THE VOYAGE TO PENNSYLVANIA
A typical emigration from southern Germany involved a slow four to six-weeks trip by boat down the Rhine River with twenty-some stops at custom houses, each of which required an examination and its accompanying expensive delay. By the time Rotterdam was reached, funds of many of the passengers were nearly exhausted and another five or six weeks layover was experienced.From Rotterdam the ships usually sailed to a port in England, often Cowes or Plymouth, where clearance through customs and the wait for favorable winds consumed another seven to fourteen days. The real ordeal began when the open seas were reached.
Gottlieb Mittelberger, who made the journey in 1750, relates in his book the misery encountered. Densely packed aboard without proper food and water, many passengers soon came down with dysentery, scurvy, typhoid, or smallpox. Children died in large numbers. On Mittelberger's boat, thirty-two children perished between shores. There is also mention of one hopelessly incurable adult being thrown overboard alive.
On the eight to twelve week voyage, it was not uncommon to encounter gales of two to three days duration in which the ship rolled so violently that it was next to impossible for one to stand, walk or lie down. People cried and prayed piteously as they were thrown among one another. Upon arrival at Philadelphia there was always the possibility that disease would be discovered aboard with a resultant delay in debarkation. Years of indentured servitude was the fate of those who, having exhausted their funds enroute, were unable to settle for their passage with the captain.
Compounding the sufferings, of the 324 ships which arrived at Philadelphia from 1727 to 1775, nearly all docked late in the summer or early fall, leaving little time for their human cargo to prepare for the severities of the coming winter.
From one such voyage, aboard the ship Ranier out of Rotterdam and mastered by Henry Browning, there arrived at Philadelphia late in September, 1749 Johann Conrath Fassenacht and John Adam Fasnacht. The entry recording the arrival of the Ranier states that the passengers hailed from "Hanau, Wirtenberg, Darmsland, and Isenberg."
The new arrivals, along with 126 other male passengers of the Ranier, were required to take the oath to the government at the courthouse on the 26th of September, 1749. Record was seldom made of women and children passengers during this time, with the result that we have no documentary evidence of Conrath or Adam bringing families with them. It is fairly certain that Adam's wife, Anna Barbara, and daughter Catherine were members of the party, since later records indicate Catherine was born in 1746, three years before the landing.
In August of 1750, slightly less than a year after the first two Fassnachts arrived, the ship Edinburgh of Rotterdam and last out of Plymouth, England docked in Philadelphia bringing a third Fassnacht (Johann) to these shores. Family legend has it that these three Fassnachts, Johann Adam, Johann Conrath, and Johann were brothers, although we have been unable to find any written substantiation to that effect.
While the three men bore the same first names, a common custom in German families of that era, we will hereafter follow the practice observed by them, using the middle names of the first two for specific identification.
GETTING SETTLED That Conrath, Adam, and Johann lost little time in establishing their families on Pennsylvania soil is manifest by baptismal records of churches in Earl and Cocalico townships, Lancaster County. On November 9, 1751 a son, Johann Conrad, was born to Johann and his wife Königunde (nee Heinser). Sponsors were Conrath (about this time the name also began to appear spelled Conrad) and his wife Elizabeth. Seven months later on May 16, 1752, according to records of Trinity Lutheran Church, New Holland, Conrad and Elizabeth were blessed with a son Johannes, sponsored by Johann and his wife Königunde. From the interchange of sponsorships here, we can assume a close relationship between Conrath (1749 immigrant) and Johann (1750 immigrant). Adam (1749 immigrant) and his wife sponsored a second child, Johanna Catherine, born to Johann and Königunde on December 29, 1754, according to Muddy Creek Lutheran Church records.Early baptismal records of the same family from churches scattered throughout the area may seem perplexing until we realize that many of these churches were served by the same minister. Thus, it was possible for a baptism performed at one location to be recorded in the records of a church located elsewhere.
In 1750 Earl Township, to which the Fassnachts had come, was little better than a wilderness. Just 22 years previously, its first settler, John Diefenderfer, had arrived and set up a cabin near the site of New Holland. Wheat, oats, rye, and barley were the principal crops. Oxen filled the beast-of-burden role due to a shortage of horses. Few sheep were kept because of the abundance of wolves. While the raising of hogs was profitable, losses were experienced from bear raids.
Shoes were expensive and scarce, men and women both going barefoot about the farms whenever conditions permitted. Horses, likewise, usually went unshod. Buckskin breaches or course homespun served to attire the men, while a short gown of homespun and a bonnet sufficed for the ladies.
Cabin walls of the newly-arrived were neither painted nor papered and the floors were bare of coverings; furnishings were strictly utilitarian. Although the Pennsylvania Germans seldom wanted for food, the years immediately following the Fassnachts arrival were so lean that a county meeting was called to cope with the situation. The years 1753-55 were exceptionally dry, causing considerable hardship.
The first of the three original immigrants to pass from the scene was Adam who died in 1757, leaving behind his widow and at least four children: John Philip, Maria Eva, Catherine, and Elizabeth. And, except for the baptism of two more children in 1757 and 1765, there is no further reference to the second family, that of Johann and Königunde.
Regarding the third of the original immigrants, the following entry appears in the Pennsylvania Archives, Second Series, Volume II, page 350:
Conrad Farsnaught (sic) of Lancaster Co., was naturalized at a Supreme Court held at Philadelphia before Wm. Allen and Wm. Coleman, Esquires, Judges of said court on the 10th and the 11th days of April 1761. Sacrament taken March 1761.
Conrad seems to have fared well for in the Returns and Assessments for the 14th Eight Penny Tax of 1771 we find him the owner of 40 acres of land, 2 horses, and 2 head of cattle. Aiding Conrad and Elizabeth now were two sons, John aged 19, and his brother Michael aged 16, and three daughters, 14, 13, and 10 years of age respectively. The babies, Martin aged 3, and Conrad aged seven months, brought the family total at this time to nine persons.
By 1779, Conrad's holdings in Earl Township had increased to 100 acres of land, according to the Return of Effective Supply Tax for the County of Lancaster. The U.S. Census of 1790 records only one Conrad Fassnacht family in Lancaster County, consisting of two males under 16 years of age, one female and the family head. Although by this time there were three Conrads (the 1749 immigrant, his son born in 1771, and a son of the 1750 immigrant Johann, born in 1751). Unaccounted for is the Conrad born in 1751 who may have either died by 1790 or moved to another county.
Though not conclusive, the evidence strongly favors Conrad rather than the other immigrants, Adam or Johann, as being our lineal ancestor. First of all, Conrad and Elizabeth had a son, Johannes (John) born in 1752. Secondly, Conrad and Elizabeth were sponsors of two children (Philip born in 1788, and Elizabeth born in 1784) of our known ancestor John (Johannes) born in 1752. In addition, Elizabeth in 1808, by then Conrad's widow, sponsored a grandchild of John, Rebecca, daughter of Jacob and Christine Fassnacht Beck. John, our progenitor, was also the administrator of Elizabeth's estate as recorded March 13, 1813.
Based on the above, assuming that Conrad was the first of our line in this country, the sequence of descent is as follows: 1. Conrad, born in Germany in 1728; 2. Johannes (John), born 1752; 3. Samuel, born 1786; 4. John, born 1823; 5. David, born 1864. From this point on, we can trace our respective family branches.