Johann Michael Willheit

schwaigernregion

• Death Notes
  • Died on 25 Jan 1670/1671.

• General Notes
  • The family left for America in 1717.  Source: Schwaigern Evangelische Kirchenbuch Before Germanna: The Willheit and Hengsteller Families.
    
    Matthais (his twin), b. 25 Jan 1671, d. 8 Feb 1671.
    
    It is stated in the "Moravian Diaries" that Michael Wilhoit came to the America & to the Colony or Germanna between 1717 and 1720.
    
    It is believed that Michael Wilhite came to Virginia with the Second Germanna Colony.  He was granted land in the Robinson River area where the colony settled after 1724.  His family attended Hebron Church in Orange County, where the German Lutherans of the Second Colony worshipped.  Most of his descendants married into other colony families, and he disappears from the German parish registers after 1717. 
    
    The second colony, which came in 1717, was entirely distinct from the first colony of 1714.  The first colonist were induced to leave their homes in Germany by the Baron deGraffenreid, acting for Governor Spottswood, who was then making preparations to develop his iron mines in the vicinity of Germanna.  This business enterprise of the Governor was the sole cause of their coming to America and Virginia.  The 1714 settlers at Germanna were fairly well educated people by the standards of the time.  Compulsory schooling was introduced in Nassau-Siegen in the middle of the 16th century.
    
    The second colony, which came in 1717, was entirely distinct from the first colony of 1714.  The first colonist were induced to leave their homes in Germany by the Baron deGraffenreid, acting for Governor Spottswood, who was then making preparations to develop his iron mines in the vicinity of Germanna.  This business enterprise of the Governor was the sole cause of their coming to America and Virginia.  The 1714 settlers at Germanna were fairly well educated people by the standards of the time.  Compulsory schooling was introduced in Nassau-Siegen in the middle of the 16th century.
    
    The second colony, comprised of Lutherans, left Germany in the spring of 1717, en route to Pennsylvania.  It numbered about 80 persons, comprising 20 families, coming from Alsace, the Palatinate and adjacent districts in Germany.  They left Germany to escape religious persecution, and secured passage to America by way of England.  They paid passage upon boarding the ship, but when they got to London, the ship's Captain Scott was arrested for bad debts and used the money to pay off all his debtors.  They were detained several weeks while the captain was imprisoned for debt.  Their food supplies dwindled while the passengers waited, and actual starvation took the lives of many passengers at sea.
    
    When they arrived in America, the Captain did not land in Pennsylvania.  Instead he took his approximately 80 passengers to Virginia where he sold them as indentured servants to Spottswood to pay for their passage and confiscated their belongings.  They were not released until 1725, a year longer than the customary seven.  Spottswood sued 18 of them in 1723 & 1724 to force them into their extended service.
    
    John Michael Wilhoit was granted 289 acres adjoining George "Woods", i.e. "Utz", 28 Sept, 1728 (Spotsylvania Co. Grants, Book 14. pg. 113). On 6 May, 1729, he was freed from levies, indicating that he was at least a middle-aged man, perhaps 60 years old.  He did not prove his importation until May 1736. as John Michael Wilhoit (Brockman, "Orange Co. Families", vol. 1, page 57), and died in Orange Co, in 1746, leaving a will which mentions his wife, Mary, sons Tobias, John, Adam, Mathias, Philip and daughter Eva, wife of Nicholas Holt.

Click here for details of Johann's family with Anna Marie Hengsteller

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