Just a few days before Christmas, on Dec. 20, 1606, a motley crew of 105 passengers, men and boys, along with 39 sailors departed the city of London to journey across the Atlantic. Spread out on three vessels, the Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery, they traversed the rough waters of the Atlantic, battling sea sickness and storms before reaching the Virginia coast in late April of 1607. They spent approximately two weeks exploring the waterways before eventually deciding on a location for their settlement on the banks of the James River. The expedition was sponsored by the Virginia Company of London, a business venture that had been organized to form a permanent colony in Virginia, after the failed Roanoke, N.C. settlement whose disappearance has never been resolved. Thus, it’s perhaps not very surprising, albeit inaccurate, that the history of Jamestown is often told as an English story, despite having important German influences from the beginning. Among the first settlers who set foot on Virginia soil in the spring of 1607 was Dr. Johannes Fleischer, a 25-year-old physician and botanist from Breslau, Silesia in the Holy Roman Empire (modern-day Wrocław, Poland). Fleischer was the first university-educated person in English America, having studied medicine in Frankfurt an der Oder and at the University of Basel, where he had received his doctorate on Feb. 3, 1606.
Dr. Fleischer traveled to Virginia with the expedition sponsored by the Virginia Company of London. His mission was not only medical but also scientific. The Virginia Company hoped that the New World would provide valuable medicinal plants, herbs, and natural resources that could benefit England economically. Fleischer studied the local flora of southern Virginia, and attempted to identify plants with healing properties, making him one of the earliest European researchers of American botany. The archaeological findings, some of which can be admired in the adjacent museum operated by the National Park Service, also include a number of apothecary jars from the 17th century which may have been used by Fleischer himself to collect and preserve the plants he found. At the same time, he served as a physician for the struggling colonists, who faced diseases, such as malaria, typhoid, dysentery, and salt poisoning from drinking the brackish water of the tidal river, malnutrition, and harsh environmental conditions.
Life in early Jamestown was extremely difficult, and the settlers were inexperienced in surviving in this subtropical wilderness surrounded by hostile native American tribes. Violent squirmishes further diminished their number, and on top of that their arrival coincided with a significant drought that degraded and depleted their water supply. Dr. Fleischer had his work cut out for him, and despite being an educated man of medicine and science, 17th century medicine often caused more harm than help. During our June 2025 visit to the Jamestown Settlement, our summer interns and I learned about the important work archaeologists have been conducting for decades, and we watched them unearth the remains of a storage cellar. Some 20 years earlier, in 2003, a team discovered fascinating evidence of early surgery during a dig in a ditch that once surrounded the western bulwark of the fort: a section of skull with three distinct marks from a medical instrument called a trepanning saw. Unfortunately, the procedure failed and the patient, whose skull demonstrates evidence of at least two mortal blows to the head, did not survive. It’s unlikely that Fleischer conducted the surgical procedure as he died in the early summer of 1608, a little more than a year after arriving. His death notice reads: “He surveyed what the German soil produced in terms of plants; what in America flourished, he viewed, too and thereby perished.” Fleischer’s final resting place is an unmarked grave, probably within the boundaries of the old fort, where the dead were wrapped in shrouds and buried quickly. Despite his short life in Virginia, his presence established the beginning of German contributions to colonial America.
German influence in Jamestown continued after Fleischer’s death. In 1608, additional German-speaking craftsmen arrived aboard the ship Mary and Margaret. These settlers included glassmakers, carpenters, and mineral specialists. Their skills were highly valued because the English colony desperately needed trained artisans who could help create profitable industries. German glassmakers helped establish what became the first glassmaking operation in English North America, an important early industrial enterprise in Virginia. During our unique look behind the scenes, guided by Historic Jamestowne curator Leah Stricker, we were shown a number of recovered crucibles, i.e., specialized, heat-resistant containers designed to melt or subject materials—such as metals, glass, or chemical compounds—to extremely high temperatures, which were used to experiment with glass making. However, what type or form of glass and how much was actually produced is unknown, and these first attempts at a full glass production facility in the New World were not successful.
German craftsmen also contributed to construction and woodworking in the colony. Some of the carpenters built European-style structures and sawmills, introducing practical building techniques that influenced the development of the settlement. Their hard work and technical knowledge distinguished them from many colonists who lacked experience in manual labor. Contemporary accounts from leaders such as Captain John Smith praised the productivity of the German and Polish workers in Jamestown.
Although the number of Germans in early Jamestown was small, their impact was significant. They contributed scientific knowledge, medicine, craftsmanship, and industrial skills during the colony’s fragile beginnings. Their presence also demonstrates that colonial America was multicultural from its earliest years, involving cooperation among English settlers and immigrants from other parts of Europe. The story of Dr. Johannes Fleischer and the German artisans of Jamestown highlights an often-overlooked chapter in early American history and shows that German influence in Virginia began long before the larger waves of German immigration in the eighteenth century.
