I represent Johann Hermann Demmer. I was a private in the 4th Company of the 3rd Waldeck Regiment. I was born April 26, 1753 in Berndorf, Waldeck Province. My parents were Johann Arend and Ann-Engel Catharina Meinhard Demmer. I was Evangelical (which, in this context, means “Protestant”) and I stood 5′ 5″ tall – about average for the men in my regiment. The 3rd Waldeck was hired by the British from Waldeck Prince Frederick Karl Augustus to assist them in fighting the American rebels in the Revolutionary War. We reached North America in 1776. After two years of heavy action we were sent to Pensacola, along with the provincial loyalist forces of Maryland and Pennsylvania. After the surrender, we were sent by the Spanish to New York, on our honor not to fight against the Spanish again until we were exchanged. I boarded the Santa Rosalia on May 29, 1781 for the voyage. We lived in encampments at New Town on Long Island. The Waldeckers resumed duty in July of 1782. A year later, in July of 1783, I and the Waldeck Regiment, 418 men and women and 13 children, left New York to return to Europe. I returned to Germany with the regiment. In November 1784 I married Johanna Henriette Catherine Grothe and we had four children.
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