Pence Sterling täglich abzuverdienen so lange, bis unsere Schulden [...] bezahlt sein [werden]. Eigenhändig Unterschriebene und Unterzeichnete, Actum Rotterdam, den 26. Juni 1750.
We, the undersigned passengers aboard the ship called the "Anne," ferried from Rotterdam oversea to Halifax, situated in the province of Nova Scotia or New-Scotland in North America, attest and avow herewith: that we are obligated, in an honest, faithful and lawful way, to pay in Dutch currency and sums to Mr. John Dick, His British Majesty's agent from the province of Nova Scotia in the port of Rotterdam, for our family's transportation from here to Nova Scotia, and to work off the debt at the rate of 18 Pence Sterling per diem, by carrying out all those things that the Governor desires of us or deems necessary, until the debt has been paid. Signed / marked, recorded at Rotterdam the 26th of June 1750. [3]
We have a word for this today: it is called human trafficking, where foreigners are brought to the U.S. and told they will be able to "work off" the debt. But, once they arrive (and are stuck here), their "overseers" keep adding to their debts, while paying less than was promised, such that they can never get out from under the debt. It is often a criminal enterprise. I'd be willing to bet that this aptly-titled Mr. Dick was just such an unscrupulous person---especially after reading that he was making money on each German brought to Nova Scotia. It just doesn't pass the "smell test."
If they didn't like the conditions, couldn't they simply return to Germany? Before you answer this question, read the account of a Mr. Gottlieb Mittelberger's passage from Rotterdam to the New World:
This trip lasted ... a whole half a year, under such difficulties that nobody is able to adequately describe their misery. The reason being that the Rhine ships have to pass 36 customs stations between Heilbronn and Holland, at which the ships are all visited. Meanwhile, the ships with the people are held up for such a long time that one must consume a lot, and therefore one spends four, five, or six weeks on only the Rhine trip. When the ships arrive in Holland with the people, they are also stopped there for several weeks. Because everything there is so expensive, the poor people must consume almost everything at this time.
The people are loaded onto the big ships, partly in Rotterdam and partly in Amsterdam, so close to each other that they are soon, so to speak, packed like Herrings [or, as we would say today, like sardines]. A person has barely two feet by six feet of room in his berth, because such a ship carries four, five or 600 souls, not including countless equipment, boxes, provisions, water barrels and other things that also take up a lot of space.
During the voyage, however, arises a pitiful misery, stench, fumes, horrors, vomiting, various seasicknesses, fevers, mouth rot and the like, which all stem from the old and heavily salted food and meat, as well as from the foul, vile water, from which many sicken and die. This misery then reaches its climax when one must endure storms of two or three days and nights, such that everyone believes the ship full of people will perish. In such need, the people pray and cry pathetically together. Some groan and moan: "Oh! If only I could be back home and lie in my pig stall!" or wail: "Oh, dear God, if only I might have a good little piece of bread or a nice drop of fresh water again!" [4]
The Germans who were forced to endure such conditions during their passage to America were surely so glad to be alive that they would put up with quite a bit, rather than risk their lives again making a return voyage!
Cost of Passage
I was curious to know how long it would take to pay off the debt. Here is my estimate for the "regular" cost of passage (no unscrupulous slave labor involved—just working off ordinary debt. The cost of passage for an adult (age 21 and up) was £10, ten pounds sterling, up to £13.33, if a few extras were tacked on. In Colonial days, one pound was worth 20 shillings (s), and one shilling was worth 12 pence (d), so £1 = 240d. The cost of passage was then somewhere between 2,400d (ten x 240d) and 3,200d (13.33 x 240d).
How long would this take to work off at 18d (18 pence) per diem? A debt of 2,400d equated to from 133.33 days of work up to 177.77 days of work. If a person began working on September 15, 1750 (a typical arrival date in mid-September), s/he would need to work from then until February 18, 1751, or possibly up to as long as April 11, 1751—assuming a 6-day work week. The cost was the same for children aged 10 through 15 (yes, children had to work!), and for young adults aged 16 through 20.
While children from birth through age four sailed for free, children aged 5 through 9 were charged half price, £5, which at 240d per pound sterling equated to a debt of 1,200d (pence), and a need to work 66.66 days (yes! even five-year-old children were forced into servitude to pay off the debt, unless an adult was willing to have the debt added onto his burden. (Some parents sold their children into lifetime servitude to free themselves of all of the debt!) This meant that even a five-year-old might work from September 15, 1750, to December 2, 1750—again assuming no work on the Sabbath.
Life in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia
The book Auswanderungen aus dem Odenwaldkreis (Emigrations from the Odenwald Region), p. 167, added, at the bottom of Johannes Sr.'s emigration record, the wording "War Hofbauer auf dem Stockheimer Hof" ("Was a farmer on the Stockheim Farm"), which has one of two possible, but opposite, meanings. One definition of Hofbauer was a farmer ("Bauer," rhymes with power) who owned his own farm (Hof). Or, it said, one who farmed in the service of a court, here I think meaning almost a feudal system, which I thought was too medieval... until I read that 80 percent of farmers in 18th century (what is now) Germany did not own their own land. Hmmm. Now that makes sense, because if he had, then why would he have left it behind? If he had been one of the privileged 20 percent, that wouldn't have made sense at all! But then again... I reconsidered ... the famine and poverty after the constant wars with France was what prompted people to emigrate. And supposedly, people were always being conscripted into the wars. The only way to find out for sure is to contact the Federal Archives or hire a (tremendously expensive) private researcher.[5]
The second note was following the destination of Nova Scotia in 1750, where Gieg had added, "Dort als Köhler tätig." ("Employed there as a charcoal burner.") A charcoal burner was a person who created charcoal by burning wood in a kiln. Interesting.
The children grew to maturity, and married. From all appearances, life was better for them in Nova Scotia than the life they left behind in Odenwald.
Johannes died on 4 May 1794, at the advanced age of 75, in Lunenburg, Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia. He was interred in the Saint John's Anglican Church Crypt in Lunenburg. His wife preceded him in death on 22 June 1778, also died in Lunenburg, and was interred in the same crypt. She was 64.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* FOOTNOTES*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
[1] Most Germans, at baptism, were given a biblical/spiritual name (usually derived from the name of a saint) and a secular name or "Rufname"—the name the child would be called in everyday life. The most popular spiritual name was "Johann," from St. John. However this name NEVER translates to "John," because a boy baptised Johann Georg was called Georg/George (not John), and all of his records will be found under Georg/George. In other words, by German baptismal conventions, both males and females went by their second name. There was one exception to this: IF a child was baptised with a single name, "Johannes," then he was called "Johannes" at home. This is the only name that actually does translate as "John."
[2] I have seen two spellings of the name of the ship: "Anne" and "Ann." Although the "Ann" spellings far outnumber the "Anne" spellings, the sources are primarily user-generated, user-typed web pages, as well as modern-day publications. I am currently looking for contemporary, original source material. It seems to me that, the ship being British, it would most likely have been named the "Anne," which is the British spelling of the name. Where was the Anne/Ann built? One source, purported to be retyped from an original document, said that the ship was a galley. But Wikipedia describes a galley ship as, "... a type of ship propelled mainly by oars... [having] ... a long, slender hull, shallow draft, and low freeboard. Virtually all types of galleys had sails that could be used in favorable winds, but human effort was always the primary method of propulsion." The page then showed that galleys were primarily used as warships on the Mediterranean. I contend that an oared ship with shallow draft (and probably NO keel!) would not have been used for a crossing of the notoriously stormy north Atlantic ocean! This calls into question the accuracy of the entire document. I am still searching for a scan of an original document.
[3] Translation from the original German by Broo. Thanks also to Broo's friend, Tom Wolber, Professor of German at Ohio Wesleyan University, for proofreading the translation, and suggesting a few tweaks.
[4] Translation from the original German by Broo. The original German for this story has been omitted for brevity.
[5] "Life in Rural Germany, 1600-1800" at familysearch[DOT]org/en/blog/life-in-rural-germany-1600-1800 Visited 17 Feb 2023.
---Broo, # 48601467
Family Members
Advertisement
Explore more
Sponsored by Ancestry
Advertisement
