GERMANNA_COLONIES-L Archives

From: John Blankenbaker <>
Subject: [GERMANNA] (1162)Germanna Colonies, HIstory of
Date: Tue, 08 May 2001 07:01:49 -0400

The eleven hundred and sixty-second note in a series on the Germanna Colonies

I may have confused some of you by my references to where the Second
Germanna Colony lived. Some people have identified it as the "Hebron"
community but that is unsatisfactory to me. Hebron would refer to the
church that some of the Germans attended. So referring to Hebron is not
really referring to the entire community. And it would certainly tend to
exclude the English who were living in the community. The other reason for
not using the name Hebron is that, in the eighteenth century, the church
was not called Hebron.

I prefer to call the community, to be more inclusive, the Robinson River
Valley community. This better defines a geographical area and makes no
reference to any one set of people who lived in the community.

The Germans in this area generally fell into two religious groups, the
Lutheran and the Reformed. The Lutherans did not call themselves Lutherans.
They said they were the (German) Evangelical church. "Evangelical" merely
said they were Protestants. Often both Lutherans and Reformed said they
were Evangelical but sometimes they added words to distinguish between the
Lutheran and Reformed religions.

In the Robinson River Valley there were several Reformed Church members and
they did not participate in the church services of the Lutherans. The
exception occurs if a Reformed member married a Lutheran and then the
records may show that the Reformed member did participate at the Lutheran
church. The records often make it clear that the person was Reformed. At
some point, the Reformed people built a chapel of their own but it appears
that it never had a regular pastor. On some occasions they might have had a
guest pastor. The Reformed chapel was on Hoffman's land and the chapel is
often referred to by this name.

When the name Hebron came into use is not clear. "The History of the
Lutheran Church" by W.P. Huddle and Margaret Grim Davis does not tell us.
At the time of the Revolution, official documents refer to the German
Evangelical Church which has been translated as German Lutheran without any
reference to the name Hebron. In fact there is a hint that the church might
have been known as "Hopeful" or the "Church of Good Hope." The English had
a simple name for it. They called it the "Dutch" church.

Increasingly, I am referring to the larger community which includes all
nationalities and religions as the Robinson River Valley even the area
which is often associated with those who lived there is broader than the
Valley itself. In the eighteenth century, the more proper name for the
church we now call Hebron would be the German Evangelical Church.

John Blankenbaker
http://www.germanna.com/
http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~george/johnsgermnotes/germhis1.html
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~genelea/gerhist/index.html

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• [GERMANNA] (1162)Germanna Colonies, HIstory of by John Blankenbaker <>