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Individual Record
Name
Surname:
Whitehead
Given Name:
John Frederick
Soundex Code:
W330
Birth, Christening and Other Information
Gender:
Male
Nation:
[Germany]
Occupation(s):
Weaver
Orphan:
Unknown
Position in Parent's Family:
Unknown
Landowner:
Unknown
Literate:
Unknown
Convict:
Unknown
Port of Departure
Town:
Rotterdam
Nation:
Netherlands
Place of Arrival
Town:
Philadelphia
County:
Philadelphia
Colony:
Pennsylvania
Ship:
Sally
Length of Indenture
Year of Indenture:
1773
Place of Indenture
Colony:
Pennsylvania
Death Information
State:
Ohio
Testate:
Unknown
Research Notes
Comments:
"Whitehead was the opposite, more introspective and emotional, viewing life as a glass half empty, Grubb said. He was mistreated by his stepfather and basically had no family ties when he left Germany. When he landed in Philadelphia, there seemed to be few takers for him as a servant. Calling himself a 'poor distressed looking object' he wrote 'none seemed to fancy me.' Finally he was chosen and he agreed to six and a half years of servitude to have his debts paid off. His narrative lists an account of his 'disasters and infirmities' and he laments his “ignorance of the English tongue†because his master's family laughed at him. He eventually settled in Ohio as a weaver but never really prospered." (1)
Source Citations:
(1) Sue Moncure, "'Souls for Sale,' Memoirs of Early German Immigrants," UDaily, 10 Nov 2006, http://www.udel.edu/PR/UDaily/2007/nov/souls111006.html; (2) Susan E. Klepp, Farley Grubb, Anne Pfaelzer de Ortiz, Souls for Sale: Two German Redemptioners Come to Revolutionary America; The Life Stories of John Frederick Whitehead and Johann Carl Buttner (University Park, Pennsylvania: Penn State University Press, 2006).