People have come to Germanna for many reasons. Initially, they came because it was a convenient ford across the Rapidan River, and more recently to connect with the distant past, perhaps where their families fished and farmed, explored, or battled. These people have deep roots far from Germanna, whether they crossed the Bering Straits or the Atlantic, from as far north as Scotland, England, or German-speaking Europe, or as far south as West Africa. Each of these people have been touched by Germanna, and some have left a trace of their presence in archaeology, history, or genealogy. This talk will bring to focus who these people were and what the Germanna Foundation is doing to recover their legacy in the centuries after leaving Germanna.
Watch video above.
Presented by Marc Wheat, Chair of the Germanna Family Liaison Committee, Germanna Foundation Trustee.
About Marc: Marc served as the 4th President of the Germanna Foundation from 2008 to 2020, and has been a member of the Board of Trustees since 1997, succeeding Sarah Aylor Lewis. Marc succeeded in acquiring the 62-acres Fort Germanna / Enchanted Castle archaeological site for the Germanna Foundation, and initiated the Germanna Foundation archaeology program and the building of the Hitt Archaeology Center. Marc descends from Rev. Henrich Haëger, Germanna’s colonial pastor. His descent from ten of the original forty-two colonists at Germanna makes him related to many Germanna Foundation members.
Further Reading
Order your copies via our Germanna Records page or www.bookfinder.com
Bailyn, Bernard. Atlantic history: Concept and Contours. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005.
Bailyn, Bernard, and Barbara DeWolfe. Voyages to the West. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986.
Brown, Madison. “In Transit In London: Pass-Through German Settlers and Their Settlement in North America – A Context for Germanna,” in Brown, Katharine L. Germanna Studies: Essays Honoring John V. Blankenbaker (Germanna Record 20). 2013.
Eliot, Thomas S. Four Quartets. London: Faber & Faber, 1995.
Hinke, William John. Ministers of the German Reformed Congregations in Pennsylvania and Other Colonies in the Eighteenth Century. Lancaster, Pa: Historical Commission of the Evangelical and Reformed Church, 1951.
Krznaric, Roman. The Good Ancestor: How to Think Long Term in a Short Term World. 2020.
Habib, Vanessa, Jim Gray, and Sheila Forbes. Making for America: Transatlantic Craftsmanship: Scotland and the Americas in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 2013.
Roeber, A. G. Palatines, Liberty, and Property: German Lutherans in Colonial British America ; with a New Preface. Baltimore, Md: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1998.
Scruton, Roger, “Heimat and Habitat,” in How to Think Seriously About the Planet: The Case for an Environmental Conservatism. 2015.
Turner, Frederick Jackson. The Frontier in American History. Norwalk, Conn: Easton Press, 1989.
Wayland, John Walter, and Charles Hubert Huffman. Germanna: Outpost of Adventure, 1714-1956. [Harrisonburg, Va.]: Memorial Foundation of the Germanna Colonies in Virginia, 1956.
Weil, Simone. The Need for Roots ; Prelude to a Declaration of Duties Towards Mankind. Translated by Arthur Wills. With a Pref. by T.S. Eliot. Boston: Beacon Press, 1960.
Wheat, J. Marc. “Preface.” In Holtzclaw, B. C., and Katharine L. Brown. Ancestry and Descendants of the Nassau-Siegen Immigrants to Virginia, 1714-1750 (Germanna Record 5). 2019.
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