Tracing Philip Schaeffer and Elizabeth Schaeffer I

I had not expected to be working on the career of Philip Schaeffer for the chapter on the British in Halifax for which I am now completing the research, but a reference on Hessians stopping over in Halifax about July 1776 sent me off in search of him. Schaeffer was a Jaeger (light infantryman) with the Hesse-Hanau contingent sent to North America. We know an infantry regiment, including light infantry left Hanau at the end of March, 1776, bound for Portsmouth, England, but as yet I have not been able to ascertain whether this was Philip Schaeffer's regiment or whether his regiment was a later regiment that departed in May 1776. Presently I'm waiting on Hesse-Hanau Orderly Books and Letters which I hope to receive shortly.which will, I hope clarify this confusion. It is possible Schaeffer was in one of the three Hanau infantry regiments that campaigned with General John Burgoyne and was among those taken into captivity after Burgoyne's defeat at the battle of Saratoga in October 1777. On the other hand, Schaeffer may have belonged to Hanau regiments that arrived in America at a later date and fought in the West Indies. Hanau regiments do not appear to have been involved in the 1780 siege and capture of Charleston. [cf. Bruce E. Burgoyne, Georg Pausch's Journal, Bowie, 1996.]

Where Schaeffer was in 1779/1780 is a matter of some significance because in either 1779 or 1780 he had a daughter, Elizabeth. It would appear, since the girl became fluent in English, that her mother was either English or a Loyalist American. Schaeffer's English was notoriously poor and in later life Elizabeth seems to have translated for him. Even if Schaeffer was imprisoned in Virginia  or Maryland it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that he married as a prisoner to a Loyalist supporter. What is clear is that some time between 1780 and 1783 Schaeffer returned to England with Elizabeth and his wife, whom at this point I have not been able to identify. Some time before 1789 she died. [Michae lFlynn, The Second Fleet. Britain's Grim Convict Armada of 1790, Sydney, 2001, p. 531; Sian Rees, The Floating Brothel. The extraordinary story of the Lady Julian (sic, Juliana) and its cargo of female convicts bound for Botany Bay, Sydney, 2001, p.163.]

In 1789 Philip Schaeffer was appointed a superintendent of convicts in New South Wales. In September 1789 he boarded the Guardian, bound for New South Wales, with his daughter Elizabeth, now ten years old. Elizabeth was the only female on the frigate. It would appear she was a mature looking ten year old, as the Guardian's master thought she was fourteen years old. Captain Riou, RN, who would have known, since she evidently dined with her father at the captain's table, recorded her age as ten in his log.The Guardian reached Cape Town on 24 November, 1789 and after taking on stores and livestock departed for New South Wales on 11 December. [Flynn, op. cit., p. 531; M. D. Nash,(ed.) The Last Voyage of the Guardian, Lieutenant Riou, Commander, 1789-1781,Cape Town, 1990, p. xxiii, f/n.2; Flynn, op. cit., p. 25.]

On Christmas Eve she struck an ice-berg. For two days, with her pumps working desperately, Riou struggled to save his ship. On the twenty-sixth, having jettisoned half  of his cargo, Riou put 60 of his crew as he could into life-boats. Of these only fifteen survived. Philip and Elizabeth Schaeffer remained on board the stricken ship which was taken in tow by a passing American ship and brought back to Cape Town. There, on 19 February, 1790, Elizabeth, Schaeffer and the other convict superintendents were ordered on board the Lady Juliana, which had arrived in Table Bay. [Flynn, op. cit., p. 25; John Nicol, Life and Adventures, 1776-1801, in Tim Flannery (ed.) Two Classic Tales of Australian Exploration,Melbourne, 2000, p.128; Nash, op. cit., p. 168 and f/n. 19.]

The Lady Juliana arrived at Sydney Cove on 6 June, 1790. There is no further record of Elizabeth. Schaeffer was not successful as a convict superintendent because of his lack of English. Before long he was given a grant of land near Rose Hill, where in December 1791 he was visited by the marine captain Watkin Tench. Though Schaeffer told Tench he came to Sydney with a ten year old daughter, Elizabeth appears to have been no longer with him. It is the last record of her in the sources. Schaeffer was not a successful farmer, though he did produce the colony's first wine. He died in poverty in his eighties in the Sydney Benevolent Home, apparently abandoned by his second aged convict wife. He had no more children. [Flynn, op. cit., p.19; Watkin Tench, A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson, in Flannery, (ed.) op. cit., pp. 220-222; Flynn, op. cit., pp.531-532.]