During a short break in the weather of Hurricane Michael barreling through Virginia on Thursday, October 11, 2018, the Germanna Foundation held the ground-breaking ceremony at the future site of the Hitt Archaeology Center.

This new facility, made possible by a generous gift from Russell and Joan Hitt, will be built next to the Fort Germanna Visitor Center in Locust Grove, Virginia. It will contain space for cleaning, cataloging, and storage of artifacts from archaeological work at the five historic sites the Germanna Foundation stewards: Fort Germanna, Spotswood’s Enchanted Castle, Salubria Manor, Siegen Forest, and the Revolutionary-war era Peter Hitt Farm.

Remarks were made by Marc Wheat, President of the Germanna Foundation, Dr. Eric Larsen, Archaeologist of the Germanna Foundation, and Tammy Collins, Executive Director of the Orange County Chamber of Commerce. They broke ground along with Ellis Hitt, a Germanna Foundation Trustee who worked for a very long time to make this building a reality, and is also a distant cousin of Russell Hitt. Observing were members of the Board of Trustees along with VIPs from Orange County, members of the community and of the Foundation.

“The new Hitt Archaeology Center will help us expand our archaeology program to understand what life was like on the American frontier 300 years ago,” said Marc Wheat.

Dr. Eric Larsen remarked that a groundbreaking is “an intent to build and I can’t think of anything that is filled with more hope than that.” He said the new Center will be a place to build community for Germanna descendants, local neighbors, students and scholars.

Tammy Collins said that Orange County “appreciates that the Germanna Foundation strives to preserve our area’s history and for bringing that history alive to our residents and visitors.” On behalf of the Chamber of Commerce, she congratulated the Foundation on its journey of discovery.

Watch the video of the event:

REMARKS:

MARC WHEAT: My name is Marc Wheat and I’m the President of the Germanna Foundation. I want to welcome you to a land that is particularly sacred to those of us who are on the Board of the Germanna Foundation. This was at one point the Western frontier of the North American colonies of Great Britain. There were no further settlements west of here; this was where it ended.

What we are about to do today is do a ceremonial groundbreaking for the Hitt Archaeology Center. This Center will help us expand our archaeology program to understand what life was like on the American frontier 300 years ago.

Many of the people I see around here we have known through different Germanna events. We know that there are descendants here among you who were descended from the first Europeans to come here 300 years ago.

I’d like to thank members of the Orange County Board of Supervisors for being here this afternoon: Jim White, Lee Frame and Jim Crozier. Thank you all for coming. I’d now like to recognize Dr. Eric Larsen who is our Archaeologist for our archaeology program and Tammy Collins who’s the Executive Director of the Orange County Chamber of Commerce.

DR. ERIC LARSEN: I’m very thrilled to be here today. For about four years I’ve been the Archaeologist for the Germanna Foundation and in that four years, I always had ready in my back pocket a list of things that would be useful for an archaeology space. I still have that list!

Today is a turning point. Today we’re going to be breaking ground on a new facility–how exciting is that! As an archaeologist, I feel an obligation to say what we will do with this space is to create a place for us to bring in artifacts from the site across the way over to this new building. We can begin to wash those artifacts, take the dirt and grime off of them, start to preserve them right at that point. We can lay them out on the tables and start to identify them. We can catalog them. We can start to write reports saying what is it that we have found, and then ultimately, we can put those into boxes and place them in permanent storage for future generations to use in their studies of the story here at Germanna.

That’s what I would say asan archaeologist. Today I would say a huge thank you. But today I also feel compelled to step back and look at this as a citizen: a citizen of this community, a citizen that’s participating in the Foundation’s endeavors, a citizen of the Commonwealth, a citizen of this nation and indeed a citizen of this world. This is really an amazing moment. A groundbreaking is an intent to build and I can’t think of anything that is filled with more hope than that. That is a hopeful endeavor right there and that’s what we’re beginning with. I’m rather excited about that!

In addition to all those functions that I talked about as an archaeologist, this is also a place to build community. This is a place for descendants to come and help experience their past directly, hands-on. It’s also a place where the local community, our neighbors can come and hands-on experience some of the history of the of what what preceded them in this place. It’s also a place where students can come and learn about archaeology and what archaeology has to teach us; what new things can we learn about our past by using the material record that’s not always available in the documents. It’s also a place for scholars to come and to do work here.

This is exciting, this is hope-filled for today but it’s also a long-term endeavor. We’re going to put these things in storage, we’re going to gather these things together for scholars and students and descendants and neighbors to look at it in years to come. How amazing is that? We’re doing this for today but we are also doing this for the future. As we are going to be breaking ground now, I can’t think of any any more hopeful symbolic gesture that we can make then to undertake this today–I’m excited!

TAMMY COLLINS, ORANGE COUNTY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE: What a privilege it is to be a part of this historic groundbreaking here for the Hitt Archaeology Center for the Germanna Foundation. It is truly amazing that so many descendants of the original German Colony settlers still reside in and around Orange County today. What is even more amazing is that after 300 years these descendants continue to make positive contributions to our community. We greatly appreciate that the Germanna Foundation strives to preserve our area’s history and for bringing that history alive to our residents and visitors. There’s no question that the Hitt Archaeology Center will provide even more insight and intrigue as to the footsteps of our counties earliest settlers. The Orange County Chamber of Commerce would like to congratulate the Foundation on its journey of discovery and we lend our support to the future contributions to be made to our community.

VIP Guests in attendance:

The Honorable Lee Frame
Orange County Supervisor

The Honorable Jim Crozier
Orange County Supervisor

The Honorable Jim White
Orange County Supervisor

Chris Snider
Deputy District Director
Congressman Dave Brat

Tammy Collins
Executive Director
Orange County Chamber of Commerce

Dan Gregg
Board Member
Orange County Chamber of Commerce

Frank Stringfellow Walker, Jr.
Orange County Historian

C. Dale Duvall
Board Member
Museum of Culpeper History

Eric Vanover
History Department Chair
Germanna Community College

Katja Sipple
German American Heritage Museum

Germanna Foundation Trustees in attendance:

J. Marc Wheat
Katharine Brown, PhD
Ellis Hitt
Ann Baise
Skip Poole
Cathi Clore Frost
Stephen Chanko
Keith Hoffman

See Photos from event or go to the Germanna Foundation’s Photo Gallery: https://germanna.smugmug.com/
(Photos of the ground-breaking ceremony were taken by Germanna Foundation Member Pat Mingee, a Germanna Foundation descendant)