Have you ever had an experience in your life when circumstances converged and you knew it was an “Only God” moment? I have! Not many, but I can think of a handful of times when I knew that only God could have brought unlikely details together in such a remarkable way. Those “Only God” moments are meant to build our faith, but our faith rests not in those moments, but in the supreme sovereignty of God.
Author’s Note
How much of this story is true? Little is known about the actual journey of the Charming Nancy. As Amish historian David Luthy wrote in a letter to me, “Many questions can not be answered with certainty.”
So I started with a handful of facts, an amateur’s interest in the history of this ship, and the intention to reconstruct it. To do this I worked with documents and books and newspapers, visited museums and historical ships.
Here are the few known facts of the group of Amish who crossed the Atlantic in 1737:
They sailed on the Charming Nancy, a merchant vessel that was captained by Charles Stedman. The ship left from Rotterdam, made a stop at Plymouth, England (most ships stopped at Cowes for provisions), and arrived in Philadelphia on October 8—after a three-week health quarantine in which the ship had to remain one mile away from the port.
There was a passenger list with a mix of Amish and Mennonite names.
Few eighteenth-century diaries have been preserved, but a fragment of a diary by one passenger was found and it described over twenty-four deaths, mostly children. (See below to read the fragment.)
Beyond those basic facts, I came across many conflicting ones. One source stated there were eleven Amish families on the Charming Nancy in 1737, another stated twenty-eight. One source stated that the ship arrived in Philadelphia on October 8, 1737, another indicated some passengers disembarked on September 18, 1737.
As I was constructing Anna’s story, I chose to use those basic facts about the Charming Nancy to try to create a story that would give readers a sense of why immigrants left all that they knew to travel across the ocean to the New World, and what they endured along the way. I used common first names from the passenger list (Anna, Barbara, Christian, Maria, Hans, Jacob, Josef, Catrina, Felix) and intentionally avoided actual surnames. I debated whether to use names from passenger lists and, in the end, decided not to. Why? I didn’t want to try to tell the story of anyone’s cherished ancestor. I only wanted to tell a story of what this 1737 crossing might have been like, to show the grit and determination—and heart—of these people. And God’s loving protection.
I made some assumptions to make the story read smoothly. For example, I couldn’t find any authoritative documents to prove the Amish started to think of or refer to themselves as “Amish” in 1737. There were other terms used to describe Anabaptists (Täuffers, Mennites) and the followers of Jacob Amman (Avoiders). The split in the Anabaptist church came officially to light in the 1690s, only fortysome years prior, when Jacob Amman created division by introducing, among other things, more stringent church discipline (shunning). As Anna’s Crossing grew, it became complicated for readers to not have a handle for the followers of Jacob Amman, so I chose to call them “Amish.”
Another assumption: I don’t know if the passengers of the Charming Nancy came from one German village or several. Again, to keep it simple and to create a sense of community, I chose one location.
In Anna’s Crossing, there was one death among the Amish on the Charming Nancy—Lizzie Mast—but in truth, there were dozens of deaths on that ship in 1737, mostly children. The condition of passenger life in the lower decks of a ship was truly pitiful. It was a miracle they survived at all. A child of seven years stood only a 50 percent chance of surviving the ocean journey, while those under a year of age rarely survived.1
The following year, 1738, became known as “The Year of the Destroying Angels.” It brought the largest year of German immigration, and the highest ship mortality. This is an illuminating paragraph from the book Unser Leit: The Story of the Amish by Leroy Beachy:
The overzealous solicitation by shipping agents had brought far more anxious emigrants to Rotterdam in that year than there were ships immediately available to transport them. Poor sanitation and immoderate weather conditions caused an outbreak of dysentery and fevers in the tent city at Kralingen, in an outskirt of Rotterdam, that was established for those awaiting the arrival of passenger ships. Within a short time nearly eighty small children had died.2
The emigrants’ anxiety about getting on their way and the opportunity this offered to greedy captains to increase their profits led to serious overcrowding of the passenger ships that sailed in 1738 with the result that an estimated 1600 to 2000 passengers, many already sick before they left, died en route. Among the most seriously overcrowded ships was the Charming Nancy, which embarked with 312½ freights, at least thirty-three more than Captain Stedman had packed into his ship the previous year. About half of the ship’s passengers had apparently died en route. Captain Stedman’s ship may have still been contaminated with disease from the previous year’s crossing when he had lost one out of nine.3
The following passage is from Klaus Wust’s online paper “The Emigration Year of 1738—Year of the Destroying Angels” and reveals more about the perils of the ocean crossing:
Next appeared the long overdue St. Andrew, commanded by the favorite ship captain of the Germans, John Steadman. [The spelling of Captain Stedman’s name was found to be both Steadman and Stedman.] Several letters of passengers on some of his previous five runs between Rotterdam and Philadelphia were full of praise for him. This time, on a voyage that lasted twelve weeks, almost 120 passengers had died before reaching port on October 29th. The same day, Lloyd Zachary and Thomas Bond, two physicians recruited by the authorities to tighten the inspection of the incoming Palatine ships, presented this report to the colonial council:
“We have carefully examined the State of Health of the Mariners and Passengers on board the ship St. Andrew, Captain Steadman, from Rotterdam, and found a great labouring under a malignant, eruptive fever, and are of the opinion. They cannot, for some time, be landed in town without the danger of infecting the inhabitants.”4
There was disbelief in the German community that such a fate could have befallen a ship led by Stedman. The Send-Schreiben expressed the reaction as follows:
The two Stedmans, who had so far been renowned for the transfer of Germans and wanted to keep this reputation, also had to suffer the plight this time, one of them lost near 120 before landfall, although he had a party of the Hope’s roughest and sturdiest folks, who had to succumb to sickness and fear of death. And the other one lost probably five-sixths, of 300 hardly 60 were left. His mates and some of his sailors he lost and he himself lay near death.5
It was the last emigrant transport that Captain John Stedman ever commanded. After his return to Europe, he settled down in Rotterdam in the shipping business.
Another assumption: I don’t know if, in 1737, an entire ship could be quarantined or if only sick passengers would be quarantined—I found conflicting information about quarantines. With the fear of plagues and contagion, it made sense to think they would isolate the entire ship. Within a decade or so, there was enough of a steady stream of immigrants that Province Island became an official gateway, a predecessor to Ellis Island. On a note of trivia, the Philadelphia Airport now occupies that site.
A fragment of a diary was found that was written by Hans Jacob Kauffman, a passenger on the actual 1737 Charming Nancy sea journey. Altogether, Kauffman recorded the death of two adults and twenty-four children, four of which were his own. Perhaps a more skillful writer than I could have created a story that wove in such frightful deaths, but for me (and for my editor), sticking to the facts of such an horrific ordeal would have been far too depressing. See for yourself if I made the right decision to avoid writing a novel hinging on this scarce bit of information:
The 28th of June while in Rotterdam getting ready to start my Zernbli died and was buried i
n Rotterdam. The 29th we got under sail and enjoyed only 1½ days of favorable wind. The 7th day of July, early in the morning, died Hans Zimmerman’s son-in-law.
We landed in England the 8th of July remaining 9 days in port during which 5 children died. Went under sail the 18th day of July. The 21st of July my own Lisbetli died. Several days before Michael’s Georgli had died. On the 29th of July three children died. On the first of August my Hansli died and Tuesday previous 5 children died. On the 3rd of August contrary winds beset the vessel from the first to the 8th of the month three more children died. On the 8th of August Shambien’s (?) Lizzie died and on the 9th died Hans Zimmerman’s Jacobi. On the 19th Christian Burgli’s child died. Passed a ship on the 21st. A favorable wind sprang up. On the 28th Hans Gasi’s (?) wife died. Passed a ship 13 of September.
Landed in Philadelphia on the 18th and my wife and I left a ship on the 19th. A child was born to us on the 20th—died—wife recovered. A voyage of 83 days.6
There is truth to the facts about Bairn, a child on a quarantined ship, who was auctioned off to the highest bidder in the New World as payment for his passage from Europe. The traffic in redemptioners was profitable and even ship captains were prone to entice persons, including children, onto their vessels and to sell their services once they reached America. Emigrants were simple and trusting, and prone to be taken advantage of. There was also truth to the story about a ship being ravaged by smallpox, killing so many passengers and crew that the carpenter was left to bring in the vessel. However, the ship was called the Davy and sailed in that ill-fated year of 1738 (as reported in the Pennsylvania Gazette, October 26, 1738).
The incidents of persecution involving the Anabaptists on the Charming Nancy are taken from historical accounts, though events were fictionalized to fit into the story. It’s hard to understand the discrimination that these people faced for their beliefs. They were, for the most part, families—men, women, and children—who were willing to endure almost anything if it meant they could worship and live as they pleased. In spite of everything, the amazing, rapid growth of the movement under very difficult conditions is fascinating. Today, the Amish are the fastest-growing population in North America.
Somehow, in spite of oppression and persecution and hardship, the Amish church has flourished as a rose among thorns.
Notes
1. Leroy Beachy, Unser Leit: The Story of the Amish (Millersburg, OH: Goodly Heritage Books), 270.
2. Ibid., 272.
3. Ibid.
4. Klaus Wust, “The Emigration Year of 1738—Year of the Destroying Angels,” http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~marier/Germanna.htm.
5. Send-Schreiben, http://kinexxions.blogspot.com/2012/06/jacob-berlin-voyage-across-ocean.html
6. The diary was found among papers of the late Dr. D. Heber Plank, who had translated it into English. See S. Duane Kauffman, “Early Amish Translations Support Amish History,” Budget, February 22, 1978, p. 11; and “Miscellaneous Amish Mennonite Documents,” Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage 2 (July 1979): 12–16.
Prologue
Surprises come in two shapes—good and bad. This one, though, felt indeterminate.
David Stoltzfus awoke in the middle of the night with a clear prompting in his heart: leave what was familiar and comfortable and go forth into the wilderness. He had developed a listening ear to God’s promptings over the years and knew not to ignore them. God who had spoken, David believed with his whole heart, still speaks.
But where was this wilderness?
A week passed. David searched Scripture, prayed, spoke to a few trusted friends, and still the prompting remained. Grew stronger. A month passed. David’s daily prayer was the same: Where is the wilderness, Lord? Where will you send me? Another month passed. Nothing.
And then David received a letter from a bishop—someone he had known over the years—in a little town in Lancaster County, inviting him to come alongside to serve the church. Go, came the prompting, loud and clear.
And so David packed up his home, sold his bulk store business, and moved his family to the wilderness, which, for him, meant Stoney Ridge, Pennsylvania.
As the first few months passed, it seemed puzzling to David to think that God would consider Stoney Ridge as a wilderness, albeit metaphorically. The bishop, Elmo Beiler, had welcomed him in as an additional minister, had encouraged him to preach the word of God from his heart. It was a charming town and he had been warmly embraced. A wilderness? Hardly that. More like the Garden of Eden. When he casually remarked as much to Elmo, the old bishop gave him an unreadable look. “There is no such thing, David.” Elmo didn’t expand on the thought, and David chalked it up to a warning of pride.
No place was perfect, he knew that, but the new life of the Stoltzfus family was taking shape. His children were starting to settle in. They were a family still adapting to the loss of Anna, David’s wife, but they weren’t stuck, not like they had been. It was a fresh start, and everything was going about as well as David could expect.
Then, during a church service, Elmo suffered a major heart attack. In a dramatic fashion for a man who was not at all dramatic, Elmo grabbed David’s shirt and whispered, “Beware, David. A snake is in the garden.”
Later that evening, Elmo passed away.
The next week, Freeman Glick, the other minister who had served alongside David, drew the lot to become the new bishop, his brother Levi drew the lot to replace him as minister, and in the space of one month, the little Amish church of Stoney Ridge was an altogether different place.
Almost overnight, David sensed the wilderness had arrived.
Acknowledgments
It’s a funny thing about books. You start out with an idea, a basic sketch drawn from a few facts, get a green light from your publisher, and then it’s time to open a new Word document. For a while, it’s just you and your computer.
But a book is never the work of just one person. As the story grows and expands, it includes imaginary people and places, but it also includes real people. Those who lend advice on research issues, those who help to proof and edit, those who take great care to design covers, those who market and sell the books, and of course those who eventually read the book. Each one deserves a felt thank-you from the bottom of my heart.
First of all, thank you to my dedicated first readers, Lindsey Ciraulo and Tad Fisher. Nobody could have better bird’s-eye readers. Or encouragers.
In terms of print and paper, words cannot express my gratitude for the team at Revell for your many efforts on my behalf. To Andrea Doering and Barb Barnes, my editing bookends, thank you for being such talented, wonderful people with whom to work. To the group in marketing, publicity, and art, thank you for using your talent in support of this and so many other books. Much of what you do to get books into readers’ hands goes behind the scenes, but I notice! Thank you for your love of Christian fiction. To my agent, Joyce Hart, thank you for taking these literary journeys with me over the years.
To David Luthy, a thank-you for answering my questions as I began this story. To Ervin Stutzman, for sending me Gottlieb Mittelberger’s Journey to Pennsylvania.
I thank the Lord for giving me the love of writing, which I enjoy immensely. I’m deeply grateful to be able to do something every day that I love so much. God’s way of connecting people is, indeed, the most magnificent part of any story.
Last of all, but never least of all, I am grateful to so many reader friends far and near. Thank you for all the sweet emails, for recommending my stories to your friends. You can’t imagine how much it means, when the story goes out into the world, and people make room for it in their reading life. May each of you find your “Only God” story!
Resources
The following books and sites provided helpful historical information about life in the eighteenth century, seafaring or otherwise.
Amish Society, 4th ed., by John A. Hostetler (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1963).
The Floating Brothel: The Ext
raordinary True Story of an Eighteenth-Century Ship and Its Cargo of Female Convicts by Sian Rees (New York: Hyperion, 2002).
Johann by Everett J. Thomas (Goshen, IN: Woodgate Pond Publishing, 2012).
Mayflower II (and her wonderful staff), State pier, Plymouth, MA 02361; www.plimoth.org.
Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War by Nathaniel Philbrick (New York: Penguin Books, 2006).
Unser Leit: The Story of the Amish, vol. 1, by Leroy Beachy (Millersburg, Ohio: Goodly Heritage Press, 2011).
Some helpful websites about the eighteenth-century sea crossings for Amish and Mennonite immigrants:
“Beyond Germanna” by Klaus Wust; http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~marier/Germanna.htm.
Kinexxions blog by Becky Wiseman; http://kinexxions.blogspot.com/2012/06/jacob-berlin-voyage-across-ocean.html.
The Palatine Project by Progenealogists; http://www.progenealogists.com/palproject/.
“Soul Seller: The Man Who Moved People” by Louise Walsh; http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/features/soul-seller-the-man-who-moved-people.
Suzanne Woods Fisher is the author of the bestselling Lancaster County Secrets and Stoney Ridge Seasons series. The Search received a 2012 Carol Award, The Waiting was a finalist for the 2011 Christy Award, and The Choice was a finalist for the 2011 Carol Award. Suzanne’s grandfather was raised in the Old Order German Baptist Brethren Church in Franklin County, Pennsylvania. Her interest in living a simple, faith-filled life began with her Dunkard cousins. Suzanne is also the author of the bestselling Amish Peace: Simple Wisdom for a Complicated World and Amish Proverbs: Words of Wisdom from the Simple Life, both finalists for the ECPA Book of the Year award, and Amish Values for Your Family: What We Can Learn from the Simple Life. She has an app, Amish Wisdom, to deliver a proverb a day to your iPhone, iPad, or Android. Visit her at www.suzannewoodsfisher.com to find out more.
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