The Book of Fretz: An Emigrant's Story By Chris Flanders

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Jacob started his journey alone, with only a leather bag on his back and hope in his heart. Jacob Fretz, a 20-year-old in 1750, worked the drought-decimated family farm on a Manor in the Palatine region of what is to become Germany. The Prince who held the Manor took his serfs to aid his soldiers to defend his lands from other Princes who greedily wanted more. At the beginning of Jacob's story, his father and older brother have been taken to fight on foot with only their rakes and hoes, never to be seen again. The farm, even in a good growing season, was too small to support Jacob, his mother, brother, and two young sisters. The decision weighed heavily on his young shoulders. He knew the family's survival depended on him leaving all that he loved to find a new home for them.

He traveled alone and penniless to Philadelphia to find fertile land. Crossing the Atlantic on the vessel Dove through winter, storm-crossed seas turned him into a man who controlled his destiny, not the boy who left home with tears in his eyes. Making his way north and up the Hudson River, he found himself standing in the kitchen of the manor house on Rensselearswyck, a large Dutch Patronnship, that straddled both sides of the Hudson near Albany. His strong need for land of his own to plant oats and wheat in the early spring of 1750 directed his walk through the leased farms east of the Hudson to find the overseer Nicolaas Brock. The Patroonship was headed by 5-year-old Stephen van Rensselear, mentored by a stern and ever-watchful Jan Meyer. What happens next affects the whole of Jacob's life from that day forward.

His goal to bring his family to safety and prosperity in the New World was going to be hard to realize. His fraught journey illustrates the lengths many of our forefathers went to be free to work their land, free from taxes and contracts that took their harvest from them. Jacob's struggle is offset by the moving love story that takes place on two continents and across the perilous Atlantic Ocean. Like many of us, our family makes us strive for a safe refuge, a homestead where our family feels our love surrounding them. From this secure base, they can accomplish anything. Working together with neighbors and friends, the family can contribute to a successful life for all. This goal drove his every thought.

Jacob succeeded on land within Rensselearswyck, south of Albany just before the French and Indian War. Through hard work and determination, his small farm became a haven for his extended family. Jacob is part of my family's genealogy. I was moved to write his story to learn what it took to survive and prosper in the New World. I was humbled by his life. With little more than his hands and the hands of his neighbors, they housed, fed, and protected their families from harm. The French and Indian wars took place all around the farmers in Rensselearswyck, not changing their insulated, hard-working lives. The early murmurs of discontent were soon to be the beginning of the rebellion of the colonies against King George II and the mother country of England. Jacob and his family could not escape from this storm on their horizon. Jacob and his story richly depict how emigrants became the determined souls who demanded freedom from England in the the new, self-governing Americans. The Book of Fretz: An Emigrant's Story