Early Waldhauers
The Waldhauers and their in-laws were all members of the “Georgia Dutch” who settled in Ebenezer in the mid-18th century. The Waldhauer family had, for some number of generations, lived in Brotzingen, an area of the city of Pforzheim, in Baden-Württemberg Germany, west of Stuttgart, where Johann Casper (1653-1730) was a lawyer. Their in-laws, the Decks, were in the same area but moved frequently because Johann (1655-1730) was a shepherd. In 1744, Johann Casper Waldhauer, his wife Anna Margaretha (Deck), and their family embarked on the ship “Two Sisters,” bound for Philadelphia. “They had hardly left the English coast before being captured by two Spanish privateers and taken to Bilbao, where they lost all their belongings and were subjected to Dominican zeal to convert them to the True Faith. Ransomed by the British and brought to Gosport on the southern coast of England by the cartel ship Drake, most of those who could afford to do so returned to Germany. The remainder were lodged in Mr. John Carver’s storehouse and supported by the charity of the townspeople” (Jones, The Georgia Dutch, 104). Johann Casper could have afforded to join those returning to Germany (on leaving Germany his wealth was recorded as 1500 fl, an exceptionally high number for those emigrating), but chose not to.
173 of these mostly-impoverished Protestants petitioned the Trustees to come to the colony of Georgia on May 27, 1745. About a hundred accepted terms of four years of indentured servitude, sailing once more for America on the similarly ill-fated ship “Judith.” “Their second voyage was scarcely better than the first: a burning fever afflicted both crew and passengers; and because the captain died and the first mate nearly died, the ship might never have reached Frederica if a passenger named Bartholomaus Zouberbuhler, himself a landlubber from St. Gall in Switzerland, had not known enough geometry to plot the ship’s course with the help of an illiterate sailor” (Jones, The Salzburger Saga , 88). They finally struck port on January 22, 1746. “If only a degree or two off course, he could have landed on the hostile shore of Florida, in which case the German passengers might have repeated the same ordeal they had suffered on the Two Sisters” (Jones, The Georgia Dutch , 105). Jacob’s family was significantly split up in the dispersion. His two older brothers made their way to the originally intended destination in Pennsylvania, constructing Fort Walthour in Westmoreland County. Christoph(er) served in the Revolution.
- adapted in part from https://www.facebook.com/Jacob-Caspar-Waldhauer-
185363494807124/ and from https://gw.geneanet.org/alexbueno