On its 65th anniversary, Germanna Foundation looks to future

An article in the Orange County Review by Morgan Edwards:

There’s a huge story here about the development of America,” Keith Hoffman said. “We’d like to be in a position to tell it.”

The Germanna Foundation is entering 2021 with a new president of its board of trustees and some ambitious goals for the coming years.

Hoffman took over the position in Nov. 2020 from Marc Wheat, who had served as president for 12 years. Hoffman has been a member of the board since 2012 and retired in 2013 from his career as a financial analyst for the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac).

A strategic plan was created by the board of trustees and a private consulting firm in 2018. It is meant to guide the foundation in its efforts to expand and reach a wider audience. The plan maps out the six years between 2018-2023. The foundation hired its first executive director, Timothy Sutphin, in 2019 to oversee the day-to-day operations of the organization and provide a public face to visitors.

“To me, that’s really what a strategic plan is,” Sutphin said. “It’s a road map of things the institution is going to focus on. From that standpoint, the strategic plan has been a very big success.”

Sutphin thinks Germanna has a unique selling point for people in the surrounding counties: proximity.

“We are working really hard at Germanna to get our mission heard,” Sutphin said. “To show people that they don’t have to go to Williamsburg or Monticello to get some real history. It’s in their backyard.”

Hoffman said he is dedicated to making Germanna a premier destination for history buffs and casual tourists alike and that it starts with adding more financial support to help the foundation flourish.

“Ultimately, you have to build an organization that has a robust set of supporters, that is drawing in the types of contributions or transactions that keep the staff working on the projects that are important,” Hoffman said. “We’ve been able to do that, but we haven’t gotten to a steady state yet.

Sutphin added that he doesn’t believe the foundation will have accomplished everything in the strategic plan by 2023, but that it’s always good to have aspirations. Both Hoffman and Sutphin are confident that a new strategic plan will be created once the current one becomes obsolete.

“It’s probably going to take more than five years,” Hoffman said. “Historically, we’ve been a genealogy-based organization. For the most part, when people showed up to the board meetings, it was because they had sort of family tie to the organization. What we’re trying to do now is move to a definition where we serve the community and are a historical asset for everyone.”

Hoffman admitted that changing a nonprofit’s main focus is easier said than done. However, he said that having a full-time staff running things, rather than relying on volunteers as the foundation did in the past, will help immensely.

The Germanna Foundation’s current staff is led by Sutphin and includes archeologist Dr. Eric Larsen, membership development manager Ashley Abruzzo, office manager Barbara Bounds and volunteer coordinator John Howard. Sutphin explained that the visitor center was closed to the public from March until early June last year out of an abundance of caution due to the pandemic. The staff is now back in their offices, albeit wearing masks and socially-distanced.

The foundation is located off of Route 3 in the far northeast corner of Orange County along the banks of the Rapidan River. Chartered in 1956 by descendants of the 1714 and 1717 Germanna colonies, the foundation was gifted 270 acres of land encompassing the site of Fort Germanna. By 1969, the organization had donated 100 acres of their land to the state to be used for a satellite campus of Germanna Community College. Over the decades, the foundation has grown substantially, adding a visitor’s center, memorial garden, archeology center and nature trails to its grounds.

COVID-19 has primarily affected the foundation’s ability to hold open events and fundraise, Sutphin said.

“We did about nine public events in 2019,” Sutphin said. “Last year, we did three because of COVID. We hope to do more this year. One of those we hope to do is a historic trade weekend in late summer.”

The foundation maintains other properties in the region as well. Salubria is a Georgian-style manor home on an estate just east of the town of Culpeper along Route 3. The house was built in 1757 by the Rev. John Thompson. For much of its history it was owned by a prominent local family, the Graysons, until it was donated to the foundation in 2000. Salubria is open for small, private tours April through October. According to Sutphin, the gardens adjacent to the home are undergoing renovations, which are a key part of the long-term plan for the property.

“A couple of summers ago, while the Hitt [Archeology] Center was under construction, we turned our attention to doing a survey of the 19 acres that the foundation stewards at Salubria,” Larsen said. “I argued that archaeology is very important to this historic site as most of the outbuildings and work areas that were part of that plantation and farm during the 18th and 19th centuries have disappeared.”

Behind the Memorial Garden next to the visitor center on the foundation’s central property are a series of hiking trails through the Siegen Forest that highlight the historical significance of the area.

Larsen said that the Siegen Forest trails also have produced some major archeological discoveries.

“There is a mill that once sat next to the Rapidan near where the Route 3 bridge crosses today,” Larsen said. “As you walk along our Red Trail, you parallel the raceway that once directed water to the mill. Alexander Spotswood first brought the mill to Germanna, but it saw use in the larger community up until the Civil War. This all was once part of the larger community that was known as Germanna. There is plenty of history to be dug here as well.”

Lt. Governor Alexander Spotswood served in his position in the colony of Virginia from 1710 to 1722. During his tenure he founded the Germanna Colonies and supervised the building of Fort Germanna and his home, known as the “Enchanted Castle.”

“The person that oversaw the construction of the Governor’s Palace in Williamsburg built a structure that was probably just as large on that plot of land,” Hoffman said, referring to the massive footprint where the Enchanted Castle once stood.

According to Larsen, the foundation has been especially interested in utilizing more technology to enhance the excavation process at dig sites and to educate students and visitors.

“Our program, through a partnership with Dr. Bernard Means and Virginia Commonwealth University has made ‘public archaeology’ a goal,” Larsen said. “The foundation hosts the VCU field school. We have worked with the students on different ways of sharing their experiences at the site with a wider public. This has taken the form of site tours during our ‘Open House Days’ to more recently, blogs and videos uploaded to social media. I am very proud of the work that our seasonal staff and students have come up with to share our findings with the wider community.”

While Larsen is excited about the new possibilities offered by incorporating modern tools such as social media, 3D printing and drones into the archeological process, he cautions that they are no substitute for humans.

“It’s fantastic to be able to share sites in this manner,” Larsen said. “However, the technology doesn’t do the archaeology for us. The sets of skills that archaeologists offer, ways of recovering objects and features while collecting as much context as possible, are still necessary.”

Ashley Abruzzo, whose office sits next door to the Evelyn Martin Genealogical Heritage Library inside the visitor center, said that she is optimistic about the direction the foundation is headed in.

“As Germanna continues to grow, more office space will be needed,” Abruzzo said. “If we had another building to hold more offices, the library could be expanded to have room for more research and exhibit space, and that will help with our goal to become the center for the study of Virginia’s early 18th century exploration and culture.”

She said she is looking forward to the end of the pandemic and a return of more visitors and tourists to the foundation’s campus.

“I hope that we can do more events on the grounds of the visitor center, such as living history demonstrations that showcase the four cultures that intersected at Germanna: Indian, British, German, and English,” Abruzzo said. “We had been doing Public Access Day events at Fort Germanna and Salubria and have had to put that on hold, so I am really hoping we are able to hold more events later this year.”

Sutphin would like to go even further and make the Fort Germanna/Enchanted Castle plot into a curated, interactive place for anyone curious to learn more.

“What I would love to see happen in the future is that we have regular programs where people can go over to [the excavation site] at any time during open hours,” Sutphin said. “They can explore the site and interact with archeologists or historians.”

Ashley Abruzzo, whose office sits next door to the Evelyn Martin Genealogical Heritage Library inside the visitor center, said that she is optimistic about the direction the foundation is headed in.

“As Germanna continues to grow, more office space will be needed,” Abruzzo said. “If we had another building to hold more offices, the library could be expanded to have room for more research and exhibit space, and that will help with our goal to become the center for the study of Virginia’s early 18th century exploration and culture.”

She said she is looking forward to the end of the pandemic and a return of more visitors and tourists to the foundation’s campus.

“I hope that we can do more events on the grounds of the visitor center, such as living history demonstrations that showcase the four cultures that intersected at Germanna: Indian, British, German, and English,” Abruzzo said. “We had been doing Public Access Day events at Fort Germanna and Salubria and have had to put that on hold, so I am really hoping we are able to hold more events later this year.”

Sutphin would like to go even further and make the Fort Germanna/Enchanted Castle plot into a curated, interactive place for anyone curious to learn more.

“What I would love to see happen in the future is that we have regular programs where people can go over to [the excavation site] at any time during open hours,” Sutphin said. “They can explore the site and interact with archeologists or historians.”