27 JAN 1743 ORANGE COUNTY ORDER BOOK 3, page 313

Naturalization of Thirteen Germans


“Andrew Garr, John Adam Garr, Lawrence Garr, Lawrence Grays, David Christler, Martin Vallick, John Zimorman, Peter Fleshman, Zachariah Blankenbucher, John Zimmerman alias Carpenter, John Thomas, Christopher Uhle & Frederick Bomgardener, German protestants, having produced a Certificate under the hand of George Samuel Klug, Minister of the German Congregation in Orange County, that they within two months last past had received the Sacrament of Lord's Supper, prayed that they might partake of the benefits of an Act of Parliament made in the thirteenth Year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lord George the Second by the Grace of God of Great Britain, France and Ireland ~ King, Defender of the Faith:


"Instituted an Act for naturalizing such foreign protestants and others there in mentioned as are Settled or Shall Settle in any of his Magisties Colonies in America. It's on their motion ordered that they take the oaths appointed by Act of Parliament to be taken instead of the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy & the abjuration oath and Subscribe the Test which they all Severally did accordingly between the hours of Nine and twelve in the forenoon & It's therefore further ordered that Clerk give them a Certificate of their having taken the said oaths & subscribed the Test. ”


NOTE: The names Frederick Bomgardener, Peter Fleshman, John Thomas and John Zimmerman (Carpenter) are the same as some German settlers of Lt. Governor Alexander Spotswood’s first Germanna Colony and may well have been them. The second Spotswood Germanna Colony along the Robinson River in present day Madison County included a Carpenter, Christler, Gaar/Garr, Yowell/Uhl and Crees/Greys. In any case, the naturalization process would have been the same whether they were new immigrants into the Shenandoah Valley or members of the Germanna Colonies.


German Naturalizations


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