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Messages - Tradbuzz

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The Common Room / Re: Sollicoffre family in London
« on: Saturday 28 September 19 16:47 BST (UK)  »
Oh dear ... more likely that this Mr Zolicoffer in Mulberry Ward, Philadelphia, was Jean Conrad Zollikoffer who went out to set up in business there after training in the counting house of Schweighauser in Nantes.  Two people wrote to Benjamin Franklin in 1777 asking for introductions for him.

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The Common Room / Re: Sollicoffre family in London
« on: Saturday 28 September 19 16:20 BST (UK)  »
This 1779 Pennsylvania record doesn't give any Christian name, but may be linked to my John Sollicoffre? Either it IS him, or he went out (cheaply) to a relation. In America the Z spelling was the norm.

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The Common Room / Re: Sollicoffre family in London
« on: Saturday 28 September 19 16:02 BST (UK)  »
Oh ... I need to attach the page of his passage.  From FindMyPast.

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The Common Room / Re: Sollicoffre family in London
« on: Saturday 28 September 19 15:58 BST (UK)  »
Well, I hope so. I wonder if any employment arrangement was made before he sailed?  Probably not. 

Speer "at the Seven Star in Great Tower Street" (whose pieces still exist) had several other apprentices at that time and they joined him aged 16 rather than 14.  Looking again at all this I see that the £20 consideration paid for John Sollicoffre's apprenticeship was double Speer's normal fee of £12:12s.   Maybe some Philadelphia record of John will emerge, but it seems that, if he was just labouring out there, he may have died without trace.

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The Common Room / Re: Sollicoffre family in London
« on: Saturday 28 September 19 15:22 BST (UK)  »
I clearly need to read The Infortunate: Voyage and Adventures of William Moraley, an Indentured Servant.  It seems that John (Robert) Sollicoffre went out to Philadelphia on a free passage on the basis that the Captain was paid after his arrival by his new employer.  The passage may have been pre-arranged with someone in Philadelphia who wanted him, I think, but otherwise he was just going to be a labourer, whatever minimal skills, at 17, he claimed to have.   

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The Common Room / Re: Sollicoffre family in London
« on: Saturday 28 September 19 14:54 BST (UK)  »
Thank you for suggesting Fothergill!  Ididn't know the whole book was on line, although I already knew that John Sollicoffre sailed in October 1774 on a London Packet.

However, but thought (but now know I was wrong) it was the same ship in which Thomas Payne was a passenger, which suffered a severe outbreak of Typhus fever "among the servants" on the journey.  Fothergill lists Payne on the packet which left on the 10th October, so that's a help.  I know John didn't died of Typhus at sea.

John Sollicoffre 17 trade Cabinet Maker, sailed on the London Packet bound for Philadelphia, Captain Cook, as an Indented servant (free passage?)  The British manuscript passenger list doesn't give date, but other records say 3rd October.

I must check conditions at that time for free passage and read Benjamin Franklin's autobiography again.  Was Philadelphia in great need of young men?  It is odd that he sailed so soon (only 5 months) after his apprenticeship was agreed, but perhaps his mother failed to pay the £20 fee to his master and that was all he could do? Or perhaps he ran away and was shipped out to save being thrown in jail?

In 1777 someone wrote to Franklin to ask for assistance for a young man called Sollicoffre ....  I'll look at that again too.


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The Common Room / Re: Sollicoffre family in London
« on: Saturday 28 September 19 12:51 BST (UK)  »
Thank you for all comments on names.  I think it may be significant that the grandson in question (my 3xgt grandfather, John Robert Overton (1783-1847) a Linen Draper in Dorking Surrey always used both his names. His only uncle was of course the Cabinet Maker John Robert Sollicoffre, which I hope indicates that Henry and Andrew were the same man!  Andrew wasn't a "Sollicoffer" name any more than Henry was, but I have found references to several Henrys. And my favourite is the fur trader, which would fit in with him going to sea?  Dyers were having a hard time in the 1750s.  Recruitment of Landlubbers to crew ships to Canad during the Seven Years War was common.  Henry might have combined the need to make money  apart from dyeing by going to sea.  He may have been to sea before anyway as a passenger when working for a family fur importing firm.  I don't think I shall find any record of a death at sea in the Seven Years War, but I think the Carpenters Company records are proof that, to Esther anyway, he was dead - or had not returned to her.

As to the women, they all seemed to have two or three Christian names each long before the ordinary English copied them, and they used whichever they felt like?  EXCEPT in a will, when my heroine Judith Esther Louisa use all three.  Her daughter Judith Dorothea was named after her godmother Dorothea Zollicoffer (spelled with a Z. A relation of her father, probably not in London) who was represented by Francoise Elizabeth Favre (presumably a relation of her mother who was in London)

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The Common Room / Re: Sollicoffre family in London
« on: Saturday 28 September 19 12:26 BST (UK)  »
Yes, London Lying in Hospital did have Andrew as father well as Henry!  I have assumed this was a mistake, since it is unlikely Esther had babies by two brothers...  or cousins ... and when John Robert was apprenticed to George Speer his father was recorded as Henry (deceased)

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The Common Room / Re: Sollicoffre family in London
« on: Saturday 28 September 19 12:04 BST (UK)  »
Thank you, everyone, for your very quick and helpful replies!

Yes, I know about the Consul.  I've got his widow's will as well, but so far I haven't connected any of the important Sollicoffers to Henry ...  except I found a reference to a Henry from La Rochelle who was  connected with the fur trade. In which case, perhaps he was quite a lot older than Esther when they married. Esther was 27 in 1753, so NOT an under-age girl escaping parental control.

Esther was Judith Esther Dorothea (from her will).  She didn't always use all her names.  Rather a mouthful or rather convenient?

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